Let's Get Physical.

Existing for a moment.

Hello! I lured you in with a provocative title and image, haven’t I? Now, let’s get back to a dry conversation about illustration.

I was talking to friend recently about the merits of creating physical things, and we went on to muse about the fact that that was how all work previously used to exist. It was either in print, or it wasn't. And there was kind of a beauty to that fleetingness and detachment. I won't be the first to point out that there is sometimes something less than satisfying about creating an image ‘for online', because it’s not really clear what that means. ‘Online’ kind of means ‘everyone and no one’.

How can any image bear the weight of having an audience of, ‘the world’?

The image above for example (created for something it didn’t end up getting used for) is something I’m happy for people to see, but I don’t really want EVERYONE to see it, or to hear the world’s thoughts on it, or have it mauled over on Twitter or wherever. It currently feels fairly safe here to put something up which ‘is what it is’, but maybe that too will change too?

It's a good time to reflect on such things, with the death of places like Twitter. Online has been good to me, and I've generally always found a way to make it fun or at least palatable, but it’s an ongoing project. Running the KIOSK for example, is one of those ways that I really like, but it’s never been an end goal of mine to be a content provider. Making physical things is probably the main reason I got into the game, and one of the first things I started doing when I became an illustrator was to self publish zines and comics.

I’ve been lucky to experience lots of different versions of my job since then, but there’s still something special about seeing my work ‘exist’. In my current period of reflection, I remind myself that it’s never less of a thrill to experience something you’ve made so viscerally.

Q&A.

I recently read Adrian Tomine's book, Q&A, which basically takes the form of a non-fiction series of frequently asked questions about his career as an illustrator and graphic novelist. These range from the banal (what type of pens do you use?), to the specific (what did it feel like to see your graphic novels as a film?).

As a long time admirer of Tomine, and the fact he works across comics, writing, and illustration, his career has always be something approaching aspirational for me. It was reassuring and interesting to hear his responses to questions that I get asked myself, and fascinating to learn what he thought of things that I can only wonder about.

It was particularly serendipitous that as I was reading his thoughts about having his work in The New Yorker, I had a piece on those hallowed pages that same week. In fact, there is even a review of Q&A in the same issue that I was in. I didn't grow up with The New Yorker, I became aware of it and grew to admire it chiefly because my heroes (people like Tomine) were in it.

I really liked how he described the feeling.

‘…and for a week or so after a cover is published, I kind of feel like a big deal. And then I go back to being a cartoonist.’

Reading how excited he still is to be on those pages, made me re-experience how grateful how I am to have had a my work in there too. Anyway, here’s the most recent piece that I did.

Comics.

So, yeah, on balance it’s been something of a reflective year, this one. But truth is, I have been doing things. Planning things and thinking about things. Writing things. Which is all work, just invisible work, and I guess it feels less ’physical’.

I've also been renewing my comics vows. I always make a fairly bad joke among friends that I quit after every book I finish, but inevitably, I think of a new idea, and off we go again. However, it pays to take a breath and make sure I spending my time on the thing I really want to do.

I recently went to Paris for a couple of days to catch the Comics, 1964-2024 exhibition at the Pompidou centre. It was really great. Seeing comics (a much denigrated medium in the UK) given such a platform and prominence was so enlivening. I got pore over classics I had grow up on like original Tintin pages, or artists I’ve later came to love like Andre Julliard and Hugo Pratt.

I left with something of a spring in my step, the feeling that, if only in a tiny way, I got to be part of this ‘thing', and was given the very rare opportunity to feel slightly proud of that fact.

(Julliard, Herge and Pratt.) The last one being possibly one of my favourite ever comics panels. Just look at those lines!

As you can see, I've seamlessly brought us back to the start. The physical. And it's almost as if I planned it.

McSweeney’s

Speaking of physical, I also got to design and draw the cover of Celine Ipek's A Resting Place, one of the titles in the McSweeney's new fiction collection. They are obviously famed for their love of the physical too, and this collection was no less lavish, presented in a concertina box thing with the individual stories within.

On a final physical note, ‘tis the season and all that, so if you were interested in picking up my books for friends and family, you can find them HERE, or wherever you get your books from.

And I do a selection of prints HERE.

(I have no idea on postage to various countries and cut-off times etc. It seems to get more and more random these days. Either way, I’ll just keep sending them out. Sometimes it’s super quick, other times sluggish. We don't know.)

So, that’s about it really. Coming up soon, I'll be doing my ‘books of the year’ (I know you can’t wait) and probably some recommendations of other general stuff I've enjoyed. Swing by the KIOSK for a quiet moment between all the merriment and madness and I'll be here. I might even put some lights up if you're lucky.

Keep your head, and see you soon.

Owen D. Pomery.