Getting Back into Rhythm


These two sketches are from the beginning of this year. Mostly they’re attempts to get myself drawing again. In January I was feeling pretty exhausted. We’d just spent large chunks of December moving out of our old apartment and I was starting a new job. I didn’t have it in me to work on any of the larger projects that were on my plate. The drawing on the left is an image that came to me as I was drawing it. The sketch on the right is a swamp monster that has turned up in my sketches on a regular basis over the last couple of decades.

Justine Frankenstein


Frankenstein started inspiring adaptations, rip-offs and sequels soon after publication. In 1818 the copyright laws did little to prevent it. The novel continues to do to this day. One sequel I recently read was The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss in the online magazine Strange Horizons. I thought it was charming story and would have loved to have done a portrait of the cast. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time then (soon after our move to the new apartment), nor do I have the time now (with much busyness at the day job and much Oz Squad on the drawing table), to work on one. All that I managed was the sketch on the left of Justine, Frankenstein’s “Daughter”. If you’ve read the novel you can guess her providence without reading the story. Read it any way.

The drawing on the right has nothing to do with The Mad Scientist’s Daughter that I can think of. I had the image in my mind insisting that I draw it and so I did.