2019 in Review

Ahh, the end of another year. Now’s the time for decorating the Christmas tree (I just say no to holiday gift-giving, but I’m a sucker for decorations and Christmas music… You can check out my Spotify playlist here), pulling out the big winter coat (you know it’s snowing here in Montréal), and writing up my annual Year in Review post. I’ve been doing these for FIVE years now (here are (2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018), so it has really become a tradition.

As always I am struck by the fact that I am able to make a living drawing, writing, and designing for a living (an occasionally very tenuous living, but still!). Thank you to all the clients, fans, readers, and friends who are supporting me all around the world, I feel so lucky to be making my way as a working creative in the world. I couldn’t do it without you.

2019 was one of those years where a lot of my work was “behind the scenes” in some ways, working on projects that are destined to see the light of day next year (like the new edition of TITAN from Oni Press, for one!). Expect more posts about some exciting upcoming projects in the near future. But there was still a ton of really cool gigs and project in 2019, from comics to coffee!

Cayrel’s Ring

I had a great time collaborating with the writer Shannon Lentz on his sci-fi anthology Cayrel’s Ring. The full-color story can be found in issue #3, which is now available at fine comic shops, online, and on Comixology as well, and the series is getting a collected edition next year! I wrote a in-depth Process Post about my work on the story that you can read here.

Book Covers

I drew, designed, lettered, or otherwise cobbled together a bunch of book covers for a variety of authors and genres this year, including the children’s book Oh, Canada! (above), The Secret Voice Volume 1 by my homie Zack Soto, two books in the You Can Write It! series, Not A Place to Visit by my good friend T. Edward Bak, and the memoir I Will Keep You Alive by Bob and Adele Levin. You can see a quick Process Post on a couple of the covers here.

Letter to Survivors

This was a really fun project that I mostly worked on in 2018 but was published early this year, hand-lettering the long-awaited English translation of Gébé’s 1980s post-apocalyptic classic Lettre aux survivants, translated by Edward Gauvin. You can see some additional images from the book here. As an aside, I am in the course of wrapping up the lettering on another big project, City of Belgium by Brecht Evens, which will be released in 2020 by Drawn & Quarterly… You can definitely expect me to post more about that as the release date approaches!

The Immersion Program

Speaking of translations, I had the honor of doing the English translation of The Immersion Program by Léo Quievreux, published by Floating World Comics. This was my very first literary translation, a huge challenge, but I was really happy with the final result… Looking forward to doing more work in this vein! I’ll be sure to do a more in-depth post about this book ASAP.

Luminous Coffee, Billy Loizou, Cuvees, and more

I’ve been doing a ton of product and branding design for the folks over at Luminous Coffee, a super-cool, two-person small-batch coffee brand out of Las Vegas. Love working with these two, super fun-loving and creative folks. You can see a bit more of my illos for them here and you can check out all their offerings on their site.

I also had the chance to do some similar cartoon/branding work for the podcaster Billy Loizou and Cuvees, a wine retailer from Hong Kong… Not sure if I got the chance to share these before, so thought I would throw them in here!

13e Avenue

13e Avenue came out last year, but 2019 saw it rack up an impressive number of awards and nominations for my illustrious collaborator Geneviève Pettersen and me, including the nods from the prestigious Prix des libraires du Québec  and the Prix des collèges which will be presented at the Festival International de la BD Angoulême next year. Pretty heady stuff! Here’s a post with links to the various awards and more. Stay tuned for more news from Alice, Alexis, Ernest, and all the kids of 13e Avenue soon!

Magazines: Monitor, Kitchen Table, and More

I was delighted to do a nice range of magazine illustrations again this year… I dunno why but I’m always just so happy to see my work in print periodical. It just tickles me. I did the cover for the Monitor that I thought turned out really good (I wrote a detailed Process Post about it earlier), a full-page illo for Kitchen Table (above, a new magazine created by my good friend Brett Warnock), and Root & Star children’s magazine reprinted a silent comic of mine in their penultimate issue. I also had work running again in the pages of Kayak and THIS. I’ve already done a couple of pieces that will see print in early 2020… Can’t wait to see what is next for me in this field (seriously, if you are the art director of a cool magazine hit me up).

… And a Happy New Year!

Okay! As always there were tons of little projects that didn’t make the cut here, and even more importantly quite a lot of stuff I have been working on that will come out next year and beyond… The English-language edition of TITAN coming from Oni Press, City of Belgium, and much, much more (I have a big project in the works I can hardly wait to talk about… Soon!). As always, I really can’t express how much I appreciate all the support my friends, readers, and clients have given me over the course of this year. Being a full-time freelance creative has it’s ups and downs, but I really can’t believe that I am lucky enough to be drawing for a living! It’s wild.

I wish you all the very best in 2020… We’ve had some pretty difficult, divisive, and at times even downright depressing moments the last few years, but I do feel that there is so much positive and exciting energy in this world. I’m trying my best to do my small part to help, and I hope that can expand as I grow. As the holidays approach, I wish you and your peace and joy during this season and in the year to come.

Oh, One Last Thing!

As you might have noticed, I quietly dropped off Facebook a couple years ago, which has been great for my mental health in general. But since I’m anticipating some major announcements coming up in 2020, and I’ll be doing quite a few events like signings and cons, I wanted to have a way to reach people beyond Instagram (where I am still posting on the regular). So I am launching an old-fashioned email newsletter to keep in touch with people. I’m not anticipating too many emails going out, and I’ll try to keep them interesting for you. If that sounds good please feel free to sign up below!