I spent a few hours today doing one of my very favorite things. The next Doctor Baer story is officially underway!
Well, it was “officially” underway months ago when I was outlining it. But this stage, the second-draft thumbnails, feels like the most intense part of the process. Which means I feel a lot of resistance before beginning this part; but it also means that momentum usually kicks in once I get past that. So this is a real threshold crossed, and I’m excited about what’s happening on the pages. All of my cute friends are back and on an adventure! 🧸🐖🐢🐎🟢🔵🟣🟠
One of the moments I’ve had the most feedback from Doctor Baer readers is when Pickles claims she’s discovered Hug Magic. So it seemed reasonable to add something to the Doctor Baer store that celebrates the positive pig and her belief in the power of hugs!
Though things in the world continue to get harder and harder, I’m taking solace in making art and participating in residencies that help young people understand how much they matter.
I recently finished my annual visits to Springfield, Ohio where I worked with teens and incarcerated youth through a residency hosted by Project Jericho. This year’s residency, titled Sketching the Soundtrack, invited Springfield Teens to create comics adaptations of their favorite songs.
Project Jericho, whose slogan is Art Changes Lives (and they really mean it), always concludes our residencies with a community celebration. This year the kids’ work was put on display in an auditorium where a silent disco was held. At the end of the celebration we watched video performances of the kids’ work.
Here’s the playlist:
Many of the teens who participated worked with tools and mediums they hadn’t tried before. So they were not only expressing vulnerability in sharing a song that meant something to them; they were going out on a limb making art that they hadn’t before. I’m so proud of all of them. This was a rich, meaningful residency, as it always is with Project Jericho. I say it over and over–they’re what health looks like.
And if you’re in the Central Ohio area, I have more comics workshops and summer camps opening up!
Yup! You can get sneakers with Doctor Baer-inspired designs on them over on my Etsy store!
It’s been a lot of fun designing apparel that’s a little more customizable than your average t-shirt. I feel like the Wisps sneakers look pretty neat. But what I’m really enjoying is making products that also build more lore into the world of Doctor Baer, like the Shoes of the Deathly Dance:
These legendary shoes should not be worn by the fearful or careless! They are cursed shoes the mysterious Baba Yaga instructed a young farm hand to give to their wicked employer.
These enchanted shoes compel the wearer to dance fiercely until they meet their end–unless the wearer has a pure heart. You will know that the dancing curse is activated if the shoes turn green. If they stay blue and red, you are pure of heart and safe from the curse!
Like the talismans I’ve been making, it’s a fun creative exercise to create an in-world object that comes with the suggestion that it might have magic properties. It’s a nice, time-boxed way to playfully explore some of Doctor Baer’s world. I don’t need to tie these objects into any particular plot, but if they seem especially interesting, I can. And yes, it’s another way Doctor Baer readers can support me.
As a kid I was all over products like this. Whether it was superhero pajamas or the He-Man dress up set, anytime I could feel like I was participating in the imaginary worlds I loved was a good time. I guess there’s something to it like what makes Halloween so fun. But it was also the notion of interacting with an object from that world. I remember getting my first light-up lightsaber in 1984. It was a cheap knockoff purchased at a vendor stand at the state fair, basically a flashlight with a green piece of cellophane over the bulb, and an opaque white tube attached to the bulb end. I couldn’t cut through walls, and the tube got irreparably bent after a few swings, but it helped transport me into the world of space wizards and monsters on a warm summer night in my grandparents’ back yard.
These things I’m making might not deliver such core memories or emotional charge. But I’m having fun sitting alongside that kid while making them.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a new episode of my Transformers podcast, but Hoover and I are still making fun images that you can put on things like tshirts and mugs. And here’s the latest!
For those not familiar with the G1 Transformers episode, here’s the story of Doctor Fujiyama, the Famous Scientist!
And here’s Hoover and me talking about the episode on the Four Million Years Later podcast:
I’m happy to say that the kind folks at the Peggy R. McConnell Art Center in Worthington, Ohio are letting me lead another Minicomics Challenge series!
This six-week workshop series is for ages 9-12 and features gameful activities designed to guide young people into making their own printable minicomics. But it’s not just about finishing a product–the class is as much a playful exploration of the visual storytelling language of comics.
Classes are on Wednesdays, 4:30-6pm beginning March 19 and ending April 30 (no class on March 26).
Travis Jonker—school librarian, children’s book author, and co-host of The Yarn podcast—was kind enough to interview me during the 2024 American Library Association Conference in San Diego last June. In our conversation, he graciously gave me the chance to discuss The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue. Here’s the interview:
At the beginning of the episode, you’ll hear The Yarn co-host Colby Sharp share some kind words about my school visits. Colby, an elementary teacher in Michigan, has been a wonderful collaborator through events like the fabulous (but now retired) Nerd Camp Jr. He even allowed me to kick off the Doctor Baer tour at his school—a generous gesture I deeply appreciate.
I’ve since led author visits for elementary students in Dublin and Columbus, Ohio. Here’s video from one of my favorites so far. Instead of leading a presentation I hosted a series of drawing game shows where the elementary teachers (and even the principal!) drew characters based on the students’ prompts. After each round I interviewed the teachers about their work, congratulated them for their courage, and highlighted the process they were practicing.
This is a modification of a game show I’ve led at comics festivals, Super Comics Challenge:
There’s an “exotic animal” quality in the author at a school visit. We come from the outside world, beyond the spaces where the kids spend so much of their time. That’s a privilege I want to handle with respect, so I spend a lot of time with my hosting schools discussing language I can use during my visit in order to support learning happening in their school. I want the kids to say, “Hey, he said the same thing Miss Scarpa has been telling us all year!”
This supports the teachers, but it also implicitly underlines that the adults around them care about their success. When I was 10 I felt like most adults just liked pushing me around, and I think I would have felt safer in my school had I been pointed at how some of their behaviors were expressions of caring.
The game shows also invite the teachers to empathize with their students, while letting the students devilishly challenge their teachers. Each round lasts two to three minutes, and even a seasoned pro can feel the pressure of creating a recognizable drawing under those constraints. The students delight in giving their teachers challenging drawings. The teachers, many of whom do not identify as artists, get a visceral sense of what it’s like to be out of your depth, the way many of their students often feel.
And this compassion can go both ways. One of my favorite memories of 2024 will be when the school’s principal said, after I introduced him to the 200 3rd and 4th graders in attendance, that he was very nervous about the games and hoped the kids would be kind to him. After the assembly I might have been a bit effusive as I told him how much it meant to me to see a person of authority express vulnerability to his students. And you can be sure I led them in a few chants of “WE BELIEVE IN YOU!” while the principal was drawing.
All this is to say that I cherish the opportunity to create events that celebrate everyone present. Yes, I want to sell books. Yes, I enjoy the curiosity and attention of the children. But even more I enjoy instigating joyful subversion of the traditional notion of an author visit. I want every person there to walk away with an artifact representing the idea that every one of us is a creative creature.
And here’s where I get mercenary: I’m offering free school in-person visits Central Ohio and virtual visits everywhere else. If you’re an educator or librarian who wants to create a meaningful experience for your students, click the button below!
I like to do development/test pieces as I work on the outline of a story. It helps me learn whether or not the idea will be actually fun to draw (writer Jerzy might have a great idea that illustrator Jerzy will hate). Whether or not I’m excited to share the completed image is another emotional data point. And yes, I also watch the clock while I make these images to get a sense of how I’ll need to budget my time should I commit to finishing the story.
This piece represents a test of a short story idea that captured me back in October. I was listening to an episode of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast when I heard this exchange:
For those of you who don’t have time/space to listen, they’re talking about the Victorians’ strange fascination with Egyptian mummies as medicine, curiosities, and pigments. There’s a moment where the hosts, telling the story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, describe a scene in which crates of mummies are being delivered to a someone’s home.
This absurdity creates a friendly vessel to disarm the audience (wow, a chicken in a centrifuge is a funny image!) so the truth and sadness can sneak in (wait, Tsiolkovsky strapped unwilling creatures into a machine that frightened them if not harmed them?!).
In other words, reflecting on the image of wealthy Victorians inviting people over for a “Mummy Unboxing Video” is exactly my speed.
It wasn’t long before a premise formed of Doctor Baer and his friends having to protect a shipment of mummies from dangerous rich people. Would the mummies be shipped in some kind of fantasy Global Shipping Services truck? A FedEx plane full of mummies? Then I remembered hearing a story of some unhappy souls actually using mummy materials for fuel on trains, and I felt a bolt of energy go up my spine: A Great Train Robbery story where villains are after mummies and my heroes have to protect them long enough to get to sacred ground. I could do this in 20-30 pages and ship it as its own story, but it could also be the cold open for the next Doctor Baer long story, The Case of the Frozen Sailor.
But Illustrator Jerzy stepped in to drain the energy. I don’t want to draw a steam engine over and over again, he said. Okay, maybe it’s some kind of future bullet train. No, that won’t fit with the image of putting rich Victorian weirdos on blast. And while Taft is swift, it wouldn’t make sense for him to be running along side some slick future train. It has to be an old, plodding steam engine. And then, remembering what I said just a couple of paragraphs back, I could use the absurd image of the villain chucking mummies into the boiler fire to really underline things.
My first move was to start consuming information about trains. I wanted to hear from people who really, really love trains on why they’re so terrific. I know their perspectives will help generate story ideas. I was lucky to find this great audiobook by Tom Zoellner on Hoopla (thank you, Worthington Public Library!).
I’d listen to that while building a train model in Blender. If I have to draw a steam engine over and over I’m at least going to work with a 3d model in Clip Studio to ease the pain. How hard could it be? I’ve made a handful of things in Blender. But a few reference images put just enough fear of effort into me that I went to Turbosquid to see if I could find a pre-made model to purchase instead.
And I found some great ones! But then I ran into another problem. As awesome as Clip studio Paint’s 3d model capabilities are, positioning large/complex models can be laggy. And I might want to pencil some of the pages on my low-end iPad. The train had to be low-polygon, and I wasn’t finding what I wanted in the 3d model marketplaces. No, I had to build it.
So over the next handful of lunch breaks, I did:
It took less time and effort than I anticipated. It’s low-poly, and not 100% accurate to any of the reference images I used. But it’s just enough for my cartoony fantasy comic.
Oh, and I even created interiors for the engine and cars, where much of the action will be happening:
After “rigging” the model with bones (one bone per train car), I exported it as an .FBX file for importing to Clip Studio Paint. It worked! I could now pose my model within CSP, as opposed to posing the model in Blender, exporting the .OBJ file, and importing it into CSP per instance.
Now I could start penciling a test image of the train and heroes cruising along the Pierogi Mountains:
Which I then printed out onto watercolor paper for inking:
And, after having them flatted by my student Phoenix (y’all should hire her, she’s great), I painted it in Clip Studio Paint:
The test taught me that I would have fun drawing this story, and I was pretty excited to share this image with you after finishing it. The drawing took about 5 hours total, but a lot of that was in the penciling. I think I can take an even looser approach to penciling the train in future drawings, since much of the detail was lost when printed out on watercolor paper.
Next steps after this test is to thumbnail the short story. That, and the rest of the process for making this comic, will be shared on Patreon in The Case of the Frozen Sailor collection, available for Teams Pickles and Doctor Baer.
And of course I’ll serialize this publicly as a webcomic once final art is underway.
