Bye Bye Baby Blue

Just a little sneak peak of what I’m currently working on…

Taking a small, teensy, little break from Warfare to draw this. This was actually a prompt from @rottmntincorrectquotes and I thought it’d be fun to draw.

This is absolutely divine

The bookshelf was stacked with stories about ghosts, aliens, urban legends, mythical monsters, and other assorted horrors. We’d bought them shortly after we moved into the new house. The town we’d moved into had a second-hand bookshop, and that was the first place I hit with my grandpa, right the day we moved in.

“Have you found everything you’re looking for?” he asked every time I brought him a book to hold.

“No, just wait a little bit, I won’t be long,” I told him.

He just held the pile of books against his belly and hummed a song several decades old.

Grandpa never read books. At least, I’d never seen him read any. He did read newspapers, though. We had five newspapers showing up on our doorstep, printed in three different languages. Grandpa would read every story and every ad in the papers, often nodding and muttering a commentary to himself.

“Just to be clear, you can borrow these at any time” I said to him while the owner of the shop calculated the total.

He nodded a little distractedly. “Ice cream?” he asked in response. “I think there’s a parlour if you turn the corner down the street…”

That evening, I lined up each book on the shelf, spines out and ordered by theme. It was a more fun system of arrangement than just alphabetical or chronological. With the system I used, all I had to think was “I’m in the mood for a serial killer,” and then pick up the relevant tome.

Grandpa hadn’t seen my room, so I made it a point to drag him up there and look at my bookshelf. A full bookshelf is the most consummate adornment a room can aspire to.

“How is it?” I beamed at him, hoping he’d ask about the sorting.

“It looks like a laboratory of pure evil,” he said. “Like an innocent maiden could take one look at it and faint in terror.”

“You don’t think I’m an innocent maiden?” I asked with a coy smile.

He looked at me appraisingly. “You’re the most innocent of maidens, I think.”

I never really understood what he meant by that. It sounded like a joke, but then he wasn’t really one for jokes.

Every night, before going to sleep, I’d pick a book from the shelf and read a story or two to satisfy my cravings. It made for good dream fodder. I never had nightmares about those horrors—true nightmares don’t rely on comfortable tropes like that.

One night, Grandpa entered my room while I was reading a story out loud, complete with dramatised dialogue. He studied the bookshelf and I switched to reading quietly.

“You’re finally coming around to reading books, then?” I asked after finishing the paragraph I was reading.

“Yes,” he said and ran a hand over his balding head before stuffing it into a pocket again. “I think that after all this time of reading the newspapers, I would like to learn how the real world is.”

Leo is finished! I really enjoyed playing around with the lighting.

#tmnt #tmntleo #rottmnt #teenagemutantninjaturtle #procreate #digitalart #leonardotmnt

I SECOND THIS. PLEASE. PLEASE GIVE US SEASON 3!

RISE IS TRENDING RN. UH WHAT DO WE DO UH UHHH

I LOVE ROTTMNT GIVE ME A SEASON 3 PRETTY PLEASE NICK 🙏🙏🙏

Warfare

Chapter 1

Part 1

You can’t have a comic without the title page right??

Yessss Mikey!

Happy Short Story Month!

It’s gonna be May, which means the time has come to celebrate Short Story Month! We’re delighted to publish so many incredible masters of the craft, and never want to miss a moment to recognize their outstanding contributions to the literary landscape. So without further ado, here are some of the best audio clips from our award-winning short story writers. Scroll down to listen to excerpts from eight of our favorite collections:

DROWN by Junot Díaz

“Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.”

Listen to a clip here!

WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY by Lesley Nneka Arimah

“When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters. He did not know how quickly it would wick the dew off her, how she would be returned to him hollowed out, relieved of her better parts.”

Listen to a clip here!

PILGRIMS by Elizabeth Gilbert

“She was no dancer and she didn’t want to dance with me, but we found a good slow sway anyway, each of us with an arm hanging down, like a rodeo cowboy’s right arm, like the right arm of a bull rider, not reaching for anything.”

Listen to a clip here!

AWAYLAND by Ramona Ausubel

“What are you doing?“ the mother asked. "I guess I’m throwing roses,” the girl said, unable to make sense of herself.”

Listen to a clip here!

DEVOTION by Maile Meloy

“Eleanor had never bought a house before and the real estate broker had the air of an authoritative and impatient aunt, waiting for a decision. She tapped long nails on the steering wheel of her parked Lexus while Eleanor gazed at the little house from the passenger seat. The sycamore in the yard had good roots, the broker said.”

Listen to a clip here!

FIVE-CARAT SOUL by James McBride

“I am a lion. I live in a zoo. But I was once a free lion, and never forgot it.”

Listen to a clip here!

HALL OF SMALL MAMMALS by Thomas Pierce

“Inside every group, he decides, there are more groups. Circles within circles, and inside of those, more circles still, all of them infinitely divisible. You could spend your whole life wondering which ones you’re in and which ones you’re not and which ones really want you and which ones are holes that have no bottom.”

Listen to a clip here!

THE BUS DRIVER WHO WANTED TO BE GOD by Etgar Keret

“There are two kinds of people, those who like to sleep next to the wall, and those who like to sleep next to the people who push them off the bed.”

Listen to a clip here!

For more short story collections, visit our Short Story Month Goodreads shelf!

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