summer reflections

shortbox, scholarship, & the stone wētā by octavia cade

[**this part was written sept 25.] although i've weathered my fair share of borderline crises this summer, i think it was a comparatively tame couple of months. i've been busy, sure, but barring various interpersonal dramas i've had and my laptop kicking the bucket + the ensuing panic, everything has been pretty pleasant! i've also managed to make it past every significant deadline i had without botching my time management #yessss and now as my reward i'm free to do whatever i want for at least a month or two.

shortbox comics fair opens in a little over a week which i'm really excited about. i've been dreading having to post promo on instagram but alas, what can you do. i suppose i could just not post anything but also i love my ocs and i think everyone should have to see them so i need to get the word out. for any of you interested, my comic endearing ecologies will be available for a limited amount of time starting oct. 1st on shortboxcomicsfair dot com :-)

shortbox comics fair

[**added after oct started lol.] i have been thinking a lot about my experience participating in the comics fair. i'm really grateful i got the opportunity to participate as an exhibitor in SBCF; it's been one of my goals for a few years now, i actually applied twice before i got in. probably for the best since i think if i'd gotten in for the 2024 fair it would have been pretty miserable and untenable what with my cat dying over that summer. i'm proud of myself for getting in and making the deadline, i learned a ton about my art/comic making process and it feels like i've walked away with a lot of valuable skills and experience. it did eat up the majority of my june/july which was a bit overwhelming but that's on school for not giving me the time to work on it throughout the year.

it was also so lovely to get to talk to other comics creators and get advice from them. making comics and graphic novels is difficult, there are a whole lot of different skills you have to have in order to execute them well! i'm sure the same could be said for movies and TV, which are also kind of a combination of writing/visual arts skills, but comics just feel different somehow. i learned so much from fellow exhibitors and i feel so lucky.

i've been making shorter self-pub comics for fun for a few years now and although all of them were nonfiction and autobiographical, it feels like they set me up pretty well for my long(er) form fiction comic. i did feel a bit insecure about it (it's my first one after all!) but i finally let myself reread it last week for the first time since i submitted it and i actually think i did awesome given it being my first one. tochinperegrineworld is REAL and it's all thanks to my 10 million zoo comics ^_^ okayyy tldr; i had so much fun and i learned so much making my comic for SBCF 2025. please read my comic i am so proud of it.

scholarship

in addition to my various comic projects and the zine fest i tabled at, i've also been making more of an effort to read more theory and just reading more in general. i'll probably expound on this in another post i have planned about brendan schlagel's antilibraries concept and my really intense method of deciding which books i'm reading next, but i've just been chewing on ways that i can read nonfiction and theory most effectively, especially outside of school. i love to read and i love to learn and i'm generally very self-motivated to do those two things, but i know that there's a way to enjoy it and ingest the content even more than i already do.

i'm not typically one to journal by hand but i've decided to start implementing journal time into my reading process so i can keep track of quotes i like and synthesize information. a commonplace journal except i also keep funny comics of tochinperegrine in it. for fun! i'm trying to figure out a sticky note system too, mostly to no avail but i figure the more i practice the easier it will get.

i'm behind on my reading goal and in order to make it to 100 books i'd have to read 14 books a month. i'm going to make an effort these next couple of months just because i have a bunch of graphic novels and fiction on the backburner and i tend to go through both pretty fast, but i think for next year i'd like to have a lower goal and focus on really ingesting each book i read, as well as reading more nonfiction. not that i don't already ingest books for the most part, but for nonfiction (and theory especially) i think i'd like to get in the habit of taking my time and synthesizing everything.

if anyone wants to buddyread or talk to me about books or recommend me a book please reach out!!! i love yapping about literature and i like to collect friends who read like pokemon. it's important to have well read people in your life. there's also like a 90% chance i will read anything recommended to me :-)

the stone wētā

speaking of reading, i reread the stone weta because i've thought about it like thrice monthly since i read it in january super fast. i took my time with it this time and while i don't really feel like writing a whole essay about it (shocker), i just wanted to say it's become so much more pertinent in this political climate (especially since it's about climate). i think it's a really well executed piece of near-future fiction and exploration of the tangible forms of community and mutual aid. it's not the most exemplary piece of fiction plot-wise but i think as a study of characters and contexts it is quite lovely. i would highly recommend reading it if you're interested in that kind of thing! and it's also only 180 pages (or at least the digital copy i found is).

summer goals

now that summer is finally over i can proudly say i did not finish most of my goals but boy did i try. i think the most notable ones were my zines which by some miracle i finished on time so i'm counting it as an overall win. i'm disappointed i didn't get around to practicing my piano more but i'm going to just scooch that into my winter goals and pretend it was there all along. did i catch up on my reading goal? no. the opposite. but it's fine.

hope you all are doing well ^_^ much love!
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