Two Years On

In my new studio! Press Democrat photo by John Burgess.

My hometown newspaper, the Press Democrat, interviewed me for a special issue on how people are doing two years after the fire. They also asked me if I'd draw some new "Fire Story" pictures for them--they didn't specify what they wanted, left that entirely up to me. So I drew the three new pages shown online and printed in this morning's paper.

I like the article by Dan Taylor and I'm grateful for the coverage, really! Every column-inch of newspaper real estate is valuable, and they gave me four (!) pages. But when I saw how big they ran my artwork, I cringed. Most comics and illustration artwork is drawn larger than the size it'll be printed at because shrinking a drawing tightens it up and hides its flaws. The PD magnified them much LARGER than their 8 x 12 inch original size. I think they hold up all right, but Yeesh! Imagine a close-up of your face blown up to the size of a billboard, showing every pimple and pore.

Anyway . . . There are other stories about other people in this edition, too, and together they make a point I tried to make myself: there's such a wide variety of post-fire experience, from tragedy to triumph, that no single story captures them all. Most people are still muddling through, even two years on, dealing with frustrations and two-steps-forward-one-step-back as best we can. It's been hard.