Colleen's Work

  • Blog,  Colleen's Work

    Victories. Auto-immune disorder, brain fog, and getting my life and art back.

    Since late last year, I’ve been getting treatment for an auto-immune disorder, a disease which effects my endocrine system. I’ve seen a major difference in my struggles with brain fog and fatigue. After I first got my diagnosis and had a few weeks of treatment, I felt even worse. I wrote a number of posts on life hacks I’ve used with varying degrees of success in my art career, assuming the twilight awareness I experienced would be the way I would have to live forever. However, I’ve had little difficulty with brain fog over the last 60-90 days. With few exceptions, my brain is clear. I can now recall strings…

  • Blog,  Colleen's Work

    Blogger Truthiness

    Without going into gory details, a feminist blogger whom I used to count among my friends was booted off my private FB page two years ago after I caught her leaking info. The stuff she leaked was often filtered through her truthiness meter, which is to say what you say and what she repeated often had little resemblance to one another. I haven’t spoken to her in about 2 years, and one of her nastier acts of revenge was posting a truthiness article last summer – clearly directed at me – which strongly implied I’d given her an interview. Which I had not. I never gave her an interview about…

  • Blog,  Colleen's Work,  Essays

    Why I don’t blog anymore

    EDIT: I go into details about time investment in the comments below. Dear Colleen, I bookmarked many posts on your site for information about self publishing and contracts, but when I came back to read the posts later everything was gone. Now I get page after page of broken links and comments without posts. Did you know that most of your website is completely broken? Kelly Dear Kelly, I stopped blogging in public regularly almost 8 years ago, (UPDATE: I now blog on my Patreon behind a paywall, so the 15 million hits this blog once got will now pay me directly instead of an advertising service that pays me…

  • Blog,  Comics,  Manga,  Shows/Exhibits

    Hokusai Manga Lecture

    Some years back, I lectured at the Smithsonian Institution on Hokusai and manga. Fred Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! kindly recommended me as Artist In Residence. My parents saved the poster and had it framed for me for Christmas. Imagine my surprise! Apparently, they saved other props from the event, but the framer lost them. Bad framer.

  • Blog,  Essays

    In Loving Memory of Mary Gray

    Mary Gray was an early editor/proofreader of A Distant Soil, and a major reason I didn’t give up on the project early when circumstances made it seem as if going on would not be worthwhile. She worked very briefly as an assistant editor at The Donning Company publishers, where, when the executive editor was let go, Donning passed her over and hired someone else to take the job I was sure she deserved. Mary did not like the pressure of the regular gig, and decided to leave the company. I asked Donning to keep her on a freelance basis as she asked, but Donning refused. She did most of the…

  • Blog,  Colleen's Work,  Essays

    10 things to do with those pesky green tomatoes

    It’s the end of the growing season, and perverse wench that she is, Mother Nature sent a cold blast last week which gave the garden a big bite of frost. And this week it’s a beautiful 70 degrees. I picked as many green tomatoes before the frost as I could. If tomatoes are hit by air colder than 40 degrees, they will have no flavor, and even our row covers did not save them this time. (By the way, never store your fresh tomatoes in the fridge.) This sad situation resulted in a post so popular, even the Executive Office of the President popped in for advice. No, really. Here’s…

  • Blog,  Colleen's Work,  Fantasy,  Illustration,  Literature,  Lord of the Rings

    Tolkien Art and Artists

    A short list of Tolkien inspired/related books, which I recommend in my Tolkien art lectures. Not all of these are directly related to The Lord of the Rings, but feature artists closely associated with the work. For example, Alan Lee, who is widely regarded as among the greatest of all Tolkien illustrators, has very few works in print. So, I’ve included some of his other books which I hope you will enjoy. I’ve been asked to repeat this lecture at future appearances, so I will let you know when and where. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator by Christina Scull, Wayne G. Hammond J.R.R. Tolkien Mariner Books; 1st Houghton Mifflin Tolkien’s…

  • Blog,  Comics,  Culture,  Guest Blog,  Shows/Exhibits

    Guest Blog: David Lloyd at the Funchal, Madeira Book Fair by Roberto Macedo Alves

    Roberto Macedo Alves is on a one-man mission to bring comics to the Portugeuse island of Madeira, which is one of the loveliest places I have ever been. Incredible scenery, very friendly people, and many enthusiastic comics readers! An absolute delight. Roberto began bringing comics creators to the Funchal Book Fair a few years ago, and this year’s guest was David Lloyd, artist of V for Vendetta. Roberto’s shop is Setima Dimensao, and his blog is here, where you can see more pictures of the event. David Lloyd’s website is here. I’m sorry, but had no luck finding a direct link to artist Marco Avoletta. If anyone has that info,…