Within a day of receiving a most enviable introduction for THE SOLAR GRID, a potential agent—who's had the manuscript sitting on her desktop for several months now—finally wrote back to tell me she wasn't sure she could agent it because the book isn't mainstream enough. She is of course absolutely right, and I as a matter of fact take her assessment as a compliment. My “idols” have, after all, never been mainstream. Although many have managed to become largely mainstream despite their material being anything but. There's Crumb, Alan Moore, Philip K. Dick, Hunter S. Thompson, and Burroughs to name but a few. Even Vonnegut started out as a fringe writer.

This puts me in the less-than-ideal position of having to agent the work myself, as I'd like the book to exist out in the wild for readers to discover beyond my limited reach.

I was chatting with members of a grant-giving body a few days ago about another potential book project. One of them said, “So you're writing, drawing, and designing it?” To which I nodded. “Wow, one-man show,” she said.

Not gonna lie, I'm a little tired of this whole one-man show business. The thought of working on the material while other better-positioned folks take care of getting it out there strikes me as most appealing, but seems insistently elusive.

Today I order chicken and make some soup in an attempt to rid my body of whatever new plague has infected me.

Today's soundtrack is a combination of cafe chatter (played via my phone) and Persian jazz (played via my laptop).

#journal #work #tsg

Got a haircut the other day and I noticed the barber had the sniffles. So I now have a cold.

Growing up, I don't recall my parents ever succumbing to common ailments. They must've gotten sick, but it seems to me they were always able to carry on as if they hadn't. Not me; When I'm sick—even a little sick—I'm sick. I lose my appetite, subside almost exclusively on herbal teas and honey, and find myself incapable of doing anything other than lazing around and, well, being sick.

This especially sucks because I had plans today, and when plans go astray I become unreasonably unhappy (despite plans going astray all the goddamn time, you'd think I'd be used to it by now).

I'm due to be in Houston in a few weeks to lead a comix-related workshop, and I was counting on preparing the exercise(s) today. Three pieces of concept art are also due for a thing asap, as well as some poster art. I need to do three portraits for the podcast series I've been recording, and a handful of illustrations for some of the extra pages that go into the TSG compilation. As well as a few sketches for furniture pieces I'm having custom-built for my place. All of which I'd like to get out of the way before my trip, so I may have to attempt to take after my parents and power through this stupid sickness if I can.

#journal

One of the things I'm sad about having dropped in 2025 is my vomitbook habit. This is largely due to the complete unavailability in Cairo of the slim pocket-sketchbooks I'd grown accustomed to using.

I picked up a small leatherbound sketchbook from Venice some time ago though and I was waiting for the right thing to utilize it towards. It's around the same dimensions as the pocketbooks I'm used to, but much thicker in terms of page-count. Figured I might as well use it as my regular carry throughout 2026 (or however long it'll last). The thickness means I can't carry it around casually in my back-pocket, and I need to have some form of bag if I want it on my person at all times, which is something of an inconvenience, but I suppose we can make it work.

#journal

It's been a strange week.

You can't find dead bodies and not become extremely existential in thought. Especially if the bodies pertain to people you were conversing with only a handful of hours prior.

Carbon monoxide poisoning. Looks like they accidentally dozed off and had left something on the stove. Pot overflowed and put out the flame and the gas kept going overnight.

Had to break in. Thought I could save them but it was too late.

Police proceedings afterwards were their own surreal experience.

Really fucking tragic.

#journal