Kazu's Harry Potter covers

“Harry Potter Gets A Whole New Look,” via the Wall Street Journal.

This has been posted all over the internet, but I'm posting it here for archive's sake. :)

My husband Kazu (author/artist of the best-selling Amulet series) has been secretly toiling away at a set of beautiful covers for the Harry Potter 15th anniversary American re-release. While most people know him for his comics, he also holds his own as an excellent painter, as he’s shown time and again with his work on the Flight Anthology and at Gallery Nucleus.

So proud of him. I can’t wait to relive these books with our kids! :)

Rema - The First Half

He held her curled against him for a moment that seemed to stretch forever, until she found the will to move again. -- From Chapter Twenty-Three of Rema

An update on the book's progress:

1) The first half of the book has been posted -- fully illustrated!

I'm super pleased. I can't tell you how many times I thought about illustrating the manuscript, but never did because the task was too intimidating. Posting chapters on a weekly basis has kept me on track and has been a great exercise in discipline. Perhaps my dreams of having a fully illustrated volume of Rema can really come true...! *starry-eyed*

2) Rema has received its first reviews on webfictionguide.com!

And much to my relief, they are positive. (This is the first time my prose writing has ever been reviewed, so you can imagine how nervous I was!) You can read them on Rema's listing. Also be sure to explore and check out some of the great stories people have been posting. I highly recommend Wildbow's addictive superhero webfic, Worm!

Now that the first half of Rema is up, it's a great time for new readers to jump in. If you've read and enjoyed Rema, the best way to show your appreciation is to spread the word.

In the mean time, Rema will continue to update every Monday and I'll continue to write it in between various comic projects and mommyhood. For now I hope you keep warm, stay positive, and don't forget to get up and stretch every once in a while! ;) Much love to you all, dear readers.

2012 - Thoughts On A Year

(Before I type anything New Year's related, I want to say that posting Rema online has been so therapeutic for me. I'm so grateful to all of you who have visited the site, even if you're just looking at the drawings. I'm probably driving my friends a little crazy spamming them with so many links to the Rema blog, but I can't emphasize enough how helpful it's been in sorting out my life. Thank you all so much, especially to those who have actually taken the time to read it. My heart is yours!)


2012 proved to be a big year for me, both good and bad. In some ways, I feel as if the last few years were all together one really... long... year packed with crazy event after crazy event. One too many days were spent in the hospital for people I loved. One too many funerals were held. Too much illness and too many doctor visits. For a while there, it really DID feel like the apocalypse! The birth of my son and daughter were, of course, the bright spots within the chaos (both unintended natural births!). I never imagined myself to be a mother, just as I never imagined myself to be married, yet here I am, stay-at-home mom dabbling in storytelling.

Being so wrapped in Life, Death, and the spectrum in between has made me sort my priorities, and has made me a better person. Whereas before stories and ambition were the center of my life, my family is now the center. The stories have become a world I go to when Time permits, a fantastic place that keeps me sane. For a while that world was for my eyes only, but it kept my spirit strong through difficulty. It kept me alive. I want to share these stories with as many people as possible in the hopes that they might be a raft to float others across choppy waters, too.

There's a lot to look forward to in the years ahead -- the growth of my children, the love of my husband and best friend, and many, many stories to finish. The key word is finish. I'm sitting on two novels, several short stories, and a few comics that need completion. Some of them are 90% done, some are only 1%, but all them make me so excited to draw and write. For a writer, inspiration is the side effect of so many life-altering events. However, if these stories are to be shared, they have to be finished. And so, it's my goal -- Time permitting -- to complete as many of these projects as possible and share them with as many people as I can, starting in 2013.

I hope 2013 will prove to be positive, fruitful, and forward-moving as possible for you too. Happy New Year, and thank goodness we all survived the apocalypse!

Reman Mythology -- The Novel

After so many years of trying to figure out where Rema the novel fits and resisting doing what it takes to make it fit somewhere, I realize that I'll never be happy forcing this story into any mold other than what it wants to be. Whether that makes the story better or worse (probably worse!), that's just my relationship with it. It began as my playground, a sanctuary I could escape to where I could just be myself without restraint, and that's all it is. I need that sanctuary, that arena where I could grow without pressure, and sharing it online was such a big part of that.

And so, I'm posting Rema the novel on its own blogspot while I continue to revise and illustrate it. It will no longer be a webcomic, it will be a webnovel. The story is flawed, the plotting is messy, the prose is rough... but it is what it is, and I'm happy to share my sanctuary with anyone who wants to read it.

Go here to read chapter one.

Pile O' Drawings

Hel-looo~! 

I realized I hadn't updated my blog with all the drawings I've been posting on my twitter. I know this is redundant, but here they are all in one fabulous place!

Not much to report otherwise. I love my life and my head is teaming with fun ideas. I just wish I had more time to draw/write!

 

 

Catching Up

It's been over a month since my last update! I have a legitimate reason though -- my second child was born, a beautiful baby girl who has been such an angel (so far!). She's been so sweet but I AM still quite sleep-deprived, so forgive me if I act weird to any friends out there!

Despite all the madness in our lives, I've been steadily filling up the book with as many illustrations as possible. I'm a little behind on my updates, but here's all the drawings I've posted on my twitter since the last blog post. It's been so fun making this book. I always wanted to write and draw a magical adventure story for girls, and it feels so great to finally be doing it... :)

 

Another Set

It's been an eventful month in my neck of the woods, but things are finally settling down. Three weeks ago, my husband was knocked down a peg by pneumococcal meningitis, a potentially fatal bacterial infection of the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Five days in ICU and 9 days in recovery, and he is nearly back to normal, give or take a few memory gaps. He is expected to make a full recovery given time, and is nearly there already just 1.5 weeks out of the hospital. He is amazing. I am just relieved that he survived, his personality and health is otherwise in tact, and he is the same man I fell in love with.

We had tons of help from family and friends through this ordeal. We are incredibly grateful to everyone for their support, babysitting, and food runs while in the hospital and afterwards. Together, they saved my husband's life. We have the best friends and family! We are very lucky and totally dodged a bullet! 

I learned so much in the past few weeks, it's difficult to write it all down in a blog post. Reliving the details of what we went through seems trite as well, so I guess I'll end it here.

Above and below you'll find the latest set of drawings from the book I'm working on. The flying dolphin one I drew while keeping Kazu company in the hospital. As corny as it is, it is special to me for that reason alone. Anyway, enjoy the drawings! More to come in the weeks ahead. :)