Lasers Set

One of the bakers at Little Red Fox, Emily, once described me as a shark, because if I ever stop moving I’ll drown. It’s an apt metaphor for my manic approach to managing a bustling foodservice business. But it’s also fits just as snug with the creative side of my brain: to be truly happy, I have to constantly be creating. A few therapy sessions taught me I may have created an entire café out of that insatiable need (see: my beautiful failure, Fox Loves Taco).

8 years into foodservice and I’m finally living with a healthy separation between work and my life outside of it. Thanks to the existential crisis this pandemic elicits, I’ve now found the perfect medium to focus my obsessive laser beam of creative energy: comic books.

I grew up on superhero books like the X-Men and Spider-Man and then rediscovered comics in my twenties through indie graphic novels. These days, I read anything I can get my hands on, from horror and science fiction to young adult melodramas and kids books at bedtime with my son. It’s my favorite storytelling medium for any genre: the gorgeous art, the way your brain magically fills in the blank spaces between panels, and the complete lack of constraints—a comic book can be about anything!

A lot of successful restaurants publish cookbooks. I’d like to do a comic. I’ve spent the past few months taking online classes at Comics Experience learning everything I can about how comics are produced, from script to pencils, inks, colors and letters. My goal is to get an original comic book published—a crazy fantastical story that weaves in my years of experience working in kitchens and raising a family.

Am I crazy? Probably. Is this something I can actually do? Well, I can write. I wrote my first comic back in November and then produced it this winter with a team of really talented artists. You can read it right here. Now, can I write something longer than 5 pages? Let’s find out.