A couple quick updates, from Nathan Holic the artist (as opposed to Nathan Holic the fiction writer, or even Nathan Holic the editor or Nathan Holic the sometimes-blogger)!

Last Fall, I had the opportunity to teach a class called The Rhetoric of Comics. It was a blast, and I savored every second of it. I also created a course-specific blog for the class, which is one reason why I haven’t been updating this–my author site/ blog–very often in the last few months. It’s tough to keep so many portals constantly updated. Anyway, though, the class is now over, but the blog still exists. If you’re interested in seeing some of the assignments and the student work from the class, just click here.

I’m also excited to announce the publication of author-punker Lavinia Ludlow’s second novel, Single Stroke Seven, which will burst onto the scene in March. Lavinia asked me to draw the cover of the book, which you can see below. To order the book, click here.

You can also read some of Lavinia’s writing advice/ lessons here. She references some of our interactions as writer-editor team a few years back, so I get a name-drop or two.

And finally, because I was teaching a Rhetoric of Comics course last Fall, I spent a lot of time writing/ drawing comics. (That’s what happens. When I teach a particular genre, I wind up immersing myself in it, and really spending all of my creative time indulging in that genre.) So, in addition to creating the course syllabus and all of the assignment sheets as comics (see two example images below), I also wanted to draw at least one complete original comic.

At the end of the Fall semester, I received two different opportunities to do so.

The first was an invitation to participate in the ongoing Transit Interpretation Project (TrIP) here in Orlando, which asks local artists to use public transit in the city and then “interpret” the experience. Orlando is, quite simply, not a city known for its incredible public transit, and so many of the pieces of artwork offer commentary on the issues that riders face. My own contribution was a little more light-hearted, but (I think) also speaks to how/why public transit is used in the city (more as a lark than as a reliable method to get somewhere)…my wife and I took a “date day” on the SunRail, and you can read my comic here.

Finally, novelist Alex Kudera asked me to contribute a comic adaptation of one chapter of his novel Fight For Your Long Day for a brand-new classroom edition of the book. This was a pretty involved project, and one of the longest comics I’d created in awhile. Below is a single page, and I’ll offer updates when the edition is published. You can read Alex Kudera’s blog for more information.

What’s going on this Spring? Well, I’m teaching, and finishing final revisions on a novel I’ve been working on since 2010 or so. And then there’s AWP in Los Angeles at the start of April, where I’ll sit on a panel to talk about my Rhetoric of Comics course. So there are some things coming up for writer-teacher-editor-artist Nathan Holic. Maybe I’ll write another blog update to let you know about them? Maybe…maybe…That might be a productive use of time.