EJ

@Jenkinel Also makes for a good book end.

(It sounds like I'm complaining but she's so cute and ridiculous and it's actually making me feel better about having to pack.)

Thought I could solve it by having two boxes at all times, one for packing, one for Bel. Nope. She wants to be in whichever one I'm packing.

Leaving aside the class politics of the story (for now), I hope it carries a positive message.

Soddenheim has immigrant characters holding onto - and sometimes sharing - parts of their own cultures, but also collaborating in new ways.

But I'm running that risk (I hope people will pull me up if I mess up) because representation is such an important thing in fiction.

(And how can still I be *so* bad at mixing consistent skin colours from page to page? Ack!!!)

I often worry about my visual representation of these ethnicities - when does "visually distinct" cross into "offensive caricature"?

With Soddenheim we've created a deliberately diverse setting, so as well as having gender diverse chars it's also a multiethnic city.

(A culture you don't belong to/a culture that doesn't belong to you: both are useful ways of thinking about it as a white artist)

It can be difficult to navigate between the dullness of all-white stories (no thanks) and trampling all over a culture you don't belong to.

Lots of good, measured discussion on my feed today about cultural appropriation.

MTV, I am Werner Herzog and this is my crib. It is but temporary refuge from nature's fury. The walls were once trees. I made them traitors.

Tried hissing at Bel to discourage bad behaviour... who knew a cat could do such good puppy-eyes? Score one to you, pussy-cat.

Lessons from first #sketchsprint : - cartooning is hard! - so are lips, find a way to just 'hint' at them using ink - Sugimori is a genius.