As some people know, for the past year or so, I’ve been working on a series of 100+ short narratives that I call atrocities, set in a fictional city called “Baltimore.” I’ve kept them very close to the vest (except for presenting a few, perhaps unwisely, when I read down in Athens this past fall). I wanted to create the collection as whole, and to possess the whole world before I let it go. I felt that talking about it and sharing it would adulterate it in some way. Now, the writing is done, and the drawing has begun. To celebrate this, I’ve published a the first of these atrocities, a very short one called “High Hopes” in the Hippopants, a new journal of short graphic fiction. Sanaz and Stefan Kiesbye do an amazing job curating this journal, and it seemed like the right place to reveal even the smallest shadow of this project which has possessed me privately for so long.

Hopefully, the next few months will be filled with drawing, and I’ll be able to share dozens more atrocities when they’re all done.