So. It’s been a while. I’ve been hung up on finishing the super-complicated pages that finish off chapter 25. 110 panels over two pages takes a while. I’ve also been working on the stuff that comes after them, and that’s mostly done.

I have also spent most of the past month in New Orleans, where I got next to no work done 0n Rita. Or any other art projects. Most of my time there was spent bicycling between my mother’s place and her room in the hospital, then on dealing with her funeral and starting to wrap her affairs up. I’m going to miss her a lot.

Today I spent a little time thinking about a cover for the 0mnibus. It’s about a year or two off – I’m going to wait until I sell out of the single volumes – but when an image pops into my head, I like to get it down.

Click for full size.

The main idea is to make something that’ll really stand out on a shelf when it’s facing out. There might be some gloss or some embossing or maybe even blue foil; I’m not sure. If I make this a hardback, I might not have a dust jacket. Just this. (There’s a part of me that’s tempted to do multi-layered dust jackets, like the one for Chabon’s Maps and Legends, but I don’t think a maximalist approach like that would suit this story – I want it to be as stark and graphic as the interior pages.)

New pages coming… whenever. I dunno. I’m out of the work groove for obvious reasons, and probably have a few days of “sitting in the dark living room playing video games” ahead of me to give my hands something to do while the back of my brain chews on big scary emotional stuff.