Well, it’s… ha ha… been a while. I hope everyone has been keeping well and as safe as possible. Things here at the cat compound are okay, been following all the COVID rules and been doing alright. I’ve been busy, though.

The big news is that COME HOME, INDIO, my graphic memoir, has been completed. Spanning, well, my entire life up to now, it chronicles some of the heavy moments that made me who I am at present. If you’ve ever felt like an outsider, or if you’ve struggled with addiction, or were a child of the 80’s, or are lost and trying to keep afloat in the madness of recent times, you might find something of worth in there.

The book is being released by STREET NOISE, an independent publisher based out of Brooklyn, NY and headed by the unstoppable Liz Francis. She approached me at the Indigenous Comicon a year and a half ago and asked if I’d be interested in talking about my trip to Standing Rock during the pipeline resistance. Since I was only there for a number of days (over two trips) I didn’t feel like I was qualified to tell that story - but I was certainly qualified to talk about my own life leading up to that trip, and the profound effect my short time there had on my life.

I had to wait to work on it until September, as I was finishing work on HACK SLASH Vs. THE CROW and was penciling, inking and coloring those 4 issues and barely keeping up. Once that was in the can I jumped on the memoir and worked like mad, digging up all the miserable and joyful and mundane memories I could and hammering it into something that made sense. There was no great through line in my mind until I was about halfway done, when I realized that it is about FINDING MY PLACE IN THE WORLD.

Being part Native and part white, growing up in the 80’s suburbs, and ultimately becoming an urban dweller completely enslaved by booze, I didn’t get my feet on the ground until I was in my 30’s. I didn’t get my first professional comic work until I was damn near 40… I was a lost sucker for a long time but this book will tell about how I finally figured a way to exist without tearing myself apart.

I hope you take a look at it, and I REALLY hope you take something away from it that you can use in your life. I can easily summon that old feeling of “nobody is like me, nobody understands” and it ain’t an easy one to live with but - though circumstances vary, certain feelings and thoughts are universal.

The book comes out September 28th, but it can be pre-ordered through your local bookstore or comic shop, or bookshop.org - where local bookstores get a cut of the sales. It’ll also be available on a certain megasite… but please support your local biz if you can.

In the meanwhile, stay safe, keep your head above the water and one day we’ll shake hands at a con.

Jim