Re-Introductions & Halloween
I have a scattering of new subscribers after a new comic on Mutha Magazine was published on Monday, so I thought I’d re-introduce myself and this newsletter:
My name is Marnie Galloway and I’m a cartoonist working in Chicago, the best city for comics in the world in the world as far as I’m concerned. As a cartoonist, I’m interested in questions of identity and moments where the unknown (vast in scope or subtle and interior) forces confrontation or transformation, with a focus on comic poetics—the way that this already intertextual medium allows for richly layered meaning-making. My best known work is the Xeric Award winning wordless comic In the Sounds and Seas that I self-published in three volumes (one, two, and three available at Radiator Comics), and was then collected in a lovely hardback edition in 2016. Two months before Vol III and the hardback edition were published I became a mother for the first time; over the next year, in a flurry of sleep-hazed productivity, my comics Particle/Wave, Burrow, and Slightly Plural were published, all dealing in one way or another with the life-altering maelstrom of becoming a parent. Years of full-time parenting, a growing family, desperate sleep deprivation, family health challenges, and the pandemic slowed my return to making comics, but my kids (ages almost-3, 5, and 7) are now in daycare and elementary school, so consistent hours at the drafting table have returned.
Right now I’m slowly working on my next graphic novel, working title Monument; an infozine with two brilliant collaborators I’m excited about but has not yet been announced; monthly science comics for Ask Magazine, a science magazine for elementary aged kids; and, starting this semester, I’m teaching one undergrad comics studio class every semester at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I started this Substack a little over a year ago when Twitter was dying, as a way to keep in touch with folks once I realized it could be years before Monument will be done and I probably wouldn’t want to table at comics festivals with nothing new to share. I keep this Substack free to keep it from feeling like an obligation I have to keep up with; I mostly share quick-to-ink diary comics (which are mostly about my kids because parenting still occupies most of my brain, and also they’re really great and funny people), personal news and announcements, and thoughts about what I’m working on, even if the thing I’m working on is just Halloween costumes.
Welcome!
My biggest surprise in becoming a parent was learning I’m a Halloween Mom. I never really got into the holiday as a kid (loved the candy, but it didn’t break Top 5 holidays for me), and I was too introverted and deeply repressed in high school and college to do Big Fun Party Halloweens. But making a costume for a kid? That’s the fucking BEST.
My 7 year old plays D&D with their friends and wanted to be a lich, an undead wizard: easy, store-bought cloak and face paint. Done!
The 2 year old is, predictably, fickle: I committed too early to their idea of being Max in Where the Wild Things Are and bought a costume, but after wearing it a few days in a row in early October they abandoned it and had ideas for something new every day. A tiger! A firefighter! A ghost. A BIG ghost. A big SCARY ghost with mean eyebrows. A storm monster(?)! Who knows! They wore a skeleton shirt to daycare and we pulled an old puppy costume over their winter coat for trick or treating and called it a day. I’m glad I got some cute pictures of him in his wolf suit!
The 5 year old, though: since early September she’s said she wants to be the Balrog for Halloween, the fire demon from Lord of the Rings whose fire-whip pulls Gandalf into the chasmous depths below Moria. (We watched the movies over the summer.) I was obsessed with LoTR as a girl, a lonely kid drawn more to the stories of friendship than the fantasy world of Middle Earth, and reread the books every year of elementary school. So when my kid, who looks like me but is so much more confident and charismatic, wants to be THE BALROG? The call to do it right came from deep in my soul.
I used my old bike helmet and $3 of wire from Home Depot to make the frame for the horns
Then filled the frame with old grocery bags that we used to keep around for the litter box (RIP, Al) and wrapped it in red duct tape. I drew some texture on with sharpie, and wrapped a string of cheap orange LED lights around them.
Some red and orange ribbon wrapped in more red duct tape became the fire whip!
I drew a teeny lil’ Gandalf and got it laminated at FedEx Office and taped some ribbon on the back so it could be a necklace, to make the costume more specific than just any old demon
Painted a red sweat shirt from the thrift store with fire!
DURIN’S BANE, I NAME YOU! COME NO FURTHER!
Happy belated Halloween from this Sleepytime Bear to you!