Pygmalion: an unpublished comic

Here's an exclusive! A comic I did for an abandoned project.

There was a time when I thought I had a good idea for my debut graphic novel. I would do a series of retelling of Greek myths for kids in a graphic novel format. And just to make it extra fun, I would tell them without words.

This was a terrible idea for a number of reasons. For one thing, the Greek myth market was pretty saturated. Second, writing a book without words for a middle grade audience will never sell—everyone wants books that help kids learn how to read. And third, they just weren’t that great.

But fortunately, these are the comics that landed me an agent, who wisely said, “I like your work. AND I don’t think it will sell.” Wise advice, and this relationship eventually turned into Pizza, Pickles, and Apple Pie, which was a much better idea and more fun. Who doesn’t love food.

Anyway, I have a bunch of these comics and I don’t know what to do with them. I briefly thought about putting them up for sale on TpT, but I didn’t think they would sell.

However, I am still proud of them, and so I’m putting them out in the wild to roam freely. If you like them, feel free to use them. And if people are interested, I’ll post some more. (Ehh…I’ll probably do that anyway).

I love the Pygmalion story. There aren’t too many Greek myths that resonate as much today.

I’m glad I found this, because I’ll use it for a wordless comic class I’m teaching this summer. I also want to acknowledge that the coloring was done by my friend Michael Neno, who has a really vibrant coloring palette that really made this look great. I learned a lot from him when I started coloring my own work.

I’d also like to point out that the middle nine panels are some of the best storytelling I’ve ever done. I’m really proud of them.