Radiant Comics

Twenty years ago when I started doing my “Covers to comic books that don’t exist” series I had to do everything. I had to come up with concepts for the comics series, the covers themselves, plus logos and trade dresses for the covers. I originally had a few different trade dresses for a few different fake comic book companies. I eventually chose “Radiant Comics” as my favorite and settled into making covers with just that trade dress.

I also used to switch between the different comic book titles depending on what I felt like drawing. I think I had about ten different series made up and if I wanted to draw some sci-fi I’d switch to a sci-fi series. I also had a horror series, a fanciful series, a super hero series, and a kid’s series. I developed a lot of stuff in those early days.

After I drew and inked these covers I’d color them digitally. After all that’s how comic book covers are colored these days. But I wouldn’t always color all of them. I was already making digital prints that I colored digitally so I’d get bored with that type of coloring when it came to the comic book covers.

It was around fifteen years ago when I decided to buy some Copic markers. I hadn’t worked with markers since my college days in the mid to late 1980s but I was intrigued by these new Japanese markers. Back in the 1980s I used markers to make color sketches and marker comps. With this new attempt at using markers I wanted to try and come up with a finished marker technique. I didn’t want them for working drawings. I wanted them for finished art.

Eventually I came up with a finished technique using the markers but it was elaborate. It took a lot of time and work. I liked the way my stuff looked in the end but it took a long time to get there. But then I mixed it with my comic book covers.

After years of doing different comic book covers I wanted to simplify things. I came up with “Dreams of Things” because the weird dreamlike images are the ones I was most interested in. At first the idea was to strip things down and keep the covers simple rather than complicated. In keeping things simple I also decided to color them with markers rather than digitally.

Of course the problem with stripping an image down to its simplest form is that it takes a lot of time. As anyone who works with simple forms can tell you it’s not always so simple. It takes a lot of effort to make something look effortless. So as time went by making these covers I actually made them more complex. And that actually meant that they took less time.

Now, over ten years later, I have finished about 340 “Dreams of Things” covers. That’s a lot. Somewhere around issue 300 I was thinking about stopping making them and starting a new series but due to habit and momentum I didn’t. It wasn’t until this week that I decided to revive a second series to do alongside “Dreams of Things.”

“The Acid Ram” was a series of covers that I developed before “Dreams of Things.” It’s along the same lines in that it uses dream like images but it’s a little more aggressive. “Dreams of Things” has a pleasant atmosphere that makes you want to step into its dream world. “The Acid Ram” is a little be weirder and maybe puts you on edge. It’s not as weird and aggressive as my series “Fascist Planet” but it’s still make you question if you want to go there.

The first Acid Ram cover that I just made is #10. Back when I started doing these covers I didn’t do them in numerical order and just picked whatever number suited me that day. Since then I’ve tried to fill in the missing numbers on my various series. So that’s why I picked the number ten. It was one that needed filling in.

Since, back in the day, I didn’t color many of these Acid Ram covers I decided to come up with a style that was different from my “Dreams of Things” series. I looked at the ones I did years ago and noticed that there was a lot more to the inking than in my “Dreams of Things” stuff. I left the “Dreams of Things” art open for color but “The Acid Ram” art had a lot more black in it. I decided to lean into that.

In looking at the finished cover of #10 I wonder if it’s too dark. There is a lot of black in it and a lot of grey, brown, and secondary colors. It’s definitely not a “Dreams of Things” cover. Did I go too far in trying to distinguish it from “Dreams of Things”? I don’t know. I still haven’t decided yet. I’ll have to take my time with it.

Of course the first thing I notice is that giant eye looking at me. How could I not? Not only is it a giant eye but the white of the eye is the whitest white in the image. That makes it stand out. The sharp yellow lines of the mouth also jump out at me. That guy scares me a little bit.

I didn’t use many primary colors in this one. I think that distinguishes it from “Dreams of Things.” The blue of the eye, the yellow of the mouth, and the half red face are the only primary colors. There is some dull red in the energy field behind the main face but that comes across as more of a brown. I forgot the yellow triangles behind the logo but I barely noticed them. They’re a bit hidden.

As I was looking at this cover and writing it fell off my easel so I picked it up and held it. It actually looks a lot different close up than it does far away. Far away it blends together more. Things are less distinct from one and other. That’s usually not the case with “Dreams of Things” when I use brighter colors.

Overall “The Acid Ram” #10 was a bit of an experiment for me. I was turning something old into something new. I’m not sure if I was as successful as I want to be but it was a start. I’m going to do some more of them so I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m bored with writing about my art this week so I think I’ll write about a “Friends” episode. I’m up to Season Eight Episode Seven. I haven’t watched an episode since I last wrote so this will be two in a row. It’s titled “The One With The Stain” and I don’t recognize that title at all. It’ll probably come back to me though.

This one originally ran on November 7, 2001. Let me check my calendar to see what I was doing that day and week. Of course I watched it first run on Thursday night like I always did. On that day I was down in Manhattan working at Marvel Comics from Tuesday through Friday. Looks like I was also working on making some prints at that time. Someday I’ll have to figure out which ones.

My calendar also tells me that I went to the comic shop on Friday and then to the Nanuet Mall on Saturday. Usually I would go to both on the same day but I must have stopped by my LCS on my way home from my commute. On Saturday I paid $45 for the Gameboy Advance version of Doom. I don’t remember that at all and it seems like a whole lot of money to spend on a GBA game. I must have wanted to play it on the bus as I commuted. I don’t think I spent $45 on many video games at the time.

Let’s start the episode.

We’re off with Monica coming home to Chandler and she’s surprised and overjoyed that he cleaned the apartment.Chandler confesses that her hired a maid. Monica she doesn’t take it well. She doesn’t like to relinquish control. “Relinquish is just a fancy word for lose” is a funny line. Here comes the theme song.

And now a scene in the coffee shop. Phoebe gets a call on her cell (she never gets calls!) and it’s a continuation of Sean Penn guest starring as Eric who is Phoebe’s sister’s fiancé. The plot is that Ursula (Phoebe’s sister) is a terrible person who was going to take advantage of Eric so Phoebe not only saved him but has a crush on him. He broke up with Ursula and wants to date Phoebe. It’s weird and inappropriate and we get lots of cringe humor in this plot line.

Still in Central Perk Rachel mentions to Ross that she’s apartment hunting. She is having a baby and figures she can’t be living with Joey once the baby comes. But she hasn’t mentioned it to Joey yet. Ross mentioned that there might be an apartment open in his building. A woman died. They rush over to see the apartment even though that’s inappropriate. That’s our third plot and I think “Inappropriate” is the theme of this episode. A lot of cringe humor.

Ross and Rachel knock on a door. The woman’s daughter answers and tells them that her mother is still alive. Ross pretends to know the Mother but she only spoke Dutch. Uncomfortable humor follows.

Now we’re back at Monica and Chandlers’ and Monica if following around the maid in an uncomfortable way but then she won’t give out her tile cleaner’s secret ingredient. Then things get even more uncomfortable as Monica thinks the maid stole her jeans. To be clear those are the jeans the maid is wearing at the time. Some funny stuff but then the ante is upped by Monica wanting to find an ink stain on the crotch of the pants to prove their hers. Here comes more inappropriateness! Chandler is the voice of reason but it won’t last.

Phoebe shows up at Eric’s apartment for their date but he just got his engagement ring back from Ursula. He’s having a tough time dealing with his anger at Ursula. Some funny and uncomfortable stuff. I always hear what a great actor Sean Penn is and it really is true. I totally forget he’s Sean Penn and believe him in this role. That’s not true of all the guest stars on this show.

Back at the coffee shop Ross is trying to learn Dutch. It turns out that Gunther knows the language. Part of “Friends” continuity is that Gunther doesn’t like Ross because Gunther has a crush on Rachel so he makes Ross uncomfortable. This is a theme in the show and we get a little of it here.

Joey shows up with Knicks tickets and some jokes are built around that until Ross tells him that Rachel is moving out. That’s news to Joey.

I just had to run out to the store. I’m back. Where was I?

Ah yess, here we go. Joey is pensive about Rachel moving out.

Monica says “Nice jeans” to the maid. The maid is young and attractive by the way. Monica is scheming to get a look at the crotch of the jeans. Things get more uncomfortable. The theme of this episode is back. It’s less embarrassing to Monica that the maid thinks Monica is hitting on her than she thinks the maid is a thief.

Now it’s after the game and we’re at Joey’s apartment and he tells Rachel that he wants her to stay. Rachel thinks it too much of a sacrifice for Joey. It’s a very sweet scene.

Back at Eric’s he and Phoebe are making out but she has to go. Work calls. A massage appointment.

Chandler comes back home and Monica informs him of her misdeeds. The maid is still there too. Now Monica thinks the maid stole her bra too! Things spiral as Monica tries to get Chandler in on her plan.

Back at the Dutch woman’s apartment she’s on her last legs.

Back at Eric’s apartment he thinks he just slept with Phoebe but he didn’t. It was Ursula. They both realize what happened and are creeped out by it. That ends things. As it should.

Back at Chandler’s apartment he’s trying to get a good look at the maid’s pants and bra. It does not go well. She wants nothing to do with their creepy marriage.

Monica is waiting outside her apartment and Rachel walks up. She’s wearing Monica’s jeans. It also turns out Monica is wearing the bra she thinks the maid stole. The maid storms out saying that she quits. “Sounds right” says Monica.

Across the hall Joey is setting up for the baby and after Rachel walks in he explains to her how it will all work. She appreciates his enthusiasm and earnestness. Some funny stuff here and Rachel is convinced. A solid crib joke.

For the final scene we get Ross telling Rachel all he had to do to get her that apartment. She tells him that she’s staying with Joey. Ross is a little frustrated as it ends.

Now to check the website to see if anything was cut out of this show for syndication. It looks like some of Phoebe and Erics stuff was cut. Nothing too funny. One of Ross’s jokes talking to Joey about the Knicks was cut. I liked that joke. Some funny stuff between Monica and the maid was cut. A short Joey baby joke and an end Ross speaking Dutch joke were cut. Once again I glad I’m watching the DVD uncut ones.

I thought this was a solid episode. I’d give it a three out of five stars. Let me check what I rated it in the early 21st century. Looks like I gave it three stars back then too. So that’s how I’ll end this one. With a little bit of consistency.

Here are my bookbinding adventures part two. This week I try to turn six issues of mine and my friends’ comic that we published in the late 1990s, Kansas Thunder, into a hardcover book. This is all new to me. I’ve never tried to bind individual comic books into a hard cover before.

The first thing I did was I decided that I needed a sewn binding. I’ve watched a few ways of doing this on YouTube videos and decided that I wasn’t going to punch new holes in the comics. I was going to use the existing staple holes. So I took the staples out of the comics and used waxed thread to replace the staples. It actually did more than replace them.

I put the thread through the eye of the needle and tied it to the eye. I also tied a knot in the other end of the thread and put the thread through the outside of the top hole. I then looped the thread on the inside back through the second hole on staple number one. With the thread back on the outside of the book I drew it along the spine and put it in the top hole of the bottom staple. Then it went through the bottom hole of the bottom staple and to the outside of the spine.

That left the thread running the length of the comic book but that wasn’t enough for me. So I doubled up by putting the thread back through the top hole of the bottom staple and then running it along the inside spine of the book. Then it was back out the second hole of the first staple, back in the top hole, and then back out the second hole to be tied off on the outside.

It reads a little complicated but it’s fairly obvious when you’re actually doing it. It leaves thread in the staple holes and between the two staple. Both inside and outside the comic. It’s sturdy.

They first time I sewed the spine it came out fine but the one thing I changed was how I tied the knots. On my first attempt the knots went on the outside of the comic and I tied one end to the other. This made the knots stand out on the spine too much. The second time I tried tying a knot on one end of the thread big enough to not pass through the hole and then tie off the other end to a piece already there. Around the vertical piece and through the loop it makes. Twice. This second way worked much better.

With six comics done each individual comic was a “Signature” in the binding process. For the first and last comics in the pile I added a piece of thick folded paper around the cover before I bound them with the thread. I bound in the paper so that the front and back cover (of books one and six) were now blank paper. This is the paper I would use to glue the comics to the case.

After I bound the six comics with string I clamped them in my book press with the spines sticking out. I used some flexible book binding glue to glue the spines together. The glue I already had was pretty good but I watched a video which recommended another brand of glue that was even more flexible. I bought that second brand of glue and it worked better.

After the glue dried (I applied a few coats to make sure it held) I took some book binding fabric ( it looks like a net) and glued that to the spine. The fabric was about half an inch wide and the length of the comic. That half an inch was really not enough. The second time I wrapped the fabric around the front and back about an inch each. This worked better.

After the fabric was in place and glued down I also glued some paper to the spine to reenforce it. The paper was about half an inch and flat in the middle with another two inches or so on either side. I glued the whole thing and stuck it to the spine and folded it around the sided too. This gave more strength to the spine.

Next I made the book case (the actual hard cover) with two pieces of cardboard for the front and back plus a half inch wide piece of cardboard for the spine. There is a half an inch of space between the spine and the front and back so the book can bend. So it goes cardboard for the front, half inch gap, half and inch wide piece of cardboard for the spine, half inch gap, cardboard for the back cover. Make sure to take this half an inch gap off the width of the front and back cardboard. The first time I tried I didn’t do this and the book was too wide.

The first (and second) time I tried to make the case I used art printed on a piece of 11×17 inch inkjet glossy paper. I printed the template of where the front, back, and spine go on the back of the paper. I tried to put a piece of clear book cover paper over the art on the front of the inkjet paper but this was tough. It looked good but it was not easy to get the paper in place and with no air bubbles. I could only get one out of two to work. I gave up on this method. I think the thin paper didn’t help.

Finally I decided to go with thicker white paper. I used a piece of mechanical board left over from my 1990s Marvel Bullpen days. It was 15×18 inches but I cut it to 13 by 18 inches to fit it in my printer. I printed the template on the side with the blue lines which left the outside white. This method worked pretty well.

On my third attempt I printed the cover on a slightly thicker piece of paper that was bigger. 13×19 inches rather than 11×17. I was patient and got the clear book cover paper on in one try.

I used book binding glue to attach the cardboard to the paper and also glued the flaps of the folded paper to the inside of the case. I found it easier to pour some of the glue into one of my round watercolor pallets and dip a foam brush in there than to try and squeeze the glue directly onto the cardboard. The glue also dries quickly so you have to work fast.

On one attempt I tried using Mounting Adhesive instead of glue and this worked well except for the flaps that folder over to the inside of the cover. I think the glue kept these small flaps down better than the Mounting Adhesive.

After the case was made I sat the comic in it to check for placement. It seemed to fit (on my second attempt at binding that is).

There was white paper on the front and back of the comics and I glued the front white paper to the case and then the back white paper. It glued down fine but looked terrible. The thin white paper looked warped from the glue. So I glued some thick black paper to the inside front and back covers and that made it look nice.

For the covers of the second attempt that were blank I decided to paste down some art. I discovered that I had some 8.5×11 hologram sticker paper so I decided to use that. It worked well. I left a paper a little small so that it would have a small white border around it. I still have to figure out what to do with the spine. I tried the sticker paper but didn’t like it. We’ll see.

So I ended up with three attempts to make the book case. One was too wide, the second had the blank cover, and the third had the cover with my printed art. This left me with two finished copies. The second one with the new glue is the better one. That’s where it stands so far.

An old bound mini-comic of mine.

I’ve been learning something new this week. Book binding. That’s book binding by hand mind you. I don’t have any automatic machines to do it for me. I saw a video online made by a woman who upscales old hardbound books into sketchbooks. She sells them too. I thought that was a cool idea and wanted to try to make them myself.

I actually bought two books on the subject. One written by the woman who made the video. It’s called “Simple Book Making” by Unbind Books and it’s available at Amazon. So is “Zine Making and Book Binding” by Lauren Simkin Berke. Plus I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos.

Being that I’ve never done this before I had to buy a lot of stuff to get started. It’s not especially expensive but it adds up. It’s mostly a lot of drawing and writing paper in different sizes and styles. Plus I had to get some bookbinding thread and needles. Though I’m looking to upscale existing hardcover books I also bought some book cover cardboard to make my own hardcovers.

By for the most expensive thing I bought was a $70 book press. This is a metal machine that either clamps a book in place so I can work on it or presses a book flat as can be. I bought it with credit card points so the price didn’t hurt as much.

I already had some bookbinding glue from another project so I haven’t had to buy any more of that just yet. I’m a little bit clumsy with the glue anyway and prefer to use my 3M Repositional Mounting Adhesive in it’s place but that led me to the discovery that they don’t make that anymore.

Back in the 1990s Marvel Bullpen we called that stuff “3M paper” for short. We used it to glue stuff down. It comes on a long twelve inch roll with the plastic paper backing on one side and sticky stuff on the other. You cut a sheet to size, 8.5×11 inches if the paper you want to glue down is letter size, and then place the sticky side on the sheet of paper.

The “Repositional” part of 3M Repositional Mounting Adhesive means that it doesn’t stick fully right away. You can move it around a little bit. After you get it in position, sticky side down against the paper, you rub the back of the plastic paper with a burnisher. This pressure transfers the sticky stuff to the paper you want to glue down. Now that the glue is on the paper you want to glue down you place the paper where you want it to go and use your burnisher again to stick it down.

This 3M paper is easy to use, useful, and archival. This is why it’s been used for years to “Dry mount” photos. I’ve used it to make my photo collages since I started making them back in the 1990s. I decided to use it in place of some of the glue in book binding and that’s when I discovered that 3M stopped making it in 2025. I found what is supposed to be a replacement for it “Neschen Gudy870 Double-Sided Adhesive Film” but it’s not repositionable. That makes it much harder to use.

Meanwhile back at the book binding things are going frustratingly slow. Some of it is easy and some of it is tough. I can’t even figure out how many pages go in the sketchbook I’m making. The first one I did I put in what I thought was the same volume of pages that came out other it but there were too many. The book wouldn’t close correctly. Or maybe I messed up the spine binding. I’m not really sure.

I also added an extra step. The woman who upscales her books finds interesting old hardcover books to use. Since I’m new I only have dull old hardcover books to use. She uses the existing covers (because they’re interesting). I decided to make my own covers. This meant that I had to print something out (the easy part), cover it with book cover film (frustrating to use), cut it to size, and then use the mounting adhesive to attach it to the book. This took way longer than I thought it would. They look good but it’s a lot more work.

I’m also finding out the difference between hand sewing signatures of pages versus glueing individual pages. This probably means nothing to the average person but it’s two completely different ways to book bind. I’ve done it both ways and messed up both of them. It’s slow going.

At the same time as all this I’m also trying to figure out how to bind individual comic books into a hardcover book. I’ve bit off a lot.

So far it’s been a frustrating week trying to figure all of this out and it has me contemplating the nature of learning. I’ve always been good at learning and have always liked to learn to do new things despite it being hard and frustrating sometimes.

I’ve often hear it said that it’s easier to learn things when you’re young than when you’re old. They say that learning new things often means unlearning old things that are wrong. I think there is a bit of truth to this but for me there is something different in play. That is the other axiom that to learn something new you have to be willing to be bad at it.

I’m good at a lot of things. I’ve got a lot of expertise in making art. I’ve been working in a lot of different mediums for decades. If I want to make a painting I know how to. Even if it gets frustrating at times I know it’ll all be good in the end. I’ve done it before. Lots of times. I draw, I paint, I write, I make videos, I do photography, and I do other stuff I can’t even think of right now. But I’ve never bound books before.

Also when you’re older time is shorter. I know I have more time behind me than in front of me. If I want to learn something new I have to leave my area of expertise and be terrible at something. This is tough to do when I could be spending my time making stuff in the areas I’m good at.

I think when I was younger it was easier to learn because I wasn’t expert at anything. Being terrible at stuff was normal and having to put in the hard work to make something nice was normal. Tough learning was part of wanting to be good at something. Now that I’m older and I’m good at a lot of things my choosing to learn something new (and not be good at it) is rougher than ever.

But I’ll figure out this book binding thing yet. At least that’s the plan.

This week (the first week of May 2026) I was showing some of my drawings to a student of mine and he asked the question, “Where did you get the idea for that shape?”. I had used a, sort of, halo shape behind the person in the drawings head. I gave him the short answer of it was a halo like in Russian icon paintings. But then as I thought about it later I came up with a longer answer. It has to do with how I draw as seen in my sketchbooks. This is that longer answer.

First off I name my sketchbooks. That way I can tell them apart. I started doing this back in my college days and have been doing it ever since. I wish I had learned to date the pages of my sketchbooks back then but that didn’t start until sometime in the early 2000s. I am lucky if I dated when I started or finished the book back then.

The first sketchbook that explains the evolution of my drawing is an 8.5×11 hardbound one. It has a black cover and you can still find a lot of sketchbooks like this one. Its name is “Snow” and it’s from my college days. It’s probably from 1988. It has maybe eighty pages in it. It’s filled will unimpressive drawings. And when I say “Filled” probably half the space in it is used up. Some pages have a single little drawing on them.

I used this book as a space for working drawings. There are no finished drawings in it. There is some writing in it, some layouts for comics, some drawings for paintings, and even some math. It’s student work. There is nothing in it for anyone but my young self figuring things out. I remember being a little embarrassed when people would look through it. That’s standard for young artists. I carried these type of black hardbound sketchbooks with me well into the 1990s.

The second sketchbook I have has the date of December 1994 in it. It’s a 6×9 inch spiral bound (on the top/short side) one with 30 pages in it. Its name is “Prospect” but I don’t even remember this one. I don’t think I carried it around with me. It’s one that sat in the studio and waited for me to draw in it. This one has a lot of me figuring out character designs in it. Some in ink but most in pencil. It also has some figuring out of compositions and layouts. There is even some Magic the Gathering notes in it.

Out of the thirty pages in this book there are actually two finished drawings. They are nothing like the “Realism” of the sketches and working drawings and are two strange characters that predict where my drawing will go in the future. There is also what looks like the begins of my “Triangle” style of basic drawing that I eventually adopted. That’s where I view the very basics of the human form as triangles. The arms are two triangles, the shoulders and waist form a triangle, and the two legs are triangles. It’s not quite there yet but I can see it coming.

The next sketchbook has the dates 12/10/95 to 3/5/97 written in them. It’s 6×9 inches with 70 pages in it and is spiral bound on the long side. Its name is “Hydraulic Ram.” In this one I can see more of the triangles taking shape and it is also mostly filled with character designs and working drawings.

This one also has a lot of comic book storytelling type of work in it. There are layouts for a couple of comic book stories that I drew plus the scripts for them written in the back. This one even has the sketches for my first business card. Most of the book is in pencil but somewhere near the back I start drawing in ink.

“Clipper” is from January 1, 2000 until June 18, 2001. It’s 5.5×8.5 inches and has 100 pages. It’s spiral bound on the long side. This one is important because it’s my very first Inkbook. This first one took me a year and a half to fill but now I get one of them done a year and I am on Inkbook 27.

I call these my Inkbooks because I draw in them in ink. No pencil allowed. This one is full of ink drawings some of which could almost be called finished. Most pages have one to four drawings on them. Some of the drawings were made into finished drawings or paintings but most exist on their own in this book. Over the years my Inkbooks have evolved. Now I do about nine little drawings per page and it’s all about generating ideas out of thumbnail images.

Next we have a hardcover spiral bound 5×6 inch sketchbook. For some reason it has no name. It has about forty pages in it and has the starting date of May 2001. This begins the specialization of my sketchbooks. I’m always buying different sketchbooks of different types and sizes. I was back then too but now I try to find different uses for them. This one started out looking like one of my Inkbooks with small ink drawings in them but then quickly turned into one I used for general working drawings. It has layouts and ideas for some of the prints and “Covers to Comics That Don’t Exist” I was making. Lots of triangle people basic drawing in this one. It even has some comic strip layouts in it.

Four by six inches is the size of next sketchbook dated May 2002. It also has no name. It’s spiral bound across the top short side and has 24 pages in it. It’s filled with single page ink drawings. Each one is as finished as I’d expect and is made up of spontaneous shapes that I make up as I draw. But themes develop in these shapes like beams of light from people’s eyes and halos around their heads. There is a little writing in this one too.

Then we have one that is the same type as the last one. It has a name. “Slideshow.” This one is from 5/19/03 until 7/5/03. This one is filled with finished pencil drawings. I was drawing my oracle deck and I used my Surrealist Automatic Drawing technique to make all these drawings. That technique is like finding faces in clouds. I scribble all over the page and see what I can find in the lines. This leads to all sorts of shapes and weird figures and brings out my influences. A lot of those influences art the art of the ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Japanese, Chinese, and anyone else you got.

By this era of sketchbooks I was almost 100% specialized with my sketchbooks. Each had a purpose. But I still do usually have a general purpose one but those take a long time to fill up these days.

That brings us to Inkbook 27. My current one. I now use basic shapes to draw small thumbnail drawings spontaneously on the page. That leads to a lot of basic shapes in drawings. Circles, rectangles, and triangles. Add that to my love of historical art form long ago and I end up with halos from time to time. That’s where that shape came from. And I made a video about it.