In addition to Hawking, and besides working with* my pal Jane to revise this website, I’ve written a bunch of books in recent years.
(*”Working with” means asking her to help and then saying what I like and don’t like about what she made happen. It was mostly improv-like** with lots of “yes, and”s.)
(**I also took some improv classes in the last couple of years. Boy, did I learn a lot about what scares me and gives me enjoyment.)
It hasn’t looked like it, because comics take a long time to finish, but in 2017-2018 I sent over 600 pages to editors for their approval. Here are the projects underway:
Hawking
You already know about this, right? It comes out in the U.S. on July 2, 2019. It will come out in other languages and countries too, but not all. China, Japan, Brazil…your move!
Astronauts
Maris Wicks (yes, the Primates team is back together!) is hard at work on the story of the first women astronauts as we speak. I wish I could show you how good it looks, but for now please trust me—it looks fabulous. This is scheduled for a February 2020 release.
Naturalist
This book was a departure for me, in that I didn’t know I wanted to do this project until the publisher of E.O. Wilson’s memoir approached me about adapting it to comics. Huh, thought I. What would that be like? Turns out it was fun, and a challenge as well. Chris Butzer (Gettysburg) is the artist for this, and he’s turning Wilson’s words and my staging into pictures. Side note: an adaptation means I can actually do the calculation of how many words a picture is really worth. (I know the number of words we used from the original text, and the number of panels we’re using, and beyond that it’s simple arithmetic.) More when the book comes out.
And then there are the monthly comics in celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table for the Royal Society of Chemistry, but that’s a post for another day.
