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Last December, Charlie Capp, an artist looking for full-time work in Seattle, resolved to create a comic book adaptation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Charlie planned to create an illustration for each stanza, for a total of about 150 pages.


July Update:

At the year’s halfway point, I’m about halfway through illustrating the poem. I had some pretty good momentum going during most of June, cranking out about a page a day, but lately I feel like I’ve been suffering from the effects of my first major obstacle: summer travel. At the end of June, my wife and I made a trip back to Montana to visit our families, which also included a visit to Yellowstone Park. It was a lot of time spent in the car, and unfortunately I haven’t gotten very good at drawing while on the road yet!

(See a slideshow below.)

While it’s been discouraging to not be as productive as I’d like lately, it’s been encouraging to be able to take a look at the work I’ve completed so far. The pile of finished drawings helps stave off the feelings of doubt on the days I feel like I’ve done little more than sit at a table for six months. I just have to keep at it, a page at a time, until the thing is finished. And with that in mind, I think I might head over to the drawing pad and keep working. Maybe I can still get another page finished before we hit the road again tomorrow morning.

Slideshow: Work in Progress

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