Big Day For Cinnamon
Sun Feb 21 2021 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Today is a big fat day for me, with Cinnamon officially being announced and out in the wild. I'm so unbelievably excited to share it with you, it's been a roller coaster getting started. Cinnamon represents one facet of a butterfly's cocoon that I'm beginning to push my way out of. So this is a moment I'm taking to share what Cinnamon has come to mean to me.
Cinnamon is my first major published work. That alone is huge to me. I'm so thankful for Kevin Roditelli, and everyone at Happy Tank and Behemoth, for the opportunity to bring my stories to life. It's been a wild ride pre-release, and I hope for the best once everyone can actually read it.
Cinnamon started life as my thesis project at the Columbus College of Art and Design. I transferred there under duress from another school after I came out as trans, and that's a story for another day. But CCAD was my sanctuary, finishing my degree there was the best decision I ever made. I was firmly rooted in the idea of doing freelance illustration for the rest of my life. But in LARGE thanks to the wonderful comics community in Columbus, I finally gave the medium a fair shake. As it turns out, I love making comics as much as I have loved reading them my entire life. There was so much more to the industry than superheroes, and I found the niches that I had been so desperately searching for. I'm grateful to mentors like Laurenn McCubbin, Mike Laughead, Emi Gennis, and CM Campbell. They opened my eyes and pushed me to do my best work.
Spending a whole year developing the idea, and drawing the first issue, was therapeutic for me. Cinnamon, as a character, was originally based on my own cat, Ripley. The story grew organically around my experiences owning a cat. But she also reflects myself, she is a bit of a bull in a china closet, and I've spent my fair share of time inadvertantly ruffling people's feathers.
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