Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

I know everyone is looking for a way to make Valentine’s Day really special this year, so I wanted to do my best to up the ante.

Cards with sexy little messages for your friends or lov-ahs! With first class shipping, they can still get to you in time!  I also have 8.5″X11″ posters available of each of the lads.

I really enjoyed drawing these so I hope you guys like ‘em too!  Please check out my etsy store for more details.

So without further ado, the rest of the boys:

Happy V-Day guys.  Have fun, and don’t take it all too seriously!

Hugs,

Sophie G!

It’s my distinct pleasure to announce the release of Poopy Claws, a children’s book written by Gene Ambaum, co-creator of Unshelved and illustrated by yours truly!

Gene and I first got acquainted at New England Webcomics Weekend when he, Jenn, Bill Barnes (co-creator of Unshelved) and myself were on a panel together.  When he brought the concept of “Poopy Claws” to me, a story of the bond between a young boy and his cat Stinky, who has trouble pooing in his litter box, I was instantly enthralled.   As a lover of both cats and bathroom humor, how could I say no?

Many months and drafts later our cute, charming, smelly creative offspring is available for pre-sale!  More preview pages are also available on the Unshelved store page and in the next few weeks I’ll be posting some concept sketches and other little behind-the-scenes tidbits. In the meantime if you want to learn more about the book, Gene has written a short post.

For those of you that have children, like cats, enjoy my art, or merely share my appreciation for high-brow humor I hope you’ll consider buying a copy.  There are also a limited number of artist’s editions available that will include personalized sketches by myself.

Thanks guys!

Hugs,

Sophie

ANNOUNCEMENT! I illustrated a children’s book!  No joke!  Details on the blog!

Hugs,

Sophie

The Barnacle Goose!

The barnacle goose, just hanging out. Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 764, Folio 58v.

It was believed that the barnacle goose came from trees growing over water, hanging from their beaks as they waited to reach maturity.  When they did, they dropped from the trees like ripe fruits.  Maturation brought an uncertain fate to these poor young goslings.  The 14th century traveller Sir John Mandeville wrote that “in our country were trees that bear a fruit that become birds flying, and those that fell in the water live, and they that fall on the earth die anon…”

Be strong, guys. Be strong. British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 36r

Gerald of Wales wrote of them in the twelfth century but described them as growing on logs awash in a stream:

“There are here many birds that are called “Barnacles” [barnacoe] which in a wonderful way Nature unnaturally produces; they are like wild geese but smaller.  For they are born at first like pieces of gum on logs of timber washed by the waves.   Then enclosed in shells of a free form they hang by their beaks as if from the moss clinging to the wood and so at length in process of time obtaining a sure covering of feathers, they either dive off into the waters or fly away into free air. . . I have myself seen many times with my own eyes more than a thousand minute corpuscles of this kind of bird hanging to one log on the shore of the sea, enclosed in shells and already formed. . . . Wherefore in certain parts of Ireland bishops and religious men in times of fast are used to eat these birds as not flesh nor being born of the flesh. . .”

Today, the barnacle goose survives not as a legendary but as an actual goose.  But it’s way less cool.