From the drawing board of George O’Connor

So, recently my spot on the rotating creators blog at First Second got bumped up
a little and I was caught completely unprepared.I had been planning to
illustrate an epic account of a day in the life of a stay-at-home illustrator
guy, but somehow, I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Luckily, I remembered this
strange little comic I had made a while back. Some backstory: at the time I
created this, I was living temporarily in Rome, Italy; meanwhile, stateside, my
book Journey into Mohawk Country was due to come out while I was still
living la vida roma. The fine folks at First Second wanted me to create a little
something for the blog, to introduce me and my work to the First Second
audience, and to basically set the stage for Journey into Mohawk Country.
Inspired by my new surroundings and a lifelong obsession with the living dead I
fired off this little four page comic. After the appropriate pause, First Second
Head Honcho sent me an e-mail saying, very politely, that while the comic I had
sent was very nice, wouldn’t it maybe be a better idea to create something that
was at least tangentially related to Mohawk Country. I had to concede him
this point, and instead I created a series of sketchbook excerpts (still
viewable on the site) that have served my book infinitely better than the old
zombie comic ever would. It seemed my zombies would return to their grave, havoc
un-wreaked, with nary a soul to mark their passing.

Still, if I’ve
learned one thing from all those zombie films, is that the living dead don’t go
down easily. Sometimes, when  you least expect it, they come back. I hope people
dig this little 4 page view into my world. I’ve since returned to Brooklyn, but
to a new address, and I’m happy to report that this one would withstand a siege
of the living dead very well, thank you very much.

[UP NEXT WEEK FOR REAL THIS TIME: TANYA MCKINNON]