100 Demon Dialogues

This collection of peppy motivational cartoons for artists began as a project for a 100-day online challenge. Each day, Bellwood posted a one-panel cartoon of herself struggling with an “inner imp” representing her creative anxieties. The cutely sneering little black shape criticizes her artwork and her life, offers poor advice (“If you never turn it in, they can never tell you it’s bad”), and gives impossible, conflicting instructions. In response, Bellwood’s cartoon avatar learns to grow more confident and optimistic to counter the imp’s predictions of doom. Some installments show the duo going through the typical life of an indie cartoonist—drawing, traveling to conventions, fretting over social media, taking a few precious days off—while others are fanciful cartoon representations of problems like juggling too many projects or balancing work and life. It’s a light volume, as might be expected from a comic that started as a casual online challenge; more a series of illustrated aphorisms and off-the-cuff daily thoughts than a fully fleshed-out narrative. And, appropriately enough, the art improves as the book progresses. Bellwood captures emotions and anxieties familiar to anyone who does creative work, providing striving readers motivation and daily affirmations. (BookLife)