Hello!

Hope you're doing great. I've been dealing with all kinds of curveballs here this week. On top of some rotten stuff our family was dealing with already, I was in a hit and run accident last Saturday, (no injuries here, just a trashed bumper thank goodness), one of my kids (the sweetest one) has a bully problem at school, and today we woke up to find the fridge stopped working and had to throw away a bunch of food. Trying to figure out how to make lemonade out of all of this, haha. I'm not saying any of this to get sympathy, I just wanted you to know that if you're dealing with any rotten stuff you're not alone. You'll get through this.

Anyway, work progresses on the comic. Details below.

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But before we get to that I'm always surprised when I find out people think it's just me doing these emails and comics and illustrations. The truth is, I'm just the front man of a massive international corporation that has projects going on all over the world, and even other dimensions (though I can't talk about those inter-dimensional projects...yet).

The corporate headquarters for JP Creative International is located in Gilbert, Arizona. It's a 500,000 square foot facility out in the desert that employs about 1000 people, autonomous robots, and other "life forms."

Each week the department heads report in with stuff they're working on or have found interesting, and I pick the 5 best things to include in this newsletter.

I figured it'd take a few photos of the office and share them with you here. Expect to see more photos of the different departments in the future.

Also, if there's anything you want to know about JP Creative International, just reply to this email and I will answer your questions in future dispatches.

With that, here's five things I thought you'd like to check out this week.

Enjoy!

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1) This took soooo long

From the Making Comics Division

Missile Mouse flies the Raven into Spartha. ⁣
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Chipping away at this comic drip by drip. This one was on my desk for a while as I worked on it one line at a time.⁣ I love working on it though! I get a big grin on my face every time I flip through these finished pages.

⁣The comic I’m working on now will be kickstarted in April. Details and dates on that next month!

Join the Patreon: Patrons are getting frequent updates on this comic, including more behind the scenes stuff. They've also read the full comic in both roughs and now pencils as I finish them. This week I've been posting inked pages for patrons. As well as the book title reveal. When I finish the comic I'll have an exclusive special edition PDF for patrons.

Join here: LINK​

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2) Cool Jets Round Up

From the Office of Wings

I occasionally stumble on a cool photo of a jet online, and when I do I bookmark them or save them. I love seeing photos of jets from interesting angles, close up shots, even lighting, or just photos of unusual flying craft. All of these photos just "spoke" to me in someway or another and I thought I'd share them here.

I love that even though these machines are the apex of technology, even though they are the product of a century of advancements in science, physics, and engineering, you can still see the humanity in them. There's rivets and panels, grease stains, dirt, dents, scratches, and warping. These were all essentially hand made by skilled craftspeople and I love it.

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3) State Icons

From the Department of Graphic Design

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Graphic designer Bogdan Katsuba created these cool icon logo things for each of the fifty United States. I love stuff like this. One of my favorite parts of designing a character or a vehicle is to then decorate it with the symbols of their affiliations. So I'm always on the look out for cool flags, heraldry, patches, and insignias.

You can see the rest of the states here: LINK​

and even order a poster of it here: LINK​

Note: states shown are all states where I've lived.

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4) Porky Hefer

From the Arts and Culture Unit

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South African design studio artist Porky Hefer makes these conceptual art pieces that masquerade as imaginative and cozy looking furniture.

From his about page: "Hefer embraces Africa and the skills that are readily available indigenously, rather than trying to emulate foreign processes."

I love how playful these are. I just want to snuggle up in one of these with a book and fall asleep after reading for three minutes.

Check out the rest of his work over on his website: LINK​

I really dig his Nest House too: LINK​

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5) On Accountants

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I've been trying hard this year to double down on the processes and systems I've established in past years to improve my productivity and creativity. What I've found over the years is that the more structured my life is, the more I create. The more I create, the better I feel.

I think about this quote from David Brooks often:

The more I read and learn about successful creative types the more I see a consistency in their daily approach to the work. They show up every morning and do a little bit, take a break, then do a little bit more, then cut out for the day. And in between starting and finishing their work for the day, they do just the work. Nothing else. Focused.

This last week those systems and processes started to break down a little bit. I found myself not creating as much, and wasting time on shallow activities. As a result I felt just...bleh. I need to tighten the screws in a few places, get back on track, and remind myself what is at stake here.

I'm not saying you should avoid the curveballs life throws at you. I get plenty of those. When those come at you, you just have to dodge, weave, pivot and deal with them. What I am talking about is the dumb, distracting, stuff I do that sabotages my day.

As Cal Newport says, to be productive you gotta drain the shallows, and focus on the deep. This is my goal for next week.

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That's all for this week. Thank you for reading this newsletter and hope you have a great weekend!

-Jake

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My sponsor for this newsletter is…me. It's me, because I'm not accepting sponsors for my email list, and don't plan to any time soon. Really, I'd just like people to buy stuff from my shop. If you like this newsletter, you can support it a few ways:

​Order something from the shop (Best)

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I'd appreciate any of these when you can. Thanks!

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