New Ravana’s Relics Comic!

New comic update coming your way!

Feb 04, 2025

Hello Friend!

Happy February! It’s wild how fast January went by. It was a pretty big month for me actually. I got a lot of work done on my comic. Plus, I had an awesome event at a local bookshop, which I will share about at the end of this post. I really feel like I am hitting my groove in terms of finding a routine that works for me while having to still maintain a day job. I have found that if I work on my comic early in the morning, no matter what the rest of the day holds, I feel like I have accomplished something meaningful. In today’s update, you’re going to see the next few pages of my comic (end of chapter 1!), a recap of my interview with Kazu Kibuishi, and some reviews of things I’ve been watching!

An Interview with Kazu Kibuishi!

For those of you who have kids, or are familiar with kids graphic novels, you have probably heard of Kazu Kibuishi. Kazu is the author of the beloved graphic novel series Amulet. The series spans nine books and ran from 2008-2024. It is a beautiful fantasy tale following Emily and her brother Navin as they are thrust into a new world and tasked with saving it. On top of that, he designed the 15th anniversary covers for Harry Potter, did a graphic novel called Daisy Cutter, and most recently a children’s book with Brandon Sanderson called The Most Boring Book Ever.

Kazu recently moved to Texas, and through mutual connections via Alaska Comics Camp, we were able to connect and I put together an event at one of Waco’s local book shops, Fabled.

The night was a hit! The event was packed. The audience was really engaged. And all the kids were so excited to ask Kazu questions and get their books signed. I truly loved seeing how the kids lit up during this event. It was a great moment to see how enthusiastic kids are about comics, and gave me a tiny glimpse of what my impact could be one day with my stories.

Here are five takeaways from hosting the event and the interview itself:

1. It never hurts to ask

If you told me a couple years ago that I would be interviewing Kazu Kibuishi, there is no chance I would’ve believed you. Honestly, I would’ve never even reached out to someone so successful. But I have come to realize that it never hurts to ask. Because we had mutual friends, I felt comfortable enough reaching out to Kazu to see if he would want to connect, and then rolled that into asking if he wanted to do an event with me. The worst he could have said is no. And then I would have moved forward. So my encouragement here is for you to go out and ask those questions that you’ve been afraid to ask. What’s the worst that can happen?

2. Just do the work

It was staggering to me to see the amount of work Kazu has done over his career. When we were at my house, he showed me through so many of his old sketches, concept art and pitch PDFs. And it became apparent to me that this guy just puts in the work. Coming into 2025, I really wanted to make that my mindset. I want to focus on consistently getting the work done. If the work is good, people will find it, and people will gravitate towards it. Kazu said that he didn’t start making much money until the fifth book of Amulet came out. Prior to that he just put his head down and did the work. He focused on the things that he could control.

3. Infuse your experiences into your work

This is something I already do, but it was good to hear someone at Kazu‘s level reiterate it. Our experiences, good and bad, make for interesting elements in our art. My stories pull from my family. Kazu took moments from his life and spun them into his epic fantasy. Some of it was really subtle, and some of it is more obvious. But Kazu believes that putting your life into your art is a way to process what’s going on around you and inevitably relate to people.

4. Don’t “network”, build friendships

I don’t like the word “networking“. It feels too corporate-y and capitalistic. To me it inherently feels Machiavellian, in that you’re only building these relationships to get something out of it for yourself. But that’s not how community and relationships work. With Kazu, I reached out to genuinely get to know him, and then helped put on an event that helped him sell books and connect with readers. On top of that, I showed him around Waco and we just hung out. We drank coffee together, played basketball together, and learned about each others lives. It is more important to me to build an authentic relationship. And that means not only wanting to get something from someone, but doing things for them and getting to know them. Challenge yourself to move away from “networking”.

5. Your life has different seasons

Even though I said “just do the work” earlier, it’s unrealistic to not have anything come up in life that won’t throw a wrench in your plans. There will be moments in your life when you are able to spend hours and hours a day working on your projects. If you are in that season, take advantage of it. That is the time in your life to really get those 10,000 hours of practice in. This is also a great time in your life to push out a bunch of projects. When Kazu made his first three books, he was in a period of life where he had a lot of time to work on his comics. So he came out with a book every year for three straight years. That is over 600 pages of writing and drawing. But when he had kids, and a scary health emergency, all that changed. He pivoted by slowing down work production in order to focus more on his recovery and family. And now he is in a period of life where he anticipates ramping up his work again. The take away being there will be ups and downs in your season of productivity. And though that may come off as stressful or frustrating in the moment, know that everyone goes through it, even those you think are constantly being productive.

Thanks so much for reading! It would go a long way if you considered sharing this newsletter with someone you think would enjoy it!

Flow

Wow! This movie was such a pleasant surprise. On Letterboxd I gave it a five out of five stars. The story takes place in a post apocalyptic world where it seems like the animals have been left behind by the humans. The main character is a cat who needs to form relationships with other animals in order to survive a horrific flood. What surprised me the most was that there was a lot of deep emotion in this movie and not a single word is spoken. You dive into themes of trust, friendship, grief, and loss all in the span of 90 minutes. All of this on top of it being beautifully animated. I 1000% recommend everyone watch this movie.

Skeleton Crew

I finally finished Skeleton Crew and really enjoyed it. The discourse around Star Wars has been all over the place recently. There is definitely a toxic group of fans that reject change, reject diversity, and really don’t seem to want to enjoy things. But as I have watched Star Wars, I simply sit down and try to enjoy the world that is placed in front of me. There are different corners of the Galaxy that have yet to be explored, and I think Skeleton Crew did the perfect job of giving us something completely new and original in this universe. There were no familiar characters, no cameos, no big hint as to when this was taking place (though if you’re paying attention, you can figure it out). I loved following a young group of kids just wanting to go out on an adventure. I could imagine being a kid in the Star Wars world, hearing stories about Jedi and Sith and battles and war and thinking that that life sounds so much more exciting than your own. Bringing in a Goonies/Treasure Island like pirate story was the perfect amount of newness plus nostalgia. Hopefully Star Wars goes on to make more things that are new and unique, and honestly for younger audiences. If you haven’t watched Skeleton Crew, I highly recommend it!

Severance

When I am talking to people at work about Severance, it is shocking to me how many people have not heard of this show. I can honestly say this is probably in my top two or three shows I’ve watched in the last five years. This month, I rewatched season one to prep for the season two release a couple weeks ago. What I love about this show is its ability to intertwine mystery and humor and creepy vibes all into one. And it feels like it’s speaking to the prevalence of large tech companies today that we have no idea what they are really doing (cough, Meta, cough). Season one left off on a huge cliffhanger. And then we had to wait three whole years! Some would say it’s worth the wait. But I just like to have nice things. The first two episodes of season two were sooo good. I’m not going to give away any spoilers, but I will say that they do a perfect job of answering a lot of questions from season one, while also introducing completely new questions. We are discovering new layers to all these characters just in the span of two episodes. I am really intrigued by where they’re going with this season, and I am excited that they have already announced that they are working on season three. Hopefully it won’t be a three year wait again.

Thanks for reading! And thanks to all of you who are subscribed! Let me know if you want to hear something from me, or what you thought of today’s newsletter!

Until next time,

Raj