February is a time of death. Not a time of dying — it’s the quiet beyond the grave, a time when long-past deaths persist, through all acceptance and despair. It’s the very bottom of the year, the moment when even the blackest magics have been exhausted. The month the earth stands still. February is what it feels like to be alone.

So come where the hearth and the hearts are hot. Eat with us. Drink with us. Make merry with us. For we have already died, and tomorrow we will be reborn.

On WEDNESDAY 3/18 we will be at the Society of Illustrators for the opening reception of the LITTLE NEMO: DREAM ANOTHER DREAM gallery exhibition.

By THURSDAY 3/19 we will be back, probably a little worse for the wear and still dressed in a rumpled rendition of our finest regalia, huddled together Drinking & Drawing.

The following week on THURSDAY 3/26 we will be hosting MAPS FOR EARTHMATES, a gallery show by Us & We Art (aka Joey Hartmann-Dow), who turns old maps into glorious creatures. Her work is original, funny and fascinating.

In the meantime, we’re hard at work on the second volume of ONCE UPON A TIME MACHINE (this time it’s sci-fi takes on Greek mythology), a book whose completion beckons ever closer. Seeing the work rolling in by Toby Cypress, Charles Fetherolf and Andrea Tsurumi reminds us that somewhere, there is an eternal springtime waiting to be made new.

Some pencils from my collaboration with surly-but-brilliant Monsieur Fetherolf:

So come. Sit and read with us. We have thousands of books, and they are full of fire. Warm your hands and your godforsaken soul.

-Josh O’Neill