I didn’t initially intend to do updated covers for each individual book… but I foolishly thought, well, since Book One is completing its rerun, it would be nice to celebrate with a nice drawing, especially for the Super Secret Personal Project. And so I was possessed to sketch out a series of illustrations for each book, and had to start with the most complicated one – carpet hell!!!
The idea behind this was to feature the carpets that would become a narrative feature across all books: the fancy one that Zeynel shows off at the beginning of the story (called Behold 1680 CE, Book 1), the first carpet that Ayse presents to her client (10000 Kerabs/As the Angels Foretold, Book 1), the perfect red one that Ayse and Zeynel sold together (Hyacinth, Book 1), the bookmark (Bookmark, Book 1), Zeynel’s prayer rug (Book 2), Mora Strigoi’s carpet (Darkness and Blood, The Book 2), Safiye’s magnum opus (A Story Made for You, Book 3), the Holbein carpet Zeynel shows off to his English clients (Behold 1750 CE, Book 4), the carpet Mora attempts to destroy (The Ripoff, Book 4), the carpet that Zeynel uses to teach Mora about the storytelling language behind carpets (Dunya, Book 4), and finally, the kilim Mora tries to interpret (Evil Eye, Book 4). Hyacinth gets the spotlight because it’s the carpet that connected them properly as a match… anyway, I just really want a lovely romantic drawing of them!!
The way I draw carpets now in 2026 versus 2025 has changed a lot. As you saw in the previous pages, I used to paint them more using shapes and silhouette first, then drawing the details. Nowadays I brush out a textured pencil background and then erase the shapes out of it, putting the details in later. The new approach feels more like actually drawing (versus painting), which I am better at. Both approaches are almost the same amount of suffering though…
Regarding Book Two Updates:
Book Two is coming middle of May! I am very busy because I have THREE speaking engagements to prepare for. They are online free events, if you want to come and listen to me talk about my favourite things: history and comics.
- Becoming a Death Doula for Alexander the Great: this is a presentation in conjunction with the Institute of Classical Studies’ Summer Series on the postcolonial reception of classics by Southeast Asians. I will be talking about my approach to reinterpretating Alexander’s life and legends via my current webcomic (which will have some spoilers hehe), followed by an interview
- Making History: A Panel about Historical Fiction Webcomics. I will be chatting with fellow comrades in history webcomics Sierra Barnes and Vincent Cecil about the joys and challenges of working in our subject matter!
- The Study of Comics in Academia and Beyond. I will be moderating a panel with several very cool and very awesome comics scholars and advocates (Neil Cohn, Scott McCloud, Nick Sousanis) and we will be geeking out about the study, teaching, reading, drawing and thinking of comics! This is already quite a hype event based on social media response.
So yeah… you can see why I will be MIA.
