New Art Print: Dragon Naturalist Nouveau

To finish out the year, we are happy to present a new licensed art print! If you’ve ever wanted to be a Victorian Lady Adventurer, this print is for you!

How It Came To Be

When you live in a different time zone from your business partner, a lot of the business conversation happens in a dedicated Slack workspace. One of the things we use it for is throwing ideas at each other to see what we should work on next. Back in May, the following exchange occurred:

Ariela: on a totally different topic, i might want to approach Marie Brennan about doing a Lady Naturalist art nouveau print
Terri: OOOHHH, CAN WE???????
Can we put wee Jewish things in it????

Both of us are very fond of Marie Brennan’s series (the first book of which is A Natural History of Dragons), as it’s the only genre series that we’re aware of that bases the European analog’s religion (Segulism) on Judaism, rather than a variant of Fantasy Christianity. In fact, this is so rare that when Terri was reading it on Ariela’s recommendation, it took her until Chapter 13 to realize that the Judaism had been there since the beginning.

The art is in the sepia-washed color palette of Steampunk to complement the Intrepid Scientist getup of our heroine (and the caeligers that fly through her later sky), set within an Art Nouveau frame. An arch of Draconean art breaks the sky and the two dragon sketches beneath it nod to the excellent illustrations by Todd Lockwood that fill all five books in the series.

This is a limited edition run of just 100 art prints. Each print is matted on a black, archival-safe mat and comes ready to hang or to put in a standard 11”x14”. Ships flat.

New Greeting Card: Bereavement Card

by Terri

Spoon Dragon comforting its kitsune friend in a time of hardship is here to say the words you can't always come up with.

How It Came To Be:

Many of our cards have genderless chibi figures, so at first the card was going to feature two of them hugging from behind. But Ariela had been toying with the idea of making some of our cards feature other recurring characters, so she decided to use the spoon clutching dragon (herein after referred to as Spoon Dragon) from the Take Care of Yourself card.

Ariela briefly considered drawing Spoon Dragon by itself, crying, before remembering that the point of a bereavement card is to offer comfort, and that image would be really counterproductive. Her sister actually said “Nooooooo! That would be so sad!” So instead, she decided to show the Spoon Dragon comforting a friend. I threw out a few suggestions (including, but not limited to: sea serpent, The Loch Ness Monster and a vampire squash), but Ariela wisely chose a kitsune as the dragon's friend.

The kitsune is a Japanese fox spirit. Kitsune are usually portrayed as having between one and nine tails, with more tails generally corresponding to greater age and power; traditions vary. This kitsune has five tails, one of the more common numbers below nine. Ariela wanted to make it clear this was a magical creature, hence more than one tail, but that it is not quite as wise or all-knowing as a nine-tailed kitsune*.

The interior text was really difficult to compose. We wanted the card to be able to convey a general feeling of sympathy (especially the kind you feel when someone you care about loses someone they care about), without it sounding like a Hallmark platitude. I often find that in situations like this, many people sound a lot less comforting than they think they do. We both wanted to avoid that, while also having a card text that would appeal to a large group of people. We hope that it accomplishes that.

Like all of our cards, the Sympathy Card is available singly for $4.00 and as a pack of 6 for $20.00.

*Also, some traditions say that nine-tailed kitusne turn gold, and Ariela likes red foxes

New Greeting Card: Take Care of Yourself

by Ariela

A spoon-clutching little dragon is now ready to help you tell people you care about to care for themselves!

How it came to be:

A little while ago my friend Caitlín Rosberg remarked,

Sometimes I just horde my spoons in my fists like a treasure-hungry dragon and wave my hands at the screen going "nooooo noooo they're all mine noooo you can't have them."

(Spoon Theory is a method of explaining the expenditure of mental resources. It was coined by Christine Miserandino to explain how living with chronic illness depletes one's mental and emotional resources.)

Because my brain works the way it does, this sounded like perfect fodder for a greeting card admonishing the recipient to take care of themselves. After much doodling, this doleful little critter emerged.

I know dragons in various Asian mythologies don't tend to be portrayed as hoarding creatures. But the English-speaking SFF world is already over-saturated with European mythology and I am not interested in perpetuating that trend. But a soup spoon, a wooden spoon, and a measuring spoon are not much of a hoard. And voila!

Like all of our greeting cards, the Take Care of Yourself card is available singly for $4.00 and as a pack of 6 for $20.00.