The Fading: A New Comic

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your responses to my last post, “Why I’m Leaving Spotify.” I’ve enjoyed hearing from you and continuing the conversation.

This week, as promised, I am thrilled to share my second hand drawn original comic! But there’s more to the story. You may recall that last year my dear friend, Roberto Poblete Velázquez, translated my (first published) short story, “The Fading,” to Spanish and published it in the Mexican journal, Elipsis Revista Literaria. (He also guest-wrote one of my favorite pieces for this blog, “A Translator’s Anecdote.”)

“The Fading” follows a man named Henrí grappling with a genetic disability affecting his fine motor skills and the sensation in his hands as he comes to realize that his musician son, Jean, has inherited it too.

At the time of Roberto’s publication, and since long before it, I’ve had an expanded version of the story exploring the perspectives of all three principle characters: Henrí, Jean, and Élise, Henrí’s more successful musician daughter who didn’t inherit the disability. To this day, it’s one of my favorites, and I’ve tried long and hard to publish it—running into all sorts of obstacles (a topic for a forthcoming post)—and I’m delighted to share that it has finally found the perfect home in Jerry Jazz Musician.

Jerry Jazz Musician is a non-commercial online publication, originally founded and published in Portland, Oregon in 1997 that explores American culture through jazz music, literature, art and interviews. I discovered it soon after I began teaching jazz poetry and have found some of my favorite poems and short stories to share with my students there. I am humbled to now have one of my own short stories among them. The full “Fading” will be published there next week. And to celebrate, I’ve adapted the original flash fiction version into the comic below.

Thanks as always for reading,

Noah

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