New Comic: The Scale of a Man

Last year I got an email from Tania Sammons, a curator at Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum in Savannah, Georgia who had previously licensed my guide to sailors’ tattoos for a show. Her pitch was irresistible: an exhibition of comics based on model ships from their collection. Four cartoonists would be hired, assigned a vessel, then given six months to produce a short comic for publication in an anthology alongside an accompanying museum display. BELLWOOD CATNIP. It’s still amazing to me when tailor-made opportunities like this land at my feet, even though I know there are only so many outspoken boat nuts in the comics world. I leapt at the chance and spent the second half of 2025 weaving together a variety of favorite themes (Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction! Manguso’s cathedral architect! The Ship of Theseus!) to explore the legacy of the Anne, the vessel that carried the first colonists to Georgia in 1732. The story started in the realm of primary sources and historical…