Making Spot 12 was challenging on several fronts. I had to recall, order, and interpret into comic form the events of a specific five month period --the span of the story. This period was total chaos mentally, physically and emotionally, so getting it into a cohesive narrative happened in many stages. The first step was simply to say everything I could remember haphazardly onto audio tapes.

I made the book over the course of about a year, during which time I was caring for my daughter Asa, who as a special needs baby required intensive and relentless care. On a given day I might have an hour to draw, but this would be splintered into 5-minute segments. I had never done a graphic novel before and I made a lot of mistakes. It was the first time I was drawing in this style, and the first time drawing these characters, so the visuals evolved as I drew, which made them less consistent than I would have wanted.

Overall however, the project was very therapeutic to do, and deeply satisfying creatively. Every artist knows the thrill of having captured that thing you wanted to capture and having it come out RIGHT, even if those moments are rare. I have learned a tremendous amount through this process and look forward to hearing from readers. I also look forward to my next project..

Sincerely,
Jenny Jaeckel