Coyote Doggirl Meet and Signing — Lisa Hanawalt

Sep 19, 2018

There are a lot of great things about Northern CA, one of them is the fact that so many contemporary writers and artists either live here or visiting the area. @angieromy and I got the nice experience of meeting artist Lisa Hanawalt. She grew up loving horses and drawing horse-men (not centaurs, think the other way: men with horse heads). At first I found her work a little jarring, but the more I saw her anthropomorphize animals (giraffes, birds, snakes, etc) the more appealing I found her work. Now, I'm kind of in love with it. Though I don't celebrate her entire oeuvre, her skill, creativity and color are undeniably great!

So, she wrote a new book: Coyote Doggirl. It's beautiful little tome full of colorful characters and engaging experiences, even if at times it's a tad non-sequitur.

We made it over to Pegasus Books on Shattuck and listened to her speak and read and then got her to sign our copy. It was a healthy little crowd and there was time to do a quick sketch of Ms Hanawalt as she chatted wth patrons and signed their books.

There was a young man behind me who had broken his wrist while skating a few days before. I was surprised to hear him say the the was nervous to meet her. I thought this was an odd sentiment, but I realized that to him, Lisa was a 'star' and not a person (being famous as the visual creative for Bojack Horseman). Regardless, his fears were unjustified as Ms Hanawalt was just a delight to visit with and meet. I hope she writes more visual novels and keeps embracing her passions.