Hari Conner

@haridraws

Hopeless forest romantic, Scotland. ♿ 🏳️‍⚧️ (they) Award-winning author/ illustrator: queer historical romance & fantasy, comics & gamebooks. Tags > #books #art Repped by Jessica Mileo.

478 Folgt4.818 Follower1.733 Posts

Bluesky

trans

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Hari Conner@haridraws· 12d

exactly 75% through the inks for this graphic novel as of today!!!!!!

the black lineart 'inks' stage of a drawing for WIP graphic novel 'A True Gentleman' - with colours not in place yet

Hari Conner@haridraws· 18d

fish fright friday? anyway some of this stuff is comically hard to draw (wip) #art #TheMurmuringDepths

a drawing of some deepsea tubeworms in scratchy, textural dark blues

Hari Conner@haridraws· 20d

in 2019 I illustrated a TAZ game for the McElroys and Twogether, so a fun element of the graphic novels is noticing times Carey drew the same specific podcast stuff stuff I did (I'm british so don't rly know what olive garden, luna bars or costco are &... thought it'd be funnier not to look it up)

drawing of an ominous shining card that just says 'unlimited pasta pass' with a rosette of an eye on it. I just looked up what the olive garden one looks like and it does not look like that

Hari Conner@haridraws· 23d

Forget the guardian & telegraph reviews, who cares, a 4 year old who loves trucks went through a phase of demanding my book be read to him

meme / drawing of a cat weeping and almost falling 'wait. hold on a minute. I think i need a moment' over and over

Hari Conner@haridraws· 25d

finished my graphic novel pages for the week, so got to chip away a bit more at a very light and fun side project

screenshot of a narrative game, reading:
Warnings: In this game, you descend into the dark and immense crushing pressures at the bottom of the sea in a small, claustrophobic enchanted craft, and experience horrors. These include body horror, sea creatures that may include worms and parasites, climate horror."

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 9

hmm youtu.be/oIFLtNYI3Ls?...

a crop drawing of someone wearing a dress covered in dots and, some might say needlessly complicated, embroidery

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 8

this disability pride month (just like the rest of this year) I'm mostly busy drawing a graphic novel about a character living with the same illness as me. Definitely simplified the 19thC wheelchair design so I could draw it 100+ times, but wanted to share some references it's based on! #books #atg

a WIP drawing for the graphic novel A True Gentleman - just the lineart and shading part, of a historical character leaning over with his head in his hands, sitting in an old fashioned wheelchair

some real wheelchairs from the early 1800s, with big chunky wooden wheels, upholstered seats and mostly wicker backs. Most are photos of antiques that were for sale, and one's a print from Ackerman's Repository from 1810 with a mechanism that lets the seat recline all the way, which honestly I wish my current wheelchair had

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 3

absolute scenes / personal backstory

Comic caption: growing up, my family watched historical dramas the same way they watched the football
Cartoony drawing of me on the floor, younger brother happily playing gameboy in the corner, uncle half-standing ’it’s all to play for…yes… yes…!!’, my mum edge of her seat ‘he’s going in for the hand touch!!!’ my dad peering over a book ‘risky move…’
From the tv a wiggly bubble emerges that says ‘miss whistleford-smythe…’

Comic panels: On the tv a vaguely regency or victorian (ish) period drama is playing, where some guy in a top hat and a big bow cravat is saying “if you would do me the honour—“
In the next panel, his pinkie nearly touches a woman’s hand…

On the tv, she turns away and lifts the teacup slightly with a ‘humph’

In a panel back in the room, my uncle (on his knees in despair) “he’s fumbled it!”, my mum on her feet with tears in her eyes yelling ‘NOOOO’, me in anguish, my dad ‘what an idiot’, younger brother still playing gameboy happily in the corner unmoved

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 1

got this early proof which (a) makes me feel excitingly like a real author (b) is the perfect comfort read I'm devouring while resting from this trip (c) has really nice gold foil even though it's a proof?? wild. dazzling. would have read on crumpled up paper tbh

photo of a proof version of bridget & gabe are not okay by lex croucher, in front of some flowers, and the cover has SO MUCH gold foiling.

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 1

BIG BUUZA!! did you know @shazleenmkhan.bsky.social ’s addictive, 90s-aesthetic low-magic slice-of-life queer drama comic has beautiful CHUNKY compilations with delicious new covers? & the hardbacks have illustrated endpapers and the first one just came out??? Even better in person. You Want This

photo of me opening big buuza volume 1 where you can see some very gorgeous illustrated endpapers and patterning inside the front cover

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 1

was massively excited when I heard there'd be an adaptation of Orlando from @julesscheele.bsky.social & @averyhill.bsky.social and even then it exceeded my expectations, just a masterful adaptation of a dreamy queer classic

photo of an interior page of Orlando, a graphic novel adaptation by Jules Scheele

screenshot of my review on another site, reads: It seems a really tall order to adapt the original - an iconic, gender-exploratory, and as the introduction says, camp and often surreally modernist book of the 1920s. So it’s endlessly impressive that Scheele has not only managed to adapt it into a 2020s graphic novel, but one that in itself feels VISUALLY so iconic, fun, sexy, camp, modernist and gender-exploratory.

It’s a gorgeous, large-format colour print, and the art makes the past feel busy, varied, vibrant and real. The comics medium is used to bend reality in a deft and playful way, while preserving lots of brilliant and funny text from the original. It’s so rare for comic-adapted-classics to really capture the tone and themes of their source material so well - but here they’re infused skillfully into the new medium to make a comic that’s exploratory and inventive on its own merit, with occasional references out beyond Woolf’s lifespan into the queer present.

From a start as a young writer whose legs look great in hose, Orlando gives head to the queen of England, gets romantically entranced and involved with a series of lovers, has his heart broken, his writing trashed, is generally tormented by the art-making process, lives through hundreds of years of literary (and fashion) history, turns into a woman, is in love with nature, laments over the changing times, ponders on the point of art and life etc, tongue often in cheek and various other people’s as well.

Thoughtfully updated in a few smart places, abstract, hot, lush, Romantic, poetic, historic, trans - what more could you want in a book, really.

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jul 1

managed to survive an extremely careful trip to england during the heatwave to finally see old friends & family. Always rough with my health but so happy I made it. Also got to come home to BOOK POST, with some of the stuff I’ve been most looking forward to this year:

photo of me holding books in front of flowers: orlando adapted by jules scheele, big hardback buuza 1 by shazleen khan, and an early copy of bridget & gabe are not okay by lex croucher

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jun 30

maybe a lot of my characters long to break free from society and hang out in the woods, what can I say

crop of my reference images with several 1800-1810 white empire waist dresses with embroidered plants round the hem and edges and little dots. captioned 'lookbook: this girl would rather be in a field'.

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jun 16

chronic pain drawing

a drawing of a body lit up red, falling from a bed into darkness: back arched, half-writhing, stuck through with abstract spears in limbs and torso and neck and exploding from the head, with stars and fire pouring out, dark light billowing

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jun 9

anniversary drawing 🌼 near where I live, there’s a stretch of grass that’s always being stepped on, its flowers mown down by the council - but the dandelions still thrive, and the buttercup comes back bright and resilient in the borders that can’t be reached or tamed.

drawing of a trans guy selfie with top surgery scars, coloured in a bright yellow-orange, surrounded by dandelion and buttercup bursting outwards and a border where their leaves look like flames billowing out from stars and ornaments

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jun 4

tiny 2cm drawings in my sketchbook

drawing titled 'portrait of the artist listening to audiobooks' and then tiny pencil cartoons of me wearing headphoens: aghast, pacing, kicking my feet, waking my partner up in joy etc

Hari Conner@haridraws· Jun 3

I'm usually not great at absorbing non-fiction audiobooks, but finished a couple in the last few months I REALLY rated

5 star Review of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech by Brian Merchant. Text reads: Everyone who kept telling me to read this was right... A bit of history I truly think everyone should know about, told extremely readably and linked very consciously and closely to our present moment.

It builds a picture of the dawn of the factory age when unions were illegal, using accounts of ordinary people whose lives were devastated by new tech - or rather the greed and lack of regulation with which it was introduced to their jobs. It’s also about how they fought back, the spies in their midst, and how it relates to Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. It’s a big book and I find non-fiction challenging to take in with my health problems (I have to read or listen to the audio very slowly) and the last 5% about modern labour movements might already be familiar if you keep up with that news - but even then, I found it extremely compelling.

If your job’s ever been made unstable or worse by bosses valuing profits over your wellbeing, if you’re concerned how AI is being used by tech giants, OR if you enjoy a regency-set book but have never encountered the workers’ history of the era, READ THIS!!

5 star review of Revolutionary Acts: Love and Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain by Jason Okundaye. Text reads: Wow, just fantastic. I grew up not far from Brixton & loved hearing this part of its history - but the book feels relevant way out beyond the bounds of south London, and is told with so much warmth.

In the introduction, Okundaye lays out that he’s preserving oral histories to INCLUDE the playfulness, drama, emotion, hard reality and unpalatable-ness of the stories as he was told them, by a group of Black gay men he came to befriend and know as uncles. You really feel like you’re in their living rooms, youth clubs, parties - I wish more history was told in such a tender, engaging way!!

Listened to the author reading the audiobook and loved what he brought to it. What a gem of a book, hope it’s as widely read as it deserves

Hari Conner@haridraws· May 29

DEEPLY obsessed with this ongoing project: a website for an imaginary museum that gets stranger the closer you look. discover > guided tour takes you to this clickable narrative with the most beautiful, sometimes very funny, uncanny-(climate?-)horror fantasy writing

A screenshot from the guided tour clickable narrative game. Text reads:
Leading off the atrium are wide, high-ceilinged passages, flooded with light from tall windows through which you glimpse trees and colourful pennants. The companionable murmur of crowds and the sound of footsteps floats in from nearby galleries.
Portrait galleries
Innocents courtyard
Chapel of St Interstice
New exhibit! How Will You Die?
1st floor galleries
The Map

Hari Conner@haridraws· May 27

illustrated adult short part 2 now out! This arc comes to its climax with more art, adult scenes, and (true to form) gothic energy, longing, & background radical history 🌠 Description & art previews at the links: ✧ haridraws.itch.io/charlatans-2 ✧ www.patreon.com/posts/157790...

the cover of 'charlatans 2', a big hand-drawn title over a drawing of 2 white men in historical outfits in a dark room. Oh noo, one has been discovered bending right over a desk looking at secret papers, as the other stands leaning on his cane and looking broodily and intensely on, what could happen next

Hari Conner@haridraws· May 27

as of this week I'm about 2/3rds through final art for this big graphic novel!!!!! here are some very small bits of inks from it #art #atg

small crops of just the linework I'm drawing for a new historical book, with backgrounds in shades of green and blue

Hari Conner@haridraws· May 4

delighted this has had enough sales & lovely feedback to justify a proper release of part 2 soon... good job everyone That will complete a little arc with more adult scenes, but also (true to form) more drama, yearning, backstory, & background bits of history I got too into

screenshotting my own tumblr posts (sorry), text reads: writing a short story that’s going to be so fun and sexy, just as a nice change/ break from my big full-on main projects— (20 minutes later) i have forty tabs open as research and the most recent is about the chimney repairs on an east lancashire textile mill

(laughing nervously) obviously it's just for fun and doesn't matter (2 chapters deep into a 1795 book describing tilling and manure in boggy ground near the Mersey)

Hari Conner@haridraws· May 3

new illustrated adult short story is now out! a fun little side project I've been working on, with two messed up liars who end up obsessed with each other. Description, info & juicy previews at the links ✧ haridraws.itch.io/charlatans-1 ✧ www.patreon.com/posts/charla...

A hand-drawn text cover reading 'Charlatans' 1 by Hari Draws, over a drawing of two historical guys. One is threatening the other with a cane at his neck, but the guy is definitely enjoying it

Hari Conner@haridraws· May 2

realising my taste in TV might be news to people who only followed me for the YA graphic novel

graphic reads 'the art' with a cute colourful bit of YA historical comic, then 'the artist's taste in tv' with various horrors, violence, blood, francis crozier screaming, benjamin sisko doing war crimes and so on

Hari Conner@haridraws· Apr 20

spent the weekend by a loch. Trees just starting to come out

Photo of a sketch of a leafless tree, held up in front of the tree itself

Hari Conner@haridraws· Apr 4

absolutely shattered now, but honestly think it turned out nice and exactly how I wanted

photo of my hallway with the top half of the walls painted in yellow and ochre stripes, wiggly and imperfect

Hari Conner@haridraws· Apr 4

Pics I took earlier: Pouring leftover purple directly into the expensive yellow as my partner looks on horrified

A photo of like grey purple painting from a pickle jar poured into expensive yellow

Hari Conner@haridraws· Apr 4

Chronic illness scheduling obv means I did the swatches months ago and taping weeks ago, and now Im doing like. 20 mins painting / 20 minutes collapsed for a couple hours before i have to stop for the day and lie motionless for many hours. Anyway it’s going to be lower contrast but Very Yellow

Very yellow stripe swatches painted on my wall

Hari Conner@haridraws· Apr 4

Last year I saw this wildly expensive wallpaper and thought, that’s ridiculous, if I wanted that I could do it myself. Anyway guess what I’m attempting this weekend

Screenshot of Wallpaper called ‘artists stripe’ with wobbly stripes that is almost £200 PER ROLL

Hari Conner@haridraws· Mar 31

Happy #TransDayofVisibility, here's a selfie of me looking tired but still surviving this morning 🌞 plus my books, most of which have trans, GNC and/or nonbinary leads. If YOU 🫵 are also trans, I'm sending you love and strength in these grim times, you're not alone

a mirror selfie of a nonbinary trans guy, white w blue hair and glasses, wearing colourful stripy trousers and a black shirt that says trans people will always exist

a graphic that reads: hello, I make LGBT+ romance - mostly comics and graphic novels' then the covers of I Shall never fall in love, finding home, and 'a true gentleman, coming soon'.
The next line reads: 'and illustrated gamebooks - sometimes both at the same time', with the covers of into the dungeon, into the tower, and night at the vampire castle, all by hari conner

Hari Conner@haridraws· Mar 27

I LOVE WEIRD FANTASY!!!!!!! devouring this book whole!!!! www.goodreads.com/review/show/...