Diary List Comics / 52 Weeks

52 weeks of colorful weekly life summaries

The “Diary List Comic” series is a “52 weeks” series I am doing in 2024.

Weekly diary list comics 2-7 for 2024. ©️ A. Cowen

A Visual Weekly Summary

The “Diary List Comic” series grew out of my weekly substack post. This series builds on the idea of the “currently list,” which is something that I did with my podcast community for years, inspired by a weekly Instagram thread spearheaded by @rukristin.

My diary list comic isn’t a “currently list,” but I often think of that practice and how helpful and grounding I found the process.

My list project shares the concept of a weekly summary, a moment of taking stock, a moment of cataloging the concrete details of a span of time. I watched this. I read this. I ate this. I feel this. I saw this. This happened.

These comic-inspired art lists are my own format and integrate a few specific visual elements and visual allusions that are meaningful to me. The palette continues to shift a bit and settle in, but it makes me happy. It’s playful. It’s bright. It’s whimsical.

One of my readers gave a name to this list structure I am using, and it’s a phrase I hold close. I’ve referenced it a time or two, and I’m not saying it here right now. But I want to acknowledge (for that reader) how influential that moment was in helping me see this as a project, one with anchors of balance and mindfulness. (Thank you.)

With this series, I am doing a simple weekly summary and also challenging myself to create a piece of digital art. For the main image, I try to pick something that grows out of (or relates to) the week.

The weekly diary list comic is an “element” of my Sunday post. I am hoping, at least for the series of 52, to have a list comic appear each week in 2024.

Taken together, this set will grow over the course of a year. There was a #1 for this series…. but it was an idea still shaping and forming in my head. I’m starting this gallery with #2, which maps to the week of the year. The list comic for a given week # references the week that just finished.

I love seeing them all together!

I will be updating the gallery below throughout the year to include the full set for 2024.

Paywall Explanation: The diary list comics are shared individually each week in my Sunday post. The Sunday posts are available to everyone. I am paywalling the remainder of this page for now. Free subscribers can still see these in the individual weekly posts.