Dispatches from the road and air

I've been on the road on the second leg of the tour for a week and a half now, but have been too busy to post much. Here are some (pre)tour stories from my sketchbook:

So far I've been in Baltimore, Bethesda (at SPX), Pittsburgh, Philly, and, for the last four days, New York City. More about all the above to follow. Aside from a case of the famous Canadian cartoonist flu pandemic of 2011, it's been completely awesome. Being on the road with Marc Bell rules. That guy's awesome. Tonight I'll be in Providence at Ada Books. Below are a couple of photos from Pittsburgh. Bill at Copacetic put up a back issue wall for me to sign next to. It's all comics about birds. Awesome. Below that is a shot of people waiting for Marc and I to start.

Just to let people know...the Hardcover of the book has been a bit scarce and will be for another week or three. That said, both Copacetic and Brickbat managed to secure more than the usual allotment of copies (sworn to secrecy regarding their methods) so if you can't find one, you might contact them. Lastly, Gabriel at Desert Island in Brooklyn printed up this awesome little newsprint zine collecting a number of outtakes, thumbnails and other unpublished paraphernalia related to Big Questions. Along with the trading cards it's something of a tour exclusive for the moment. Below is the cover.

Interview Show at the Hideout Tomorrow

Friday night I'm going to be on Mark Bazer's Interview Show at the Hideout. Come drink beer and heckle me about being over-exposed in Chicago this week.

TUESDAY!!!

THE BIG QUESTIONS HOME TOWN SPECTACULAR

THE BIG NIGHT.

Come down to Lula Cafe in Logan Square  7-10 and let's toast the big fat book. And I'll draw a picture in one for you. It's going to be awesome. Everyone's going to be there. Original art, slide shows, literature. Rock and Roll. Food. MC'd by the fantastic Mr. Kyle Obriot.

Awesome. Stupendous. Outrageous. Super Fun.

And a portion of the proceeds will go to support Sara Drake's Independent Media Project with Arts Network Asia--that is comics and women's literacy in Cambodia. So it's even for a good cause!

Oh, and here's a little window display I just installed at Quimby's yesterday.

For a Limited Time

I'm doing a little experiment. In addition to readings, music and food at the Lula event on Tuesday, there will also be an impromptu, one day show of originals from Big Questions. I'm putting up a number of the featured pieces on my picture store. Sales will go live Tuesday--both to locals who can come out to the show and to internet browsers who can't – at about the same time. There are 12 pieces listed now – full pages and a few individual panels as well. More to come.

It may be worth noting that Big Questions originals haven't been available since around 2005 when I realized I needed to hold onto them in anticipation of the editing for the book. I'm making these few available now only in conjunction with the tour.

Toronto Sketchbook

Including a stop at the Royal Ontario Museum to draw dead animals.

Just to reiterate

The Lula Big Questions release party is NOT TONIGHT. It's on the 30th. Three weeks from now. Awesome. Oh and by the way, John Porcellino and Kyle Beachy are reading and Zak Sally is playing songs.
Here are some pictures from Genevieve Castree and Phil Elverum's house and church/studio in Anacortes, Washington. I stayed there on my way from Seattle to Vancouver, and it was awesome. Genevieve gave me a little jar of the most delicious tart cherry jam she'd made, gave me a tour of town, and told me the craziest story about Phil's great grandmother adopting a chimpanzee. Anacortes is great. I liked it there.

Collage of photographs of clouds and trees.

Spider Webs for Halloween, by Genevieve.

A small sample of Genevieve's studio. The one original page she had out (she's working on a book for D&Q) was kind of mind bogglingly beautiful. Nobody has such a thin, delicate yet confident line. And she pencils in orange.

The house reminded me a little of people's deceptively small, but liveable houses in New Hampshire, where my Dad lives. It might have partly been the residual smell of wood smoke.

Their flat files are nicer than mine.

Globes

Readying for a show the next day.

Some Croatian Neighbors had commissioned this painting of a seaside Village in Croatia, and then didn't like it. So they gave it to Genevieve and Phil. They have so far resisted the urge to paint a sea monster attacking the town.

My studio is smaller than this.

Home. Next Stop: Toronto

I'm back home. The first leg of the tour was amazing. Sold some books, sold some art, drove a thousand miles and managed to get a bit of skating in at pretty much every stop. Props to Portland and Vancouver for a couple of super good little skate plazas. One thing I was bad about was documenting the events... but I swear, people came out. Here's a shot from Needles and Pens site. They were better about it.

By the way, they mention on their site that they plan to make the work from the show available online in the next week. I'll try to keep tabs and make a note here as well.

I didn't document the events, or the skating for that matter, but I did get some photos of some of the places I stayed. In Portland that was at Nate's house. He's a friend of my brother-in-law from way back, he's in Witch Mountain and has a rad roommate named Matt who does kind of amazing metal cover art. Here's some stuff from Nate's house:

He also had an amazing super-old poster in his room, a sort of pinup style painting of the "women of the X-Men" with Rogue, the mohawked Storm and Kitty hanging out by the pool. from the late 80's probably. Amazing. And apparently super rare as the image doesn't seem to be anywhere on the web.

Lastly, I should probably mention Brian Ralph's diary comics from ComicCon. They're awesome. And not just because I'm in them.

Lastly, huge thank yous to all the shops that hooked me up: Family, Needles & Pens, Pegasus, Floating World, Fantagraphics and Lucky's.

Next up: Seattle

Holy crap, people keep coming out to see me read comics. It's awesome. Portland rules. Floating world rules. Massive Thank Yous. Tonight I'm at the Fantagraphics store in Seattle starting at 6. Gonna try to get some skateboarding in before hand, so apologies to my audience if I'm a little sweaty.

Here are Batman and Robin at the D&Q booth:

And some zombies that aren't really trying that hard:

Some minor superhero character in blue that no one has ever heard of (plus the Joker):

A dragon that is also a...carpenter?

And some sort of weird Japanese Mickey Mouse frog face dude in a suit. Awesome.

Tomorrow: Voltron

Next: Floating World, PDX

Friday. 6-9. And here's one of the famous smoking clowns of Comic-Con.