A Walk in Eden

I'll post more about this when the book is released next Fall, but I spent the last several months working on a coloring book titled A Walk in Eden, finally turning in the final files last week. It was originally commissioned by Ginkgo Press in Beijing and will be released in North America by Drawn & Quarterly. It loosely follows some of the other Garden of Eden drawings I've done in the last few years and shares a (secret sub)title with that of another large drawing I did in 2012... so yes, there is a very loose narrative to it. Most of the actual drawings comprise ten-to-fifteen page continuous panoramas. A gatefold in the middle showcases a few of these, but the rest of the book is, of course, necessarily made up of two-page spreads. A few of the original landscape drawings, in all their white-ink/cut-and-paste-y glory, are on view now as part of a special two-person show called Side Projects at Lula in Chicago through late Summer. I may try and make an accordion-book version of the best of these in the Fall if I can manage it. But for now, here are some snippets I captured for instagram (mostly) while I was working:

breaking news from the interbleb

This interview I did went up a week or so ago at The Long & Shortbox of It, a comics blog.

Discussed:
-Finishing Big Questions
-What you get when you cross Tintin with Daniel Higgs
-A fully painted strip I'm about to self-publish (more on that soon)
-the New Chicago Comics show that was at the MCA in January

Also blogged recently at D&Q was a deeply satisfying comparison between the upcoming, aforementioned Big Questions and Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life, John Porcellino's King-Cat Classix, and the Chicago Manual of Style.

And lastly, here is a post at Busy Beaver Buttons' blog about another button mural I did recently in a private residence, using about a century's worth of family photos as material.

This Weekend, Two Events

The citations under Events and Appearences have shifted a bit since first being listed. I'm going to be signing at the Drawn & Quarterly table at Printer's Row Book Fair tomorrow, here in Chicago, Saturday from 2-4. I'll be at the closing brunch reception for Home Gallery's Artist Books and Drawing show on Sunday. It's the first time that Amanda Vahamaki (Finland) and Michelangelo Setola's (Italy) amazing, beautiful gem-like collaborative pencil drawings have been shown in the United States. It's most definitely worth the trip.

Also, I believe I said I would talk a little about my work in the show. So come with questions. There will be wine and pastries.