Guest sketchbook

My friend Sara came to visit me last year around this time, shortly after returning from a residency in Colombia. She'd been busy drawing in her sketchbook while she was there, and showed me the results. Last summer I asked her about it again, knowing she was no longer keeping a blog, and hadn't posted the work anywhere. She said I could post it myself if I wanted, so I took these pictures, and they've been languishing on my hardrive ever since. I don't know if she'll keep drawing comics or not. She's doing video and puppetry and animation and singing pop songs as a statue. So she's busy with other stuff. It's all very much worth a look (especially this amazing video she made for Evan Hydzik). But so are her drawings. So I'm finally getting around to posting them.

Some stuff I picked up at CAKE last weekend

Sara Drake had this funny, beautiful, creepy risograph comic about something terrible happening in a museum. It's wordless and there's some wonderful off-camera action sequences and great use of panels in a way I don't think I've ever seen. It's called Tipu's Tiger. I'm hoping for a sequel.

This is a spread from a little biological dream love comic by Ines Estrada.

On my way into the show Laura Perez-Harris handed me this crazy anthology/experiment-in-book-design, which has an interview with me in it. There's some great looking stuff in it including a novel approach to the problem of making a comic bilingual. It involves printing the translation in black and white ink on a transparency to match the word balloons, which is then bound into the book. Ingenious (not pictured).below are Alicia Galer,  Jason Estrin, and Mickey Z

Anya Davidson made a crazy sci-fi pulp love story called Needle Dick:

Michael Deforge sketchbook zine:

Laura Park worked magic on a matchbook cover for me:

And I picked up the new David B book from Uncivilized. It was a good show. Lots of stuff is not pictured including the mock-up Zak Sally was showing off of the not quite finished Recidivist 4. stay tuned about that.

More Cool S#*% at Autoptic

 This just in: We're putting together a screening of experimental animation with Lilli Carre and Alexander Stewart's EYEWORKS, in conjunction with SALTWATER WEATHER, a shadow puppet play by Sara Drake and Pup House.

CartoonInk!

On Sunday I finished a wall drawing I was asked to do for the CartoonInk show at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Sullivan Galleries. The show was curated by Surabhi Ghosh, Christa Donner and Jeremy Tinder with help from Sara Drake. There's a bunch of cool stuff to see there, including a new piece by Deb Sokolow (which happens to be right next to my wall drawing) and one of Lisa Cline's originals which is completely gorgeous – the photocopier doesn't do them justice. After a number of delays the show opens next weekend.

Here's an image of the flyer for it, with a nice little Marc Bell drawing (did I mention I'm going on a little East coast book tour with him in a few days?).

Sara goes to Cambodia

The inimitable Sara Drake is going to Cambodia this Fall to teach comics, literacy, and a DIY ethic to young women there who have historically been left out of the educational system. And to drink a lot of coconut water. She's doing comics about the project as well, and is raising money on Kickstarter. She rules. Give her a hand.

THE BLANK MAP

If you're in Chicago tonight you should come check out this show. It's got a bunch of good stuff in it, not least Mark Booth (below) and Deb Sokolow (below that) who both rule. It's in Pilsen near 18th and Halsted. It's also a benefit for Open Books which might be the best bookstore in the city, and is also a non-profit promoting literacy. Curated by the coincidentally named Sara Drake and Becka Mallard.