Minneapolis

Some of the hairstyles I wore as a punk kid in Minneapolis in the eighties:

1) skater bangs
2) long stringy hippy hair with Axel Rose bandanna
3) flopped over mohawk
4) flopped over mohawk, dreaded
5) big fire-engine red mess

Come to Magers & Quinn in Uptown tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:30 for my reading. I'll bring pictures.

Next Stop: Toronto

I'll be at the Beguiling in Toronto on Saturday, reading from the book and signing copies.

Come on out!

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.

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.

Chicago Multi-Media Comixplosion, Lula Cafe, Tuesday August 30, 7-10

Contrary to what got printed on the poster, the Chicago Big Questions Release Party and Comix-plosion is not next week. There were issues – a few of which had to do with me being better at drawing pictures of birds than I am at event planning – that forced a switch. The event is still taking shape, but there will be several special guests doing readings, some music, finger food (we're working on, among other things, doughnuts, in honor of everyone's favorite bird food), cheap beer, slightly pricier cocktails, original art on the walls, and Quimby's will be there selling books. It'll be at Lula Cafe off Logan Square. Details to follow. Here's the announcement on Quimby's site.

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