Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the party above or MoCCA this weekend, but I wanted to point you in the direction of free beer and SYNCOPATED, the anthology of comics-reportage for which I wrote and drew my first autobiographical comic. The latest volume of the series, edited by Brendan Burford, hit the shelves on May 19th is filled with many great cartoonists.
Excerpt from my story “How and Why to Bale Hay”:
I’ve been teaching cartooning at The School of Visual Arts for a while now and this past year I asked the students in my Comic Book Storytelling Workshop to adapt stories that take place in Iraq during the War. Most of the students found stories from bloggers on the web, a few adapted stories told to them by friends, and one student, himself a veteran of the Iraq War, wrote and drew a story based on his own experience.
My good friend Dean Haspiel was wise enough to suggest that we put the stories up on the internet for all to see at the internet comics site that I’m part of, ACT-I-VATE.com.
The purpose of this anthology is not to wave a flag for or against the war—though some of the stories certainly have a political bent—instead, I asked the students to give me stories that would give the reader a sense of how the War has effected individuals, both American and Iraqi.
Click here to go to the online anthology.
Thank you for reading.
One of the things that makes cartooning possible is the radio station WFMU. I don’t know how I could spend all day scratching away at the art-board without them. One of their longest running shows SEVEN SECOND DELAY is a particular favorite. Last year, the ultra-talented Animator/Writer John Kuramoto created an amazing animated DVD menu for the show with illustrations by me. Along with studio-mate Christine Norrie, we even hosted a live-remote party for the show in our now-defunct studios in Midtown Manhattan.
And just two weeks ago, we put together the art for one of 7SD’s giveaways at their live show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. The joke behind the above image being that hosts Ken and Andy were so impressed with the Oprah show in which she gave away a car to every audience member that they wanted to do the same. Except that 7SD’s budget only allowed them to give away a DVD of the aforementioned Oprah episode. A long way to go for a joke, but exactly part of 7SD’s charm.
I copped the background for the drawing below from the great Piranesi. Card design by the amazing Joe Infurnari and ACT-I-VATE logo by the equally stunning Tim Hamilton.
I just learned that Desiderata has published “Salon” in Brazil! This joins the editions that have been published in Spain and Italy, so that’s exciting as it gets for me.
La Jornada, a large newspaper in Brazil, interviewed me for the occasion. If you read Portuguese you can read the article here, here, and here.
A while ago my pal Paulo Patricio of Portugal asked me to contribute to his Le Sketch series and now there’s a wicked fancy display with some of my drawin’s in a classy storefront in Porto.
¡Bom dia!
The great Lynda Barry edited this year’s BEST AMERICAN COMICS anthology from Houghto-Mifflin, and I’m honored to report that she chose a good chunk of pages from THE SALON! The book is available now.
My first Illustrator-”inked” piece appears today in the Life Section of the Austin-American Stateman. They changed the color from the original, but it may be the browser.
I know this happened a while back, but I never posted it here and people still ask me about it:
Watch Neil Gaiman give the news at the 2008 New York Comic Convention.
And on a SALON-related note:
Read a great review of THE SALON by Karen Green!
