Four-Eyes

Canadian journalist and blogger Tom Stoukas put together a nice little piece on A.D. and nonfiction journalistic comics in general: http://tomstoukas.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/comic-book-journalism-and-the-tragedy-of-new-orleans/

Brooklynites author and freelance photographer Seth Kushner shot my portrait today, for his new project on New York City cartoonists. (man_size , purvision, dangoldman , zegas, bertozzi , and heartshapedkey are some of the previous subjects of Kushner's lens.) Kudos to purvision for suggesting Seth shoot me in the context of a stoop sale (which—in honor of A.D.—I gave a strong New Orleans flavor). I don't normally photograph well, but I love the way this image came out. I really dig Seth's dramatic lighting and desaturated colors; believe it or not, this image was shot on a lovely sunny spring day. Anyway, click on the photo if you'd like to see a larger version. And thanks again, Seth!

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With the help of a frosty beverage

This is Phoebe, taking over my dad's blog to get something off my chest:

I hate to be a hater, BUT I THINK GRASS SUCKS! I've heard nice things about lawns and fields in the past, but I didn't have to actually touch any of it. When they created urban parks, they put in plenty of paved spaces and concrete playgrounds in a concerted effort to appeal to city kids like myself, which they balanced with some grassy areas to appeal to "nature lovers." But now there's more and more grass starting to appear everywhere.

For instance, right near my apartment building, there's a big grassy area in front of the Brooklyn Museum. Yesterday my mom and dad set me down there, so I could crawl around a bit or even practice "cruising" against the low wall which abuts it. But the instant I touched the turf, I just started to cry. Granted, it is "spring," which is probably the most intense growing period for natural things like flowers and trees and the like, but it's crazy out there: grass, grass, grass, everywhere you look! I can't say enough how unpleasant it is to feel those sharp individual blades on my delicate little hands.

And today my parents brought me to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden! They wheeled me onto this big green expanse and just sat down, plop! in the middle of it. I wasn't having any of it, even thought my dad plucked some individual blades to show me how "harmless" they were. To me, nothing about grass is appealing. It's all natural, and green, and multi-faceted. And how can something be both sharp and soft—at the same time?! Sure, I saw lots of other kids running and rolling around on the lawn, seeming to have a good time. But even if I had seen, say, another nine-month-old I knew, that lawn was no environment in which to bite another kid's arm or drool on their toys.

So now I know I can skip this grass stuff in the future and just stick to safe places like my living room rug or the kitchen linoleum. If nothing else, the experience reminds me why cities were created, and how anachronistic (and insulting!) grass in urban areas is in terms of its attempt to bring "nature" to the civilized world.

I hate to be a hater, BUT I THOUGHT THE NEW YORK COMIC-CON SUCKED! I've written approvingly of the con in the past, but it's been steadily going downhill, and this past weekend was its nadir. When they started the show in 2006, they made a concerted effort to attract alternative and "literary" publishers and cartoonists, which they balanced with an understandably mostly mainstream vibe, and I appreciated the influx of potential new readers.

But then last year, the show began seriously tilting toward the same superhero/manga/gaming/merchandising thrust of the other mega-cons like San Diego and Chicago; and this year, it was full-bore. In 2007, although it was a bit of a pain squeezing through the crowds, I was still able to see friends and compatriots like Chris Staros of Top Shelf, Sheila Keenan at Scholastic, Mark Siegel at First Second, and the like; this year, I couldn't find any of them. (I know, I know, Sheila is no longer with Scholastic, but you get the point.) Granted, I showed up with Phoebe at about 1 pm on Saturday, which was probably the craziest time, but it was a madhouse, a zoo, a freak show, a ... you get the drift. I can't say enough how unpleasant it is to be jostled, squeezed, and b.o.-bombarded by hordes of Star Wars stormtroopers, flabby "superheroes," and wannabe Suicide Girls!

I saw a small Fantagraphics table, but absolutely no other representatives of —  or cartoonists from — the alternative industry. Even the Vertigo booth (they were kind enough to provide me a free pass due to my work on American Splendor) was so packed and chaotic, that I didn't dare venture in there to say hi to editors Jonathan Vankin and Mark Doyle. (I did spot dangoldman, signing copies of Shooting War, and briefly spoke to man_size before he did a panel, but that was really it in terms of folks I knew.) I guess after last year, there was a general consensus by folks with non-mainstream agendas to skip this show. I wish I had gotten the memo!

To me, nothing at the show really was about comics, about great stories, exciting art, innovative uses of the form. It's all flash, marketing, cross-branding, and perpetuating the most crass, adolescent, and stupefying elements of genre content. For all I know, the panels may have been interesting and enlightening, but after all, there's only so much programing you can fill with peaens to Battlestar Galactica and tributes of the death of Captain America. (I did hear that the ACT-I-VATE panel on Friday went well, which I'm thrilled about.) And the place was such a circus, that even if I had seen, say an editor I knew, it was no environment in which to review a project or discus possible new ones.

So now I know I can skip this show in the future and stick to indy-centered cons like SPX and MoCCA. If nothing else, the experience reminds me why those kind of shows (and APE, and SPACE, and Stumptown, etc.), were created, and how anachronistic (and insulting!) cons like this one are in terms of their portrayal of the comics industry as a whole.

(To the tune of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman")

It's all very plain
Today as we stroll down the lane
Ev'rybody knows
That baby's got new clothes
And lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have perched on her curls.

Ah, you eat tofu with both hands yes, you do
You yawn like your grandpa, yes, you do
Then you smile just like Ellen Barkin
But you cry just like a little girl.

Digging through some stuff yesterday, I found this vintage piece in an old sketchbook.

I had just returned from my worldwide backpacking adventure and had settled in Chicago. I happened to live near Chris Ware (at that time an obscure cartoonist toiling away for the Chicago alternative weekly New City), and we had a mutual friend in common (Rob Walker, actually), so I met Chris and even hung out with him a little. He showed me his "sketchbooks," which were actually meticulously drawn studies, ideas for Jimmy Corrigan, humorous one-page narratives, and the like. I was completely intimidated, of course, but one thing that particularly intrigued me about his sketchbook comics was that he did many of them totally impromptu, with no preconceived idea of where the story was going, just ad-libbing one panel after the other. This was very different from how I worked at the time (and certainly not the way Chris did comics for publication), but I was inspired to try it.

Thus, this goofy "intro" to my sketchbook. As simple as it is, it was the first time I tried doing an ad-lib story, and I remember being actually scared as I was doing it. Of course, it was liberating to not have to worry about sharing it with the public — not that I had much a public, having barely been published at that point! Anyway, it was fun, and the piece has a refreshing looseness, but it's not really my "style."  I returned to my traditional method of writing full scripts for subsequent comics — except for a 24-hour-comic I attempted back in 2002.

I'm afraid this intro is much more interesting than the actual piece, but courtesy of the JoshComix Way Way Back Machine—before A.D., before The Vagabonds, before American Splendor, before Keyhole, even before Keyhole Mini-Comics — here it is:

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I dreamed this word up last night.

brook•ie
Pronunciation: \ˈbru-kē\

Function: noun

1. A person visiting the borough of Brooklyn for the first time
   


2. A person who has just moved to the borough of Brooklyn

Example: "He thought taking the G train would actually be a quicker way to get to Williamsburg. What a brookie!"

My fortune from yesterday's Chinese food: "Handsome is that handsome dose."

Thank you?

Fresh from the success of Gone Missing, The Civilians have a new show, This Beautiful City,  already in production in Colorado Springs,  and a second one in the works. To that end, they asked me to whip up an illo for a fund-raiser they've got coming up in NYC in May. The play is called Paris Commune, and the illo refers to the captured Communards who were exiled to the Polynesian island of New Caledonia. So here's our little revolutionary in his new tropical garb:



And here's info about the benefit, which your welcome to attend, if you've got $25-$150 to spare:

PARIS COMMUNE II
Communards in the South Pacific

Monday, May 12, 8 PM to 1 AM, Performance at 9 PM
Element Nightclub, 225 East Houston Street
@ Essex Street / Avenue A, New York, NY 10002

Enjoy drinks and dancing in this Lower East Side club, surrounded by The Civilians’ artists, friends, and supporters. This benefit event will include complimentary sponsored drinks, full cash bar, light hors d’oeuvres, and a silent auction.

In honor of our production of Paris Commune at the Public Theater, the company will perform a special sequel to the revolution. Following the Communards (in song) from life in the streets of Paris to exile on the French Polynesian island of New Caledonia, this one-time only event is guaranteed to prove that the fight (and the show) must go on.

Tickets $25 to $150. R.S.V.P. at www.thecivilians.org or by calling (212) 730-2019.

A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge returns with a new installment, "Diaspora." In this chapter, Hamid & Mansell discover how dangerous the flooded store can be. Meanwhle, Leo & Michelle realize that they are down to their last few dollars. Nursing a Starbucks coffee in Houston, they try to figure out what to do next. In Tallahassee, Kevin's parents deliver unwelcome news. And we return to Hamid's store, where his concern for Mansell's well-being intensifies. All this and more in "Diaspora."

A.D. Chapter 11 — FREE — on Smith. Read. Comment. Make my day.

Seen today posted in the Clark Street 2/3 subway station:



The fine print says, "P.S. I read that this worked once in NYC, so I thought I would give it [a] shot. I know it's a little crazy, but it's not bad to try to do a crazy thing on occasion, right?"

I grew up (I thought) in a non-TV household. My mom was against television—especially for kids— and as far as I knew, we didn't own a set. (I found out years later my mom secretly kept a small black-and-white TV in the closet for emergencies and special circumstances, like news coverage of the Vietnam war, or Nixon's resignation.) Anyway, despite having no TV of my own, I watched enough at friends' houses, or during the one month every summer I got to visit my dad, that it wasn't completely foreign to me. Even back then, I had some favorite shows, most of which were already in reruns. After all, my semi-forbidden TV viewing was very much catch-as-catch-can; I had no way to watch primetime shows on a regular basis.

For completeness' sake (what other reason do I ever need?), I will document here the shows I watched regularly over the years. "Regularly" is the key word. I definitely had the TV on at  other times, just not so religiously that I became as intimately familiar with the shows as the ones listed here. So without further ado—and broken down by half-decades—is my TV history:

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The last five weeks have been an incredible growth period for Phoebe. I can date her progress because we've been "homeless" since February 11, living over at Sari's parents' house in Brooklyn Heights while our apartment is being repainted and baby-proofed. (The job was supposed to take two weeks. Don't ask.) During that period, our little infant has shot right through babyhood practically into toddlerhood.

For example, when we left our place, she could barely roll herself onto her back. If we propped her up, she could sit upright, but not for long before the weight of her head toppled her over. She did little "push-ups" on the rug, but nothing close to crawling. She could barely grasp objects in her hands, and her limbs often flapped around, seemingly without rhyme or reason. She had just started eating solid foods, but more as a way to get used to eating from a spoon than for actual nutrition. The best sound she could make was a Bronx cheer. And her constant drooling required her to wear a bib most of the day.

Five short weeks later, she can not only crawl wherever she wants, but she can lift herself up to a standing position! She even sometimes forgets she can't walk yet, and lets go of her support. Thank goodness someone's always there to catch her before she tumbles all the way down. She eats three meals a day, and whereas we once were introducing new foods only every three days, to make sure she didn't develop rashes or allergies, now we pretty much give her a taste of whatever we're having. She has two nice little bottom teeth, which we even brush at night (when we remember). And just two days ago, she started making actual word-like sounds: "bah bah bah," or maybe "blah blah blah" — she doesn't think much of adult conversation. She's generally much more alert, more in control of her arms and legs, and is fully in control of her opposable thumbs. Most of all, she's glorying in her newfound independence. She's impatient with being a baby already, and wants to be a little girl. Her cuteness quotient is also at an all-time high. (I'm purely objective, of course.)

Clichéd as it is to say, i'm dumbfounded to realize that she's only seven-and-a-half months old, that this time a year ago, me and a pregnant Sari were relaxing on a beach in Puerto Rico. A year ago, our lives were basically the same: I was working on A.D., Sari was at HRW, etc., etc. But in that time, we became parents, and our little 8-1/2-pound newborn is now a person, a personality, a permanent member of our little family.

Amazing.


A recent shot of the girl after she lost a bet. She swore that if she lost, she'd either eat her shoe or her hat. (As you can see, she chose her shoe.)

Walrus Comix, which has recently posted excellent interviews with (among others), man_size and Harvey Pekar, just uploaded a recent Q&A they did with me. Besides asking me about my collaborations with Pekar and others, and my current work on A.D., the interview touches on my influences, how politics informs my work, ACT-I-VATE, and webcomics in general. Usually, I hate doing online interviews, but these guys are smart, offbeat, and did a nice job with the final piece. Check it out here.

And have to pass on, BECAUSE THEY'RE SO DAMN FUNNY!!!

Yes, most of these have been floating 'round the interweb for years, and some aren't video, but they're new to me. And maybe you haven't been inoculated yet either...

• The zombie kid with the turtle obsession. Listen to this and then cue up Johnny Cash doing "The Man Comes Around" from American IV. Brrrr. (P.S. The reporter's stunned reaction is priceless.) Thanks to benchilada for giving me this one.
• Playmobil Security Check Point. Playmobil seems intent on representing all sides of our legal system in toy form, everything from airport security to police radar stations, from safecrackers to SWAT choppers.
• The Vader Sessions. Did you know Darth Vader appeared in a number of 70s blaxploitation flicks? Dig it.
• "Write this..or that..or maybe..." Brit comedians Mitchell & Webb do a hilarious spin on an editorial meeting.
• The Internet is for Porn. Before Phoebe (and A.D.), I played a lot of World of Warcraft. So much so that I thought this was brilliant.
• In the category of cute animal stories, I'm reduced to expressions of "awwwwww" by the tales of Owen and Mzee and the grateful lion.
• And, finally, this. I don't care what the image's provenance is, and whether it's PhotoShopped or what. It just makes me giggle. Every time I see it. See? (Thanks to man_size for sending me this one.)

Just posted on the spiffy redesigned SMITH site is A.D. Chapter 10: "Something In The Water." In this episode, the Doctor administers first aid to Katrina survivors gathered at (of course) a Bourbon Street bar. Meanwhile, Hamid & Mansell wade through the chest-high flood waters to bring much needed drinking water to an elderly neighbor. Back in Tallahassee, Kevin and his brothers learn the extent and seriousness of the flooding. And Denise and her family arrive at the Convention Center. And of course the A.D. site features all the usual links, resources, audio clips, press clips, and message board chatter.

Check out Chapter 10 — FREE — on Smith...

Did you see this piece in last Wednesday's NY Times? It's about a new graphic novel about the Holocaust being used as a teaching tool in German schools. What really struck me about the samples of the comic they show is how the art apes Hergé and Tintin. Outside of r_sikoryak, this may be the best "Hergé" I've ever seen. Typical for a mainstream newspaper piece on comics, it took some searching to spot attributions for the book, which it turns out is drawn by a Dutch artist named Eric Heuvel (and written by Ruud van der Rol and Lies Schippers). Looks like the book is a co-production of the Anne Frank Center and will be published in English this month or next. And it also looks like the same team of authors did a previous Hergé-style Holocaust book. I must have them! As a huge Tintin fan and a WWII buff, it's almost like these books were made just for me. I'm shocked I never heard of them before.

My little weekend trip to New Orleans was a great success. Things didn’t start out auspiciously, though, as I awoke Friday to five inches of snow on the ground. But after sitting on the plane for ninety minutes and then undergoing a thirty-minute de-icing procedure, my flight did manage to take off. The 60- and 70-degree weather of NOLA was a nice respite from the chilly winter temps I left behind.

The Alternative Media Expo was a huge triumph for show organizer/my host/A.D. character Leo McGovern/antigravity_no. The Expo’s new location at the Contemporary Arts Center warehouse was tailor-made for the show, which boasted over 80 exhibitors and an attendance twice its previous high-mark, with over 650 paid attendees. As opposed to a typically indy comix show, the Expo was an intriguing mix of cartoonists and comics retailers (one of whom, Beth's Books, had a great collection of alternative GNs, including some of my stuff!), zinesters, self-published authors, Etsy craftspeople, painters, video artists, and filmmakers. NOLA’s tattooed, pierced hipster contingent was in full effect, both behind the tables and in the aisles. Local cartoonist Caesar Meadows’s work really impressed me, with his humorous handmade minis delivered in unexpected ways: mini-CDs, gumball machines, and packs of cards, just to name a few.

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Check out this week's Gambit Weekly (New Orleans' alternative weekly) cover story for a feature on the Alternative Media Expo, created and run by none other than A.D.'s very own Leo McGovern (a.k.a. antigravity_no ). I'll be down in NOLA this weekend as a "special guest" of the Expo, and the GW piece devotes a large chunk to A.D. and Leo's role in it.

The Expo is happening this Saturday, Feb. 23, from noon–7 pm, at the Warehouse at the Contemporary Arts Center (900 Camp Street), New Orleans, Louisiana. For those of you in the Crescent City, there's no better deal for your $5 than the Expo: comics, zines, fashion, photography, film, arts, and crafts — over 80 exhibitors! So swing by to say hi, pick up a signed A.D. giveaway, and check out what the Expo has to offer.

Besides attending the Expo, I'll be using my weekend visit to gather more material for future chapters, meet up with whichever "characters" are in town, eat some great food, listen to some live music, and the like.

More info about the Expo here and here (which also features a great spoof of the classic Charles Atlas "Hey Skinny" or "The Insult That Made a Man Out of Mac!" ad).

(By the way, did you know I did a version of the "Mac" ad once too? Yep, as an assignment for Fortune Small Business (FSB) magazine. It's kind of obscure, but here it is anyway. Someday, I'd like to see someone collect all the parodies, pastiches, tributes, and homages to that one ad. This Gene Kannenberg piece is the closes thing I could find.)

[Cross-posted to act_i_vate]