andrewfarago

APE 2012

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 01:18:37 GMT

IAnother Alternative Press Expo has come and gone. This was my 12th year at the show, which was launched by publisher Dan Vado (SLG) in 1994. This was probably my busiest show yet, too.

For the third year in a row, the APE organizers asked me to run some DIY workshops, so the convention really started back in August for me, when I began lining up cartoonists to conduct one-hour seminars on subjects ranging from building a webcomics audience to finding a collaborator to Watercolors 101. This one always requires a little bit of juggling, but we had a really enthusiastic group of teachers this year, and things went pretty smoothly by all accounts.

As for the hard work for the convention, that also started pretty early. It was two or three years ago that I realized we were approaching the 30th anniversary of celebrated indie comic Love and Rockets, and I mentioned that fact to Fantagraphics after another 2012 exhibition I was working on fell through. They were excited about it, so we made note of that and went on about our business. In the months leading up to APE, I made arrangements with the Hernandez brothers and some art collectors to borrow 60 really nice examples of their artwork for an exhibition, which I matted, framed and installed in the days leading up to the convention. Somewhere along the way, I wrote a 1500-word appreciation of Love and Rockets for the APE program book, as well as putting together additional text for the Cartoon Art Museum's exhibition.

This was all hot on the heels of installing two additional exhibitions over the past three weeks, Sketchtravel and The Art of ParaNorman, as well as a showcase of local artist Jonas Madden-Connor the same week as I was installing Love and Rockets. Really, all of that would have been enough for me to call it an October and take a break.

A little over a month ago, though, I committed to moderating four APE panels, and ended up running five of them. Here's a brief recap of each one:

*Saturday, 12:45: Comics as Political Statement, with guests Eric Drooker, Ben Katchor, Miriam Libicki, and Stan Mack. I knew everyone but Stan Mack going into this panel, so I didn't do very much prep. It takes ~~very little effort~~ no effort to get Eric Drooker talking about politics, and once I introduced everyone, it was just a matter of getting them all to talk to each other about free weeklies, the New York vs. California political scenes, and whether it's possible to not make a political statement with your comics. Not my best panel ever, but solid, and pretty well attended.

*Saturday, 4:45: Using Childhood Experiences to Create Adult Stories, with guests Derek Kirk Kim, Miriam Libicki, Kraig Rasmussen, and Jim Woodring. Another one where I didn't do much prep, since I knew everyone but Jim Woodring going into the panel. This was fun, in its own strange way, since everyone just talked about miserable childhood experiences that shaped them into the cartoonists they are today. Jim Woodring's stories of his childhood were incredible, since he had stories about childhood hallucinations and struggling with mental illness. The stories that really stuck with me were Woodring seeing the Fleischer cartoon "Bimbo's Initiation" at age four and spending several years of his life trying to discover that world in our reality, and Derek's story about seeing a slacker artist at his Korean grade school get smacked for lack of effort, which goes a long way toward explaining the effort that goes into each and every one of his drawings. I was getting into a good moderating groove by the end of this one, and it would have been my best panel of the day if not for:

*Saturday, 5:45: Spotlight on the Hernandez Brothers: 30 Years of Love and Rockets, with Mario, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. This was the high-pressure Saturday panel, since I knew it would have a big audience, and that most of the attendees were going to be huge Love and Rockets fans. I've read the vast majority of Love and Rockets (pretty far behind on Gilbert's side projects, though) thanks to the big hardcover collections from Fantagraphics that caught me up to almost everything prior to the most recent series, but I decided to keep the conversation fairly general and accessible to anyone who just wanted to catch a discussion with this year's featured guests. That's my goal with every panel I moderate, actually, since I'll typically have about 35 minutes of my own questions followed by 10-15 minutes of audience questions, and that's never quite enough time to get into a really involved conversation about someone's career.

I've chatted with Jaime and Gilbert a bit at conventions over the past couple of years, especially this past summer when it came time to start work on our 30th anniversary exhibition. I've known Mario for about five years, and in his day job as a contractor, he's done a lot of work on my house dating back to 2010, so that helped to take the edge off for this one, which immediately followed the previous panel. And having three brothers on a panel also makes things easier for me, since it wasn't going to take much to get them trading stories about growing up together or life in comics over the past 30-plus years.

Lots of cool stories about Oxnard, California, where Los Bros. grew up, and how it was this weird mix of Latino culture, surfers, migrant workers, rich and poor neighborhoods, and how music, pop culture and comic books shaped their lives. They loved all kinds of comics growing up except, oddly enough, romance comics, which boys just didn't buy. Fun stories included submitting their first/only self-published Love and Rockets mag to The Comics Journal, since Los Bros. didn't have an advertising budget and that seemed like the best way to get their names out there (along with drawing pinups for every major fanzine that would take them). Thirty years later, they're still at it, and they expect to be doing this as long as audiences will support them.

*Saturday night was the Cartoon Art Museum's annual APE party, and this was our most successful one in years. Having the Hernandez Brothers as guests, premiering our new exhibition that night, offering a limited edition 30th anniversary print courtesy of Fantagraphics, and the fact that there seemed to be a lot less competition for people's Saturday night entertainment options this year resulted in a really nice turnout and a big fundraising opportunity for CAM.

The Museum used to have a lock on APE Saturday, but 5-7 years ago other parties and events sprang up like wildfire. Since people are still getting into town on Friday (the night of the annual Last Gasp pre-registration party) and are either exhausted or leaving town on Sunday, Saturday's the night everyone's vying for attention. Our usual big competition is the party at Isotope, The Comics Lounge, which apparently gets so many people that the party has to spill out onto the streets, since one comic shop can't contain the whole thing. I'd much rather be at a party where you can relax, casually talk to artists and friends, and never wait more than a couple of minutes for a drink, so it's probably for the best that we generally host the kind of parties I'd like to attend.

*Sunday, 1:30: Spotlight on Miriam Libicki. This one was a late addition to my schedule. I've known Miriam for a few years now, and this year she was an invited guest of the convention, which means that she gets a spotlight panel at APE. Since she didn't have time to prepare a slideshow or lecture (having a baby can wreak havoc with your schedule, I've heard), she asked me Saturday morning if I'd mind moderating a discussion with her. What's one more panel between friends?

This one went really well, and it helps that I know Miriam but don't know absolutely everything about her and her career, so I just sat down and asked about any aspect of her cartooning that I wanted to know more about. Most mindblowing to me is that she's got a five-month old baby who's already been to five comic conventions. You can order her comics (including the must-read series Jobnik!) at her website: http://realgonegirl.com/ It hasn't been updated in a while, but she's been busy. Another really good panel all around, since it was just a casual Sunday afternoon conversation between friends.

*Sunday, 4:45: Bay Area Comics: Past, Present, and Future, with Shaenon K. Garrity, Justin Hall, Alec Longstreth, Thien Pham, Jason Shiga, and Jason Thompson. This was the last panel of the convention, and it was basically just a free-for-all initiated by me and Thien Pham. The program book description mentioned that we'd be talking with Oakland native Jason Shiga and past, present and future Bay Area cartoonists, so we filled out the roster with Jason Thompson (who grew up here, but moved to Seattle a few years ago), recent transplant Alec Longstreth, Justin Hall (who's been here since the late 1990s or early 2000s), and my wife, Shaenon Garrity, who moved here from Ohio in 2000 (just like me, coincidentally). Rina Ayuyang was going to be on the panel but had to drop out when she couldn't get anyone to watch her table, which is unfortunate, since she's probably one of the best people on earth when it comes to scrapping with Thien.

Thien kicked things off by delivering a long monologue about his earliest childhood memories, which involved a treacherous boat tide to the United States and an attack by pirates. He started in about two minutes before the microphone was switched on, then kept going without interruption for several minutes after the AV crew activated it. We all just sat there, listening politely and waiting for Jason Shiga, and I half regret that we eventually interrupted and started talking about comics. There's an alternate universe where we never stopped Thien and he's still narrating his life story to whomever's in that room at the Concourse.

This was another fun, casual conversation panel, with all of us talking about the good and bad aspects of making comics in general, and in making comics in the Bay Area. We all agreed that San Francisco and its surrounding areas have incredible resources (Shaenon made an impassioned plea for everyone to visit and support the Cartoon Art Museum, which scored her some not-really-needed bonus points), and the strong and active comics community is a big part of why people come here and stay here. I think that 90% of the people in my address book are there because of comics, which is something I couldn't have imagined back when I was in college, even if I'd gone into comics professionally.

**

Sales at this year's convention were pretty decent. Shaenon has a new book or two almost every year, so she's guaranteed at least some sales because of that. Our cartooning group, The Couscous Collective, had a new anthology available, called KITTIES!, and we moved at least a few copies over the weekend (and it's been selling steadily since we started selling it online the following week). We started doing anthologies twice a year not long after we started our group, and that's a way to keep those of us without regular projects knocking out at least six pages a couple of times a year. I haven't made any new mini-comics or updated a webcomic in a while, so it's nice to have something new on the table in front of me.

I sold three copies of The Looney Tunes Treasury to families with kids, which made for an above-average weekend on that front. Shaenon sold enough original art to justify spending some cash on a hula girl commission from the legendary Sergio Aragones of MAD Magazine fame, and sold enough other stuff to justify buying a Story Minute original from Carol Lay (not that we needed to spend much effort "justifying" either one. Both were excellent purchases).

Conventions are a lot less stressful now that we've got a group of talented cartoonists tabling with us. We do between two and five conventions a year, and most of our costs are covered by annual dues that all of us are paying. A one-time moderate-sized payment each year makes it easier to relax at a convention and not obsess over how much money you've got to make back at any given show. That's a really nice change from going to APE or Stumptown, making $20 off of my mini-comics, and realizing that Shaenon's sales were going to make or break the show for us, since I was barely going to cover two days' worth of convention lunches.

The economy's never totally bounced back from...9-11? Actually, I'm not sure when sales have ever been hand-over-fist at APE. Big publishers like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly always have new, great books each year and one or two really popular guests signing for them, artists selling prints (an ever-increasing portion of exhibitors) seem to do really well, a few craftmakers always sell like gangbusters (there's always someone with some knitted thing, or a t-shirt with a Dr. Who/something-else-mashup, or someone with toys or little sculptures who's probably out-earning 95% of the cartoonists on the floor), but most cartoonists seem to do something in the vicinity of "okay" or "I don't wanna talk about it" at APE.

Still, I always have at least a good enough time to sign on for another year, and I'm looking ahead to #13 next year.

House update!

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 01:11:23 GMT

It's been a while since I've added a house update, so sit tight and prepare yourselves for the next round of home improvements.

After two-and-a-half years of wrestling with it, we're finally replacing the sliding doors at the rear of our kitchen with a new set. That's in the "in progress" mode, so no photos yet. The doors, of course, lead to our spacious deck.

I also ordered a range hood for our stove, which will tide us over a little while longer in the kitchen upgrade department. Still planning to tile over the yellow-orange, chipped and stained countertops and switching to a newer, trendier, retro-style sink.

In the "we knew this was going to happen" department, our water heater gave up the ghost, Exorcist-style, spewing water all over the basement. Some comic bags were dampened, some unbagged comics (newer stuff, thankfully) got a little bit warped, some boxes had to be tossed, but it could have been a lot worse. I discovered something was amiss in the basement late last night when I noticed that our bedroom floor (directly above the basement) was warm, almost hot. I asked Shaenon, who was half-awake, if I should check the basement, and she said "that's a great idea" before falling back asleep. The basement was sweltering when I opened the door, and after a brief moment of panic I hauled several moistened long boxes onto our deck and commenced drying them.

While doing that, I shut down the gas on the heater, which turned out to be a good idea since our 15-year-old tank had sprung a bit of a leak and neither of the emergency shutoffs managed to activate (another one for the revenge-against-the-previous-owners list). This morning, I got to do some of that adult stuff I never thought I'd have to deal with, calling plumbers, getting estimates and making snap decisions about water heaters. We ultimately went with a local plumber who's installing a tankless water heater for us at less than half the price of our first estimate (which sounded fine at 9am after not getting any sleep all night and just wanting to get everything fixed). Due to his workload, the plumber's installing the whole thing over the course of three days, and we've got to get an electrician to come in and finish the job, but I should be able to take a nice hot shower by Wednesday night if all goes according to plan at this point.

It's a hassle, and I'm not excited about spending the money that we're dropping on essentially just getting our house functioning as well as it did on Saturday, but it should improve the house's resale value, save us a little bit on the gas bills, make the house a lot safer, stabilize the temperature in the basement (where I store my comic book collection) and hopefully make it so we don't have think about the water heater again for another ten or fifteen years.

And that's our house update. I'll try to post photos once some of this stuff has finally happened--and I'm clean again.

Another month, another award...

Thu, 17 May 2012 23:51:13 GMT

It's been a pretty whirlwind month for me, but I guess that's a good thing. Since April 16, I've been installing one exhibition after another exhibition after another at The Cartoon Art Museum, including an Avengers movie tie-in and a MAD 60th anniversary exhibition, which is one of the best I've ever done. It's one of those shows that I couldn't have done half as well five years ago, and one that makes me feel I've really gotten the hang of all this.

In the middle of all that, I went to the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, and, as usual, had a great time. It's always fun to catch up with old friends there, and we allowed ourselves a couple of extra days this time around to kick around the city and the surrounding areas.

On the upcoming convention circuit, I'll be at the Big Wow! ComicFest this weekend, selling copies of The Looney Tunes Treasury and various other books along with my friends from The Couscous Collective. Catch me there or moderating as many panels as the Big Wow! team can have me moderate.

The big news for the day, though, is that I was named "Best Professional Fanboy of San Francisco" by The SF Weekly. This was a complete surprise, and I'd probably have missed out on it entirely if one of our regular volunteers hadn't tipped me off. I'm not sure how to parlay this into anything beyond an extra page in my scrapbook, but I'm sure I'll think of something. If it drives more people to the Cartoon Art Museum, I'm happy.

And since I haven't updated in a while, I'll mention that I've got two book proposals in the works right now, one with a contract to be signed sometime in the next week (fingers crossed), the other to be pitched soon. Wish me luck.

What, Me Worry?

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:49:19 GMT

Here's one of the projects that's been keeping me busy for the past month. Hope everyone gets to visit San Francisco soon to check it out:

What, Me Worry? 60 Years of MAD

April 21 – September 16, 2012

Programming to be announced

San Francisco, CA: In 1952, editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines launched MAD, one of the most influential and imitated humor publications in the world. Originally created to parody popular TV shows, movies and, inevitably, comic books, MAD soon expanded into a wide-ranging satire of modern American culture. Features like the MAD Fold-In, “Spy vs. Spy,” the wacky sound effects of “MAD’s Maddest Artist” Don Martin, the “marginal” cartoons of Sergio Aragones, and the motto “What, me worry?” have become indelible parts of popular culture, and the magazine’s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is one of the world’s most recognizable faces.

The Cartoon Art Museum’s latest exhibition, What, Me Worry? 60 Years of MAD celebrates the rich history of MAD from the original comic book through the black-and-white magazine to its latest incarnation as a full-color bi-monthly publication supplemented by online content. This is the museum’s first exhibition to include both the MAD comic book and magazine.

The MAD creators, known affectionately as “The Usual Gang of Idiots,” are among the most highly regarded in the cartooning world, and works from nearly every major MAD contributor will be featured in this gallery. Exhibition highlights include cover artwork by MAD creator Harvey Kurtzman; pages from the MAD comic book by Will Elder and John Severin; early magazine-era artwork by famed artists Mort Drucker, Don Martin, Wally Wood and George Woodbridge; MAD Fold-ins by Al Jaffee; painted covers by Sergio Aragonés, Jack Davis, Kelly Freas, Norman Mingo. Jack Rickard and Richard Williams; The Lighter Side of… by Dave Berg; Spy vs. Spy by Antonio Prohias; a look at Tom Richmond’s creative process; the dazzling caricatures of Sam Viviano; comics from contemporary contributors Chris Baldwin, Evan Dorkin, Peter Kuper, Ted Rall, Keith Knight and Joey Alison Sayers; a look at MAD Magazine around the world; and much, much more!

Programming featuring MAD creators will be held through the duration of the exhibition. Please stay tuned for announcements as special guests are confirmed.

http://cartoonart.org/2012/03/what-me-worry-60-years-of-mad/

Shaenon for President!

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:59:01 GMT

Vote for Shaenon K. Garrity's and Jeffrey C. Wells's webcomic Skin Horse in this thing: Skin Horse is matchup #19, and it takes about two seconds to vote.

http://www.comicmix.com/news/2012/03/14/vote-in-the-mix-march-madness-2012-webcomics-tournament-first-round/3/

And if they win, they get...it looks like the chance to go up against some other comic in the next round of voting. If there's a massive cash prize, we promise to use it responsibly.

RIP John Severin

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:56:35 GMT

Just found out that John Severin passed away on Sunday. He was a longtime favorite of mine, dating back to my discovery of his work in Cracked Magazine. I'm sure that I read Cracked for at least a year beyond when I stopped really enjoying it because I knew there'd be new material from Severin.

I read Marvel's US Marine Corps counterpart to their war comic The 'Nam, Semper Fi', based on seeing house ads with Severin's cover art from the first issue:

I don't remember being especially impressed with the writing, but I read the book up until cancellation (or when the local pharmacy stopped carrying it, which amounted to the same thing). There aren't a lot of artists whose work I'd buy regardless of the quality of the writing, but I've picked up a lot of beautifully drawn, not so beautifully written Severin comics over the past 20 years. It was a real treat when some of his peak material started appearing in collected editions, like Marvel's Essential reprint line, with Severin's inking over Herb Trimpe's pencils and the just-released-although-I'm-not-sure-if-he's-in-the-first-collection Sgt. Fury collection. And it was great to get my hands on some early Mad collections, so that I could see what Severin could do with a top-notch writer like Harvey Kurtzman. Even better is his work on EC's war titles, and I'm hoping that Fantagraphics puts out a single-artist collection of his work in the near future.

Last month, John's wife called me at work. My immediate reaction, especially with all the elder statesmen of the comics industry who've passed away in recent months, was that she was going to be the bearer of bad news. I was relieved to find out that she was calling to make an art donation to the Cartoon Art Museum. "Do you know my husband's work? He drew a Rawhide Kid comic book about ten years ago, and there was a lot of press about it at the time." We chatted about it, talked about the weather in Colorado (where the Severins live, and where I attended college), and a week later, she sent us every single page of John's recent Rawhide Kid mini-series. Every. Single. Page.

In hindsight, I realize that his health must have been in decline by that point, and that his wife wanted to get his artwork somewhere that could benefit the artistic community, and where it would be preserved for future generations. But really, John Severin's legacy is secure. His EC work, his humor comics, his westerns, his war comics... I worry that it's damning with faint praise to say that he was the best artist in Cracked Magazine, but several generations worth of kids who couldn't wait another couple of weeks to buy MAD loved his stuff.

Rest in peace, John.

Image Comics 20th Anniversary exhibition and reception

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:03:36 GMT

Image Comics: A 20th Anniversary Celebration

February 4 – April 29, 2012
Opening reception Thursday, February 23, 2012

In 1992, seven of the most popular comic book artists in the world joined forces to create Image Comics, a company specializing in the publication of creator-owned comics and graphic novels. The first wave of Image Comics were an immediate hit with fans, and the company has grown over the past two decades to become one of the largest comics publishers in North America. In addition to publishing work by the Image partners, they give a voice to work by numerous independent creators. Its best known series include The Walking Dead, Chew, Morning Glories, Spawn, Savage Dragon, Witchblade, The Darkness, and Invincible.

The Cartoon Art Museum’s exhibition Image Comics: A 20th Anniversary Celebration features over 40 pieces of original artwork spanning 20 years, including works from all seven Image founders, Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon), Jim Lee (WildC.A.T.s), Rob Liefeld (Youngblood), Todd McFarlane (Spawn), Whilce Portacio (Wetworks), Marc Silvestri (Cyberforce), and Jim Valentino (Shadowhawk). Works from Image partner Robert Kirkman (Invincible, The Walking Dead) will also be included in this historic exhibition.

The opening reception for Image Comics: A 20th Anniversary Celebration will be held on Thursday, February 23, 2012 from 7:00-9:00pm. Special guests include Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead, Invincible), Fiona Staples (Saga), Ryan Ottley (Invincible) and many more to be announced, as well as a few last-minute surprises. Please visit the Cartoon Art Museum’s website for updates. Admission to this party will be $5-$50, with tickets sold on a sliding scale. Pre-sale tickets for the party can be purchased here: http://guestlistapp.com/events/88905

This party kicks off the three-day Image Expo which will be held at the Oakland Convention Center from Friday, February 24 through Sunday, February 26. Please visit http://www.imagecomicexpo.com/for details.

ABOUT IMAGE COMICS

Image Comics is a comic book and graphic novel publisher founded in 1992 by a collective of best-selling artists. Image has since gone on to become one of the largest comics publishers in the United States. Image currently has five partners: Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. It consists of five major houses: Todd McFarlane Productions, Top Cow Productions, Shadowline, Skybound and Image Central. Image publishes comics and graphic novels in nearly every genre, sub-genre, and style imaginable. It offers science fiction, romance, horror, crime fiction, historical fiction, humor and more by the finest artists and writers working in the medium today. For more information, visit http://www.imagecomics.com/

ABOUT IMAGE EXPO

Image Expo is the premier Northern California comics convention in 2012. The three-day event takes place at the Oakland Convention Center February 24, 25 and 26. Celebrating the creative spirit of independence, Image Expo commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the formation of Image Comics. But more than just looking to the past, the event showcases the evolving the comic market by spotlighting the future of independent publishing.

Headline guests include Image Comics Founders & Partners Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. Special guests for Image Comic Expo include Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples, Blair Butler, Ed Brubaker, Joe Casey, John Layman, Jonathan Hickman, and many more!

Testing, testing...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:01:15 GMT

Posting here to blow the cobwebs off the ol' Livejournal. Nothing to see here...

APE 2011

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 22:46:49 GMT

Another convention season has come and gone.

I'm planning a bigger writeup about APE 2011, with some reflections on my first con as an exhibitor, APE 2001, and I'll announce that here when it's ready to go.

Lots of discussion about the convention is going on around the web, but The Beat's a nice place to weigh in: http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/10/03/deb-aoki-on-updating-ape/

On the positive side, the Couscous Collective's table looked more professional than it ever has, and we've locked up a really nice floor space after several years of exhibiting as a group (and ten-plus when you count me, Shaenon and Jason Thompson). I had a lot of great conversations with old friends, talked about new and upcoming projects and exhibitions with people, and had a good time hanging out with the rest of my tablemates.

Once again, I noticed that people stopping by the table would barely even look at the mini-comics/zines and cheaper items that we had for sale, which is kind of a sad trend. One thing I loved in the old days was that $20 would get me a big stack of comics at APE. Now that's going to get me an eight-page comic with a silkscreened cover and a paperback collection containing several mini-comics' worth of content. That trend has cut down pretty severely on the amount of new content I buy at conventions, since I'm not seeing that $2-3 entry point for an artist's work anymore.

On the negative side? If you weren't Drawn & Quarterly (Kate Beaton was the 500-pound gorilla of the show, selling $20 hardcovers as fast as D&Q could collect money; Adrian Tomine and Dan Clowes generated big sales; and they've always got a lot of great books for sale at every convention already) or someone hosting a Craig Thompson signing, sales were pretty flat. I heard that from big publishers, small press, veteran exhibitors, and pretty much everyone I spoke to. Rather than being glad I'm not the only one who didn't clean up this weekend, I'm bummed that so few of us did much more than break even and maybe make enough extra for a couple of meals.

What was working against APE this weekend? For one thing, Saturday and Sunday had some of the best weather we've seen in San Francisco all year. If you're on the fence about going to a comic show, that's going to factor into your decision. The other big sales killer? Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a giant FREE outdoor music festival in San Francisco took place this weekend, far enough away that people were really unlikely to do both events. Add in the Castro Street Fair on Sunday, and that's two big events during perfect outdoor festival weather, plus both crowds being the type of people who'd be into an alternative comics show, and that had to have an impact on the number of attendees.

The warm weather made the Concourse warmer and muggier than expected, and most of my crew seemed to be operating at half-power throughout the weekend. Probably not so bad for attendees, who were moving around constantly, but that's the sort of thing that really hits an exhibitor.

This was the first year that it really struck me just how big the convention has gotten. The Concourse was reconfigured last year, which allowed for a big increase in exhibitors, although supply didn't meet demand for table space this year (which I think has been par for the course for a while now. APE and WonderCon always have waiting lists, too). Walking around the convention floor, I was struck by just how many booths were staffed by complete strangers. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, since it means that there are new people getting into this, but it's strange for someone like me to walk past 20 tables in a row and not recognize any of the exhibitors. And if my group, with whatever name recognition we've racked up over the years and our primo floor space, wasn't breaking any sales records, I'm really curious about the people in the distant corners of the convention floor at their very first show selling hand-stapled zines and trying to make up table costs, printing costs, airfare and hotel expenses. (That's with the assumption that at least one of the new exhibitors was traveling from out of state and didn't have a friend to stay with in the city.)

One last gripe (honest!) about small press shows, and I realize as I'm typing it that it's not completely reasonable, is the number of attendees who come to these shows and tell me some variation of "I like your work, but I didn't bring any money." (Popular variations include "I already spent my money at .......'s table," or "I'm saving my money to buy ................ later," or "can I get this on Amazon?") At shows like WonderCon and Comic-Con, people plan to buy. They'll take $100-200 out of the bank, then have a checkbook and a credit card ready to go in case they burn through that. At APE and Stumptown, people plan to pay admission, then maybe set aside $20 for the entire show. After your must-get book from one of the special invited guests (Beaton, Thompson, Tomine, Clowes, Shannon Wheeler, Matthew Thurber) or that Dr. Who-zombie-Star Wars-mustaches mash-up print, there's not much left to spread out among the nearly 400 other exhibitors. Yes, APE attracts a different crowd than the shows that spotlight Marvel and DC and Hollywood movies, but it's still frustrating.

Yes, it's great that people are supporting the convention by attending it. No attendees means no reason for organizers to put a show together. Yes, it's great that so many people are attending, and that they're going to panels and workshops and looking at our wares. But it would be nice if more of these people came to the show with the intention of buying comics. Sure, attendees are fans and supporters of the arts, and they don't necessarily have a lot of discretionary income, but for a show like this, they're pretty likely to be Bay Area residents. That means minimal travel costs and no hotel costs. Exhibitors may be local enough to avoid those travel costs, but a full table at APE is $250 with an early-bird discount, $300 if you miss that deadline, and I'm guessing that puts half-tables at $150 for the early-birds and $175 for people who register later. Printing costs for a mini-comic (not counting an artist's time investment) will probably be $60 on the very low end for a 100-copy print run of a zine, a nice banner will run $30-150 depending on whether it's loose or you invest in a display system, add in another $50 for miscellaneous costs along the way and it's pretty easy for an exhibiting artist to be $200 in the whole first thing Saturday morning.

When attendees don't spend money, artists don't, either. If I have a busy morning at a convention, I can take some time away from my table in the afternoon to visit friends and drop some money on their books. When sales tank, it's harder to justify buying anything, and it's also harder to justify time away from your table, since that's time you won't be working toward making back your table costs. However broke an attendee claims to be at a show like this, the artist on the other side is broker. I think I had the same complaint the last time I wrote about APE, so that's just something that we've got to deal with until the economy improves, but I wish more of the attendees would squirrel away a few bucks here and there leading up to APE.

All in all, I still have a great time at the convention, and I'll be back for more next year. No more complaints from me until Stumptown 2012.

Looney Tunes Treasury news

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:55:24 GMT

Two posts in one day, after a several month absence from LiveJournal. Go figure.

Now that I've successfully distributed my author copies of The Looney Tunes Treasury to most of my friends and family (and those I've forgotten will probably remind me soon enough), I'm going to start selling off copies through The Couscous Collective Store. Loads of other fun stuff, including The Comics Guide to the Mission, SPACE, FOREST and other odds and ends are available there, too.

Anyway, $55 plus shipping will get you a personalized copy of The Looney Tunes Treasury featuring a character sketch of your choosing (I assume you'll want a Looney Tunes character, but if you'd rather have Fred Flintstone or Daredevil telling you to enjoy your book, I'm sure we can work something out). Proceeds from sales of the book will help me buy a new laptop, which I'll use to write my next book, which I'll hopefully announce here once the contracts have been worked out (featuring a character who's been one of my favorites for almost as long as the Looney Tunes).

And th-th-th-that's all, folks!

RIP Bill Blackbeard

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:45:32 GMT

One of the great unsung heroes of the entire comics industry, Bill Blackbeard, passed away last month. Today would have been his 85th birthday.

Bill is best known for his work on the absolutely indispensable The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, which was the culmination of more than a decade's worth of research and salvage in his attempt to assemble a complete archive of every major (and almost every minor) comic strip published in American newspapers. Do a google search for him and you'll find a number of glowing tributes detailing his efforts, or, if you want a quick illustrated version, read through my four-page comics tribute that I drew back in 2003.

I never met Bill in person, and only had a few brief periods of correspondence with him, mostly while preparing that comic, and I'm still kicking myself for not taking the time to rent a car, dust off my tape recorder and spend an afternoon shooting the breeze with him about comics, about the changing face of comics scholarship, and just to shake his hand and thank him for everything he's done. Someone summed up his legacy really succinctly by saying "Bill Blackbeard gave comics its memory," and that pretty much says it.

RIP, Bill.

Yabba Dabba Doo!

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:59:52 GMT

Here's an unexpected Warner Bros./Hanna-Barbera crossover:

Big thanks to Patrick Owsley for this! Please visit his websites: http://powsley.blogspot.com/, http://www.coroflot.com/powsley, http://www.patrickowsley.com!

1,000 Comic Books You Must Read

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 01:57:15 GMT

I missed this book when it came out last year, but one of our dedicated interns at the Cartoon Art Museum was reading Tony Isabella's 1,000 Comic Books You Must Read at the admissions desk last week.

As luck would have it, he had the book opened to this page, featuring the Marvel Holiday Special that Shaenon and I co-wrote:

Pretty cool, huh? It's nice to know that someone read it. And by my count, that means "Moleman's Christmas" was one of the top 200 or 300 Marvel Comics of all time (or at least one of the 300 or so that you MUST READ). Not too shabby.

And as far as current books you must read, check out Heidi MacDonald's Holiday Shopping Guide over at The Beat...

News from the ol' hometown

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 06:50:30 GMT

And now, a note from my hometown library, about The Looney Tunes Treasury:

Many many thanks again for your generous donation of The Looney Tunes Treasury. We've been holding on to it and looking for a record to copy, but although several large public libraries show it on order, none has yet cataloged it. So our intrepid cataloger Helen went ahead and cataloged it - here's a screenshot (you can resize to read it, or just go to our website www.wellington.lib.oh.us, click on Search the Catalog, and put in either the title or your name).

There's also a bookplate inside with your name and that of Running Press. And it's already proven popular, as you can see by the holds before it's on the shelf!

Gratefully,

Lynne Welch
Herrick Memorial Library

Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:58:40 GMT

This was pretty much my reaction upon opening a package from Patrick McDonnell and finding out that he enjoyed The Looney Tunes Treasury enough to send me an autographed Mutts book:

Mooch, Earl and Daffy Duck? Woo-hoo!

Animation Meme

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:09:28 GMT

I got this from dragonluk.livejournal.com

It's a really incomplete list of animated features, with too many direct-to-video films included, and I could spend the rest of the day writing up a more complete list, but I'll just follow the instructions and leave it at that. Based on this list, it looks like I've got a few gaps in my Disney viewing (but nothing that anyone would consider "gems"), I haven't seen much anime at all, and I haven't bothered with some pretty wide swaths of non-Disney features. On the whole, though, I think I've seen a lot more animation than the average non-parent.

Instructions:

- X what you saw
- O what you haven't finished/seen or saw sizable portions
- Bold what you loved
- Italicize what you disliked/hated
- Leave unchanged if neutral

CLASSIC DISNEY
-------------------------------
[X] 101 Dalmatians (1961)
[X] Alice in Wonderland (1951)
[X] Bambi (1942)
[X] Cinderella (1950)
[X] Dumbo (1941)
[X] Fantasia (1940)
[X] Lady and the Tramp (1955)
[X] Mary Poppins (1964)
[X] Peter Pan (1953)
[X] Pinocchio (1940)
[X] Sleeping Beauty (1959)
[X] Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
[X] Song of the South (1946)

DISNEY'S DARK AGE
-------------------------------
[ ] The Aristocats (1970)
[ ] The Black Cauldron (1985)
[X] The Fox and the Hound (1981)
[X] The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
[X] The Jungle Book (1967)
[X] The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
[X] Oliver and Company (1986)
[X] Pete's Dragon (1977)
[ ] The Rescuers (1977)
[X] Robin Hood (1973)
[X] The Sword In The Stone (1963)

THE DISNEY RENAISSANCE
-------------------------------
[X] Aladdin (1992)
[X] Beauty and the Beast (1991)
[ ] A Goofy Movie (1995)
[X] Hercules (1997)
[X] The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
[X] The Lion King (1994)
[X] The Little Mermaid (1989)
[X] Mulan (1998)
[X] Pocahontas (1995)
[X] The Rescuers Down Under (1990)
[X] Tarzan (1999)

DISNEY'S MODERN AGE
-------------------------------
[X] Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
[X] Bolt (2008)
[ ] Brother Bear (2003)
[ ] Chicken Little (2005)
[ ] Dinosaur (2000)
[X] The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
[X] Fantasia 2000 (2000)
[ ] Home on the Range (2004)
[X] Lilo & Stitch (2002)
[ ] Meet the Robinsons (2007)
[X] Treasure Planet (2002)

PIXAR
-------------------------------
[X] A Bug's Life (1998)
[X] Cars (2006)

[X] Finding Nemo (2003)
[X] The Incredibles (2004)
[X] Monsters Inc. (2001)
[X] Ratatouille (2007)
[X] Toy Story (1995)
[X] Toy Story 2 (1999)
[X] Toy Story 3 (2010)
[X] Wall-E (2008)
[X] Up (2009)

DON BLUTH
-------------------------------
[ ] All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)
[X] An American Tail (1986)
[ ] An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991)
[ ] Anastasia (1997)
[ ] The Land Before Time (1988)
[ ] The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)
[ ] Rock-a-Doodle (1991)
[X] The Secret of NIMH (1982)
[ ] Thumbelina (1994)
[X] Titan AE (2000)
[ ] A Troll in Central Park (1994)

CLAYMATION (STOP MOTION, to be more accurate)
-------------------------------
[ ] The Adventures of Mark Twain (1986)
[X] Chicken Run (2000)
[X] Corpse Bride (2005)
[O] James and the Giant Peach (1996)
[X] The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
[X] Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
[X] Coraline (2009)

CGI GLUT
-------------------------------
[ ] Antz (1998)
[ ] Happy Feet (2006)
[ ] Kung Fu Panda (2008)
[ ] Madagascar (2005)
[X] Monster House (2006)
[ ] Over the Hedge (2006)
[ ] The Polar Express (2004)

[X] Shrek (2001)
[X] Shrek 2 (2004)
[X] Shrek The Third (2007)
[X] Monsters vs. Aliens

IMPORTS
-------------------------------
[X] Arabian Knight (aka The Thief and the Cobbler) (1995)
[X] The Last Unicorn (1982)
[ ] Light Years (1988)
[X] The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
[X] Persepolis (2007)
[ ] Waltz With Bashir (2008)
[X] Watership Down (1978)
[ ] When the Wind Blows (1988)
[X] Yellow Submarine (1968)

STUDIO GHIBLI/MIYAZAKI
-------------------------------
[X] Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
[X] Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
[X] Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
[X] Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)
[ ] Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
[X] My Neighbors The Yamadas (1999)
[X] My Neighbor Totoro (1993)
[X] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
[ ] Only Yesterday (1991)
[X] Pom Poko (Tanuki War) (1994)
[X] Porco Rosso (1992)
[X] Princess Mononoke (1999)
[X] Spirited Away (2002)
[O] Whisper of the Heart (1995)
[X] Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (2009)

SATOSHI KON
-------------------------------
[O] Millennium Actress (2001)
[X] Paprika (2006)
[X] Perfect Blue (1999)
[X] Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
[ ] Memories - "Magnetic Rose" part (1995)

SHINKAI MAKOTO
-------------------------------
[ ] She and Her Cat (1999)
[ ] Voices of a Distant Star (2001)
[ ] The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)
[ ] 5 Centimeters per Second (2007)

OTHER ANIME FILMS
-------------------------------
[X] Akira (1989)
[ ] Appleseed (2004)
[ ] Appleseed: Ex Machina (2007)
[ ] Arcadia of My Youth (U.S. Title - Vengeance of the Space Pirate) (1982)
[ ] Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2003)
[ ] The Dagger of Kamui (U.S. Title - Revenge of the Ninja Warrior) (1985)
[ ] Dirty Pair: Project Eden (1987)
[ ] End of Evangelion (1997)
[ ] Fist of the North Star (1986)
[X] Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
[X] Ghost in the Shell (1996)
[ ] The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
[ ] Lensman (1984)
[ ] Macross: Do You Remember Love (U.S. Title - Clash of the Bionoids) (1984)
[X] Metropolis (2001)
[ ] Neo-Tokyo (1986)
[X] Ninja Scroll (1993)
[ ] Patlabor the Movie (1989)
[ ] The Professional: Golgo 13 (1983)
[ ] Project A-ko (1986)
[ ] Robot Carnival (1987)
[ ] Robotech: The Shadow Chronicle (2006)
[ ] Silent Möbius (1991)
[ ] Space Adventure Cobra (1982)
[ ] Steamboy (2004)
[ ] Sword of the Stranger (2007)
[ ] Unico and the Island of Magic (1983)
[ ] Urotsukidoji: The Movie (1987)
[X] Vampire Hunter D (1985)
[ ] Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (2000)
[ ] Wings of Honneamise: Royal Space Force (1987)

CARTOONS FOR GROWN-UPS
-------------------------------
[ ] American Pop (1981)
[X] The Animatrix (2003)
[X] Beavis & Butthead Do America (1996).
[ ] Cool World (1992)
[ ] Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
[ ] Final Fantasy: Advent Children (2005)
[ ] Fire & Ice (1983)
[ ] Fritz the Cat (1972)
[X] Heavy Metal (1981)
[ ] Heavy Metal 2000 (2000)
[ ] Hey Good Lookin' (1982)
[ ] Lady Death (2004)
[ ] A Scanner Darkly (2006)
[X] South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
[ ] Street Fight (Coonskin) (1975)
[X] Waking Life (2001)

OTHER ANIMATED MOVIES
-------------------------------
[ ] Animal Farm (1954)
[ ] Animalympics (1980)
[ ] Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon The Movie (2007): dislike Aqua Teen in general
[ ] Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
[X] The Brave Little Toaster (1988)
[ ] Bravestarr: The Movie (1988)
[ ] Cats Don't Dance (1997)
[ ] Care Bears: The Movie (1985)
[ ] Fern Gully (1992)
[X] G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987)
[ ] Gobots: Battle of the Rock Lords (1986)
[X] He-Man & She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985)
[X] The Hobbit (1977)
[X] The Iron Giant (1999)
[X] Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
[ ] Lord of the Rings (1978)
[ ] Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1992)
[ ] My Little Pony: The Movie (1986)
[ ] Pink Floyd's The Wall (1982)
[ ] The Prince of Egypt (1998)
[ ] Powerpuff Girls: The Movie (2002)
[ ] Quest For Camelot (1999)
[ ] Ringing Bell (1978)
[ ] The Road to El Dorado (2000)
[ ] Space Jam (1996)
[ ] Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985)
[X] Superman: Doomsday (2007)
[ ] The Swan Princess (1994)
[X] Transformers: The Movie (1986)
[ ] Wizards (1977)
[X] Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
[ ] Wonder Woman (2009)
[ ] Balto (1995)
[ ] Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)

Where to find me in October 2010

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 08:05:59 GMT

October is shaping up to be the busiest month I've had in quite a while. Here's what I'm up to:

October 1 marks the opening of the Cartoon Art Museum's newest exhibition, Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women. Feels like the most labor-intensive exhibition I've done since...well, probably the last time that I worked with guest curators. There's always a steep learning curve with people who haven't done this before.

October 3 is the first of six (!) presentations I'm giving at local libraries and universities on Michael Chabon's novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. I gave this presentation at several libraries in Marin County earlier in the year, and I guess word got out that I was available.

On Tuesday, October 5, I'll be conducting a brief interview with Dave Cooper at the Cartoon Art Museum as he promotes his new book, Bent!

On Saturday, October 9, I'll be at the New York Comic-Con conducting some Cartoon Art Museum business. I've got another Kavalier & Clay presentation on Monday, October 11, which means I'm flying to New York on Friday and heading back home on Sunday, with a full day at a comic book convention in between. Ah, life in the fast lane...

I think I've got another Kavalier & Clay thing on October 12.

The Alternative Press Expo hits San Francisco on October 16 & 17, and I'll be exhibiting with my pals from the Couscous Collective at tables #237-238 (conveniently situated next to the Cartoon Art Museum's table, #239). For the first time in a few years, I'm not conducting any panel discussions, *but* Shaenon and I will be running a workshop on Saturday on humor writing, so please clear your schedules for that. The Couscous Collective is premiering our first anthology, FOREST, at the con, so please check that out. We're hoping to put out at least two of these every year, with launches at APE and Portland's Stumptown, respectively.

I've got another Kavalier & Clay presentation on October 18, which is the only other one that I remember off the top of my head.

On October 19, Ted Rall visits the Cartoon Art Museum to promote his new book, The Anti-American Manifesto. Love him or hate him, he's always pretty interesting, and this should be a fun event.

Also on October 19 is my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom!

And also on October 19, my book, The Looney Tunes Treasury, hits stores and starts shipping from Amazon.com. There's a Facebook page for the book, too, if you're into that sort of thing.

The Cartoon Art Museum will host an opening reception for Graphic Details on October 21, but I won't be there, because I'm heading to Ottawa for the Ottawa International Animation Festival for an animation show that I curated, entitled "Californimation." (I didn't come up with the title, but it's pretty good for a show focusing on Bay Area animators.) I'm signing copies of the Looney Tunes Treasury on October 21, attending a Californimation reception on October 22, and just enjoying the festival the rest of the time I'm in the city.

Unfortunately, this means that I'll miss out on a fun Kids' Day event at the Cartoon Art Museum on Saturday, October 23, as Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, Brian Kolm, (possibly) Lark Pien and a few other guests hang out at CAM drawing with visitors. I'm also missing out on THE BOOK RELEASE PARTY OF THE YEAR, with Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey Wells signing copies of Skin Horse Volume 2 at Borderlands in San Francisco. If you're not in Canada that weekend, make sure to check that out.

I've got two more Kavalier & Clay presentations after I get back (October 26 & 27 sound like probable dates to me...), and I'll wrap up the month by installing one more Cartoon Art Museum exhibition, featuring the art of Kevin "Kal" Kallagher from The Economist.

We'll wrap up the month by giving out candy and comics to trick-or-treaters at our house in Berkeley. We were on the third floor of an apartment on a side-street that could only be accessed by a rickety call box in San Francisco, so we never had the opportunity to dole out candy on Halloween before, so we're pretty excited about that.

November's actually pretty sedate in comparison to this. The other nine months of 2010 are actually pretty sedate compared to this, come to think of it.

If you want to keep up on any of this as these events work me over with a pillowcase full of doorknobs, please track me down on Facebook or Twitter, or my occasional ramblings here.

And if you see me at all during October, please don't take it personally if I'm sobbing, screaming, napping or hopped up on caffeine.

Excelsior!

Hulk smash!

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 01:26:19 GMT

I'm making my way through The Essential Hulk #6 right now. These are black-and-white collections from Marvel that reprint 20-30 comics on paper stock that's just above newsprint quality, and the price point is pretty low compared to just about anything else in American comic shops, with 500+ pages setting you back $20 (as opposed to the increasingly typical $4 for 22 pages if you're buying monthly comic books).

Anyway, I was reading a 1977-or-so issue of Hulk, and once again, someone managed to knock the Hulk out (I think they gassed him), then the bad guys locked him up in a dungeon. The Hulk is taken captive surprisingly often, given that he's a nuclear-powered monster who once literally picked up an entire mountain.

Now, here's what troubled me about this comic. Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk when he's enraged (or gets his adrenaline going in some other way), and the Hulk turns back into Banner when he relaxes. But almost every time the Hulk gets knocked out, he remains the Hulk. How can this be? I'm not saying that kayoing ol' Jade Jaws should cause him to instantaneously revert back to Bruce Banner, but if he loses consciousness for several hours, it seems like that would cause him to change back, wouldn't it?

This is really troubling me. My best guess for this is that the Hulk has to expend at least a certain minimum amount of energy every time he changes (and has to recharge for a certain period of time afterward), and that he's not going to revert back to Banner unless he's really gotten that initial adrenaline rush out of his system.

Yeah, that sounds pretty plausible. I think I can live with that explanation.

Any other thoughts on this, beyond "That guy is really overthinking a 30-year-old comic book that's intended to be read by nine-year-olds"?

On with the show, this is it!

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 06:54:25 GMT

In case I haven't mentioned it recently, I've got a book coming out next month. It's my first, not counting mini-comics, comic books, magazine articles, etc., and there's something extra-exciting about having my name on the front cover of a real hardcover from a real publisher. The book is The Looney Tunes Treasury, and you can pre-order it from Amazon.com here.

And if you want to see what it looks like, I got a copy hand-delivered to me by my editor this morning:

Me reading through the book:

The front cover:

The start of my intro:

Art sample:

Title page (probably where I'll be SIGNING these. Wow!):

Here's Bugs!

Bound-in Porky Pig comic reproduction:

Bound-in folder containing replica "Rabbit Hood" script pages:

Nice double-page "What's Opera, Doc?" spread:

My editor's great, and it was really easy working with the publisher, who went along with a lot more of my suggestions than I'd have predicted as a first-time author.

Please check it out when it hits bookstores next month, and please spread the word to any friends and colleagues who enjoy Looney Tunes. This will be a great holiday gift, and the more copies you buy, the more likely I'll get to do additional projects with these guys in the future. We're already talking about a few possibilities, any one of which will be really cool.

Th-th-that's all...for now, folks!

Cats & Dogs

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:21:38 GMT

We're inching toward our two-month anniversary of having our cat, Tesla, and fast approaching the six-month mark of living in our house. Man, this year's flying by.

I'm expecting to come into some money from a few side projects soon, which means planning new repairs and such for the house. Window replacement is at the top of the short list there, since we've got some slotted windows that exist for the sole purpose of leaking cold air into the house. The sidewalk and front porch can use some red paint, as can the paved areas in the backyard and basement. I'm hoping to fix up the basement to the point that I can use it as a comic-reading/storage room, which will free up some floor space in Shaenon's office, until we can completely renovate the garage so that Shaenon can use it as a backyard office/studio, and...

Yeah, I think we'll have to space this stuff out a little bit. Looking back on it, though, we've gotten a lot done since taking ownership of the house back in late December.

We've got a lot of backyard work we want to do, too. Shaenon's got a nice-sized garden behind our garage, and she wants to expand it considerably. I'd like to get rid of the crabgrass that makes up...well, pretty much 100% of our lawn. The weeds are gone, so I'll shift my focus to ripping out all of that crabgrass and eventually planting real grass there.

The neighbor's dogs are still barking, but we've got more and more neighbors on board for filing complaints against him, so we're hoping that he'll reach a breaking point soon. Apparently he's intending to start a dog-breeding business on his property, and since I'm sure he doesn't have a license for that sort of thing, I'm hoping we can take him down that way if Animal Control doesn't.

Our cat's settling in pretty well, although she is prone to barfing on things if she gets upset or overeats or...aw, who can tell? We can't figure out what sets her off, but we're hoping that she'll continue to feel more at ease as time passes.

And that's what we're up to right now. Any questions?

Kitty update

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 08:21:59 GMT

**Warning: Stories about cat's digestive habits ahead:

Tesla had a really good day today, and seems to be back to normal.

Well, as "normal" as it gets when you've only been living someplace for about ten days. She didn't throw up today, seemed a lot more playful and less irritable, and we're happy to see droppings in her litter box, which indicate that she's been keeping food in her system. (Those are all signs that I'm doing well, too, come to think of it.)

We bought some stomach-settling food supplements at the pet store after work today, and with Shaenon home from work all day tomorrow, both of us having time to spend at home this weekend, and me having the day off on Monday, we think it will be a nice, relaxing four days for the cat.

And as a special bonus for those of you who aren't following me on Facebook, here's a picture of the cat:

Kitty-cornered

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:43:03 GMT

Shaenon and I got a cat last weekend, and for the most part, she's adjusting really well to her new home. Her name at the SPCA was "Boa," but Shaenon decided that wouldn't do, and has renamed her "Tesla."

Tesla's playful, she's friendly, and she's settling in enough that she'll even sit with us on the couch for more than three minutes at a time now before bolting and exploring some other area of the house.

Unfortunately, we've hit a couple of snags in the settling process, but we're hoping we can get them resolved soon. If you've been through any of this with cats before and can weigh in, I'll really appreciate it. I haven't had a new cat in over 25 years, and he was an indoor/outdoor cat, so he was very autonomous very early on, so we didn't have to do much housebreaking with him. Tesla is most likely going to be strictly an indoor cat, so the learning curve is a lot different.

Anyway, here are the problems so far:

In an effort to keep our kitchen a little less stinky, we bought a litter box with a covered top and a pet door for easy in-and-out access to replace the flat litter box that we'd been using. Tesla hasn't warmed to the idea, and has opted (twice so far) to use the bean-bag chair in the living room, since it's full of something that feels like sand.

Our solution for now is to remove the bean-bag chair from the areas of the house where the cat lives (maybe throwing it away altogether) and to leave the litter box open and uncovered again. Does anyone have advice for transitioning a cat into using the covered litter box? I worry that without the bean-bag chair as an option, Tesla will just find some out-of-the-way spot that we won't discover right away, which is even worse than having a corner of the kitchen smell like kitty litter.

**

The other problem is that Tesla keeps different hours than us, and starts meowing outside of our bedroom door at some point between 5am and 6am, and keeps it up intermittently until we exit at some point between 8am and 9am. We made allowances for this at first, but since we want to break her of this habit, when Tesla wakes Shaenon, Shaenon opens the door, tells the cat "NO!" in a firm voice, and Tesla gets the hint and wanders off. Shaenon started doing this a few days ago. Shaenon chastised Tesla about five times yesterday morning, and only about twice today, but the past two mornings, Tesla has "revenge-barfed" at some point after getting an earful from Shaenon. Yesterday it was on the kitchen floor, and today it was on the couch.

Should we assume that she's still settling in, and will get the hang of our sleep schedule soon enough, or are there other training methods we should use? We're not going to catch her in the act of doing this, since Tesla's doing it specifically because we aren't around to pay attention to her, but we obviously don't want to wake up to a new mess every single morning while she's settling in.

**

Thanks for any advice you can give on this! I'm pretty sure we'll have Tesla trained pretty well within a couple of weeks, but we're heading off to Comic-Con for about a week at the end of July and don't want to leave a vengeful cat at home with whomever we get to house/cat-sit for us.

RIP Adrienne Colan

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:31:34 GMT

Just got word that Gene Colan's wife, Adrienne, has passed away.

While there's been a lot of drama and turmoil surrounding her and Gene over the last few months, I'll always remember her very fondly.

Quick story: In December 2008, Gene and Adrienne flew out to San Francisco for a special reception celebrating his life and career, in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition we were hosting at the Cartoon Art Museum. We also sprung our lifetime achievement award, The Sparky, on him as a surprise.

Just a few days before that, though, my dad had a heart attack. Since I had to wait a few days for him to get out of the hospital and get settled back in at home, I decided to distract myself with work and stick around until after Gene's event, after which I'd fly back to Ohio to see my family.

I was pretty much a wreck that whole week, though, but I somehow managed to hold myself together long enough to get through that evening, serving as emcee and making sure all the Colans' needs were addressed. Adrienne had heard about my dad from Glen David Gold, who'd co-curated Gene's art exhibition with me, and she made sure to take me aside as soon as possible to say a few kind words, and to reassure me that this kind of thing is fairly routine, and that Gene had gone through the same thing years and years earlier, and he was still alive and kicking.

Basically, she knew exactly what to say, and how to say it, and she really helped me get through a rough spot.

And that's how I'm going to remember her.

The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:42:41 GMT

Insight Editions just released a book called The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes, which is available now at quality bookstores near you, or Amazon.com, for those of you who do the online ordering thing.

I'm mentioning this because I wrote two essays in the book, talking about Chuck Jones's western epic "Drip-Along Daffy" and Friz Freleng's "Little Red Riding Rabbit," which is one of my absolute favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons. My wife, Shaenon, wrote two essays, too, but she's got her own blog and can talk about them there.

I'm also mentioning this because I'm writing a book called The Looney Tunes Treasury for the same publisher, and that's coming out this fall. If all goes well, I'll probably do more animation-related writing for them in the future, so I encourage you to support them financially so that they'll be able to keep hiring me for more projects.

Completely unrelated to that, I'm going to be at the San Diego Comic-Con this summer, working the Cartoon Art Museum's table, so please stop by and say hello if you're down there. If you're an artist who'd like to help out with our fundraising Sketch-a-thon, please reply here or write to me at gallery[at]cartoonart.org for more information.

Th-th-th-that's all, folks!

Dogs of war

Tue, 11 May 2010 03:45:23 GMT

Small update:

We had a housewarming party over the weekend and talked to our next door neighbor, who's got the dogs immediately behind his house, so he actually gets the barking a little bit worse than we do.

He told us that yes, he did file a citizen's arrest, like we did, and that apparently resulted in a small fine that the dog owner paid, which got him off the hook again.

But the very next day, our next door neighbor got a notice from Animal Control saying that *his* dog had been barking and causing problems, and that his yard was full of animal droppings. Yes, our next door neighbor has a dog, but he keeps it inside at night, and we might hear it bark once or twice a week, if they run into another dog when they're going for a walk.

So, if there was any doubt that the pit bull owner is a colossal jerk who's going for the gold medal in the Worst Neighbor of All Time competition, that erased it entirely.