Here's the first batch of photos from our recent trip to Japan. Cheers to Facebook for changing their programming so that those of you who haven't joined the Facebook cult yet can still look at photos that are posted there.

Short explanation of our trip: In 2007, Shaenon and I curated an exhibition for the Cartoon Art Museum called The Art and Flair of Mary Blair. It was very well-received, prompting Studio Ghibli to plan their own much, much, much larger version.

Shaenon and I were hired on as consultants, assisting Mary's nieces with the process of gathering all of the art together and making arrangements for the art to travel to Tokyo back in April.

Earlier this month, we made a return trip to pack up the artwork and bring it back to the U.S. Fortunately for us, they held over the exhibition long enough for us to get a look at it. Even cooler, we got a private look at the exhibition on its final night with staff from Studio Ghibli, the Tokyo Contemporary Art Museum, Japanese broadcaster NHK, Disney, and the core crew behind Pixar's UP, which is already one of our all-time favorite movies. It was incredibly cool to be able to trade Mary Blair stories with Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Jonas Rivera and Ronnie Del Carmen as we walked through the galleries.

Anyway, please check out the photos. More should be on the way soon.

Patti Martinson of Sequential Tart has been interviewing all of the Couscous Collective members (minus the elusive Konstantin Pogorelov, who lives in a small cabin in the woods with Bill Watterson, Steve Ditko and J.D. Salinger), and she's kicking off October with me and Shaenon.

Enjoy these, then meet us in person at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco on October 17 & 18. Shaenon's moderating a panel, I'm moderating a panel, and I'm actually *on* two panels, which is a rarity. If all goes well, I'll have a new print-only William Bazillion mini-comic, entitled "Fatty Camp" on sale at the con.

We'll be loaded with stories from our (currently ongoing) trip to Japan (wrapping up a project for Studio Ghibli and Disney) and copious amounts of rum. Miss it at your peril!

The Race for Santa's Nazi Gold takes a few more giant steps toward its stunning conclusion. Really.

Sorry not to post more Japan photos this week, but Shaenon and I just got back from a roadtrip to Portland, and we're trying to settle back into some semblance of a routine right now. Once it's sunk in that we're actually going to be in our apartment again for more than a few days in a row, we'll try to dive into the Japan blog reports.

And if you want to find us on Thursday night, please swing by The Cartoon Art Museum where we'll be hanging with Carlos Alazraqui of Reno-911! and Rocko's Modern Life fame at the fifth annual Comics 4 Comix stand-up comedy/art auction fundraiser.

Excelsior!

First up, there's a new installment of William Bazillion this week. You don't want to be in the dark when everyone's talking about it at the water cooler tomorrow, so read up.

Secondly, Shaenon and I now have our tentative travel dates for our big trip to Japan next month. We've been helping Studio Ghibli and Tokyo's Modern Art Museum get a big Mary Blair exhibition (a HUGE exhibition, actually--I'd consider paying my own way to go there if they weren't taking care of it for us, since it's going to be something like 400 pieces of Mary's art and memorabilia).

Anyway, I've never been to Japan before, so if anyone has any suggestions--anything at all--that will help us to navigate the Tokyo area and get the most out of it in the three days (and seven or so nights) that we'll have available, please fire away.

And bonus points to whomever gets the reference to the subject line first. No Google-ing, please.