Yep, it's my cousin, Andrew Farango, whose career path and life story are almost identical to mine.

Just like my other cousin, Andrew Fargo, who also seems to get around a lot.

Anyway, if you're interested in getting a hard copy of this, last week's Kull #4 and Buffy The Vampire Slayer #22 have it. Mr. Farango might even sign them for you if you can find him at WonderCon later this month.

Nearly a year ago, Dice Tsutsumi, Ronnie Del Carmen and Enrico Casarosa approached me at an event at the Cartoon Art Museum to discuss a project that they were working on, which they thought would make a fun exhibition.

Earlier in 2008, the first rumblings of the Totoro Forest Project hit the Internet, and word of the charity auction, the plight of the Sayama Forest, and Hayao Miyazaki's efforts to preserve Japan's endangered woodlands started to spread.

And now, after all that, we're now two days away from the official opening of the Totoro Forest Project original art exhibition (Part One) at the Cartoon Art Museum. I tried something a little bit different with the galleries this time, and you can get a sneak preview right here (featuring *my* artistic contribution to the Totoro Forest Fund):



And if you want a sneak preview at the exhibition, I'd suggest dropping by the Cartoon Art Museum tomorrow night for our special Keith Knight Opening Reception and Book Release Party, celebrating the release of The Complete K Chronicles, published by Dark Horse. If you want to see the whole magilla, drop by on Sunday afternoon, on your way to attend Keith's three-hour intensive workshop, which is pricey, yes, but well worth it for the cartoonist who's looking to take his or her career to the next level.

Next up--Gene Colan (but more on that later. I've still got 30 soot sprites to hide in the galleries...)

More William Bazillion here: http://www.williambazillion.com

And if you ever wanted to learn all there is to know about promoting your own cartoons and comics, *and* if you're going to be in San Francisco next month to check out the Cartoon Art Museum's new Totoro's Forest, you'll want to take Keith Knight's workshop, Cartoons Are Serious Business. Keith's a great cartoonist and a brilliant self-promoter, and I'm sure that 99% of the cartoonists I know would benefit from this class.

William Bazillion Chapter Six, now online for your reading pleasure: http://www.williambazillion.com

**And now, a public service announcement from cartoonist, gentleman, pal and illustrator of my profile pic**

Amazing news! Keith Knight's new, daily, Nationally Syndicated comic strip, The Knight Life, is being tested at The San Francisco Chronicle.

Here's a message from the man himself:

Finally!! This week, my new daily comic strip, The Knight Life, is being tested in the place I called home for 15 years.

Please go to their site and vote for the strip. It's configured so you can vote for the strip every day this week. Plus, you can stick a stake through the heart of a few old ones.

Go forth, good people and VOTE!!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/08/DDCOMICS08.DTL

Thanks!

Keef

***

Vote early, and vote often. Keith and his wife are now the proud parents of an eight-pound, eight ounce baby boy, and a wildly successful syndicated strip will help toward defraying the costs of...y'know, diapers, formula, baseball equipment, medical care, college, wedding expenses and whatever else Keith's kid racks up over the next 25 years.

And please consider casting a vote for Richard Thompson's strip Cul de Sac, another great new strip, when you vote in this poll. I won't make any recommendations for strips that the Chronicle should drop, since I know a lot of the artists in that part of the poll, but I'm sure everyone's got an opinion on that, at any rate.

I interviewed Jason Thompson recently to discuss his upcoming book Manga: The Complete Guide, along with his online comic The Stiff and his work as an editor at Viz Media. Please check it out in its entirety at this link.



And for those of you with access to comic shops and finer magazine shops, please check out the current issue of The Comics Journal (pictured above), which features my lengthy interview with Harvey Award-winning cartoonist and good friend Keith Knight. You can read an excerpt here.

The next issue of The Comics Journal is scheduled to feature Shaenon Garrity interviewing Gail Simone and me interviewing Greg Rucka, so expect to hear more about those when the time comes.

The ongoing adventures of Darryl and Weiner:

http://www.williambazillion.com

I jotted down some notes the other day concerning all of the things that are going to happen before this story wraps up, and...well, let's just say that we'll get to that Nazi gold when we get to it, and that if I'm doing my job correctly, it will be worth the wait.

In other news, the next time I complain about not being busy enough, remind me to remember July-September 2007. A quick listing of events that I remember:

*Comic-Con preparations, including making arrangements for the museum's first-ever Cartoonist Sketch-a-thon

*The San Diego Comic-Con itself, the 400-pound gorilla-beast of all comic conventions

*returning from SDCC to discover that the goofy 1970s Spider-Man comic I'd posted on my LiveJournal had shown up on Boing-Boing.net and cost me and Shaenon about $100 in overage fees from all the people who'd been clicking on it

*The Northern California National Cartoonists Society get-together at Jeannie Schulz's guest house

*matting, framing, installing and writing exhibition text for Edward Gorey's Dracula at the Cartoon Art Museum

*hosting a reception at CAM for Vanessa Davis

*curating exhibitions featuring Lark Pien and Hellen Jo

*visiting Paige Braddock during her cartoonist-in-residency at CAM

*coordinating plans for Scott McCloud's visit to the Cartoon Art Museum

*moderating a panel discussion with Scott McCloud and Rory Root at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club

*visiting with the son of certified Disney Legend Mary Blair to plan a retrospective exhibition of her work (coming up next month)

*writing a story for ****** ******' ******* ******* featuring ********* and ******-*** (still top secret at the moment, but once it's official, you won't be able to shut me up about it)

*getting talked into interviewing Greg Rucka for an upcoming issue of the Comics Journal, and reading a 300-page book and about 1500 pages of comics in the span of about a week to prepare for it (but firming up details for the soon-to-be-on-sale issue featuring my lengthy interview with Keith Knight and hopefully convincing them to run my other lengthy interview with Jason Thompson)

*getting ready for the Cartoon Art Museum's big fundraiser at Pixar Animation Studios on September 15 (Tickets still available!)

*and in the midst of all this. trying to get *ahead* on work so that I can take a trip to Pittsburgh to celebrate Shaenon's grandmother's 90th birthday

Normally, I'd spread all of this stuff out over the course of a year. Or six. Toss in some actual socializing in there, too, and this was probably the busiest summer I've ever had.

Bring on the fall. Please.