Amadora

It was a good trip. Tons of pictures here.

Thursday: Drove to Dulles, flew away. Slept.

Friday: Changed clothes in the Amsterdam airport, another flight to Lisbon. Met Pedro and Ligia. Slept for an hour, then coffee and out with Pedro and Fernando. Down to the Baxia, then into a crazy club (run down, punk rock and an old man barber cutting other old men's hair). Met Fabio. Ate fish at a restaurant, talking comics. Another bar, Estaduim. Cab to hotel, sleep.

Saturday: Checked email, Pedro picked me up and hung out at his place with Fabio. Read new amazing comics I had never seen before. Lunch (fish), called wife and princess, then car to Amadora Festival. Signed books and drew pictures for people. Little kids asked for autograph! Buffet dinner, then bus to hotel, then drinks with Fabio, Jose and Fernando.

Sunday: Pedro and Yunsun picked Fabio and I up, we drove to the beach and I went surfing in Portugal! Then lunch (fish) and drove to Amadora Festival. Pedro, Fabio and I in a panel talk none came to see, so Pedro beatboxed and we drew. More signing books, drawing for people. Bus to Amadora city hall, banquet (not fish) with Fado singers and port wine. Bus to hotel, then more drinking with Fabi, Perdo etc. until l a t e. 1 hour of sleep.

Monday: Plane home. Transformers, Pan's Labyrinth.

More tomorrow about the show, the art and the peeps.

back from amadora

and boy are my arms tired. Full report tomorrow, but I will say that Lisbon is wonderful and full of good peeps. Also, Transformers is not such a bad movie.

AMADORA Ahoy!

I have work from my books HOW TO BE EVERYWHERE, Jefferson Forest and thickets in the show Divide et Impera, a part of the Amadora Comics Festival near Lisbon, Portugal. I'll also be attending the Festival as a guest this weekend (October 26-28) and will be giving a lecture and signing books there. If by some crazy chance you are there in Portugal please look for me at Amadora.

You can still read a recent Comics Journal article about the work in the show here, and read an interview about HOW TO BE EVERYWHERE here. The curator of the show wrote a review of HTBE here, and a piece about the show in general here (both articles are in Portuguese).

"The Only Child" noted in BANRR

Erin Pringle and I were pleased to find out that my drawn version of her original story, "The Only Child", (which was published last fall in Barrelhouse Issue 3 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize) was named a "Notable" selection (kind of an honorable mention) in this year's Best American Non-Required Reading collection, edited by Dave Eggers. We were one of only a handful of picture-stories mentioned among the great stuff Eggers gathered for the book.

Goodbye SPX!

I went, it was fun. I saw pals (A, T, S, K, B), made new pals (A, J) was a fanboy (G) and bought a bunch of stuff. I'll post some about the best of it over the next few weeks, but overall, I think there's some good suff out there, a lot of crap and even more just ok things. Like any art scene I guess. I saw too many over-silkscreened things and too many things overly-influenced by Ben Jones and, once removed, Gary Panter. And none of it was nearly as good as either of them.

Hello Small Press Expo!

SPX badges by David Heatley

Going to SPX tomorrow, hope to see pals and pals and things to get. I am also bringing a Californian home with me.

Abstract comics

Forget the words and forget Batman. Look at the hands in all three panels. Art by Jerry Robinson, via Eddie Campbell's blog. Now go look at Andrei Molotiu's 24 x 24 project.

And here's a clumsy attempt to figure things out:



UPDATE: More on Madinkbeard.

Pooping a Rainbow

Violet draws in the bath, so I drew a guy pooping a rainbow. That's Violet's Mom erasing our masterpieces...

Log

What happened Monday and yesterday, plus a drawing by Violet.

PS Ask Gwydion to keep blogging.

more vacation

Here's last Tuesday (zoo!) and here's Wednesday:



along with bad drawings of zebras. Wednesday we stopped at ADA in Richmond and saw a great Dean Dass show and a great Bruce Wilhelm video. Then we got home and the vacation was over.