this is what concerns me:

I’ve finished the first chapter of a new book of short vignettes recounting my experience with Food Not Bombs — the good, the bad, the characters, the salt… I’m working on the next two chapters for a Xeric Grant application in September, but for the next few months this space will primarily be devoted to weekly installments of This is What Concerns Me. (Don’t worry, though, I’ll spare you from the ongoing And Now They Are Dead series until MJ is well-buried and the bad cartoon curse has been lifted.)

So stay tuned! And check out more Nine Gallons on my Flickr page. And please, give me some tips for how to sound less stiff when promoting myself.

I’ve really been dropping the ball lately on responding to sales requests for minicomics, so I decided to set up a PayPal store situation available to you over there in the sidebar. It’s pretty bare bones right now, but expect more cool purchaseable stuff in the near future. Please note, though, that for now, I am way behind on reprinting these comics, and will probably run out soon.

In related news, I won’t be at MoCCA this year after all since I’ve been a bad cartoonist and haven’t yet finished this new comic I’m working on. But it will be printed and ready for purchase by the end of the month.

There are also some preview shots of my (gulp) “book” on Flickr. I’ve been drawing a lot of baggy pants, unkempt hair and unhappy faces instead of blogging lately. It’s easier on the hands.

Because otherwise Dick Blick wouldn’t be selling these lifesize wooden manikins now would they?

Of course not.

Only $555 for the kid, $779 for the lady and $799 for the dude!

Hell, what’s another $800 when you’ve got $100K in art school loans, right kids? It’ll look so good in the condo! And now you’ll never have to draw from any of those gross naked people!!

I did this piece for the Gutenberg, a new little magazine out of the Bay Area. The colors are just for fun/learning Photoshop, though — it’ll be black and white in print.

I originally wanted to cover seed bombs, but apparently those are too mainstream now? I guess I’m out of touch with the youth culture these days.

Either way, worms are cool, too.

But I still like this one.

I had been threatening it for a while, but now the moment (er, scanner) has arrived.

Well, it arrived a couple weeks ago, actually, but I digress.

This means more of my dumb drawings will be languishing on Flickr now instead of just in tattered sketchbooks on shelves; which means you can see them without even stepping foot in the Tenderloin, which I think is a pretty good deal.

This one is Bordeaux, a non-nugget who lives at Farm Sanctuary and who has more of an omniscient expression than I have properly captured here.

Hunt 512 with Black Star Hicarb and Winsor & Newton watercolors on some fancy cold-pressed block.

That is all.

The Animation Show #4 is coming! (It’ll hit the Bay Area this Friday, at the Lumiere in San Francisco, and the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley).

I remember seeing the very first Animation Show debut in Campbell Hall (in 2003? that era is a bit hazy). Don H. and the other UCSB alums who did his voiceovers gave a great intro and took questions afterwards. (I still have my Animation Show T-shirt from that year’s Comic-Con!)

It was happier times, I guess — ’cause now Don Hertzfeldt isn’t associated with the show he co-founded, like, at all. From his Bitter Films blog, in March:

last week i decided it was time for me to part ways with the animation show. it’s been five years and three tours and some good memories. they have a new tour rolling through theaters this summer and i don’t know what will be in it but i encourage you to go check it out

The show is now entirely curated by Mike Judge. And, uh, you know how I feel about that dude.

Mostly I’m just annoyed that I’ll have to pay two (2!!) admission fees to see both AS#4 and Hertzfeldt’s upcoming i am so proud of you, the follow-up to AS#3’s everything will be ok. Disappointing all around.

Blah blah MoCCA was supersweet blah blah.

On his process: “Sometimes I just sit on the couch, and if I look out the window and see a fat guy with bloody knuckles and curlers in his hair spitting, I start to think, ‘Wow, what does that guy do for a living? What do his kids look like?’ It just happens like that.”