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.

Things have been relatively bustling in my living room at TIWCM HQ lately. For APE last weekend, I made a lil’ quarter-sized, 24 page self-obsessed mini-comic about my favorite shoes (pictured: page one) and, in typical TIWCM fashion, table-squatted with the thing rather successfully. I swear that one of these days I will pay to play. Stumptown, perchance? Good news: that leaves nearly six months for a couple other stories, including the long FNB situation. Oh, plus my return to regular civilization.

Bad news: the entire miniscule “lit” comics industry may very well have collapsed in upon itself in a small, self-contained haze of inflated egos and semi-toxic inks by that point. Tom Spurgeon shares his cynical old-man wisdom on the subject.

For every new exhibitor at SPX putting their creativity on paper in order to share it with a couple of hundred fellow travelers, two young Hollywood functionaries descend on San Diego for the first time looking for idiosyncratic projects with a hook by which they get to justify their place on payroll.

Me, I’m just happy to get some really sweet deals on my print runs from my friend Henry down the street. Because print shops, those are definitely depression recession-proof…

SPX was sweet. The minicomic I made for it will be going up in part on Flickr over the coming days, plus I’ll even leave my apartment for a time to drop some off at the usual spots. They’re a paltry $2 each — even you can afford that in this economy. And because I like self-torture, I’m going to make a new lil’ something for APE, too, so stay tuned for some preview panels maybe.

In other news, I wrote another one of these political cartoon book dealies, this one campaign specific. The yearly book will be out in a few more weeks, and I’m writing a depressing forward on the state of political cartooning for it, so there’s lots to look forward to.

AND ALSO: I’m the new editor of Curbed SF. What-what? Yeah, about that whole leaving the apartment thing… Only to get more coffee.

I’ll be at SPX this year! It’s my first time and I’m pretty excited to see the Bethesda sights. And I’ll have a new mini-comic (um, if I finish inking…). This is a previewy page (click through to get the bigger version). But unfortunately, this means the longer book is getting postponed. Well, unfortunately for you (maybe), but fortunately for my metacarpals (definitely). Speaking of which, I’m going to stop typing now.

After all that, I registered too late to get a table at APE. Unfortunately, the state approved my application for a temporary seller’s permit, so I still have to file a tax return after the event — which means I might as well sell something!

So I’m working on a mini about my more noteworthy Food Not Bombs experiences. This was one of them. But there will be more. (Incidentally, a brief Googling after I drew this seagull turned up some really disturbing YouTube videos of the act in progress that I refuse to link to here; I stand disgusted and corrected.)

It appears that yesterday I was peer-pressured into getting a table for APE. Despite what this might make you think, I’m generally a pretty strong-willed person.

This being said: um, do you any of you guys know someone who might want to share a table with me? I don’t need all that real estate for just three (3!!) (knock on wood) things (unless I make the T-shirts!!*), and if there are more of us we won’t be stuck there so often and will have more opportunities for bathroom and Chris-Ware-stalking breaks.

Oh, right, plus it’s cheaper — that too.

*You didn’t really fall for that, did you? If I made T-shirts, I wouldn’t be in this mess now would I?

Some pages from my mini are up on Flickr. I’m working on some other projects right now (I swear!), but they’re currently on deep background. My main act for today, though, was surviving that earthquake. Mission accomplished.

The San Francisco Zine Fest is this coming Saturday and Sunday! Self-publishing, Vanessa Davis, screenprinting, nature stuff, kickball, etcetera! Woooo zine fest!

So while you may think I am lazy for not updating this blog, it is only because I am frantically-ish putting first/final touches on the comic for which this image is a tentative cover.

(I say tentative but at this rate, I will probably not have time to obsessively draw three more near-identical versions. Which is probably for the best, as the circulation in my right arm is severely lacking.)

If you see this girl at the County Fair Building, ask her nicely for one and she will probably give it to you.

Otherwise I’ll probably put it all online at some point.