Some exciting work developments on the Occupy Oakland front. I was thrilled to do this piece for GOOD tracking the first six weeks of Oakland’s occupations. And yesterday my first Oakland field report documentary for Citizen Radio aired (starts around the 18 minute mark). Yes, I’m making radio again!

More written work is in the pipeline, big announcements, etc, the usual.

I was arrested while reporting on Occupy Oakland on Thursday at about 1 am, wearing my press pass. My arresting officer acknowledged that I was press, and his officer friend even recognized me and knew my work (if you’re reading this, sir I would sure like to interview you!). I had a meeting set with the OPD press information officer for 8 hours later to obtain my official OPD press credentials. When I told this to the cops, they replied, “Do you want us to call her and tell her you’ll be late?”

I was detained for 15 hours and ultimately charged with the same misdemeanor as other demonstrators and NLG legal observers: PC 409, failure to leave the scene of a riot. Our arraignment dates are a month from now, and we were explicitly warned against returning to the plaza in the meantime. As I told ABC7, I feel like the OPD does, I think: confused.

You know it’s bad when Occupy Veterans is sending you personal supportive messages. This is a crappy video that I took while trying to run to safety — instead I ran into the kettle.

If you are interested in the whole saga, swim up my Twitter stream. The Oakland Police Department arrested 103 people that night, some of whom were not involved in Occupy at all. 95 received the PC 409 misdemeanor citation, but interim OPD Chief Howard Jordan told the New York Times that the group of arrestees were “generally anarchists and provocateurs.”

I am not the first journalist arrested while covering Occupy, and I doubt I’ll be the last — but I’m not clear on if other journalists are being charged with crimes, or arrested and released. Any information appreciated.

I’ll have a full piece about this clusterfuck at Alternet on Monday. I’m also still fundraising at Spot.Us for my illustrated history of Occupy Oakland (buy original art!). I may have an awesome new publisher for that — more details next week.

This is one of the sketches I did of the Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant camp pre-raid — actually just 12 or so hours pre-raid. I’m trying to put together a show of occupy art at the Oakland and SF camps with the generous support and aid of SomArts and other galleries in Oakland. Stay tuned for more details there, and if you or someone you know has been creating art around occupations here (best if it’s easily displayed — drawings, paintings, prints, photos, etc) please get in touch.

A lot has changed in the last week. If you need to catch up, I suggest following me on Twitter, or reading one of these various interviews and articles.

My Spot.Us piece now has full funding, thanks to all who contributed. At least now that things are a little calmer, I can return to drawing. I was originally planning to run the first part on Monday, but I need some time to restructure and rework this thing before it gets going. I appreciate your patience. And hey, you can still contribute to the fund if you’re interested in buying original art — there are art incentives at $20 (field sketch), $50 (small watercolor) and $100 (large watercolor) levels. Thanks!

I have a new long piece at Cartoon Movement about faith-based crisis pregnancy centers in the Bay Area. I visited a bunch of them over the last couple months pretending to be naive and knocked-up. A column detailing why and how I did it will be up later today is right here.

I have a new piece up at Cartoon Movement about my trip with Cartooning for Peace to Corsica in June. And this weekend is Zine Fest! Where I will be selling comics per usual with the inimitable Joey Sayers. It’s the 10th annual Zine Fest, so if you’re in the Bay Area, I recommend stopping by — after all, it’s free.

In two weeks, I will have a big new piece up at Cartoon Movement culminating a lot of research and reporting over the last couple months. I’m pretty excited about this one.

I have some illustrations in the latest Longshot Magazine that hit the internet this weekend, but this piece didn’t make it. Kind of a bummer, but I was still happy to spend the afternoon with “Uncle Ralph.” Extras to come from this — I tried to squeeze it onto one print page, which wasn’t nearly enough.

Just a brief note to let y’all know there’s free shipping in my comics store from now until my closets are a bit less full. I’m moving to a new place in Oakland this weekend, and I’d prefer not to carry this all with me!

Of particular note may be that the new Census book is now available in the store — 44 black and white pages for $5. I’ll post a picture as soon as I can find the card reader for my camera…

Another month has passed! Holy crap! Here’s the first half of my latest 7×7 piece, about gay pride events in San Francisco; part two is here.

Stay tuned for all the comics I’ve been working on that I am contractually obligated not to show you yet, sorry — two upcoming pieces for Cartoon Movement, plus three other top-secret things are in the works…

I’m on deadline (four, actually) and coming down with a cold, but I wanted to point you to this column I wrote for Cartoon Movement today about how personally and politically rewarding and economically dreadful it is to draw local cartoons. (It is all of these things, a lot.)

(Apparently some people came away from this with the perception that the SF Appeal is struggling, because somehow that is a more obvious conclusion than that I am doing awesome. So let me say again: we’re both doing great, bringing the magic every day, and no one is going too hungry in the process.)

Though my schedule prevents me from contributing to the thriving, wonderful SF Appeal on the regular these days, I am looking forward to bigger one-offs for them in the not-distant future. Eve Batey at the Appeal believed in this kind of work when no one else did; it’s stunning to me to think about how much has changed for me and for, I think, the acceptance of comics journalism in media in such a short time. I will always be thankful to Eve for the opportunity and launchpad. <3 <3 <3

Okay, back to those deadlines! I’ll have something to show for them very soon!