this is what concerns me

I’ve been so busy with preparations for this weekend’s San Francisco Zine Fest events that I haven’t done much to promote them! So here goes!

Tomorrow evening I’m doing my first ever comics reading, at the Cartoon Art Museum starting at 7 p.m. I think I’m third in the line-up, which includes such luminaries as Jonas Madden-Connor, Jamaica Dyer, Jesse Reklaw, Ed Luce, Noah Van Sciver, Eli Bishop (who made the flyer) and John Freaking Porcellino. Food, drink and entertainment for a measly $5 — but tell ‘em you’re poor and you’re in free! I’ll be reading a compilation of Nine Gallons stories, mostly from the nearly finished second issue, which no one has yet seen. Special!

Then on to the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park for the Zine Fest proper! This weekend I’ll have all the old and less-old comics on hand for con-special low prices, plus some brand new purchase-ables: three-color screenprints, small postcard-sized prints and five different pin-back buttons! All for cheap or potentially free with book purchases. I’m also selling a bunch of original art of various size and quality, priced to move from $2-$75. And! I also contributed this centerfold to Laura Beck’s Fat Zine, which will be making its sassy debut as well.

On Sunday at 2 p.m., I’ll be moderating a panel about small-press journalism in San Francisco with a seriously stellar line-up: Michael Stoll (founder, SF Public Press), Dan Archer (reportage cartoonist and Knight fellow at Stanford), Josh Wilson (proprietor, Independent Arts + Media), Antonio Roman-Alcala (founder, SF Arts + Politics zine), and Mat Honan (Longshot Mag). Bring your tough questions and notepads!

Bonus: I’ll be sharing a table with the lovely and talented Joey Sayers, whose autobiographical Just So You Know series is a goddamn revelation. So if you can make it out (Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.) we’d be more than happy to accommodate your moneys, or at least your companies.

So much to see! Maybe even too much! But I hope not!

I’ve been up to all sorts of no good lately, but before I update you on all that, why not take a gander at this sweet little cartoon Rina Piccolo whipped up, inspired by my twit wit.

This is only one among many, and hopefully many more to come. I think Rina’s one of the most under-appreciated, hard-working cartoonists out there — maybe this little project will ingratiate her a bit more with the internet crowd.

I’m also crossing my fingers that Rina’s strip “Tina’s Groove” picks up some of those newly vacated spots left by “Cathy”s retirement.

Here’s to seeing less whining about fat and husbands and chocolate and more funny on the comics page!

Dylan Williams of Sparkplug Comics gave Notes on Conflict and Remainders a pretty stellar and thoughtful review over at his blog Further Examination.

I’m down to my last 25 copies or so of This is What Concerns Me, Remainders and Favorites and I’m still on the fence about whether or not I will reprint them any time soon. So if you haven’t already, you might want to get on that.

In other news, I would tell you about my Census employment but I’d face five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine! So you’ll just have to wait for the comics after my tour of duty is officially over.

The Bay Area was out in full force at this year’s Stumptown Comics Festival in Portland, Oregon. We had an action-packed table, with all sorts of new comics, including my new full-color Israel travelogue Notes on Conflict, which is now up for sale in the store. Look how excited we are! (That may or may not be because we just ate some rad fried pies from a food cart, though.)

I was also on a panel about local printing and publishing that I wish I’d recorded, as it was a really lively and interesting discussion between a diverse group of people. Plus it reinforced to me how awesome printing on newsprint is, especially given how web presses are hurting with shrinking newspapers right now. I think even more comics and zine newspaper projects will be popping up soon as a result.

I’d never been on a convention panel before and this was a really great experience. People were even taking notes!!

While my sales weren’t exactly amazing at Stumptown, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun at a show, so I call it a success. You’ll have to wait for specifics, though: my piece for the Daily Crosshatch ain’t going live ’til Monday.

Stumptown was super great and I am super fried. I’ll be writing up a piece on the festival this week for the Daily Crosshatch, as well as, I’m sure, some extra blogging here. But for now, I leave you with this little gem. Not too awkward, right? Sorry, Comic-Con.

I’ll be posting more of these in the coming days.

This is my comic that will debut at Stumptown next weekend in Portland, Oregon. Full-color, 24-pages, con special price of $5. You pay that much for xeroxed shit! ‘Cause you’re a sucker! I mean, no, because you’re a patron of the arts!!

I’ll be tabling with local favorites Melanie Lewis, Damien Jay, Joey Sayers, and Elenore Toczynski, who I am not linking here because yes, that is how lazy I am, and they are already linked over there in the sidebar okay? Jeez.

I finally got my shit together and printed up a new batch of these suckers. These ones have slightly less awesome cover paper, and are a new black and white line art design instead of the old color painting… HOWEVER: I am hand-painting all of them. Still $5! And you can request colors on your order! Apologies for those of you who’ve ordered them in the last couple weeks — yours will be going out ASAP.

Indie comics favorite John Isaacson and Henry Chamberlain at Newsarama both listed Nine Gallons on their Tops of 2009 lists. Chamberlain even called it “brilliant”! Whaaaat!?

I think I’ll publish a second issue even though I swore I’d never do another legal-sized comic again (those things are expensive). This is causing some awkward rewriting but I think it’ll be worth it, as it’s more of the ethics and conflict chapter after the introduction. However! There won’t be a third issue, mainly because the first and second issues are taking a lot of things out of order and a third issue wouldn’t make any sense. Pro tip: don’t ever write slice-of-life comics with delicate, overwrought bell-curve narratives that sorely depend on delicate, overwrought senses of timing without clearly rendered chapter endings and then try to chop them up into self-publishable chunks. (Chances are you haven’t and won’t have this problem but just thought I’d share.) So I’m aiming for #2 to be done for Stumptown if not the Anarchist Book Fair in March! And if no one wants to publish the book then the continuation of the Great Recession into 2010 will have to be enough real-life first-person awful shit for you, I’m sorry.

Also, if you’ve ordered a copy of #1, I’m reprinting a new crop with a new hand-watercolored cover next week, along with a new This is What Concerns Me. I know I’ve been leading you on with promises of new comics these past weeks but they’re happening, they just haven’t become acquainted with my scanner just yet… Yet!