I’ve been working on this piece about Occupy Oakland since October 10, and it’s finally coming together — it will be a five-part series for Oakland Local and Truthout. From the pitch:

Could Occupy Oakland be a model for this movement — and how does it work?

From the General Assembly to the food lines to the self-policing. Since the camp at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza first coalesced on October 10, it has grown rapidly to fill the plaza; and just as quickly, demonstrators have worked to create an infrastructure that turns this protest into a commune that welcomes a broad range of residents with a functional kitchen, library, media center, childrens space and their own camp security.

Occupy Oakland has not been without its incidents and backlash over cleanliness and mainstream media access. But as authorities are cracking down on occupation demonstrators across the country — and even just across the Bay in San Francisco –Oakland presents another option. So what does that look like?

Please pass along this Spot.Us pitch to anyone you think might be interested. I haven’t done the crowd-funding thing in a while and it always makes me itch. I think this is a worthy project, though, and I’ve definitely been putting in the hours. And hey, big spenders can get original art!

I am blogging from a bus! It’s the future! But we’re still stuck in traffic.

Just a quick note as I’m headed toward Boston for NCMR this weekend to point you toward this infographic I put together for Campus Progress. (I would include an image here, but I am blogging from a bus!)

I’m pretty sure I say this about 3/4 of the pieces I do lately, but damn was this a fun assignment. Thanks to Kay Steiger and the team at CP for taking a chance on illustrated reportage. This piece seems to really be resonating with people. Tweets and Facebook-likes aside, if I have convinced even one poor veteran not to go to the University of Phoenix, I will consider this a success.

I will try to post again soon, probably not from a bus, about the new book I just put together for MoCCA and Stumptown…

I tried this comic entirely drawn and colored on my new tablet in order to save time. I think it actually took me longer, though. Hm.

The SF Public Press newspaper came out on Thursday and it looks great — I’m very happy with how the graphic turned out, especially since it is so freaking huge. Really, it’s such a delight to see my art blown up to broadsheet size, and with very nice four-color registration to boot.

You can buy the paper, ad-free and full of solid local investigative reporting, for just $2, at any of these Bay Area book stores and newsstands.

The only problem is that I am going to be paid about $6/hour for the work I put into it (I’m splitting the take 50-50 with my collaborator).

I used Spot.Us to fund my McSweeney’s-killed Mid-Market story back in March with some excellent results. But this round of fundraising has been much tougher going, and I’m left wondering why. I have a few theories, but what I’m most afraid of is that journalism people don’t like funny pictures in their newspapers. But you’re reading this blog, so surely you don’t agree with that nonsense.

So no, I’m not asking for donations, because that feels weird — but I don’t have qualms about asking you to give your email address to a reputable non-profit and spend less than one minute filling out a survey that will result in four free dollars for me.

We have just a couple days and $250 left. Seriously, please just do it already, because this is getting embarrassing.

I’ve taken the last week off from posting Nine Gallons updates because I’ve been so damn busy. So busy, in fact, that I haven’t had a chance to post about anything here until now.

I’m nearly finished with this massive Pier 70 flowchart graphic that will be the back cover of the next San Francisco Public Press newspaper. (We are still fundraising at Spot.Us, so if you can find it in your heart to spend a few minutes filling out a survey, I get free money!). There are also new Census comics up over at the Rumpus, and over the last 30 hours I’ve been busting my ass almost live-drawing the election for the SF Appeal. You can catch up on the whole series here.

Nine Gallons resumes on Monday! Stay tuned and all that.

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!

This week and next I’ll be guest-blogging about San Francisco neighborhoods, real estate, transit and other pertinent junk over at Curbed SF. You might remember I was the editor of Curbed SF back in 2008. It’s kind of fun to be back on my old beat, but I’d forgotten how stressful quota blogging is — especially when it comes to the snarky commenters. For as much as I complain about it, I kind of like the self-congratulatory back-patting world of comics a bit better.

A bit!

My story is finally finished! You can check it out at Spot.Us. 4,000 words!? In its hugeness, it looks like the graphic might be breaking their site though — if you can’t get it to work, try this mirror. And let me know what you think! The project is finished, but we’re still looking for the last $70 in funding if we can get it — donations will be open through Friday.

So far I’ve raised $600 for my story about Mid-Market blight and troubles, past and future, at California crowdfunding journalism site Spot.Us. I’m humbled and amazed by the generosity of my friends and strangers — and I’m surprised by the general interest in this topic. The story will be finished in two weeks (hey Newsom, call me back!) but in the meanwhile, I’ve been posting brief updates on the Spot.Us site. My most recent one concerned this little infographic seen here.

When McSweeney’s hired me to write this story for the Panorama, they also hired graphic designer Laura Foxgrover to work up an accompanying infographic that would include my reporting on the individual empty buildings plus a map of the Mid-Market area. I’m working with Laura to update the graphic for Spot.Us and I’ll be paying her 15% of whatever I raise. This is just an unreadable preview of Laura’s most recent draft — we’ll be adding a bunch more info to the map by the time the piece is out.

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.