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Afternoon, my lil’ chickadees: This began as a Facebook update but ran long and way earnest. I’m back at my desk in Brazil now, our cat is purring, my speakers are farting electronic beats, and I’m scribbling down Tuesday’s chapter of RLP.
(Sunset from Key West, Florida)
I had a blast being back in the States (& Canada) for the last three weeks, kicking around New York City again, spending time with my folks, swimming with old friends at my favorite Miami beach, sneaking down to Key West with my lady to snorkel the Barrier Reef before the BP slick hits.
But great as that all was, it’s even better to be back “home”, a concept I’ve pondered much this year, and even more while back in the States. When we first landed in NYC, I felt confused at how instantly comfortable it was, unrooting my heart from Brazil and placing it in comfy Manhattan soil for a bit, then it did the same in my hometown of South Florida, here and there and here again.
But what I’ve taken away from that, so clear to me now, is that “home” isn’t a place… it’s the people, wherever they are. The warm little dots around the globe that let you forget where you were and just be where you are.
OK, /warm fuzzy moments. I’ll see you Tuesday with fresh RLP.
I-Open on YouCube
This past spring during my visit to Ohio University’s Aesthetic Technologies Lab, I was kidnapped for an hour by Betsey Merkel, one of the brains behind the I-Open Foundation, which connects “thinkers” into a network in the hopes for problem-solving for social change.
Betsey ushered into one of the school’s screen-printing studios and showed me a diagram of beliefs and intents, then conducted one of the most original interviews I’ve ever had. She asked me fundamental but deep-drilling abstract questions about my core beliefs, my work, my perceived relation to the world, etc. In my defense, I was stuffed to the gills with antibiotics at the time, so enjoy my answers with a dash of salt, yeah?
I also love the YouCube presentation they used, where my interview is just a single facet of a 3D cube, talking simultaenously with five other interviewees. You can touch and play with it too; a fun thing I’ve never seen before:
More information on Betsey and I-Open can be found here.
Me & MOCCA, 2009
My favorite of our hometown comic shows, the MoCCA Festival, is this weekend (June 6th & 7th), located at the 69th Regiment Armory (Lexington Avenue & 25th Street) in New York City. While I won’t have a table of my own (how bourgeois!), I will be signing with my brothers-in-webcomics ACT-I-VATE (table #311) on Saturday from 3-4pm. Otherwise I’ll be walking the show just like you, so if you see me, come say hello… I look just like that picture to the right.
More info on the MoCCA Festival by clicking this lovely poster by Molly Crabapple:
Guest of the @Lab
Beginning this Wednesday, I’m heading out to Ohio University as a guest of their fine art school’s Aesthetic Technology Lab (@Lab for short) for a four-day cross-disciplinary workshop with artists from several different fields and art students. Brought in for the “Comic Book Bootcamp,” I’ll be working with students alongside my dear friend Joshua Dysart, artist Ron Wimberly and Vertigo Editor Pornsak Pichetshote. More info on Comic Book Boot Camp is here:
The Music Behind the Comics
Largehearted Boy asked me to contribute a playlist of songs/tracks that helped shape my creative process while working on 08: A GRAPHIC DIARY OF THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, and so I began:
As my comics differ from prose in that there are writing/art/design/edit stages to the creative process, I tend to use different musical styles as inspiration-goosers depending on what stage of the creation I’m in. As a former DJ and music obsessive, I realize I’ve gone overboard and have broken up the playlist into stages…
Check out the original post here for the working-soundtrack behind the comics.
Reliving History with the Graphic Novel Reporter
Here’s a nice interview I’ve just done up at the Graphic Novel Reporter for you to enjoy; there are hints at upcoming beauties towards the end.
Second Heartbeat
I woke up one morning about three weeks ago feeling very different, something new in my gut that didn’t have a human name to put to it. I’ve since spent alot time not-listening and not-thinking to myself, just enjoying the velvety feel of this newish skin:
Though I’ve spent much of this year with my head down busy creating “08″ and all this work nobody knows about yet, I imagine the constant cycling between multiple projects that I equally love is the root of this new feeling. My daily writing/drawing regimen used to be a concentrated effort of discipline and time-management, a focus/release of fire… but it now feels more like an involuntary system of my organism, a second heartbeat that sits above my skull and throbs ideas to me in secret code through my dreams and quiet waking moments.
Luminato 2008
On June 8th, I’ll be a guest of Toronto’s Luminato Festival of Arts + Creativity, taking part in a panel called “The Political Graphic Novel” hosted by The Beguiling‘s own Peter Birkemoe.
And hey Torontoans, I’ll be sticking around through the 11th, so hit me up in the comments for a good time.
SXSWi 2008
This past weekend I was a speaker at SXSW Interactive, giving a presentation on SHOOTING WAR and other comics in my immediate future as part of the multimedia “Book Readings” series. Any trip to Austin gives me a chance to see friends and family there and eat heaps of barbecue, but my experience at SXSWi was unlike any convention I’ve attended before: full of enthusiastic, intelligent and forward-thinking brains all gathered together to tear down old ways and build up new ones. Everyone had a dream, a project, a company and wanted to figure out a way to pool resources to benefit each other.
March 10: Speaking at SXSW Interactive
I’ll be traveling to Austin TX for SXSW Interactive, a gathering of all things shiny, wired and AJAX-powered. As part of their Book Readings series, I’ll be discussing SHOOTING WAR’s genesis and execution as well as casting a fiery eye to the gorgeous future.
