The San Diego Comics Convention being held this weekend, that is. l have nothing against that gathering of the clan, but this year I am very busy working to get my new perspective book in on deadline and I have no new product to promote, so I’m staying home. In lieu of a report, here is an album of stereo photographs I took at San Diego sometime in the 90’s.
Continue reading I’m not going to San Diego
…and Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett, but I only had Michael’s picture handy.
For those of you who missed Monday’s broadcast of Jim Woodring’s story Dinosaur Cage on KBOO-FM, the audio file is posted here. Woodring himself wasn’t available, so I do the narration.
One of my very occasional moonlighting activities has been acting on the radio. Usually I’m reading Damon Runyon stories in my best Brooklyn accent under the alias “Naples Yellow” for KBOO-FM’s program Gremlin Time, but tonight it’s something a little more contemporary, a radio adaptation of “Frank” cartoonist Jim Woodring’s story Dinosaur Cage. I’m the narrator, and there is another cartoonist in the cast- The Oregonian’s Michael Russell, who years ago drew this strip about my first 24 Hour Comics Session. Another cartoonist, S.W. Conser, adapted and directed the piece. It is scheduled to air tonight (Monday) at 11pm PDT as one of the features on KBOO’s “Ubu Hour” (alert, in case you’re forwarding the info to friends: several of the other theater pieces airing tonight feature parental-advisory language).
The show can be tuned in live on the web at http://kboo.fm/listen but if you prefer to wait until Tuesday, the audio will be up on the KBOO website, available for download.
I don’t have all that much to say about last weekend’s Stumptown Comics Fest because l didn’t do much beyond sitting at my table and selling books- I didn’t attend any panels or go to any after-parties. Instead, l enjoyed the spring weather and the unusual luxury of being able to walk home from a con instead of to a hotel room. I sat, l doodled, l made money- kind of like a night watchman’s job.
Continue reading Stumptown Report
This weekend l will be making my only convention appearance of the year at Stumptown Comics Fest here in Portland. I wasn’t able to get any new material together in time, but l will have all my books for sale; l will also make myself available for perspective consults. I’ll be taking donations as well for the S. Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust– if anyone’s on the fence about contributing to this worthy cause, they can preview the original art for the 24 hour comic I drew, a copy of which comes with your donation (I just haven’t finished scanning the art yet).
Continue reading Stumptown Preview
The Spring 2009 Drawpocalypse is now history, and I’m catching up on my sleep. As people following this blog are well aware, l decided to make my own 24 hour comic a benefit for ailing comix legend S. Clay Wilson’s medical expenses, and six other artists at the event decided to join me: Kevin Cross, Joshua Kemble, Mike Getsiv, Tony Morgan, Josh Fitz and Ben Sarnoff. I’m still toting up my own pledges, but I think it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars. For those who are interested in pledging, it’s not too late: I produced 24 pages on the nose, so pledges can be some multiple of that, like, say, $240, $480, $2400… All checks should be made out to to the S. Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust and sent to PO Box 14854 San Francisco CA 94114, or you can visit their site: www.sclaywilsontrust.com. In response to numerous requests they now have a Paypal account to take contributions online. Not tax deductible, but you do get a signed minicomic of the story I drew, which l have no plans to make available in any other way.
Continue reading Drawpocalypse Postmortem
The big day of the benefit 24 Hour Comic event to raise money for S. Clay Wilson’s medical expenses is less than two weeks away. Last November, the legendary underground comics artist suffered a severe brain injury in a fall. He spent a week in intensive care and faces a long recovery. Even with insurance, Wilson’s expenses are beyond his ability to pay and have made him and his family paupers. For those of you who may not have heard of it, the premise of the 24 Hour Comic challenge is that an artist attempts to complete 24 pages of comics within 24 hours. I am soliciting pledges from friends and comics fans for each page I complete. Assuming I draw at least 24 pages, the pledges I have so far amount to over a thousand dollars, and I know my fellow cartoonists Kevin Cross, Joshua Kemble, Mike Getsiv, Tony Morgan, Josh Fitz and Ben Sarnoff have been soliciting contributions as well. It’s not too late for you to contact me with a pledge.
Continue reading Checkered Demon Update
Comics fans have lately had distressing news about underground legend S. Clay Wilson, best known as one of the original Zap Comix artists. Last November Wilson suffered a severe brain injury after attending the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. He spent a week in intensive care and faces a long recovery. Although he is not as well known as some of the other pioneer undergrounders like R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman, Wilson looms large in my own artistic development,. Despite its dangers (flying beer bottles, venomous snakes, penis-shaped cannons) Wilson’s world was in many ways a friendlier mirror to the one I navigated as an adolescent growing up in 70’s countercultural Portland- like mine, it was full of shaggy drunks and spiky lesbians in leather- (though in contrast to the real-life lesbians I knew who fully embraced the man-hating, buzz-cut stereotype, Wilson’s dykes were no more menacing than the biker gang in Frankie and Annette movies.) Continue reading Calling All Checkered Demons.