Comic for Bookforum...

yeatspreview Hi everyone, here's a coupla panels from a new comic I made.  Experimenting with a new watercolor technique.  It's a two-page square comic coming out in the summer reading issue of Bookforum.  This one is based on a poem by William Butler Yeats that I originally found in The Rattlebag.  Tim told gave me The Rattlebag because it's a pretty randomly organized poetry book, kinda like the b-sides of the world's great poems.  It's designed so that you pick it up, open it to a page,  and if you like the poem, cool, read more. That random walk-through-the park style of research is my favorite kind.

The Yeats poem is actually a part of a play called "The Dreaming of the Bones".

I like the groovy-pagan wizardy world of Yeats. I like that he was a senator too.  He always talks about curlews crying.

Here's the poem:

At the grey round of the hill Music of a lost kingdom Runs, runs and is suddenly still The winds out of Clare-Galway Carry it: suddenly it is still.

I have heard in the night air A wandering airy music: And moidered in that snare A man is lost of a sudden, In that sweet wandering snare.

What finger first began Music of a lost kingdom? They dream that laughed in the sun. Dry bones that dream are bitter, They dream and darken our sun.

Those crazy fingers play A wandering airy music; Our luck has withered away, And wheat in the wheat-ear withered, And the wind blows it away.

My heart ran wild when it heard The curlew cry before dawn And the eddying of the cat-headed bird; But now the night is gone.

I have heard it from far below The strong March birds a-crow, Stretch neck and clap the wing, Red cocks, and crow.

My mom is a saint!

I just saw my mom speak at the New School in a panel about all the new social programs passed by Obama.  She faced off against the token republican guy that used to work for the Bush administration on welfare policy.  ooooooh! Seeing my mom talk brought back many childhood moments of sitting and watching her receive awards and talk about how poor babies need clothes.  I remember when I was in high school thinking she was a saint, but when I went up to congratulate her tonight she remembered it a little differently.  She said when I was seven after some event I went up to her and said, "You're dead meat, mom."  I was such an angel.

I wonder how I will annoy my own children.

momsketch

New Sketch for Goddess of War, the FRENCH version....

Howdy y'all.  In just about an hour I am on my way to Sweden's Small Press Expo.  I'm going with Shannon O'Leary, Paul Gravett, MK Reed and Jeffrey Brown, among others.  That trip to the Fumetto Festival was really enlightening, I feel like this totally new world of international cartoonists was opened up to me.  It was dreamy.  I have a good feeling that this one will be great too.  I will put up pictures throughout the week. I have been having all these deep spacey, progesterone enhanced dreams lately, like this one where seeds were genetically engineered to form themselves into couches, cars and rafts.  Also I've begun to have this thought, why is it so important that the Western idea of God be that He is a moral god?  Why can't we be okay with God being the creator and the destroyer?  I think I'm going to read the Bahagavad Gita.

Here's my sketch for the Goddess of War: FRENCH STYLE!

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The Fumetto Festival!

[caption id="attachment_161" align="aligncenter" width="768" caption="Being pregnant at a festival in Switzerland makes me high."]Being pregnant at a festival in Switzerland makes me high.[/caption] p1010112Hi Everyone,

Just returned from The Fumetto Festival in Switzerland.  Picturebox had an exhibit there, and we spent a week and a half installing the show, hanging out with artists, and touring the beautiful town.  I guess 55000 people came to this thing.  There was an academy awards like ceremony for children and adults that won the Fumetto Festival's cartooning contest.  Never in my life have I felt so pampered and well treated as a cartoonist.

Here are some more pictures that I put up of Flickr...

Here are some of Dan's Pictures

I'll be putting up my sketches later today.

Comic for Creative Time

Hi. The great people at Creative Time asked me to do a comic--the only guideline being a square nine-panel grid.

I found this format to be really challenging.  It's been a long time since I've done something short and I approached it like I was writing a poem.  I'm not so sure about the results, but check it out and see what you think.  I want to do one of these a week.

Frogs in progress....

I've never put up a work in progress before, but hey, why not?  Here's a thing I'm doing for channel 13's nature comics. It's about how frogs are threatened with extinction because of all of these man made problems, and mysterious diseases that plague their habitats and infect their permeable skins.  It's a downer, for sure.  Unlike most comics that always try to put a silver lining on environmental issues, there just isn't one here, which makes for a doozy of a story. I just finished the inks. They are still a little rough, but I'll show the colored end results on Wednesday, which is D-Day for this piece...

Also included in this gallery are the original pencils. I tried to really spot blacks here.  I'm trying to get better at that.

This is the first time that Tim, my husband and ace comics critic and I have worked on a comic together.  It taught me that I am a selfish screwball who is horrible at working with my husband.  Ya gotta love him.

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mural update

I worked until around 11 pm on Friday at the Tribeca Y to mostly finish the mural... Here's some blurry pictures.

I love the process of making wall paintings.  It's so visceral, reminds me on when I was in art school, except this time I have a clearer idea of what I'm doing.

I'm going back to do final touch ups this week.

ytribeca mural update...

Art Show Wall Painting

Hi everyone, For the last couple days I've been installing this show at the Y Tribeca, and for some reason I decided to make a wall painting--india ink directly on the wall.  Yesterday I was in there penciling for hours, but I also started inking, here's what it looks like so far.... better pictures will be up tomorrow...

the opening is next Saturday!

Also there was a sale at Pearl-buy one get one free of the really awesome Windsor Newton Series 7 brushes.  I got a #4 an #3 for $40!!!!!  Here's a drawing fiddling around with the #4 while watching Obama wipe up the floor with McCain.

Upcoming show at the Y Tribeca!

Hi, I'm still sorting through the gigantic pile of mini-comics I received from all of the great people I met at SPX.  I want to hype this show that the brand new Y Tribeca is having on October 25th.  It's going to be amazing.  I was installing it yesterday and there are fantastic wall paintings and originals by Tom, Matthew and me.  On Saturday I'm going to do my wall painting in the gallery that faces into the street.

I am fascinated by what they are trying to do at the new Y.  They hired this dude to try to get the 20 somethings in the NY area to come to the ultra modern newly renovated space, and his response is to make it into something like the Knitting Factory (which I think is moving to Williamsburg), art gallery and community center combined.  I REALLY LIKE THIS GUY and I hope this place takes off.  In the past the Y for singles has always seemed a little like  Jewish day camp, this seems way more fun.

Also, I've joined my community garden and become obsessed with redoing the mural that looks out on the street--although I love the mural.  I'm obsessed with the history of my street too... more on that later.

Bookslut interview...

John Zuarino from Bookslut did a nice interview with me here. Previously I wrote on this post some whiney thing about how my life sucked and we have to move, but Tim just told me that no one wants to read a blog by a whiner, so instead I'll post some cool illustrations that I found in the catskills. I've found many more illustrations that rock the house, that I'll be posting a bunch.

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Last night I was walking along Park Ave in Brooklyn at night, not the fancy one in Manhattan but the one that goes under the BQE.  I saw many rats scurrying around a plastic container someone left out as food for a stray cat.

It was disgusting.

Scenic Train Ride

Maybe this is totally boring for everyone.  But here's some pics I took on a scenic train ride from Arkville to Roxbury.  Everything is enveloped in a world of green.  The cows look like they are floating. One of those amazing crazy skies that reminds me of Charles Birchfield.

I need to spend all my time up here.

I'm still in the Catskills and I need to figure out a way to spend all my time here. Every day I swim in the swimming hole, play Gin, go to auctions up in the boonies where victorian furniture goes for $1, and toothless speed freak locals hold up gigantic urns, cook veggies from the garden, stare at bees feeding from sunflowers, let my dog chase squirells, draw nature, get hot, go swimming, think the place is haunted, watch a shitty movie.  I am in heaven and I don't want to leave. Too bad teaching starts in a week and a couple days.

I think I'm going to have a mini-comics worth of sketches from this glorious haven at SPX.