Hi, sorry I've been away from the blog worldfor so long! As many of you know, I have not been playing with my beloved rock band Flaming Fire for a while now--I've busy with comics and puttering around in my house singing along with Aretha. But it's an itch that's got to be scratched, Patrick wrote some slammin' new jams, and my urge to rock you wonderful people has not died, it's just gotten stronger, so for one night only, I will throw down with Patrick and company for a SCORCHING show. I will probably be so miserable because this is my last ever show that I will have to be dragged off the stage in tears. I also got a brand new wig and surprise outfit just for the occasion! So come on down this Friday, we'll be playing all the hits! Union Pool is located at 484 Union Ave at Skillman Ave take the G or L train to Metropolitan/Lorimer I think we're going on at 11, but get there at 10 so you can see my favorite singer ever, Saasha Foo. Actually, come at like 6:30, so we can all talk and drink and love each other for one last time. In other news, The Goddess of War got on Richard Gehr's of the Village Voice's top 10 comics of 2008. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2008/12/pulp_fictions_t_1.php check out this awesome reviews of The Goddess of War, http://www.thoughtballoonists.com/2008/12/highlights-of-2008-goddess-of-war-volume-one.html and don't forget to see the cool comics art show I am in with Matthew Thurber and Tom Hart at the Y Tribeca. http://www.92y.org/shop/category.asp?category=88892Tri+92Tribeca+Art888&92YT_global=TribecaArt I hope to see you all at the show for my LAST EVER PERFORMANCE, EVER.
yay!
real live monsters...
The hand comes home.
Belated Halloween Greetings on Election Day!
The amazing haunted nature house I rented this summer was in fine form for Halloween. No one decorates it, these things just show up and organize themselves.
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.
[gallery]
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.
adding blacks on photoshop....
I just took by wall painting pic into photoshop to spot blacks, it's a pretty neat method, hope it works in the space... the top photo is after, the bottom is before.
More painting... did I screw up?
I'm about to go and spend the last day of painting at the Y Tribeca's gallery space. I started filling out the black areas on the wall painting but did I overdo it?
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.
SPX this weekend, and my husband's an Ink Stud!
Hi everyone. I've been remiss in updating. Shame on me. I started teaching and cartooning again and it's taken over my life. Also, I've just joined my community garden and my head is flowing with dreams of murals and composting. I went to CCS in Vermont last week and it was beautiful and the utopian society of cartoonists that I always dream about.
This weekend is SPX and I'm happy to report I'll be debuting something... it's a four page comic in the brand new Ganzfeld with a poster to match...
This magazine is going to be so awesome. I can't wait to see it. It's got music and new inventions and it's debuting at SPX and this is the last issue. Bummer.
Also my husband is featured on Inkstuds this week!
Also, I'm going to be reading at the great Atomic Books in Baltimore on Friday night, with Brian Ralph, Jesse Reklaw, Julia Wertz, Laura Park, Theo Ellsworth, Austin English, Ken Dahl, and Ben Claassen III.
It should be a blast....
This weekend! Kim Deitch, David Sandlin, and Me at Brooklyn Book Fest!
Howdy y'all, I am so happy for Kim Deitch. He's my hero, one of my favorite comics, and he's having a big retrospective at MOCCA that's opening on Friday. I've been to his studio before, and he makes tons of pencil sketches for his comics. I would say 2/3rds of the work he does are in these old-master like sketches, that's not even counting all the penciling and inking he does for his published pages. Here's one from my personal collection, a character page for Waldo.
There's also a show by the best silk-screener in the world, David Sandlin at Jack the Pelican.
And finally, I'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday signing The Goddess of War at the Picturebox table. I was there last year and it was fun.
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.
[gallery]
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.
Paige Lipari
One of my favorite things about being a teacher is that every once in a while you get a student who has a distilled, singular vision, and comes into the class ready to go. Paige is one of those people. She started a cartooning blog and updates it a few times a week with these square, mysterious, homey but violent poem comics. It's my pleasure to plug her blog...
awesome Village Voice Review of The Goddess of War
Making a book that is a total risk (large format fantasy epic when all I'd ever done before was sorta autobio teen stuff and weird comic strips) is scary and disorienting. First of all I get so close to the process, that I'm completely blind to what others will think. Like, I really thought that Goddess of War was being drawn in my new "clean" style (which is retarded), and when critics make the slightest slight, like calling my drawing "clumsy" I descend into major self-doubt. I know this is completely stupid, because I shouldn't publish books if I don't want people to have thoughts about them. When I was working on Goddess of War I didn't leave the house for months except to teach, I doubted myself every step of the way, and I'm still not sure what to make of the book. I won't even look at it now. I think I either need to develop a thick skin about critics or resist the urge to google myself. But, yesterday I googled myself and here's a nice review from the Village Voice, so what the hell. http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2008/09/pulp_fictions_r_1.php
Here's the first paragraph:
"A blend of Marvel's Thor comic, a Wagnerian space opera, and Anthony Mann's Westerns, the first issue of Lauren W. Weinstein's The Goddess of War (Picturebox) introduces us to a world that is comic and tragic and ambitious as heck. Neither Weinstein's mostly clever Inside Vineyland nor her endearing and autobiographical Girl Stories suggested that she could take comics quite so far out as this. Yet there she goes—and I strongly suggest that you join her."
-Richard Gehr
Also Goddess of War is on SALE this week only for $9.50. from Picturebox.
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.
Sunflower Bodysnatchers.
Sunflowers surround our property in the Catskills. The blooms are way bigger than your head. [gallery]
Spider Babies!
Long time no update. I'm back from the catskills for a day, but I'm glad to announce that our spider farm is doing great! I'll be posting pics on petfinder.com for anyone who wants to adopt one.
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.