This Weekend at Union Pool....

With just 12 weeks to go before I squeeze out a youngin', this Saturday at Union Pool I'm going to be gabbing about auto bio comics with two fabulous luminaries... David Heatley and Julia Wertz. Feel free to drink and not be enormous around me.  I won't be jealous. autobiography

Mini Comic Debuts at MOCCA...

Howdy y'all, I have made a mini-comic for Mocca entitled TWO GHOST STORIES.  I am glad Tim read it last night because he caught a glaring type-o.  Duh.  You can see that I have razor sharp concentration now.  Well, back to the copy shop to replace the page!

mimipromo

"insprired the play"?  Fudge.

Here is my signing schedule.  I'll be at the Picturebox table all weekend.

Saturday:

12 pm -2 pm: Lauren Weinstein and Frank Santoro 3:00 pm-5 pm: Lauren Weinstein

Sunday: * 11:30 am - 12:30 pm: Lauren Weinstein 4 pm - 6 pm: Lauren Weinstein *

Bookforum issue out today!

Hi everyone, cover00_popup

The fiction issue of Bookforum came out today and I am in there along with some great company.... Gabrielle Bell, Paul Hornshmeier, C. F., Tony Millionaire, Chris Ware and Dash Shaw.  I am honored.  The comic that's in there is the one I wrote about a couple weeks ago, based on a Yeats poem.

You can read my comic online right here, on the same page with a writer named Terrence Holt who I think I might love.  I think I will put it into a minicomic and sell it at MOCCA too.

In other news, I am now 153 pounds.  Normally I'm about 135.  OH BABY!

Teaching two new classes for adults this Summer!

If you need a little deadline action and feedback, this Summer I will be teaching a couple classes, one at SVA and one at Parsons.  I am also expecting a baby girl in September, so this will be my last teaching stint for a little while. Here's the info about the SVA class that I am team teaching with the great Tom Hart:

"Intended for artists who are currently working on their own material, this intensive course will begin with a review of thumbnails and story notes. We will help you in determining objectives, creative goals and choosing a project, as well as refining skills and fine-tuning your visual storytelling. You may work on new projects or sections of larger works such as graphic novels, serialized comics and webcomics. Guest lecturers will discuss their work practices, including time management, budgeting and publishing. The course will conclude with a group critique, and will focus on narrative structure, pacing and rhythm, choices in style and technique, and practical suggestions for working more efficiently. There are no course prerequisites; students are expected to have a working knowledge of the techniques, materials and language of comics. NOTE: This class meets for 3 sessions: Sat., June 13, July 18, and August 29."

Here's the Parsons info.  This class now has 12 sessions.

Cartooning  PCFA1041 A   12 session(s). Tues & Thurs, 6:00 PM-8:30 PM, beg. June 9.

"Limited to 16. Cartooning is an often overlooked art form. It combines drawing, graphic art, and writing to create completely unique narratives on any imaginable theme. In this course you study and create all forms of cartooning, from the single-panel gag to the graphic novel. You read work from Charles Addams to Osamu Tezuka to Robert Crumb to Chris Ware. Learn how to develop, pencil, design, and ink your stories. Use computer programs to lay out, color, and edit your work for printing. Students with ambitious longer projects receive technical assistance and guidance. No previous experience required. (2 credits)"

And here's some websites and work of some of my old students:

Lydia Conklin:

lipthing

Also here's Michael Paige Glover:

db-7

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

SPX Sweden Report

Howdy! I'm back from flitting around the globe again! La dee da!

Here's a sketchbook page from my trip to Sweden's Small Press Expo.  I was brought over by the awesome guys at Galago Magazine and they treated me real nice! Also Stockholm is a design-obsessed magical wonderland and the only thing I regret is not having more time to go to fabric stores, and another ikea-type cheapy store called the Lagerhaus (I think).

[caption id="attachment_194" align="aligncenter" width="498" caption="scenes from Stockholm."]scenes from Stockholm.[/caption]

I traveled there with MK Reed and Shannon O'Leary and we stayed in Johannes from Galago's teensy studio apartment.  Mostly we ate pastries and gossiped.  I loved this, because if everything goes well with my pregnancy, I will not have a three-day girl's slumber party situation for another 20 years. We also went to H and M with Mike Diana and we looked at the maternity clothes together.

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Alvin Buenaventura, his fantastic assistant Melissa (who runs the girls rock camp in LA when she's not helping to publish awesome things), her pistol of a bandmate Alisia (shit. I am probably spelling it wrong) and I went to this park with a jungle gym that was a series of ropes pulled tight to be like a Buckminster Fuller style spider web.  It had mysterious dog-pig animals with light up eyes, and a circular hammock swing.  We hung out in the jungle gym watching punk kids drink and skate at the other end of the park which was a totally legal skate area.  I hope I will always love watching young people doing stupid crazy shit-though being a parent will probably change that. The boys going round and round the empty swimming pool structures and then popping up to land on a picnic table.  So perfectly zen.  I envy their coordination.

The festival was full of "book-release" parties, where the books were hard to find and the music was loud. They are into Squee there, which I had never heard of, I guess it's like Techno mixed with primitive Atari samples.

The festival was a bit disorganized, on Saturday morning we showed up right as the festival began (our fault), and there were not really any tables reserved or left (weird), so we made our own space in the front room, which was nice, because the Norwegian Dongery guys were late too and they set up across from us.  I also looked on the program and my name wasn't listed anywhere, except to be on a panel with Mike Diana about censorship, which was odd, because I've never had anything censored before.  I asked, and they politely explained that it was a mistake.  Huh.

I thought Shannon did a great job of curating a nice survey of comics, a full selection of Momes and Bottomless Bellybutton for Fantagraphics, many Papercutters and other stuff from Sparkplug, Secret Acres and Bodega presses. People really liked Robyn Chapman's "Hey 4-Eyes" and Theo Ellsworth's "Capacity".

Finns

I was thrilled to see a great selection of Finnish comics from their collective Glomp.  I got Anna Sailamaa's "Ollaan nätisti ", which won the Fumetto Prize this year.  I also met Johanna Rojola and Mari Ahokoivu from Finland who have a blog at www.narttu.net, and they were amazingly sweet and knew all about the international scene. I'm a bit obsessed right now with Finnish comics and culture.  I'm going  to read the Kalevala today.

Swedes

It was very inspiring to meet Anneli Furmark, she's got a really tenuous drawing style, and has had three(oops two) kids and still published four books.   I'm excited to read the piece of her's in the last DQ showacase.  I also met Martin Ernsten who gave me all of his stuff including a stack of english translation print outs of his newest book.

Nords

The dudes from Dongery were really nice too, and had some great work.  Bendik Kaltenborn is a comics force to be reckoned with.  He gave me a stack of english stuff. He better get a publishing deal in the states soon. stockholmloot

stockholmloot2The one thing that I really regret was that I didn't bring more Picturebox stuff to sell.  People seemed hungry for substantive, psychedelic madness, and it makes me appreciate the work that Dan does all the more.  All of C. F.'s books sold, and I really thought Cold Heat would kill there. In general the Europeans seem to be much more accepting of eclecticism in comics.  They aren't burdened by having to put everything in a niche, and they don't have the spectre of superheros lurking behind them.  They also can get government grants to help them with their weird projects. It all just makes me want to grab Tim and travel round the globe making comics.

Ta ta for now!  Got to eat more and finish drawing some stuff that's really late.

[caption id="attachment_200" align="aligncenter" width="474" caption="happy and pregnant in stockholm"]p1010003[/caption]

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!

goddessofwarcoversketchfr

Comic about Jesse

[caption id="attachment_180" align="alignnone" width="328" caption="Here's the full version of the comic I did for Creative Time in February."]Here's the full version of the comic I did for Creative Time in February.[/caption]

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.