Ricki S. sent in this picture of a real-life doughplane! (Photo credit: Tim Walker.)

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In two weeks I’ll be in Vancouver for the first-ever Vancouver Comic Arts Festival! I hope you’ll come say hello. We’ll be doing a Machine of Death game panel (similar to this one we did in Toronto last year) and it should be tons of fun. If you’re a Vancouver local and interested in volunteering at the show, you can check out the VanCAF forums.

I haven’t been to Vancouver since I was five years old, I look forward to remembering anything at all about it this time around!

NOTE: Due to a conflicting engagement, I will not be at the Bay Area Maker Faire this year. I know! I’m bummed too. But I will be at Jesse Thorn’s MaxFunCon in June, leading a seminar called “Victorian Portraiture the Easy Way!” If you’re a registered MaxFunCon attendee, activity signup is open now.

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Zachary Bernstein (whom you may remember from his performance at the Machine of Death Half-Birthday Party & Talent Show) is putting on a comedy musical here in Los Angeles, and he’s holding auditions. Here’s Zachary:

“Disasteroid!” is an original musical comedy about a man who mistakenly believes that the world is going to end, and acts accordingly.

This is a NON-UNION theater show. No Pay. Will be performed at the Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood, August 10th, 11th, 12th, 17th, 18th, and 19th. Rehearsals start the first week in July.

We’re looking for comedic actors, who can sing just well enough or better. There will also be some dancing, but nothing too ambitious. The original songs have diverse styles. Actors auditioning for roles should be prepared to sing “Moon River,” “I Feel Pretty,” “Aquarius,” or a Beatles song.

Note: Ages of the characters DO NOT mean those must be the ages of the actors. This is theater, after all.

ALFRED EDGLEY (early 30s): Tax auditor pining to be a professional astronomer, timid at the office, but more daring in his spare time (Lead, 7 songs.)

MABEL BELLCOAT (early 30s): Wealthy philanthropist with low self-esteem, coquettish but doe-eyed and easily worried about what others think of her (Lead, 6 songs)

MITZI STERN (40s): Edgley’s unapologetic, tough, sadistic boss. She rules with an iron fist, and is constantly irritated by her subordinates and everyone else pretty much. This is a very meaty comedic villain role (Supporting, 1 1/2 songs.)

PETE PETTY (Any age): Edgley’s co-worker. A nice, harmless guy, but odd. (Supporting, 2 1/2 songs.)

To put your name in the hat, please submit to our breakdown on Actor’s Access. If you do not have Actor’s Access, please send a headshot and resume to: ztsbernstein [at] gmail.com. Thanks!

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BONUS LINK: Last 24 Hour Comics Day, the French cartoonist “Boulet” drew a 24-page comic called “Darkness” that’s incredible. Do yourself a favor and read it immediately, it’s just great.

It’s the 30th anniversary of the video game Dig Dug and Namco/Bandai has commissioned a bunch of webcomics authors to do special comics to mark the occasion! I’m on deck to do one, as are tons more of your favorite webcomics pals. There’s more general info here, and while the comics haven’t been released yet, I’ll be sure and link to them once they are!

Here are a couple of my favorite sketches from recent conventions! (Click for bigger versions.)

This was for a “Monsters and/or Robots” themed sketchbook:

I think this was my own idea, I can’t remember if there was a suggestion that prompted it:

“Gax hugging Mr Meanscary”:

“Polar bear with a nosebleed” (for a polar-bear-with-a-nosebleed themed sketchbook, I think):

BONUS LINK: At TCAF last weekend I met Tamara, who made a bunch of webcomics-themed cookies! Adorable!

(Photo by @donutage)

Good news! My Hyperbolic Upgrade Stickers (one of which is pictured above) are now available at TopatoCo. So, if you want to bundle a sticker order with greeting cards, you can get them from me, or if you want to bundle them with posters or shirts, get them from TopatoCo!

Also, I’ll be in Toronto this weekend at TCAF, and I made some special prints for the show! (Pictured above.) I’d be happy to sign one for you and draw a word balloon indicating what words of advice Gax has for you. TCAF is a free show held in Toronto’s Downtown Reference Library, and it’s a ton of fun! I’ll be on the second floor waving my arms furiously.

I’ll also be at the TopatoCo Book Release/TCAF Kickoff Party on Friday night! Come say hello! Hooray!

(Letters by Stack)

When I was a kid learning the alphabet I believed that certain letters were “weird letters.” In the same way that letters could be divided into consonants or vowels, or single-syllable and multi-syllable (everything else vs. W), I believed that letters could be divided into regular letters and weird letters.

I don’t know what the criterion for labeling letters “weird” was. It might have had something to do with rarity — my weird letters are mostly the ones with high Scrabble points.

I didn’t think much of it until one day when I visited my cousins. I was probably around eight or nine, and my cousin made an offhand reference to J as a “weird letter.” In that instant I thought: Is this common knowledge? Are the weird letters an actual thing that everybody knows about?

Since then I’ve never heard a reference to any canonical set of weird letters, nor have I kept the torch alive. But for the record, my weird letters were:

Weird: J K Q V X Z
Kind of weird: G W Y

So here are my questions for you:

1. Does this make any sense? Is there a logic to it that my child brain sensed that I can’t make heads or tails of now?

2. Did anybody else think anything remotely similar?

3. What’s a weird way that you made sense of the world as a child?

Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Apropos to my recent post about The Grizzly-Bear Chair, reader Jessie B. wrote in to share this Horn Chair from the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. It’s attributed to Wenzel Friedrich, one of the great longhorn furniture makers of the nineteenth century.

Friedrich was born in Bohemia, but moved to San Antonio and became a cabinetmaker. Between 1880 and 1890 he created chairs, hatracks, tables and more out of horns. This Longhorn Museum site describes a Friedrich chair featuring a “horn-veneered seat frame, inlaid ivory star, back seat cushion, with cat hide covering”:

More info on Friedrich here. And the Internet Archive has preserved a delightful engraved catalog of his pieces from 1890 (click for bigger):

No. 11. OFFICE CHAIR.

This chair is very useful and comfortable, contains 24 horns, cane seat, walnut frame, with best tilting iron, price $60.00.

Any style chair made into office chair, additional cost $10.00.

Awarded first premium at Southern Exposition, Louisville, Ky., 1886, for Best Horn Furniture.

No. 13. FANCY HORN VENEERED SOFA.

Contains 42 horns, guaranteed strong and comfortable, will make cushion backs if preferred. Upholstered in jaguar skin, price $200.00; in silk plush, price $175.00. Sofa, without horn veneered frame, upholstered with fox and catamount skin like No.2 chair, price $150.00; in silk plush, with fringe, same price. [Note: The points of the horns in this sofa have been tipped with acorns.]

No. 14. IMPROVED HAT RACK.

The style and general outline of this Hat Rack will impress you at once with their striking originality and pleasing effect. It contains 36 horns; all frame work is horn veneered, has best French plate mirrors, beveled edges, also a drawer. The cane receiver is silver plated metal, price $275.00.

Awarded First Premium at International Exposition, San Antonio, Texas, 1888, for Artistic Horn Furniture.

Browse the entire catalog here!

AMERICA: Where immigrants can show up, work hard, and make a career out of the creation of horn furniture. I bet the Statue of Liberty would shed a proud tear if she could.

Those of you with Wondermark Calendars may have noted that earlier this week marked the ninth birthday of Wondermark. Huzzah!

Nine years ago, in 2003, I was working the night shift at an advertising agency. One day, after reading Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics (and having consumed a fair amount of “Get Your War On” and “Red Meat”), I sat down in the apartment I shared with my girlfriend, opened a book of clip-art, and thought “I wonder if you could make comics out of these?” (I think I made ten the first day, and twenty in the first week.)

Nine years later, the girlfriend is now my wife, the clip-art book has led to a collection of 50+ volumes of Victorian newspapers and magazines, I’ve published seven books, and I have a studio dedicated to this nonsense. I guess the central question — “is this possible?” — has become rhetorical by this point as well. But I hope I never lose that curiosity — constantly asking myself “What could this become?”

Thanks for hanging out with me! I’ll be around for a while yet — I’m always the last to go home.

Best,

- David !

Allyson B. sent me this picture of a BEAR CHAIR:

The caption reads: “THE GRIZZLY-BEAR CHAIR. Presented, Sept. 8, 1865, to Andrew Johnson, President U.S., by Seth Kinman, the California Hunter and Trapper.”

Google is our friend today! Here is an article that explains that the Grizzly-Bear Chair had a feature in which “by touching a cord, the head of the monster grizzly bear, with jaws extended, would dart out in front from under the seat, snapping and gnashing its teeth.” There are lots more pictures at that link, too!

And here’s the NY Times from December 9, 1885:

SETH KINMAN.
THE PACIFIC COAST NIMROD WHO GIVES CHAIRS TO PRESIDENTS.

From the San Francisco Call, Nov. 29.

A unique character is Seth Kinman, the grizzly bear hunter and Presidential chair presenter, now stopping in this city. He is a tall man, 70 years old, straight as an arrow, dressed in buckskin from head to foot, with long silver hair, beard, and shaggy eyebrows, under which and his immense hat a pair of keen eyes peer sharply.

He is the Nimrod of this coast, the great elk shooter and grizzly bear hunter of California, who has presented elk horns and grizzly bear claws from animals that have fallen before his unerring rifle to four Presidents of the United States — Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, and Hayes — and has “the finest of all” to present to President Cleveland next Spring. He claims to have shot in all more than 800 grizzlies…

[...] The chair presented to President Johnson was made of the bones and hide of a grizzly.

Mr. Kinman is quite a violinist, and has several instruments — one of his own manufacture, the neck of which is made from one of the bones of the head of a favorite mule, that was very fond of his playing and would leave its feed to listen to him every time. The bow used with it is string with hairs from the musical mule’s tail.

Apparently this guy was quite the character, a real celebrity of his day. Kinman Pond in northern California is named for him. For much more of Kinman’s “grizzly bar huntin’” and “Injun skelpin’”, here’s a lengthy feature on the hunter in the 1903 book California Sketches.

But I guess I’m most interested in this guy’s fixation with chairs. He is the most fearsome bear hunter and Indian fighter in the West, and he is best known for making absurd chairs for Presidents.

“Yeah, I kilt me some Injuns,” he spits, his icy eyes peering out from beneath his furry hat, “but what I’m mos’ proud of is that recliner I done made for Rutherford B. Hayes.”

Flickr photo by Tom Hynds

Comic #829 involves a false etymology for the words “pep” and “pepper”. Here are some more surprising etymologies, of various degrees of plausibility.

• Tea gets its name from the abbreviation on tungsten tellurium lanterns (atomic symbol Te), which were used by British soldiers in the Crimea to heat teakettles in the field. The beverage was previously colloquially known as rattle, short for “rattle and clink,” Cockney rhyming slang for “leaf drink.”

• The word sultan comes from the same Latin root as the word consult — in the same way that a president is one who presides, a sultan is one consulted. The title sultan was first assumed by Turkish ruler Fazzad bin Rahib during the thirteenth century in an attempt to emphasize rulership based on the classical qualities of reason and logic.

• The Old French mer is the root for many of our words relating to water, such as marine, maritime and marsupial. But mer was also used more generally as a metaphor for “truth” — the clarity and cleanliness of water representing honesty and sincerity. Thus we get camera, the “capturer of truth”, and mirror, the “twisted truth”. The -or suffix is often found in this context: terror means “the twisted earth”, or something unsettling and otherworldly; horror (using hor- as in horizon) means “twisted boundaries,” or something unreal made real.

• Speaking of fear, the bogeyman feared by children everywhere has its roots in the legend of John Bogieman, a poor farmer said to have given his children away as payment when he couldn’t make the mortgage on his farm. He kept his farm, but his vegetables turned up rotten evermore and he starved to death. Now, he wanders the earth searching for his lost children, and many say his ghostly form cannot tell innocent children from his own, whom he wants to take back with him to the underworld.

• The verbs punch and fart are both onomotopoeias.

Leave your own in the comments!

Are you in Calgary, Los Angeles, Nashville, Newport Beach, or Baltimore? WELL I GOT STUFF FOR YOU TO DO.

Calgary

I’ll be at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo next weekend, April 27-29! I’ll be signing books and stuff at the TopatoCo table! That’s pretty cool!

Los Angeles

Thursday, April 26, at the Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica, there’s an improv comedy show called The Grind. They play every Thursday night (and they’re super great and you should go see them and it’s free besides), but on the 26th in particular, opening for them will be the fantastic MC Mr. Napkins, a musician I’ve mentioned before but who deserves another mention. Here he is performing a rap about moustaches.

I can’t wait to see him live again — if he does his song about vegetables, you will be in for quite a treat. (It’s no party hit of the summer, but what is?) Also I perform improv at this theater every other Monday with my team “Battlesocks” but that is neither here nor there.

Other Places

My friend and filmmaker Michael Mohan is bringing his feature comedy Save the Date to film festivals around the country! It’s co-written by (and based on work by, and featuring art by) cartoonist Jeffrey Brown, it stars Lizzy Caplan (Party Down), Alison Brie (Community), Geoffrey Arend (Super Troopers), and Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks), and it’s great. Some upcoming screenings are:

NASHVILLE FILM FESTIVAL
April 21 – 5:30pm – Regal Green Hills Stadium 16*
April 24 – 2:15pm – Regal Green Hills Stadium 16
Tickets & Info

NEWPORT BEACH FILM FESTIVAL
April 28 – 8:15pm – Triangle Square 5**
May 3 – 7:45pm – Island Cinema 3
Tickets & Info

MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL (BALTIMORE)
May 4 – 8:00pm – Charles Theatre***
May 6 – 2:00pm – Charles Theatre
Tickets & Info

* Actor Lizzy Caplan and director Michael Mohan will be in attendance for a Q+A.
** Director Michael Mohan will be in attendance for a Q+A.
*** Co-writer Egan Reich and director Michael Mohan will be in attendance for a Q+A.

You can read reviews of the film here (the Onion AV Club gave it an A-!). In addition to these particular festivals, there’ll be more info on future screenings in other cities posted to the Save the Date Facebook page, here.

The film premiered at Sundance this year and it’s currently being shopped around to distributors, so I’d like to give it all the support it can get! If it’s coming to a town near you, you might say you should…SAVE THE DATE

for the screening