Every bus heads full-speed toward the edge of the cliff. All but one falter, and tumble to their doom. The last one flies across the chasm, landing heavily, the passengers screaming but alive. Then we do it all again next year

#1576; In which the Audience participates (Part 3 of 3)

  — October 31st, 2025

[ Tags: , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1576/

[ đź’¬ Comment thread on Discord ]

Buy a Print

This weekend: SPX in Maryland!

This weekend I’ll be returning to Bethesda, Maryland for the annual Small Press Expo! I’m on a panel too:

Constraint Based Cartooning : Saturday 5:00 pm
A blank canvas and an infinite palette can be liberating—and intimidating. Most work ultimately ends up operating according to a set of self-generated rules which govern its scope. Bill Kartalopoulos will talk to David Malki ! (Wondermark), Brian Ralph (Daybreak), Karl Stevens (The Lodger) and Daniel Spottswood (Disquietville) about producing comics which operate more explicitly according to a governing set of aesthetic, stylistic and formal principles.

SPX was one of the first shows I ever considered attending, back in the early 2000s when I would buy their annual anthologies at my local comic book shop. I’ve now been going since 2006, and ever since I discovered that North Bethesda is just a short train ride from the Library of Congress, I’ve made a habit of building an extra day into my trip. Saturday and Sunday I’ll be at the show, and then Monday I’ll be in DC researching some strange Victorian children’s books for a future “True Stuff from Old Books” installment.

SPEAKING OF WHICH: Earlier this summer, I was honored to be invited to Google Boston to speak as part of their excellent “Authors@Google” series (which can be viewed for free on YouTube). This version of “True Stuff from Old Books” runs about an hour long and is full of some of my favorite finds from Victorian-era magazines and newspapers. Enjoy!

As you can see, “True Stuff from Old Books” is full of hilarity and wonder, and throughout all the strangeness, it uniquely illuminates the modern human condition through a sepia-tinted lens of the past. If you’re part of an organization that might be interested in hearing me speak, please drop me a line! I’m constantly adding new weird old tidbits as I stumble across them, so the talk has yet to be the same twice.

Book signing – Irene Special!!

My wife and I traveled from California to Massachusetts to visit friends this weekend — only to have our flight home cancelled by Irene! So we’re hanging out here in western Mass for a few extra days, and I thought I’d take the opportunity — while I’m in the same zip code as the TopatoCo warehouse, which only happens a few times a year — to offer signed books and prints!

Between now and 2PM Monday (Eastern time), order any book, print, and/or poster from my TopatoCo store and I’ll personalize it for free!

In the “Special Instructions” box at checkout, just enter “SIGN TO:” and the name you’d like me to inscribe. I won’t have time to do sketches, but I’m happy to do signatures on any or all of my books, prints, and posters.

Free personalizations are available RIGHT NOW through Monday at 2PM Eastern ONLY! After that, I will be throwing all books off buildings instead; they will arrive all crumply. Or something. UPDATE: All done! Thanks! There’ll be a chance for sketch editions later this fall, I hope.

Help fund a comic strip documentary


Stripped: The Comics Documentary

My good friend Dave Kellett, and my new friend Fred Schroeder, have been making a documentary for two years now all about the changing landscape for comics as newspapers fold, artists find success independently, old models adapt to new, and people worldwide in many fields find the ground shifting beneath them.

Now he’s raising funds to finish the film properly. Dave has already invested over $30K of his own money shooting hundreds of hours of documentary footage — one hour of that with yours truly — and I can’t wait to see this film finished. It’s gorgeous, insightful, and perfectly timely.

Check out the trailer above or on the Kickstarter page! I have not one, but two quotes in the trailer. So you know it’s got severe issues with credibility great. And if you like what you see, consider pre-ordering the DVD or pledging further! (Dave’s good for it — and if not, I know where he lives.)

World Science Fiction Convention

This week I’ll be in Reno for my first-ever World Science Fiction Convention! I’ll be in the dealer room with my Machine of Death co-editor Matthew Bennardo, but I’ll also be on the following panels:

Thu 16:00 – 17:00, The Science Fiction and Fantasy Canon within Comics
What are the essential science fiction and fantasy comics?
Tom Galloway (M), David Malki, Andrew Wheeler, Scott Edelman

(I will say right now that my answer to that question is “Um…aren’t 90% of mainstream comics considered science fiction?” And then I will make jokes to mask my nervousness. If you have suggestions for BRILLIANT ANSWERS I can whip out to seem learned on this panel, please leave a comment on this post.)

Thu 18:00 – 19:00, Making Wondermark: Victorian-Style Collage with a Humorous Bent
To make the celebrated comic strip “Wondermark”, David Malki repurposes illustrations and engravings from 19th-Century books into sarcastic, silly, and surreal collage-style comic strips. Come watch how it’s done and find out if he’s as funny in person as he is in comics!

(I’m somewhat more comfortable with the subject matter of this one.)

Fri 11:00 – 12:00, Ultimate Steampunk – Could the Victorians Have Built a Flying Carriage
While the Victorians built guns, trains and submarines, they never quite got off the ground. But, what if they had built a flying carriage, a spacesuit or a non-loom computer?
David Malki (M), G. David Nordley, Allison Lonsdale, Harry Turtledove, Lawrence Person

(My role as moderator of this panel will chiefly be to say, “Have you guys seen Master of the World with Vincent Price and Charles Bronson? It would’ve been like that, right? Right?”)

Fri 14:00 – 15:00, Book Design and Layout
A review of the process and challenges involved in designing and producing a book once the written word is in hand.
Tara O’Shea (M), David Malki, Sandra Tayler

Sat 15:00 – 16:00, Editing Anthologies
How do editors approach anthologies? Do they just call their friends, or do they (or their assistants) plow through slushpiles? Do the “Best ofs” present special issues?
David Malki (M), Jennifer Brozek, John Joseph Adams, Ellen Datlow

Sun 12:00 – 13:00, Humor in SF and Fantasy
Groucho Marx said that comedy is harder than drama. What are the challenges of writing humor? Who are influences — inside the field and out?
Peter J. Heck (M), David Malki, John DeChancie, Dr. Demento

I’ve also been playing with a new toy — an Eye-Fi camera card that will allow me to take pictures with a nice (non-mobile-device) camera and shoot them straight to my iPad for uploading to the Web. I’m going to try to make a habit of sharing pics all week long on my Twitter, so keep an eye out for those! Are you curious what the inside of the Reno State Convention Center looks like? No? Well, you’ll soon find out.


Recent blog posts