This actually isn't good! Phones only show you horrors when they're VERY DEPRESSED, or at any other time

#1582; Limit Your Scream Time

  — February 12th, 2026

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Sketches from the Road

Thank you for supporting the Kickstarter effort for The Devastator! Amanda, Geoffrey and I are very excited to see this book come together. I should make clear that you can still get in on the pre-order for the book for the next day or so, and I’ll also be sure to mention it once the physical book is available!

On my travels, I like to sketch — either on paper in my notebook, or on my laptop with a drawing tablet. This particular collection is the result of an animated evening in New York a few weeks back, and I thought I’d share!

This weekend I’m in Toronto for TCAF! What a fun show, what a great city, what a tremendous collection of artists under one roof. Plus, it’s free! Just walk in the ol’ door! What do you have to lose.

Another thing I love about TCAF is how varied the panels and programming always are. Just check out the schedule — if you have even a passing interest in comics I’m sure you’ll find something interesting going on. TCAF is one of the rare breed of comics shows put on by people who love comics and comics creators foremost (which cannot be said of all shows, sadly), and boy, it shows!

On Saturday I’ll be on a panel called “Tracers, Photoshoppers, Cut & Pasters: Cheaters or Revolutionaries?” with my good friends Ryan and Emily as well as two other folks I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. We’ll be talking about making comics without actually, you know, drawing comics in the traditional fashion. I think it will be a gas! OR, it could be miserable, but I think that is fairly unlikely.

On the plane to Toronto I impressed myself mightily by saying to the person beside me (after a few minor conversations about the drink cart and so on proved to be perfectly pleasant), “Can we be friends? I am tired of sitting in these seats staring straight ahead not talking to people. I’m David.” I’m not usually comfortable initiating conversations like that, but I did this time, and it was nice! We talked for an hour or so, and then went back to our reading or whatever. It was perfectly fine.

I might even try it again on the next flight — but only if the preliminary drink-cart tester-conversations go smoothly first.

Introducing: The Devastator!

First, a quick Boston-n-Austin update: Thanks very much, kind Austinites, for your notes and emails — I think I’ll be covered! I’ll be writing back to you in the next day or two to follow up. And Bostonians: I’m looking forward to meeting you at The Asgard tonight! It might be a bit crowded, but please consider this your official permission to not be shy. I insist you come right up and say hello. Hope to see you there!

NOW THEN. The Devastator (pictured above) is a brand-new quarterly comedy anthology! The brainiacs behind the whole thing are my friends Amanda Meadows and Geoffrey Golden. Here’s a recent interview with The Apiary in which they talk about it. And guess what: I have an original Wondermark story in the book! It features Inspector Gadget. Yes. A Wondermark Inspector Gadget. He was so fun to make. It’s a fun little tale of a man with a thousand pounds of clockworks stuffed in his body. The small stories are the most universal.

Amanda and Geoffrey are funding the first issue using Kickstarter, meaning that in order to actually put the thing to print and pay all the contributors, they’re essentially doing pre-orders for the final book in the form of pledges. Pledge a little, and you’ll get a PDF or a hardcopy of the book; pledge more, and you can get all sorts of nifty limited-edition swag as well. But here’s how Kickstarter works: if the total amount isn’t pledged, then nobody pays anything — and the book doesn’t get made. But it’s so close right now! There’s about a week left in the pledge period, and at the time of this writing, it only needs about another $500. UPDATE: You are the best. That seems to me like a highly surmountable obstacle, so won’t you please check it out?

Oh and here is a video too!

IT’S DEVASTATOR TIME!! Thanks for your support!

Boston! Austin! B’Austin?

[audio:http://wondermark.org/audio/tmh_boston.mp3]

This weekend I’m at ROFLCon in Boston! (Well, Cambridge.) Kris Straub and I will be performing a live episode of our comedy podcast on Saturday as part of ROFLCon’s thrilling event schedule. I’ll also be bringing prints, posters, some books, etc. to ROFLCon as an exhibitor — but, as much as I hate to say it, ROFLCon tickets sold out some time ago. I just found out! So unfortunately, it’s too late to decide to go. We will be streaming the TMH show live online though, and we’ll be announcing that on the official TMH Twitter account (@tweethard).

But don’t despair! Kris and I will also be at The Asgard on Friday night (350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge) for an informal meetup. Please come out from 9-midnight to say hello, shake hands, and if you like, get personalized copies of my books. (I’ll take orders and send them out later, probably.) We’ll also have special advance preview copies of our new Tweet Me Harder book, Hey World Here Are Some Suggestions — which I’m super-excited about, but about which I’ll say much more when it’s available online. BOSTONIANS: hope to see you there!

AUSTONIANS (does that work?): I’m coming to your town soon as well! I’ll be at the Renegade Craft Fair on May 15-16. As I’ve done a few times before, I would like to ask for your help! I would love to have an assistant at the booth each day that I’m there to hang out, chat with, help with merchandise and generally keep me from feeling lonely. If you’d be available one of those days, please email me!

Secondly, I am wondering if anybody would be willing to offer a place to ship a few boxes to? I’d love to get my books, etc. sent off ahead of me, but unfortunately this venue doesn’t offer receiving capabilities. If anyone would be willing to take delivery of three or four boxes of Wondermark merch and potentially help me get them to the show, I’d be tremendously grateful (and some of the stuff in those boxes may mysteriously stay with you as well).

Finally, if you have any suggestions for inexpensive lodging near the Palmer Events Center, please pipe up — I’m not familiar with the area and would love a local perspective. Thanks very much!

Welcome, NPR listeners!

This morning I was pleased to be on NPR’s Morning Edition (audio of the segment is available here). Along with Dr. Annetta Cheek from the Center for Plain Language, I discussed the Center’s upcoming ClearMark and WonderMark awards, which praise clear (and lambast confusing) business communication.

If you’re visiting this site from NPR, thanks for stopping by! “Wondermark” is a comic strip published twice a week, containing jokes on a variety of topics. For example, this episode in particular takes on the problem of confusing business documents.

The “random comic” button to the left of each comic will afford you a whirlwind tour of the site. There’s also this brief list of some of my favorite comics as well, which is a good Wondermark primer.

If you like the comics, you can subscribe to updates via email or RSS, Twitter or LiveJournal. I also have a personal Twitter where I say things like “Hey guys I was just on NPR!”

Finally, if you really like the comics, I have books, posters, prints, and so on available as well. It’s my primary source of income, and I rely on the kind support of readers like you!

WHICH REMINDS ME: The Onion A.V. Club just posted a great review of my latest book, Dapper Caps & Pedal-Copters. Thank you, A.V. Club! I am glad you liked the book — I like it very much myself, so it’s pleasing to see that our tastes are aligned. It just makes coexistence so much simpler.

This weekend: Festival of Books at UCLA!


(Flickr image from meekorouse)

I would like to thank everyone for their kind comments regarding my potential life-destroying move to Chicago! Although many folks weighed in with trenchant arguments both for and against the Windy City, I thought it’d be only fair to give my hometown a fair shake before making any final decisions. To that end, I’ll be appearing this weekend at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, on the UCLA campus!

The Festival of Books is a giant free event consisting of author panels, interviews, readings, and vendors, spread across the entire UCLA campus in Westwood. I’ll be there both days with books, comic prints, smiles and possibly sweet rhymes, sharing booth 704 with my friends and fellow cartoonists Keith Knight and Jose Cabrera. Please peruse the official programming for other events you may want to check out at the festival as well — while I won’t be doing anything more complex than simply hanging out at the booth to chat and meet with people, plenty of neat authors will be doing talks and readings throughout the weekend.

Now then! The UCLA campus is huge, and the official Festival of Books map looks like a placemat that might come with a child’s meal at a particularly unhealthy restaurant. Just look at that thing — it’s got flags, and bears, and treasure clues, and headache-inducing colors… everything a good, functional event-map needs, except any modicum of clarity. You can try your luck with it:

Or, just know that Booth 704 is near Dodd Hall, on the east side of campus. Here’s a Google Map directly to where I will be standing:


View Larger Map

Or, if you are a space traveler from the amazing future, just plug 34.072426, -118.439242 into your GPS brain-chip. Let’s see how that works. Now, I’m not 100% sure about the table placement — so If I’m not right there, just start walking in a spiral outward from that point. I won’t be too far.


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