blog: appearances

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.

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!

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.

Chicago this weekend!

I’ve really enjoyed walking around downtown Chicago the last few days! The weather’s been clear and temperate, and it’s been a wonderful introduction to a city I’ve never visited before. Wednesday I walked from Soldier Field up along the harbor to the river, and everything just seemed nice. People were jogging and biking; I talked to a dude fishing for bass in Lake Michigan; a lady’s dog was just freaking out at a goose who seemed much calmer than I would have been in the same situation. I exchanged a knowing glance with a jogger as if to say, “Yeah, I see it too. That dog is nuts.” Overall I am having a wonderful time!

So much so, in fact, that I am in danger of becoming infatuated with Chicago. Some kind Twitter folks tried nobly to warn me away — they say it gets cold; it’s windy; the politicians are corrupt; Ira Glass is not very tall — but to all that, my heart is saying “balderdash.” If I don’t get over this infatuation, I might uproot my entire family and career to move to Chicago immediately, and that would be devastating and irresponsible! So here is my challenge to you: come see me at C2E2 this weekend (booth 965, with TopatoCo) and tell me something bad about Chicago to bring me to my senses. If you say something that nobody else has said, I’ll give you a free sketch!

So which will it be? Will I destroy my family and ruin my life, or will you come and snap me out of it? We will see how the weekend goes!

I drew some fish

I am in Easthampton, MA at the moment, having just drawn sketches in about a hundred books! All of my books (and shirts, and prints, and pretty much everything) are shipped from the TopatoCo Command Bunker here, so once the Artist Edition orders that I’ve been crowing about were received and compiled, I swung on into The Office Of The CEO and drew strange little vignettes into everyone’s books while The Executive and I listened to folks recount their visits to Saturn on Coast to Coast AM. I shared a handful of the sketches on my Twitter as I went: the one above is among my favorites, and here are several more examples as well. We may be seeing more freakish dinosaur/tank/airplane/fish drawings in the future! These were pretty fun to do, and thanks very much to all the kind folks who ordered Artist Editions. The next opportunity to get sketched books will be in November.

If you would like to know the sorts of things that go on at TopatoHQ on a daily basis, I guest-star in a totally factual documentary account by John Allison, a well-respected subject of the Queen. In fact, I believe this tale bears the Royal Warrant. (Part 1 is at the bottom of the linked page.)

Now then! In just a few short hours I’ll be leaving the cozy confines of the Pioneer Valley for big ol’ Chicago! The Windy City! Chi-burg! Town of The Double Friendlies! The Urban Chicagopolis! Ol’ Jimmybean! I’ll be at the new C2E2 convention all weekend (with TopatoCo, booth 965), including a Friday-night panel discussion about webcomics that’s sure to be a thrill. I’ve never ever been to Chicago before, and I’m super-triple-excited to check it out and meet all the fun people who I’m sure populate its warrens! You guys have warrens, right? (I have been reading up.)

Finally — thanks to everyone who said hello at the MoCCA Festival last weekend in New York, and especial kind double-thanks to Chris and Carly, my gracious and collegial hosts. Chris if you find my jacket can you please bring it to Chicago.