blog: appearances

Guest comic! Interview! Photos! Oh my.

it's the cool neww thing!

If you missed the New England Webcomics Weekend, mark your calendar now for March 2010, when it’ll be back bigger, better and (hopefully) just as awesome. If you were there, I hope you had just as much fun as I did! However, I believe this to be impossible, as I had the maximum amount of fun. I am in the one hundredth percentile of fun had. Gary does a pretty good job of doing it justice.

NEWW made for a wonderful kickoff to the convention season, and heaps of thanks and praise are due to Meredith, Rich, the TopatoCo and Dumbrella crews, the diligent volunteers and the building management at Eastworks. Here are some photos that some of the approximately 8 zillion attendees took at the show!

After the show wrapped on Sunday, new best-pal KC Green and I made a guest comic for Meredith! We thought it would save her some time, but I don’t think it did because she stayed up while we did it. We made her promise to post it blind, but really it didn’t matter because it’s not, like, dirty or anything. We didn’t go anywhere weird with it like some people might have.

Also over the weekend, a very nice profile of me appeared in the North Adams (MA) Transcript, which I think is an actual, ink-on-newsprint newspaper? I am almost certain that it is. Representative quote: “‘If I was just drawing a cartoon strip, I would one millionth-best cartoonist in the world,’ Malki said.” Thanks to John Mitchell for his dogged drive to make me known to everyone in North Adams!

Finally, I should probably mention the other places I’ll be lugging my charm to over the next few months: in just two weeks I’ll be in Seattle for the Emerald City ComiCon, one of my favorites; after that it’s Stumptown in Portland (April 18-19); the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (May 9-10); then MoCCA in Manhattan (June 6-7) before hitting San Diego in July. There’ll also be a Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death release party in Los Angeles somewhere in the middle there, and of course every state has their own Arbor Day. The list of “Upcoming Appearances” on the site’s sidebar (just there on the right, if you’re on the site now) can be your friend once this post has vanished into the Ozymandian dustbin of history!

Extra-finally, it should be reiterated that if you encounter me in person at one of these events or any other, the whispered word “huckleberry” will get you an immediate high-five in front of anybody, I don’t even care.

New England Webcomics Weekend: Mar. 20-22

The POSTER for the EVENT

There come times, in this life spent staring into computer screens, where social activity is required to recalibrate one’s relationship with the world. Too easily are we led to believe, by that harsh white light from the monitor, that life outside is hostile, fragile, and prone to failure. Too soon do we give up our warm, genial humanity for some harsh, rasping simulacra more prone to pedantry and depravity than the smiling sun allows.

Thus comes this. The first-annual New England Webcomics Weekend, a tri-day convergence of bleary-eyed but kindly folk driven to remind themselves and others of the value of human interaction. Not a “convention,” with its swag-hoarding and stomachaches; not a “signing,” with its lonely aisles and visible, swirling dust; but a “gathering,” a collection of friends, neighbors and strangers brought together for one single purpose: To put the good parts of our Internet into flesh, where real meaning is derived, and cast the bad parts away, if even for just a time.

You are part of that good bit — or at least the good bits of you are part of that valued whole. Bring those bits (and those bits only) to our coming summit in Easthampton, Massachussetts, and in the drafty corridors of a tall brick building we shall meet, smile, shake hands and fellowship. It will be a time for Art, with its oft-forgotten power to transcend clumsy words, but more importantly, it will be a time for Friends, with their oft-ignored power to make life meaningful.

The details are at WebcomicsWeekend.com. The cheery bird on the poster also has a Facebook and a Twitter for (non-binding) RSVPs and for news, respectively. This will be my only public journey to Massachusetts this year, and I will bring only those things I can pack lightly: a few dry-goods, perhaps; my sketchbook; my fond hopes and belief in community; and in my bag’s outer pocket for easy retrieval, my high spirits.

Will you join us?

I’m at APE this weekend in SF!

This weekend I’ll be at APE in San Francisco, at table 280 with Yates and The Diaz. APE skipped half a year this time around due to conflicts with the venue, so it’s been eighteen months since I was last in Northern California — I’m really looking forward to going back. Come visit, say hello, etc.! And now that I have a blog I will try to make some sort of comprehensive report after the fact.

Reactions from MoCCA

I am back from New York, and boy did people love the book. There is nothing better than having total strangers, utterly unfamiliar with Wondermark, pick up a copy of Beards of our Forefathers and say, “Wow, this is beautiful.” I’m super-happy to have the pride I have in the book validated. The next chance for you to pick up a copy will be at Heroes Con in Charlotte, June 20-22.

New item: Print sets are going on sale later this week! Check back, say, Wednesday.

MoCCA & new messageboard!

I’m in New York for the MoCCA Art Festival and Staten Island Film Festival! I spent fifteen solid hours yesterday being transported by car, plane, train, bus, van, and my own two legs. Hello, New York — I love your public transportation system but does it really have to take so long to get anywhere? (It would also help if I could read maps correctly.)

I have a new messageboard/forum! On it you can see a sneak peek of some of the things I’ll have at the show this weekend. Hopefully it will be a lively source of discussion and a minimal source of sadness. We shall see!