'Sea Change: A Choose-Your-Own-Way Story' - and now a Xeric winner, what?

I'm proud (and still surprised, honestly) to say that thanks to the Xeric Foundation, I've received a very generous grant from them to self-publish Sea Change. It'll be the first major printing project I tackle on my printing press, under the moniker of my micro-press, and I am just so goddamn excited for it. 

The Xeric Foundation started giving out grants in 1992 (as I like to call it, "Ninja Turtle Money") and this round in 2012, after twenty years, was the last of the grants in its current incarnation. Since print-on-demand and online-publishing has become widely viable, and changed the how print and book industries operate in a big way, they've decided to redirect how they distribute their charity and focus on other things. Which is great. Good for them. I'm incredibly happy to have been chosen to be a part of - which puts me in the company of some extremely wonderful cartoonists - and to have their support put behind this book. It was a year ago now that I started drawing this, in the rudderless feeling that came immediately after graduation. Which sucked. This mostly certainly does not.

I really can't thank them enough. It's wonderful.

I did wait a while before telling most people, but the press release for the May 2012 winners should be coming soon, so it's going to happen, whether or not I feel comfortable with it, or not.

Haha, wait, it is, out. Today. Have at, people. There are a lot of books coming our way.

(true story.)

My plan is to settle myself into Minneapolis this month, put all my printing dominos in a row, and move Maisie from home in Wisconsin back into the moony city in August.

And not drop her. (knock on wood)

POST - CAKE

From a room with a great view in the Windy City.

some more pictures + the comics reporter round up + john p.'s

It. Was. Great.

I'm incredibly proud to have been part of this convention in its very first year - while I've heard reports from different 'toonists and publishers of less-than-astounding sales, mine were enough to at least fund my 'stimulation of the local economy' (read: BUYING COMICS FROM EVERYBODY) and it was a fantastic time in a fantastic town. And that line-up of exhibitors! UFF-DA, as my people say.

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to the organizers, Neil, Grace, Edie, Max, and Jeff. I'll go every single year.

 Nate Beaty came by and snapped the picture below while Grace worked Ms. Park's table and I lurked off to the side (I guess I do that a lot?) and Grace rejoined with, "What the hell, man? I'm not Laura Park!"

credit: natebeaty

(SWAG PICTURES AFTER I UNPACK IN THE MOONY CITY.)

Summer, 2012

dec. 1990.  i was probably always doomed. my first word was 'batman'.

Well. It's officially been one year out from graduating. I don't feel like it has been, and that it's been five years out all at the same time.

I miss Minneapolis sunrises, though. 

This summer is shaping up to be pretty busy, at least this first month of it. CAKE is just a little over a month away, and I still have books to print, for Sea Change. Lots of books to print, collate, and bind. It's going to be a little crazy. Probably a lot of pictures of me up to my elbows in rubber black ink and desperation to come. But it looks like it's going to be an extremely fun time and the start of another great convention.

I've applied for the last round of Xeric grants. News will come in June, as I'm leaving for Chicago. 

Maisie James (AB Dick 360 printing press extraordinare) is also moving to Seward, in south Minneapolis, sometime this summer. She's going to Amaya's garage and our fledgling, teeny print shop, working-titled 'Milkshake'.  

Huh. That's a lot of 'm's, I just realized... (for anyone interested, here's her "handsy" previous owner looking dorky with her)

I'll turn 24 this August, too. 

And maybe get back to where I belong, too. 

here's to a productive summer.

Some drawings in which curly hair looks more like Astro-boy hair.

Post-Chicago

Chicago Trip, March 23/24

(everything is as chronological as I can remember it)

Not Pictured: A dead black bear on East 94, four teenage girls doing the Macarena in a field thirty miles north of Beloit, IL, nor me.