Me draw book

From the looks of this, the adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that I drew for Sparknotes will be available at the end of January. This is what the cover will look like:


Originally, Shakespeare's text was to have been on even-numbered pages, while the comics version, featuring simplified-english dialogue, was to have been on the odd-numbered ones. Judging by the page count, this may have changed. All indications are that it is still a book, though.

I am a week late to Halloween

From The Enchanted World: Ghosts, published by Time-Life Books. As a child, I used to regularly scare myself by reading this.

Some more comics

I've added a few more comics to the site; these are from the first issue of Sean McCarthy's minicomic anthology See How Pretty, See How Smart.


This, I think, is the first stuff I drew after Partyka started up. It might actually predate Partyka's semi-official "start" in April '03.

So here are "Your Career is Not Working Out Like What You Had Planned" and "A Story." I'm not sure if it's apparent from reading them, but Sean asked for comics on a specific theme for each issue of SHPSHS; the theme for the first issue was "failure."

(the theme for issue #4 was "Scatology and Eschatology," which is why there's all the farting and doom in "The Omega Dome" and "Some Say the World Will End in Fire, Some Say in Ice." I forget the theme of #3, but if it was "Hybrids," then boy was I on-the-nose that time around.)

SPX '07; illustrations by TCAF '05

We all forgot to bring our cameras to Bethesda this year. A lot of the trip, however, was similar to other festivals we've been to, so I'm posting some pictures from TCAF in 2005, when I had a camera but not a blog. Brief instructions follow each caption: follow them to make, in your brain, a representation of SPX 2007.

Shawn and I drove down to Bethesda on Friday morning. Shawn slept part of the way down, having been up all night trimming pages and sewing books. (Substitute rented silver Ford Focus for burgundy minivan. Also, pour out some motor oil in memory of the minivan, which belonged to Shawn and died on the side of the LIE this summer.)


Once we got there and set up the table, Shawn resumed sewing book bindings. Generally, he remained just ahead of demand, although there was a moment early on when there were no finished copies of "Vengeance at Cackling Mountain." Sew faster, dammit! (This picture works pretty much as-is, although there weren't yellow wristbands with "The Beguiling" printed on them at SPX, for whatever reason.)


Sara arrived by bus and met us at the hotel. When she and Shawn weren't assembling books, they were signing them for customers, so they tended to spend a lot of the festival hunched. (Subtract John Mejias, who unfortunately couldn't make it this year, and substitute hotel walls for tent walls. T. Edward Bak remains in the right foreground, if that's indeed him.)


The crowd was pretty good this year; we did about 20-30 percent more business than we did at the previous SPX; I'm not sure how much of this was a function of location, a more crowded show in general, or our Ignatz nominations. We did have quite a few customers who'd read our books before and were coming back for more. That was gratifying. (As before, swap tent for hotel. Swap any two Canadians for a gentleman in a purple suit and a gentleman in a sailor outfit.)


I didn't have sewing to do, so my duties consisted of A: Wondering if binding my comics with staples makes me some sort of wimp; B: Shit-eating grins.

I don't have good photo stand-ins for a batch of things, though. These are them:

• Sean T. Collins was there, and it was nice to see him in person again, 'cause it had been a while. Also nice: he liked Matt Furie's Boys Club, which was a relief because my entire experience with owning that book has involved me reading it and laughing, then someone seeing this and taking a look at it, followed by them looking at me like I'm crazy. This happened with Kate, John and Shawn at TCAF 07.
  
• Also there were all of these fine, fine, fine people. Thanks, folks, for talking and saying hi. I like you.
  
• We went to the Ignatz awards ceremony for the first time in six SPX's. It was brisk and quiet, with the exception of Alec Longstreth and Liz Prince's speed-read of the Debut Award nominees, and of course the monkey thing, which was set off well by all the briskness and quietness that surrounded it.
• The presentation of the minicomics Ignatz was preceded by a reference to "some people" calling the minicomic "an obsolete form," which drew some light boos. But who's been saying these things? Was Heidi MacDonald just referencing this? Did I miss something?
• I ate at the Silver Diner up the street three times. Now I'm full of french fries and I own more comics than I did before. Thanks, SPX.
  

Self-portrait, the morning after SPX

I have been stretched vertically by our five dollar mirror.

Actual post about SPX to come. I did change out of my pajama pants around noon--that could indicate that I'm going to get something done today.

SPX 07

I'm going to be at SPX this next weekend, October 12th and 13th. I'll be sharing table G6 with Shawn Cheng, Sara Edward-Corbett and (hopefully, if he and his wife and child can make it) John Mejias of Paping.

Here's how to find us: if you are facing Drawn and Quarterly's booth, your butt will be facing the people who are next to us.

One of my minicomics was nominated for an Ignatz award. This is what it looks like:
One of Shawn and Sara's books is up for the same Ignatz. It looks like this:

In summary, things that are grey and have animals on them are up for awards. Please drop by and look at them.

Also: Shawn and I have short stories in the FLUKE 2007 anthology. This should be available from the Weing/Davis/Weiser/Yoder compound at table D10-12A. They're nice, you'll like them.

Me make it go

I uploaded wiegle.com today, October 7, 2007.

I registered the URL in April of 2003.

The website is coded with HTML from 2000.

My decade is complete, two-and-a-half years ahead of schedule.