Aretha

From the "Lady Soul" TV Special, 1968.

So Awesome!

Just saw this on Drawn, from Anatomy of Japanese Folk Monsters by Shigeru Mizuki. Amazing!

The Junc

For my thesis project this year at The Center for Cartoon Studies, I'm working on a bunch of short comics journalism type pieces about White River Junction, VT, the town that I have lived in for the past year and a half, where CCS is located in the old Colodny Surprise Department Store. I lived in this town four years ago as well, when I interned for CCS.

There's something special about this town. I'm still working on getting at what that really is. In the end I think I'm going to have some stories of my interactions with local people at the Gift Shop/ Convenience Store where I work, selling a lot of lottery tickets, cigarettes, and coffee. I've also recorded a couple of interviews with people who live here. I'm really influenced by Studs Terkel's work. I've also been reading a lot of Duplex Planet, and listening to Radio Diaries. (You should definitely hear this one.)

I'm still in the process of figuring out how this is going to come together. Now that I've done a lot of observing and interviewing (though I'm not nearly done), I'm getting antsy to start drawing. So here's a page a drew, to get down on paper some of the things I've found out, and what my focus is going to be. It's not just about WRJ as a town, but about the people in it, and the specific stories and details that make them all unique.

Tom Hart is my advisor. He is AWESOME. Check out his comics on Act-i-vate!

New Urban Arts, Zines on a Bus, a Love Letter

When I lived in Providence year before last, a place called New Urban Arts was a huge part of my life. It still is! Even though I am further away and holed up in a little town drawing little comics.

New Urban Arts is a lot of (amazing) things, and it is mostly a space for high school age people and older artist people to be together and be creative. It changes lives. But anyway, the main reason I am writing this post is to call attention to:

a) my friend Andrew Oesch who is about to embark on a trip on a bus powered by grease, which also happens to have a photocopier in it, and

b) a group at New Urban Arts who is very near to my heart called the Zine Team, who used said bus-copier to make multiple copies of a collaborative zine in 4.5 hours, for which they got 64 submissions that same day. If that doesn't make any sense, read this blog post, and here you can also read about Andrew's Imminent Amazing Adventure.

I am continually inspired by all these amazing people around me. I am so lucky to know them. Lately I've been feeling like I've only been thinking about dollars and how to make them, and I want that to change. Soon get ready for a long winded post about John Porcellino, who visited CCS this week and blew my mind to pieces.

Violin Drawing!

Commissioned drawing for Peter Bingen, a violin-maker in Portland, OR.

Let me know if you want to commission a drawing! I like to draw.

Ten Tigers Poster!

Screenprinted and drawn by me, for the band Ten Tigers!

P.S. SPX was awesome!