What an incredible summer day in the country yesterday was, my brothers and sisters of the ether! It started with jumping off tall rocks in into these really deep pools along a really small river in the woods. Invigorating! That was followed up by a rousing game of ultra high-humidity soccer which led right into a brotherly dip in the big river.

And then! I came home, and there was an order for some comics from stores in the United Freaking Kingdom!! It’s my first order over seas and I’m pumped! (And don’t forget the shop.)

The night ended with drawing and drinking with friends, and martinis in honor of Alec’s Pop. It was a bittersweet note to go out on, but how better to end a glorious day than by toasting the life of a guy who sounded like both a lot of fun and a profound influence on a great cartoonist. And I’ve got things to share, like a new song. I did the Big-Bopper-on-the-phone segments of Chantilly Lace for my pal Dan “Friend Savage” McCool.

And speaking of projects with Dan, here’s a glimpse of what I’m working on. This will either hit the internets in August or never at all.

She’s a groundhog, and she’s Catholic. That’s all I’m saying. (So click it; yuh’ll big it!)

I’ve got some doodles from the last semester up at the CCS Visiting Faculty blog! Also representing are my buddies Melissa Mendes and David Yoder. What a semester jam-packed with Livin Legendz!! Here’s a lidl preview–some drawings of Kim Deitch that I didn’t submit to the blog. Instead I horded them to share with you, my Dear Sweet Pals.

And his hands. He has the longest, cartooniest, expressive-est figners I’ve ever seen. Special bonus: they’re actually square at the end! Like a Kirby hand!!

To see my crowning Deitchievement, check out that Visiting Faculty, aight? And by the way, I keep forgetting to mention that Oak & Linden issue # 2 is now available at the shoppe. Keep your inner consciousness alert for #3, dropping in the fall.

Hi friends. This past weekend I flew down to Charlotte with my buddy Joe to attend the Heroes Con (he beat me to the blog punch). My lovey dovey Caitlin’s parents live in Charlotte, and this was a great excuse for us to visit them. They were welcoming and giving as always, and I feel ridiculously lucky to have them as “in-laws.” They gave me a bed and rides to and fro (including today at four in the morning) and a bag lunch for every day of the convention.

I was representing CCS along with my classmates and pals Ben, Paul, Lena, Monty and Jesse. Although there were a few kerfluffles with the existence of our name badges or our table on day one of the three-day comicsplosion, the event was still fun and productive. Heroes is a big convention, and tilts toward mainstream superhero fare. It’s really refreshing for one of those events in that it’s not at all about pushing whatever new commodity the big conglomerates are hoping nerds will get feverish over, or that the entertainment news will scoop. It’s about comic books and the people who make comic books, and it’s for the people who read comic books. There are no Star Trek actors signing autographs and no big promotional launches of video games (with one exception).

And, thanks to the force of will that is Dustin Harbin, it also includes an Indie Island overflowing with the type of literary/comedic comics that I read and make. It was great to see graphic novelly indie snobs and rippling pectoral devotee fanboys join in the middle of this convention hall-sized venn diagram. Plus I got to meet some great artists, talk to some enthusiastic comics readers, scour through longboxes for forgotten, musty comics nobody cares about, and goof around with not only my tablemates, but also Joe, Gabby and Alec, all of whom I love very dearly. No homo.

This being a mainstream convention, there was a lot of drawing famous characters going around. I couldn’t resist. It’s Goofy acting like the Tex Avery Wolf.

It’s been a bittersweet couple of weeks. The CCS class of 2010 has graduated and are trickling off to the rest of their lives. In one day, both buddy/”Big Banana” Ben, and good ol’ Gabby (who was up for the weekend) left my house. I’ll move out in August and things will be different. But! On the sweet side, I’ll be living with Caitlin and our cat, Sheba, again. Other bright spots have been walks in the woods, jumps in the rivers, and nights on the porches. One such night unleashed Kaboobs, a bunch of dirty drawings from some of the contributors to Caboose, including yours truly. José put them up on a Blogger site, but he’s using it more like a Geocities site than a blog, so don’t look for updates. Still, do look for boobs.

Continuing the theme from my last post, here’s another cartoon I drew in transit. This was drawn on the train up from New York…some time. I don’t remember when. It’s about a cartoonist’s worst nightmare.

I’m trying to get back into regular routines–like blogging, exercising, brushing my teeth–since my last big comics project ended. This is some pretty Sisyphean shit ’cause right now it’s party time in White River Junction. School’s out forever, the weather is glorious, the trees still have that special springtime yellowy shimmer and pop. We’ve been grilling like crazy, and I’ve been cooking again (after a month of instant noodles) and catching up on grownup paperwork stuff that I’d ignored while I was in the drawing frenzy.

At any rate, here’s one of those sketchbook pages I promised last week. It was drawn in the car on the way down to MoCCA Fest, after a particularly paranoid walk through the White River Stinkeye.

Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Yes, maybe you’re right, even I didn’t think it would be three weeks before we spoke again. Finals season has come and gone, and I’ve got 23 great minis from my classmates to show for it. I’m still collecting myself after a wild month. But, I can at least tell you that the Upper Valley is bursting with lilacs right now and its downright glorious. Lots more sketchbook pages and some processy-behind-the-scenes stuff to come. I promise.

…I wrote one of those wacky cable news pundit-style posts??? Where I act like I’m the authority on something I know very little about, while suggesting some cockamamie scheme that is patently bunk but I keep insisting is common sense??? It’s just like TV! It hasn’t been a while? No? Really, are you sure? I think it’s been awhile…

In the ‘aughts, the diffusion of urban hip fashion switched direction. It all started in the ‘nineties when the internet hit and it became cool to be a bookish nerd with all-too clearly defined tastes. To be a High Fidelity-Williamsburg-Oakland Hipster. The articulate and critical rogue found something delightfully cute about the Victorian era while they* mashed together every  style of the past forty years. This is true in the drum machine-driven folk music, the facial hair, jeans and dresses that we** adore.

The Hipster’s position was solidified under Bush, Jr. It was definitely not cool to like him, and he happened to ideally represent the All American Jock who beat the shit out of us nerds back in school. So the convenient way to rebel against this self-aggrandized popular kid was to further nerd yourself. You could truly hone in on your singular obsessions, learn all there was to know about everything, become active, and make yourself important. It’s just like joining the yearbook and the debate squad and the student government and theater and band.

At the same time, all the jocks, popular kids and soc’s were getting really into hip hop. Black was (and is) finally mainstream. Black had a brief glimpse of being the only cool way to be back in the ’seventies, and now it has really made it. From preppies who give dap to Juggalos*** who didn’t get the note not to sag their jeans and turn their caps anymore, the youths are down!

All of which means it stopped being cool to be just hip hop. The wrong people were appropriating the style for the first time since jazz cats, rock ‘n’ rollers, beats, hippies, disco freaks and post punks. No longer the interesting, pot-smoking, bohemian types were adopting slang, fashion and music. Instead it was the dull, suburban Whities who had wriggled into some token degree of Blackness.

So, big city black kids took up skateboarding. They put on skinny jeans and learned to play guitar. Kanye West, Pharrell, Mos Def, TV on the Radio led the way to aggressively  adapting sci-fi, comics, video games, taste-making blogs, nerdy glasses and outmoded clothes. Now, I know there is still a good heap of inter-mingling, with skinny art school kids getting grills, and library scientists putting on Knicks jersey-dresses. Still, I think its going stronger in the other way.

*Yes, I’m using they as a gender-neutral singular. Ya got somethin ta say about it??

**Yes, we, because there’s nothing more Hipster to do than to say you’re not a Hipster (and therefore I’m not because I’m saying I am, right?).

***Yes, I did look up that spelling. On urbandictionary.com, thank you very much.

Your reward is a cute cat. Cute when she plays with a hair tie, but not so when she shits on the bed.

Yesterday I biked to the Quechee Gorge to make some reference sketches and photos. One thing about biking anywhere from White River Jct is it’s all uphill from here. At least that means the ride home all just coasting under trees. There’s one other thing to know about the area. A sign for a bike route can be distracting, luring a young cartoonist away from his quarry (which in this case was a gorge) and down through twisting condominium lanes, golf courses, and farm roads. Take a look at the ridiculous course I took. Anyhow, all told I biked about twenty-five miles. And it felt great! Except for my grundle. And I came along in figuring out the act of cartooning rocks and rapids (without just ripping off Bill Watterson, Jeff Smith or Looney Tunes {all of which will probs also happen [brackets]}).

The upshot:

This is what happens to a bedroom/studio when a person gets home from MoCCA on Monday, talks to Douglas Wolk; does laundry and hobnobs at the bar on Tuesday; goes out on his bike all of Wednesday, and comes home to find his clothes still damp.

The outcome:

Spring break is winding down, and various deadlines are looming. I’m having the trouble of trying to take it easy, and at the same time get things done. One major problem, as always, is to not hate myself for taking it easy. Or, on the other hand, to stop dragging me heels and freakin’ accomplish something already! Ah, me. I’ve been listening to Moby Dick while I get things done, and Ishmael says “Ah, me,” like, a lot. I’ve been reading Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Murakami) while I take it easy, and those sentences are so short and direct! Why can’t I ever write a short sentence? Perhaps its time that this train of self loathing left the station.

Here are some trees, which haven’t yet realized that its spring:

Sometimes blogs have this funny, insidious spam that pretends to be a comment, but usually there’s something just…off. In the context, that is. Like this one from Linda: http://blog.patbarrett.com/2009/06/cover-girl-whole-shebangin/#comments

Folks, I’ve been having lots of fun in my sketchbook lately. I am feeling some small moments of clarity and putting them on paper. I’ll shut up about it, though, because I’m not even sure how many of these I’ll show you. That might also be what’s making them good, that they aren’t made for an audience. So, sorry, we’ll have to give some of these some time. I’ve been picking up my Microns again, to get ready to make chapter two of Petrified Girlfriend. Let’s hope that’s good!