This is what you think it is. A Petrified Girlfriend T-shirt. I haven’t seen the finished product yet, but it’s available on a website that launched today, Comic Strip Tees. An excerpt from Petrified Girlfriend Chapter 2: The Forest Primeval is on the site, as are comics and shirts by no less than Mike Allred and Roger Langridge, two cartoonists I’ve admired since some very formative days for me.

Go check it out now, please, the Forest Primeval shirt is only available for the next seven days! I’ll get a cut, and every little bit helps me move out of my parents’ attic and back into the outer boroughs.

By the way, Rob Clough also reviewed the latest Petrified Girlfriend chapters this week, along with reviews of my pals Chuck Forsman, Melissa Mendes, Andy Warner and DW. It’s high comics season, folks!! How’s about we end it like this, from Virginia Woolf:

She did not move. “Tell me the truth, tell me the truth” he kept saying. He felt as if his forehead would burst. She seemed contracted, petrified. She did not move[...]“Tell me the truth,” he repeated. He felt that he was grinding against something physically hard; she was unyielding. She was like iron, like flint, rigid up the backbone. And when she said, “It’s no use. It’s no use. This is the end”–after he had spoken for hours, it seemed, with the tears running down his cheeks–it was as if she had him in the face. She turned, she left him, went away.

No joke! It’s in Mrs. Dalloway! I just read it!

Attention, Pacific Northwest-area boosters! I’ll be at Portland’s Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend, the 28th & 29th of April. I hope I won’t be like a tourist in New York who won’t stop gushing over Sex in the City locations when I can’t contain the Portlandia references. Come over and visit, why not? See if I ask you about the new brunch tapas place that opened in the neighborhood.

I’ll be sharing a table with Chicagoan Beth Hetland, Seattlite Ben Horak and Local Hero Kevin Uehlein. We’ll also have some material from the Center for Cartoon Studies, so if you’re interested in that, wull then check! us! OUT! [ map mod by Beth ]

Hey guys, if you’re in New York this Wednesday, come to the Drawn Out Storytelling show ‘Round the Clock. I’ll be there, illustrating some ’70s antics.* Details here. Oh hey, and check out this video including a story I drew for the show last summer.

*Speaking of, that’s some more Nymphonomena sketchin. My star, Donna. Also Paul Pope in the corner.

I realized that I’ve been depriving you of sketchbook pages, like, ever since I took my blog sabbatical last spring. Oh, sure, I’ve posted one here or there from time to time, but boy have I fallen out of the habit! Here are some sketches for a revamp of Nymphonomena, still in progress. You can see some new pages here.

In other news, Kevin Bramer at Optical Sloth wrote up Dental Damned! Thanks, friends. Let’s talk again real soon.

Friends, I put out a new comic. It has a flap. Fancy, right? Appropriately enough, I’m showing you this Mr Met-themed cover on the Mets’ opening day. They won, which actually affects my mood, dear reader. I’m feeling so good, in fact, that I don’t mind flipping over to full-on retailer mode.

So! Oak & Linden issue # 5 [PG34] is available from my shoppe right now, at comics stores soon, and furthermore at Portland’s Stumptown Comics Fest April 28th & 29th. More information is at the afore mentioned shop. If you’re wondering where else you can find comics I’ve made, look no further. Here’s a listing:

Baltimore, MD: Atomic Books
Berkeley, CA: Escapist Comic Bookstore
Chicago, IL: Chicago Comics, Quimby’s
Hoboken, NJ: Traders of Babylon
New York, NY: Forbidden Planet, Jim Hanley’s Universe
Portland, OR: Cosmic Monkey

Plus Quimby’s, Atomic Books and Forbidden Planet all sell my stuff online (word on the street is Forbidden Planet even offers you 15% off). I’m just sayin. Love ya, buddies!

If you’ve been keeping score at home, the second chapter of Petrified Girlfriend ended a couple of weeks ago. And if you don’t like baseball metaphors, then go read another blog! Excuse me. I mean to say the full Forest Primeval is now up (in order!) in my comics section.

Chapters 3 & 4 dropped in a new issue of Oak & Linden at the end of February. That’s the launch party invitation above. And so, just as I released my 5th issue of Oak & Linden, Vermont released me from her slushy womb. This metaphor is about to fall apart, since Caitlin, our cat and I moved into my parents’ attic while we look for a place back in New York. I suppose I actually climbed higher into the proverbial uterus.

So that’s my life. More to come, my darlings, including ordering info once I print some more copies of O&L#5. I just know you can’t wait!

Bonus:

I hope your Valentine’s Day is better than Izzy’s!