A friend sent me this message on Facebook about her 5 year-old son:
“(My son)’s bed time story tonight? Jack N. Box. Twice. With a mini tantrum when I said not 3 times. He says he’s the dog.”
I’ve never had anyone throw a “fan tantrum” before. I guess this is what the Beatles felt like.
Wanna confuse cartoonists? Just put them in a restaurant where they have to “input” all the food and drinks they want on a touch screen. Daryl Cagle, Betty (barely seen) & Greg Evans, an equally-confused waiter trying to help us, Rick Kirkman and me. Chad Frye took the pic and it’s up on his blog with a very substantial recap of the NCS Reuben weekend. (Puts mine to shame really.)
Wanna see even more pics of the SPACE comic strip panel I did with Jeff Stahler and Steve Boreman where my bad back is making me grimace? Look no further than here and here.
Yet another in my series of late posts. This one is about Book Expo in NYC which was, indeed, over a month ago. Book Expo is where publishers come to hawk their new wares to bookstores, libraries, colleges, etc. And as swag goes, it’s pretty high on the list. It’s hard to turn a corner without someone putting a free book into your hands. (As a matter of fact, the Javits Center has a shipping department set up because it can become impossible to carry your booty home.) My wife’s advice is “You do not have to take every book that is offered to you.”
Did I mention that there’s also a lot of authors signing books? Here’s the ones I got:
• Liberty Meadows 10th Anniversary Special Edition signed by Frank Cho
• MOME (Vol 13) signed by Dash Shaw
• Adventures in Cartooning signed by the authors and James Sturm’s daughter Eva, who has a drawing in it
• Zig-zagging signed by Tom Wilson II (“Ziggy”)
• Silent but Deadly signed by Mark Tatulli (“Lio”)
• Flawed Dogs signed by Berkley Breathed (“Bloom County”)
• Wizard of OZ comic signed by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young
• X-men Forever signed by Chris Claremont
• and a Buffy comic signed by the author whose name escapes me (it was for my wife and is her pile of books and stuff.)
OK, so it was only a week and a half ago, but still…
Here’s a photo of me working hard…signing something or drawing something…hidden behind an easel at Comix Connection on May 2. They have two locations – one in a mall and one in a plaza (or strip mall). I was, obviously, in the mall-one. And actually, not in, but outside the store proper cuz they were very busy. (See these photos.)
The plaza-one had Star Wars reenactors outside (as you can see here). I did not create the same kinda pandemonium (or any sort of “monium,” for that matter).
Didn’t realize it till today that my pal John Martz (click here and here for our adventures at SPX) had a piece in this Free Comic Book Day issue that was done, I believe, entirely by Canadians.
I know, I know, FCBD was six days ago, so you’re pretty much so out of luck but, hey, I just wanted to point this out. Sorry if it caused any pain.
I had a great time Saturday at Free Comic Book Day at Comix Connection. I had really been impressed by their store (and their staff) when I stumbled in for the first time a few months ago, looking for a Hellboy comic for my class. So I dropped them a line and asked about doing something and, voila.
I got there just before 10:00 and the joint was hopping. And there were a lot of families with kids, which was great since comic book stores can be a bit fanboy-centric. I was there for four hours, meeting people, drawing on Bo prints I was giving away…until I ran out. Then I drew on these odd cover sheets that the printer put around each and every copy of my Jack N. Box comic book (a pain to take off.)
It was pretty wonderful and I can’t wait to do it again. Thanks to Bill and Ned and their staff (Jared, Josh Jim and anyone else I’m forgetting) for having me.
Oh, did I mention that I did some shopping there? Well, I certainly did.
Pat Lewis
(I’m going to do my SPACE recap in random posts throughout the next few days, as well as show art from some of the cool people I met there. Please click on it and visit their websites.)
Saturday morning starts with my bad back fighting me. I get moving enough but only after quality time with a hot bath and a muscle stim device. (Not at the same time, though.)
After driving to the SPACE place I get my books into the joint via a New York grocery/laundry cart. (It is an item I have never seen in “the wild.” My wife had one from her Brooklyn days.) It is cool candy apple red but has no steering capabilities whatsoever. Gotta point it where you want to go the first time or you’re out of luck.
I get set up…and then my memory starts to embarrass me. I meet my next-door neighbor Marek Bennett. The thing is, I’ve met him before at MoCCA. At least, that’s what he tells me. When he mentions that he had a beard at the time, the rusty tumblers of my brain fall into place. Same thing happens in almost the same way with neighbor-down-the-way Pat Lewis. (It was SPX instead of MoCCA, and there was no facial hair involved.)
It’s slow early on so we’re all “preaching to the choir” (in other words, it’s mostly exhibitors looking at each other’s stuff). One guy brings over a “Monkey Meets World” book that he carted with him just to have me sign. I’m truly touched. Another person bring a “Stormfeld” book I was in (edited by the late great Wes Alexander). A couple of people (well, two) read Bo online and bought my books, which made me feel great….
…until I walked into the panel room.
Next time: There’s quite an echo in this here panel room….panel room……panel room……..panel room……
Wondering where I’ll be on Free Comic Book Day? Wonder no more. I’ll be at Comix Connection in York, PA. I’ll have Bo Nanas and Jack N. Box comics to sell and, in the spirit of the day, I’ll be giving out signed Bo “prints.”
Is this agreat holiday or what?
It’s after midnight, I should be in bed but I was clicking around the web, landed on Mark Evanier’s site and found out Frank Springer had died on Thursday. He was 79.
Damn.
I should be in bed, but I feel the need to type this…
Frank was such a kind-hearted sweetheart of a guy. I met him at the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Weekend in 1994. It was my second time at The Rubes, but I still didn’t know many people and felt a bit lost. I don’t know if Frank sensed this but he started talking to me at the cocktail party, telling me about baseball players that had the same name as mine. He even mailed me some info from a stats book. We became friends.
Such a great guy, and although he had all that white, wavy hair, he seemed pretty ageless…
At The Rubes a few years ago, I was talking with Frank, telling him about my new home town, a hot spot of the Civil War. I was going off about how I was discovering that some people don’t view “The War of Northern Aggression” like some others do…when I found out that Frank, because of his heritage, was one of those “some people” (while I was in the “some others” camp). He was very nice about it when he told me but I just apologized over and over again for insulting him. He said that it was OK, to just forget about it.
When I got home I bought him a lapel pin displaying a certain flag and sent it to him…because that’s how important his friendship was to me.
And now to bed. Good night.
Remember back a month ago when I mentioned a strip that may have been the only “Bo Nanas” strip that didn’t show Bo? Well, it almost happened again in the Christmas Elves/Mall Daycare storyline rerunning on Gocomics.com. The strip that’s on the site today was the revision – the original is above. My editor thought, rightly so, that it had “child abduction” stamped all over it. So I added Bo in the first panel (and dropped the third “pause panel”) so it would be clear what was going on.
The moral of the story: Sometimes editors are right. (Sometimes.)
Kovaleski (the blog of a cartoonist named John) 