MECAF Loot

This past weekend I had a table at the Maine Comic Arts Festival, the amazing annual celebration of the comical arts put on by the fine folks at Casablanca Comics. I'll get to my full report in a few days, but for now, I just want to take a moment to share off the cool comics I carried home.

Now, the problem with tabling at a show like MECAF is that you can't also get around to every other table and snap up all of the cool items for sale every few feet. I should have picked up about 127 other comics, prints, books, drawings and more, but oh well, I'll just have to live with myself.

Anyway, here's the loot:

(Click on the photo if you want to see stuff more clearly.)

So what is all of that cool stuff?

Ms. Bean's Art Class is a great big mini-comic by Cara Bean, a really cool inside look at a teacher and her students (and how they impact each other).

Raconteur # 4 is the latest issue of this fun anthology of short comics stories and prose by David Jacobson, John Klossner, Jeff Pert and Mike Lynch -- all cartoonists better known for their single-panel gag cartoons.

Mark and the Aliens is a well-done little five-page mini-comic by Aya Rothwell.

Adrian Pijoan is responsible for Fig, a neat science comic about the cycle of life. Great stuff.

Those two rhinos are a fantastic little sketch card by Eric Boeker and a full-color greeting card by John Klossner (him again). Both rhinos are wearing hats. I don't know what to make of that.

Cathy Leamy is responsible for the hilarious (and educational) Diabetes is After Your Dick! I hope we see a lot more health comics from her.

Those four folded items along the top-right are a group of innovative mini-comics by Kenan Rubenstein. Each issue folds out as the story reveals, ending in a giant full-page final panel. Great art and storytelling.

Colin Tedford collects a mix of humor comics and non-fiction (including one long piece of journalism) in Square Dance # 6. I look forward to reading more of these.

That little pink book is Hipster Robots by John Curtis Jennison Jr. Inside: six portraits of hipster robots. Truth in advertising!

Josh Lees was in the summer workshop I took a few years ago at the Center for Cartoon Studies, where he's now a student. I'm glad he reintroduced himself to me this weekend. His comic To Describe a Life in 50,000 Words is a wonderfully assured piece of work.

And finally, The Plot # 1 and 2 feature some really fun writing and cartooning by Neil Brideau. This is ambitious work and I look forward to finding out what happens in issue 3!

I can't wait for MECAF 2014, when I hope to come home with an even bigger pile of great loot!

Maine Comic Arts Festival this weekend!

Hey folks! This weekend I'll be making a rare public appearance at the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland. This is the only book signing I do each year since moving to Maine and it's always a blast. I'll be selling copies of my old, out-of-print books, as well as my handmade mini-comics and a few other goodies.

One new item I'll have this year is my newest mini-comic, Probing Questions, which collects many of the gag cartoons from the Plattitudes webcomic:

I'll also be selling some of my original art, including sketch cards like these:

And I'll have a few zines reprinting some of my conservation-themed articles, including this brand-new one about rhinos:

(Come to think of it, I might actually be wearing that same shirt on Sunday.)

Anyway, if you're around Portland this weekend, come on by. There will be all kinds of other great artists, including Jeff "Bone" Smith, Brian Wood, Jeff Pert, Rick Parker, Mike Lynch, Cara Bean, Raina Telgemeier, Bob Flynn, Maris Wicks, Jason Viola and other cool folks. I look forward to seeing some old friends and familiar faces.

Birthday? Moi?

Hey, it's my 44th birthday (gulp). What do I want for my cumpleanos?

Nothing.

What-- wait. Nothing?

Yup. I don't need a thing.

The few books and comics I want, I buy for myself.

The movies I want to watch, I get through Netflix.

The clothes I want? I don't really need them. (I work at home, who cares how good I look?)

The love I need? I already have it from all of you.

Everything else? It just doesn't matter.

So if you really, really, really need to do anything for my birthday, just go out there and do something good for someone else in the world.

That's better than a present for me. It's a gift for all of us.

Coke-head

Last year, as part of a long-term plan to cut down the amount of chemicals I put in my body, I gave up my daily (or twice-daily) can of Diet Coke. I may have had the jitters once or twice, and I'm sure I dreamed about swimming in a pool full of caramel, but within a few weeks I was fine.

Today at the grocery store, feeling both overheated and tired, I spied the little fridge next to the register, broke down, and bought myself a bottle of Diet Coke.

Oh, it tasted so good. So good.....

A few weeks from now, if you suddenly stop hearing from me, take a look in the nearest dark alley, where you may find me sprawled amongst a clattering heap of empty soda cans, moaning quietly to myself, "I can give it up any time I want....."

10 ways to get away with murder

10. Wear a really bad, distracting disguise, like a pink bunny costume or golf pants.
9. Pick targets that nobody cares about, like novelists or cartoonists.
8. Don't leave behind any DNA. Cover your entire body with duct tape ahead of time. (Note: make sure to leave holes for at least one eye and maybe a nostril.)
7. Do not live-Tweet the crime. #amateurhour
6. Have no motive. (Does not having a motive count as a motive?)
5. Don't kill anyone in any place where you have ever been before. (Bring a GPS. It's easy to get lost.)
4. Never tell anyone what you did, except for your girlfriend or wife. I'm sure she'll understand and keep your secret, right Mr. Drinks Too Much?
3. Do not purchase your stolen, untraceable gun with a credit card or personal check.
2. Never post a blog entitled '10 ways to get away with murder.'
1. Don't kill anybody. Yeah, that's probably the best way. Go play a video game or something.

Gone but not (quite) forgotten

I've been thinking a lot lately about some people whose names and faces I can't quite remember.

There's the guy who lived down the street from my parents, a blue-collar worker who walked up to a sullen kid whose hands were in his pockets (okay, it was me) and ever-so-casually lifted the kid's right hand out of his pocket to shake his own hand like a man.

There's the beautiful young woman from my first office job who wore a red dress on Valentine's day, earning the derision of every other woman in the department, something that astounded me since she was as pure and nice as a person could be.

There's the older science fiction who took me aside and gave me some wonderful advice that I have never forgotten, even if I can't remember who he was.

There's the blonde music writer who moved into my apartment building who freaked out when our landlord put her name on the doorbell for her unit. I later found out she was being stalked and had to flee to a new town every time he found out where she lived. She lasted there a few months, then disappeared in the middle of the night. (I hope she found peace.)

There's the miserable older man who hired me for my first professional writing assignment, a ghostwriting gig for a professional gambler whose name I also can't remember. I screwed that gig up on so many levels, but it worked all the same. The lessons learned have not been forgotten, even if the people are foggy in my mind.

There's the woman at the photo studio where I worked my first year after college, who spent every day dreading the upcoming marriage she didn't want to be a part of. I wonder if she ever went through with it?

There's the cousin of a cousin of a cousin I met at a family reunion three whose ear appears on the edge of all of my photos from those days. We talked and joked for hours but even when I look at our family tree I can't figure out who the hell she was.

There's the heavy-drinking, happy-go-lucky guy from my freshman or sophomore dorm floor who killed himself a few years later. None of us ever saw it coming. I remember the pain I felt when I heard the news, but everything else about him has faded away.

There's the "novelist" who showed up at a Garden State Horror Writers meeting and set off all of our creep radar. I later heard he was found wandering the halls of an elementary school. I really don't want to remember his name.

There's the sad old man who lived in the townhouse below us in New Jersey, who told me that his life caring for his disable wife was so miserable he wanted to die. A few weeks later, he did, and his wife was shuffled off to a nursing home by herself.

There's the couple who gave me my fist kitten the first summer I lived on my own. I think they may have been friends of a friend, but I'm not even sure of that. At least I remember the cat's name.

There are so many people who enter our lives on a daily basis. So many faces, so many names, so many ways that they touch us. Some of the encounters are fleeting, yet they leave an impression. Other people stay in our lives for weeks or months or years but are easily forgotten the moment they are out of eyesight.

I have never been great with names, or all that good at keeping in touch with people. For all of the ones that I have forgotten, or almost forgotten, there are so many more that I remember. Even if I don't talk to them ever day, I think about them often. And I wonder how (or if) they all think of me.

Back in the editorial saddle

I'm happy to announce that editors Rod Heather and Sean O'Leary have asked me to come on board with the recently relaunched Lore, a quarterly anthology of weird fiction.

Rod and Sean and Lore and I go way back. Lore got its starts a small-press magazine around the same time that I was editing my own White Knuckles magazine, back in the mid-to-late Nineties. I think we each ran the same number of issues over roughly the same amount of time. Lore always had a unique identify and published truly quality fiction and many of the tales that appeared in its pages remain some of my all-time favorites.

As these things go, Lore's original shelf life came and went. But you can't keep a good horror publication down: they often find a way to come shambling back.

The new Lore -- which already has two anthologies under its belt, plus a "greatest hits" collection from the magazine days -- is a great mix of horror, SF and fantasy. I'm helping to read stories for the third edition right now. It's already a blast.

More as things progress. In the meantime, check out the site for submission guidelines and ordering information.