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.

Starstruck

I found myself quite literally starstruck last night. I took the pups out for their last walk at about 9:30, looked up, and stopped dead in my tracks. What seemed like billions and billions of stars hung above us, shining brighter than I have ever seen them before. For that moment, surrounded by their peaceful glow, I felt at one with the universe.

The dogs were not as impressed.

Monday morning news x 2

Well this is cool -- I just found out that my short poem "Necropsy" from Space and Time Magazine # 115 is a finalist for the 2012 Dwarf Stars Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. The poem will be reprinted in a book containing all of the finalists some time later this year.  -- thanks to editor Linda D Addison for accepting it for the magazine!

In other cool news, my request to be invited to the TEDxDirigo conference in October has been accepted so I'll be going in late October. I don't know what this really means beyond sitting in the audience, but I think it will be a great opportunity to see some inspiring speakers and meet some cool folks from around Maine. We've been watching a lot of TED Talks online over the past month, so I'm excited to see some in person. Who knows, maybe I'll shoot for actually giving a TED talk some time in the future!

Cash Mob!

I attended my first cash mob a few nights ago and enjoyed the hell out of it.

If you haven't heard of them yet, cash mobs are kind of like the old flash mobs only less flashy and far less prank-oriented. Instead, they're designed to help the local community.

Here's how a cash mob works: A bunch of people find out about an event though social media and show up at an appointed time and place with the expectation that they're going to spend about $20 at a local independently owned retailer. The store isn't announced until everyone gets there, so there's a great deal of mystery wrapped around it. Once the crowd gathers the store is announced and off we go, $20 bills in hand. It's a cool way to meet local people and support local retailers at the same time.

In this recent cash mob case, the store wasn't the best choice for me (Etc. in Bath, a gift store that serves a fairly narrow clientele), but I had fun. There were about 35 mobbers, and if we each spent $20, then the store made a good $700.  (I actually spent $17.89, but I'm sure things averaged out.) I have heard of other cash mobs bringing in tens of thousands of dollars for retailers!

You can find cash mobs in your area here: http://cashmobs.wordpress.com/ Many of them have Facebook pages, Twitter feeds or other ways you can sign up to get notified. Keep an eye out or start one of your own!

5 ways you can tell I'm 'from away'

Even though I have now lived in this corner of Maine for a little over five years, I will always be considered a "person from away" -- not because I don't have a Maine accent, but because my great-grandparents weren't born here.

But if you didn't hear me speak or have access to my pedigree, there are several other ways you can tell I'm not originally from here pretty darn quickly:

1. I don't pull out the shorts as soon as it hits 50 degrees. Heck, it's 55 today and I'm wearing long pants and a sweater. I feel no shame in this, only cold. I don't mind the cold, I just respect it. And keep it at least a few millimeters away from my skin.

2. You won't find me doing my banking at 7am. A lot of people here start their workdays pretty damned early. It isn't always their choice, but in general, folks are up with or before the sun. Me? I like the daytime, sure, but nothing is getting me out of bed before 7:15. (8 if I'm lucky.)

3. I don't have a camp. Mainers are awesome about going back to nature on the weekend, and most of people I know have cabins or whatever somewhere off the beaten track. That's fantastic, but I can barely keep up with one domicile, let alone two. Plus, there's a lot of good TV on during the weekend.

4. My wardrobe includes nothing from Columbia Sportswear, Carhartt or LL Bean. Again, this is pretty much because I'm not an outdoorsman, but it's also because I'm usually too cheap to buy this stuff. (Yes, I'm even more frugal than your average Mainer.) Although, having said this, I just got the new Bean catalog and some of the stuff looks pretty darn nice. Hmm...

5. And finally, I don't like lobster. I know lobster fishing is one of the primary economies of coastal Maine, but I can't stand the taste of those little red buggers. Give me a nice piece of chicken any day.