Oops.

Haven’t posted since August, that’s because of this thing. Working on my thesis! Here’s me with three posters advertising it. 

 

WRJ Summer, in Brief

Spent a lot of time TAing the CCS Summer workshops this summer…

And swimming in tea-colored river water…

And uh, yeah drawing. Mostly snarky magical girls and sketchbook doodles.

 

Back to WRJ, Back to Work

So sometimes, it’s honing your skills, beating them into submission, and sometimes, you know, it just feels like blunt force trauma to the head.

Alright, so I’m back in Vermont. No more of this excessive taco eating, California-fun-time. It’s now back to makin’ comics and makin’ comics and, this summer, helping make comics! I’m going to TA for CCS’ Summer Workshops. Woohoo.

And here’s a sketchbook page. More at my comics tumblr.

Anyway, my last week in CA included a quick zip up to Los Angeles for the weekend. I sort of regret not buying loads of mole at Guelzateca in Koreatown, but I did have this amazing horchata.

Then we went to the Getty Center, basked in the sunshine, and went to the Herb Ritts retrospective.   And then we went to the Melrose Trading Post, which is a flea market at a high school. We used to go when we were college students and it’s grown a lot. But ever feel like you are marketed to a little too directly? Aka “when did I become a cliché of a person?” Ah well, I got some cool dresses and fished around some old photographs. I bought a couple slides and negatives. Don’t know what I’ll do them with, but I’ll be sure to post them up soon.

Also, cons this season! I confirmed my plans to be at SPX and at MICE this year. Probably more to come.

Anyway, still tired from the jetlag, will post more later.

The Wilds of San Diego

So, I finished my 15 day housesitting/no car imprisonment term at my parents’ house. Of course, the long hours (of marathon soap opera/Morgan Freeman explaining the universe) were punctuated by visits from friends, etc. I’m in CA for another couple weeks, but now I get to fully enjoy its CA-ness, in a freer kind of way.

Delicious, thy name is pollo asada fries. Not shown in its slathered glory: heaps of guacamole gold.

I got a chance to go to the fair and gorge on fried food, watch little piggies run, and get kinda sorta hit on by a man in a lamb costume. Other activities include taking field trips to the Japanese market, enjoying green tea kit kats, Bourbon cake rolls (oh like, Ho Hos, but mini and yellow-cakey and so high class and better), and Japanese spaghetti packets (cod roe in a tube, spread over pasta in seaweed? So good, yet maybe not the best breakfast food in the world).

I also have been, yes, drawing somewhat, but mostly planning/writing/practicing for the big thesis year ahead/submissions for anthologies/projects that I want to work on in WRJ. I have so much planned, let’s see if I finish them. You can see some of my sketches and doodles here. To be honest, I’m mostly on tumblr now anyway, sort of making an internet collage of what catches my fancy. I think Laurel once called it being an intellectual magpie?

Twiddle, Twiddle, Doodle, Doodle

And eating noodles. Well, sometimes. I also have been making brownies.

Anyway, how to spend that long stretch of summer between CCS years 1 and 2? I should be working on some projects I have lined up. It’s a lot of writing and I don’t know if I’m quite prepared for that sort of undertaking right now. To procrastinate, I’ve been practicing drawing pretty boy faces. I think I have to work on drawing different types of faces and am experimenting with style. I also bought a brush pen! So here are a couple of pages from my notebook. I’m sorry that it isn’t very substantial.

Let’s see, well right now I’m in San Diego for a month (carne asada fries pictures forthcoming) and chilling out. I went and (err, was fairly grumpy at) MeCAF, lobster roll pictures forthcoming. What else? I don’t know, what else really, I probably forgot a ton of stuff that happened… But lately I’ve been obsessed with using gelly roll pens and staedtler pens to color, in very non-CYMK friendly hues. I want to experiment more with different kinds of color printing… and hmm… I’m writing a couple of different projects in my head right now (not so much on screen yet, but I do go through a very long fantasize and brainstorm process).

I’ve been watching a lot of Korean soap operas, as evidenced in the comic I did for the Cartoon Crier. Which is a collaboration between CCS and the National Cartoonist Society. You can read it for free online here. My current favorite that I’ve been re-watching and re-watching and re-watching (and not just because Hyun Bin is a hot jackass in a sparkly tracksuit) is Secret Garden. Basically, it’s about a chaebol son who switches bodies with a stuntwoman and it’s AMAZING. And totally illogical. I guess I’ve been wrestling with that question of why it’s amazing and how it pertains to my own work. How far can someone go with ridiculousness while still being affecting? How can one take cliches and make them a) still emotionally pulling while b) fulfilling all expectations of that cliche, and sometimes not even subverting it? Anyway, it sort of puts me in the mood to write something similar (yet very me, you know). We’ll see if I get around to it.

And here’s a picture of me and Sasha (with a wig I bought in NY):

End of Year Catch-Up

Gosh, I’ve been gone so long they changed the format of writing these. Ah well. So it’s mid-May and school is finally over. CCS graduation was yesterday, and a lot of my dear seniors are scattering all across the country, to be seen over the Internet and at cons for now on. So so sad. Here’s a picture of the proceedings, featuring the talented Dakota McFadzean, who was delivering the student commencement speech:

And here is a picture of me making kissy faces with a taxidermed llama at the Main Street Museum:

In this string of graduation parties, fun was had by all. There were laughs and tears and such. And it isn’t even my graduation! Oh dear.

In addition, I went to MoCCA in New York to sell/trade my mini-thesis, a “mediation on emotions as expressed in dream metaphors.” I named it Anything s Anything, which, yes, is a Parks and Recreation reference.

The cover is all nerves and stuff. Here’s a sample of one of the pages:

If you desire a copy, just comment. I will require some sort of trade (though it doesn’t have to be monetary, a letter or a postcard or whatever). Those of you that requested already, I’m on it. Though because I’m coming back to SoCal for a month, if you live there, you might have to wait until I see you. Unless you’re like, a stranger. Then I can just mail it. I’m not saying that you’re creepy or anything, it’s just that it might be awkward and inconvenient… but you know, whatever, your decision!

I have so much to write about! But here’s documentation of a short-lived CCS meme. SPROUT BABIES! THEY ARE BABIES BUT THEY ARE ALSO SPROUTS.

 

Surviving the Silver Age

So, this is what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks. Behold, my Silver Age project (done with six of my CCS homies)… KEY QUEST (hint: it’s a metaphor). Done, all colored and 1967 style (with side of critique and a whole lot of adventure).

But April, they’re all, like, backwards. Exactly! …so… you can… read them later? I’ll try to put up a link to a .pdf or something in the future.

 

Life, Bound and Miniature

So, I attend the Center for Cartoon Studies. One of the things my school is known for is concentrating on making a final comic– that is, written, drawn, inked, and bound. As a result, I not only possess a startling array of these minicomics from my classmates…

These are only the ones I obtained at ICAF– mostly through trade, monetary exchange, and puppy-dog-eyed looks. 

But I’ve also made a bunch of stuff since I got here, and even got to peddle my wares. This semester I got to attend SPX in Bethesda, Maryland (I did not have anything to sell then, but it was still a fun experience) and the ICAF conference on my campus. Here is a picture of me peddling said wares:

I didn’t make all of these. I was merely attending the table for me and four other individuals, collectively known as Team Firehazard (this a literal, rather than figurative piece of nomenclature).

This semester I made the following items:

  Two minis of some of my older work. One detailing dreams I’ve had and another about something that happened to me while I was living in Seoul. Hint: It’s a surprise! 

Several one-page diary comics. This is about a trip to the woods we took.

An eight page minicomic about vampire mermaids and uh, how writers write about racial identity.

And last, but not, least, a triple screenprinted, perfect bound, five authors in total, belly-banded final anthology project. It was called [SCI]ense and it’s about each of the five senses with a science-fiction bent. Fact: it was hard to make. Also, fact: I got food poisoning the weekend before this was due. Fact: it was not fun, but we finished it!

I have some other stuff over at Rectangular, Rather, too. Once I get back to VT I’ll be scanning a bunch-load more. And that concludes this summary of my academic life.  Stay tuned for… some food pictures.

Vermont-ing.

So, let’s talk about my life in Vermont. I live in the 2,000 people-populated town of White River Junction, situated in the Upper Valley that splits in the middle of Vermont and New Hampshire. Life there is fine– good– different. You literally (and I mean that in the actual sense, not the, I’m exaggerating but I’m exaggerating using words that mean that I am not exaggerating and speaking truthfully) cannot walk down the street without seeing a cartoonist. This excludes some odd hours of the day of course, for the most part, yes, this happens. It’s been good creatively and I’m learning a lot and I feel I have the support of my peers– you get the idea.

This is the town. Most of it. Also, my friend Nate’s head.

Vermont, of course, is known as a hot spot for “leaf peepers” (to the unfamiliar ear, sounds slightly perverted, yes?)  in the fall. And yeah, there is plenty of peeping to be had. Especially when we went on our trip to Mt. Ascutney.

Yeah. That’s the stuff. 

I know what you are thinking. What about the grub, April? Well, my favorite weekly brunch spot is Shyrl’s (am I spelling this right?) in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, for their cheapness, the out of town but not too out of townness, and these raspberry chocolate pancakes:

White River Junction is also somewhat of a fancy french fry town– from the truffle fries at Elixir with their garlic aioli to the garlic fries at The Tip Top Cafe. I might have to do a whole post investigating and illustrating the matter.

Anyway, it’s been fun. Right now I’m in 80 degree San Diego, so I can’t comment on the current awfulness of its coldness, but I’m sure there will be more time for that later.

So… uh, well, uh…

The last time I wrote in this thing was October? Why was that, oh yeah, grad school at CCS has been crazy busy. I haven’t put up a lot of comics. but some of the work I did this semester is now at Rectangular, Rather. I’ll put up more when I’m less lazy. As you might have figured, a lot of shit has gone down since I’ve last written. In the interest of time, let’s summarize. In the interest of fun, let’s do it backwards!

Right now, I’m mildly obsessed with this Korean historical drama about the Silla Dynasty called The Great Queen Seondeok (having my emotions manipulated with a dose of history, why, yes). And devoured the second issue of David Chang’s food magazine, Lucky Peach.

I just got back from a two day stay in Cambridge and Boston, where I visited a friends and ate this pizza:

I’m a bit of a food snob when it comes to certain things, especially of the West Coast is the Best Coast variety, but I will concede East Coast dominates when it comes to pizza. This one was especially delicious, spinach, cheese, artichokes, tomatoes… yeah! We also visited the MFA museum, which uh, kinda stinks and the people who run it were sort of mean to us, but anyway, this sculpture! The glitter!

And while in Somersville, I saw this nifty museum, but we didn’t go inside.

More later, gotta watch more of that drama.