Rochester and Nucleus online print shop

There's new prints available at Gallery Nucleus, including the cover to S&S2, Sandy Balgan from my upcoming Flight 4 story, my latest illustration of Nicole, and my RM illustration of Rennida. Many of the prints are 13 x 19, and run for about $30. They do a really nice job, printing on watercolor paper with a printer the size of my wall. Shipped in plastic with cardboard backing, your prints will arrive to you in mint condition. While you're there, be sure to browse through the galleries of their other artists as well!

Tomorrow morning I leave for Rochester for the Teen Book Festival. If you're in the area be sure to stop by! I grew up in Rochester until I was 16 and haven't been back for a visit in many a year. It was where I first started writing Reman Myth, so I think it fitting to revisit the environment it was based on. I'm really looking forward to this trip, will be back with pictures of my hometown!

By the way, I keep getting reminded that it's really difficult to find my email address on my website. If you need to contact me, you can email me at (whibbage at gmail.com). I'll make sure this is easier to find on my "about" page!

Becky's blog

Just a heads up! Becky Cloonan now has a blog. You know what to do! =)

Also Kazu has an interesting commentary on Becky's East Coast Rising cover.

Kentucky

So I'm back from Kentucky! The Women Writer's Conference was pretty awesome, a lot of great discussion between cartoonists of different styles, writers, and poets. It was refreshing to discuss story with people who worked in different mediums. Highlights include, but not limited to, the reading and signing with Sarah Vowell, watching an excerpt from Heather Raffo's moving play 9 Parts Of Desire (it's seriously an amazing experience, if she's in your town definitely go see it), having brunch with File 49's Sara Turner and co., having dinner with Benito Cereno from penciljack, briefly touring Lexington and it's surrounding stables with Sarah and Houston Combs.

The graphic novel quorum was lots of fun. Thanks to everyone who attended and to "Pangie 06" from the forums for stopping by and to her father for giving me a sketch! I'm still amazed you guys came all the way down from Cincinnati. Hope you had fun in Kentucky while you were there! The room for the quorum was pretty full and an engaging discussion was had by all. Be sure to check out the work of the other participants: Lauren Weinstien, Pheobe Gloeckner, and Sara Turner. Check out Sara's excellent report including photos! And as you can see by the celebration photos at the end of that report, her self-published book of File 49 is done and ready to order. Congrats, Sara!!

And thanks to Rebecca Howell for pulling together such a great group of folks and making the conference so memorable!

Next weekend it's off to Rochester for the Teen Book Festival, and a brief visit to NYC to see friends and do work. Sure is a lot of travelling this month... =P

Also about the forums, I think the old threads are probably gone for good but maybe this is a chance to purge the past and start fresh anyway considering the old Rema is now defunct. I'm going to try to get my friend to help me in setting up a new forum. We'll see how that goes.

Kazu has a new Copper strip up, too. I really love this one and feel like it's one of his best so far. We also watched Silent Hill last night. I'm already a huge fan of the games, but never really followed the story too closely. I only played the game to indulge in the immersive atmosphere. It's the only reason I went to the movie as well, and unless you love ethereal storylines filled with symbolism and lacking in much explanation for events occuring (which I kind of do!), then I'd suggest skipping it for a more rewarding storyline. This is a movie for the fans of the game, and for fans of horrific mood pieces (like a good Chris Cunningham music video).

The story itself is so left for interpretation, it becomes like a game itself with many possible alternate endings which you'd have to write in your head. Personally I love that aspect of it. Also like the games the characters are blessed with the skill of bad acting. >_<>

By the way, Nucleus posted some photos of the signing at their gallery. Check 'em out!

Women Writer's Conference

Just a reminder, this weekend is the Women's Writer's Conference in Lexington, Kentucky! The free graphic novel quorum will be on Saturday, April 22 at 3pm at Arts Place with Sara Turner, Lauren Weinstien, Pheobe Gloeckner, and myself. The WWC has a lineup of interesting events (most of them free and open to the public), check out their website for more details.

A big thank you to everyone that could make it out to the Nucleus book signing. It was lots of fun with a light crowd, a lot of cartoonists showed up that gave it a mini-convention sort of feel. I also got a great piece of fan art at the show, I'll post that along with a couple others once things settle down here a bit. April is full of travelling (after this coming weekend's Kentucky trip, there's a Rochester/NYC trip!) so updates will be pretty sparse. Until then, it's comics, comics, comics! O_O Hope to see some of you guys in Kentucky!

By the way, Comic Book Resources just posted some nice preview images of Flight Vol. 3 plus a nice interview with Kazu. Check it out!

Just a reminder...

Cut and paste from an earlier entry, this Saturday at 7pm-11pm Becky Cloonan, Felipe Smith, and myself (maybe others?) will be at Gallery Nucleus signing our books and displaying our original pieces.

Becky and I just got back from Nucleus hanging up a few of our pieces. Some original pages from Reman Mythology as well as my Flight 2 story (and all the thumbnails so far for my Flight 3 story) are displayed, along with Becky's East Coast Rising originals, Jenny One pieces, and a few large format prints. It'll be a very laid back show. Be sure to swing by, browse the pages and feel the power of comics!!!

Back from APE

Ahhh~ back to good ol' Alhambra! Alternative Press Expo in San Fransisco was once again a lovely experience. Thanks to everyone that stopped by the Flight booth. I really wish I had more copies of S&S with me at the time, but I admit that I was unprepared this year. From now on I'm making it a rule: "Plan for APE even if you think you're not going". The Expo itself was loads of fun and relaxing at the same time. It's always wonderful hanging out with the rest of the Flight crew and seeing new work around the convention floor. I feel inspired and refreshed, something that I feel I have to do every once in a while when I'm always staring at paper. There is no better place to do it at than APE!

My pal Becky is also visiting along with her uber-talented beau, Vasilis. It's so awesome to hang out with other comic artists again. As a reminder we'll all be at Nucleus for the signing next Saturday, so I hope to see some of you there! =)

For now I must crash, tomorrow it's back to the drawing board (and I can't wait!).

By the way, check out the review from Comics Worth Reading's Johanna on Sorcerers & Secretaries. I was especially tickled by this quote:

"This book is like gourmet hot chocolate: comforting and relaxing, prepared with great skill, yet with unexpected depth plus a hint of spice to keep the reader from taking it for granted."

By the way, girlslife.com is holding a contest for Sorcerers & Secretaries where you can win a signed copy of the book. Entering instructions from their contests section:

"Five lucky winners will receive an autographed copy of Sorcerers & Secretaries along with an exclusive bookmark. Click here to enter, or send a postcard with your name and address to Sorcerers & Secretaries, GL, 4517 Harford Road, Baltimore, MD 21214 by April 30."

And to "JAKE", I dunno if you read this but thanks for the warning on my forums. -_- I'll fix it when I have the chance (whenever that is!), but for now it'd be nice to have your message taken off my boards so people can just enjoy it and not have to read your warning to me. You couldn've emailed me, too, and it would've worked just as well! =P

The Dreaming

Between working on projects, Kazu and I stopped by Comics Factory where I picked up this little gem, "The Dreaming". Being another Tokyopop book, I was naturally curious to check it out, not knowing what to expect. Plus, I'm always interested in seeing horror in the comics format to see how suspense can be captured in the medium. Written and illustrated by Australian Queenie Chan, I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was to read this. Once again, I must nerd-out a bit and blog about this.

Very much in the same vein as the old "Fear Street" series by R.L. Stine, "The Dreaming" follows two twin sisters as they try to adjust to their new lives in a creepy old boarding school in the middle of the bush. The eeriness that Chan creates is done very thoughtfully using pacing and camera angles, and the mystery around the school's sordid past is slowly revealed at a very confident yet comfortable pace. You can tell the author was 100% into her world as she wrote and drew this, and the period clothing and architecture feels well-researched and lovingly rendered (as you can see by the above image from her website).

Reading this book gives me the same feeling I used to get reading Point books and Christopher Pike's series back in middle school. So, if you're a fan of those stories you'd definitely love "The Dreaming". Read the three-chapter preview at mangaonline and judge for yourself. =)