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!