In high school, I had a falling out with comics — trying to replace my nerdy junior high obsessions of comicbooks ands rpgs and star wars with skateboarding and girls and Christianity. At age 16, I met Kurt Halsey at art camp – the snarkiest skater of the bunch – and he made comics cool for me again. Upon graduating, Kurt and I collaborated on my first official mini-comic – TWO-WAY COMIC MACHINE – it was one of those flippy dealies, half his work / half mine. He drew my cover, I drew his. I worked at the local newspaper as a low-level ad stylist and used the small “brochure” press to print it. We couldn’t sell the things at the time … I remember driving through the streets of Milwaukee, tossing handfuls out the window — proselytizing or littering depending how you look at it. Excerpted here is the story of Lionel Piglet.
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The photo on the left is the oldest I could find — 1997 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — the two of us looking respectively baggy-trousered and limp-wristed. Somewhere off Humboldt Street. At the time, I worked as a laser light show animator at Discovery World children’s museum. The second photo is just short of ten years later — the small gang that gathered to celebrate my 31st birthday — Vinh, myself, Kurt, Taizo from the nearby okonomiyaki place, and Alena displaying the amazing memoir “A Weasel in my Meatsafe”.

Continual thanks to everyone responding to this blog. My apologies for being lazy with anything correspondence or ‘puter related. Soon I’ll try answering some of your questions… In the meantime, the blog seems like a decent forum for being transparent with the process of comics-making. I still feel secretive with HABIBI, but we’ve three other books to show-n-tell with — Here’s some doodlings from my notebook/sketchbook when I began writing BLANKETS. Kenneth Koch, Marcel Proust, Gnostic Gospels, Ballpoint Pen, 1999!

I started surfing because of depression. My Wisconsin painter buddy Dan Attoe claimed rock-climbing salvaged him from a dark mental space — learning something new combined with physical activity. I was already having surf-themed dreams, so on my thirtieth birthday, I treated myself to a board, and braved the frigid waters of the northern Pacific with Justin from Menomena.

The shot on the right is at Indian Beach, OR — terrible surf conditions that day, but a picturesque cove shared by inquisitive seals and, yes, the GOONIES rocks in the background.

…to keep breaking your heart until it opens.

Here’s a couple of his ditties “illuminated” with ballpoint pen in my sketchbook.

Aaron Renier is one of my bestest of buddies. He’s a Wisconsin homeboy raised on brautwurst and fried cheese curds just like me. (Now he eats tofurkey brautwurst). He’s also one talented, brushtastic cartoonist with a great book — Spiralbound. The French edition was released this January on Delcourt’s Shampooing imprint (rodeoed by the brilliant Lewis Trondheim); and Aaron and I flew to Angoulême (Europe’s premier comics festival) to celebrate. I documented some of it in my sketchbook, but then Aaron and my trip drifted separate directions and the diary sort of disintegrated. Oh well, here’s a glimpse of it anyway.

And just for proof, here’s a photo of Aaron’s ‘stache when we first hopped a train from Paris in our grubby jetlagged splendour. The second photo is in Paris along with Alban Rautenstrauch and Alex Holden. The third photo is me getting horrifically ill at Charles Berberian’s place. Charles is one of the most charming human beings in the comics industry and a true inspiration, but I defiled his bathroom in a number of ways with my food poisoning. I couldn’t eat for four days, lost ten pounds, missed my plane back to the states, and was diagnosed upon returning as host to three varieties of parasites! Merci to Myléne for looking after me.

Also, just so Aaron isn’t embarrassed by this advertisement of his ol’ soup-strainer, here’s me rockin’ four of my own.

PS – please, excuse the obsessive “links”.

Holy good golly thank you everyone for all the sweet words. This blog business stirred up just the rallying cry I’ve needed. I’ve been feeling so lonely and isolated with this project, holed up at the drawing board, but all this encouraging feedback helps. I’ll do my best to update!

Everyone asks when the new book will be out. I’m aiming for 2009 which sounds forever away, but that’s a tight schedule that requires me working almost every day. This blog might be a forum for sneak-peeks — not sure how much I’m willing to reveal though…

In any case, here’s page 72. The second chapter (of nine) was completed last week.

My biggest “NEWS” is the release of MENOMENA’s “friend and foe” album.
You can listen to it here: http://barsukmusic.blaireau.net/menomena but I must endorse seeking out a tangible copy of the disc.
1) It’s a profound, rocking, apocalyptic celebration.
2) The band are all dear buddies of mine. Please, support the musicians.
3) The album drawings/design are by me — hyper-detailed and perforated with lots of diecuts and interactivity and decoder-ring surprises.
Here’s PITCHFORK’s description:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/40411-friend-and-foe

Almost.

(photo by Julie Thi Underhill)