It was a really pretty day in Portland the day Barack Obama came to town, and thanks to my pals the Decemberists
I got to watch from the best seats in the house - the stage alongside his podium.

As one would guess, none of the point&click photos capture the chaos that was Paintallica.
In retrospect, I wish I’d drawn a real-time carnet to document the rowdiness rather than pathetically slather cardboard with house paint.

Here’s a little review of the “pleasing mess”.

I don’t know how to describe things except as an extreme sports version of craft night. We worked with the theme “War Party”. 8pm until dawn for two nights. I felt pretty useless the first night as everyone buzzed about with 2×4s and powertools and strung cables between 30 foot pillars. But the second night I happily busied myself with cartoony details. There were no lights so we brought our own halogens making for eerie illumination (also strobes and smoke machines). There was also no bathroom so we peed (Dan pooped) in a five gallon pail. There was a lot of beer and spray paint fumes.

The new website Bill set up acknowledges the participants: Jesse, Dan, Gordon, Jamie, Cece, Shelby, Jeff, Bill, David, Jay, Greta, Jeremy, and Posie. My role was minor, but I was grateful to be along for the experience.

I’m a bit anxious about what I’ve gotten myself into…
…agreeing to participate in a chaotic painting/performance/installation/collaboration called PAINTALLICA.
The namesake should cancel out all the artsy-fartsy pretensions. My understanding is that there will be
a couple sleepless nights of a group of us ransacking a PICA-ordained gallery space. And the project is
headed up by my recently-mentioned Wisco’ art buddy Dan Attoe. It’s all part of the famous
Time Based Arts Festival in Portland. Here’s some details. And at the Portland Mercury.
For comics fans, Jeremy Tinder will also be joining in on the action. Also there will likely be much shirtlessness.

My longtime Wisconsin buddy & famous painter Dan Attoe and I are doing a talk at the Portland Art Museum
~ This Thursday, August 7, 6pm, 1219 SW Park. The museum is exhibiting some of Dan’s paintings and neon as part of
their Contemporary Northwest Art Awards show. They’re really sumptin’ to behold — Epic naturalistic landscapes
speckled with smaller vignettes and revelatory text. Dan might be hesitant to admit it, but they’ve much in
common with the beloved medium of comics. Difficult to capture in crappy photos and jpegs, but here’s a glimpse.

Anyways, Dan and I will be doodling live on stage and sharing scandalous stories of our shared upbringing as troubled rural youth.
I’ve got some embarrassing doozies to tell about Dan and you can be certain he’ll retaliate with shameful accounts of this
scrawny country lad awkwardly growing up in the agricultural heartland of Wisconsin. Here’s a link to a community college scholarship
trip we took in 1995. And here’s a photo of us from last September.

What am I showing him in my hand? Come to the talk and find out!

I took a couple of days off when my buddy Alessandro visited from Italy. Here’s a doodle from a front porch conversation:

And here’s a little jumble of chapter five progress. It’s coming along!

Thanks, as usual, for the blog comments. And on that last round, lots of useful self-preservation tips.
For those in Portland, I’ll be at my friend Danny’s LACKTHEREOF cd release party at Holocene tonight.

My advice to young cartoonists is that the biggest and most important challenge
is simply seeing a project to completion. I’d draw ten pages of a story, get bored
or distracted, then dump ‘em in the drainage ditch, leaving a wake of unfinished
books — until finally sticking with CHUNKY RICE. Below is one of my little
rejected children - Elliot Chicken - and two projects left in purgatory.

The first is from a pitch I proposed to Dark Horse Comics in Fall 1998. Not long after ending my graphic designer employment there (but long enough to recover from tendonitis), I rounded together a book proposal which included character sheets like this one for Elliot, sample comics pages, and a plot synopsis. The project was turned down by the higher-ups, but if it hadn’t, it would have been my firstborn book, claiming eldest rights over Chunky.

This second preview is a few panels from a jam comic my dear cartoonist buddy and Wisconsinite Aaron Renier had begun. It’s drawn “CONVERSATIONS”-style where we’d render half a panel and email it to the other to complete. I revived lil’ troubled Elliot, and Aaron created this bizarre lunk named Waterbear, and we intended to make-it-up-as-we-went-along until we had a 200 page graphic novel!!!
About three pages in, we lost steam.
It was probably the pressure of our bigger projects (HABIBI for me, WALKER BEAN ~coming soonish from First Second~ for him) or a blend of laziness and insecurity. It would have been a lot more fun to draw if we still lived in the same town. These sloppy colors were just slathered on to brighten the blog — Below is an untarnished black&white panel.

In other news, I love reading your comments. Yoplem asked about the ROBOX story. It appeared in a Dark Horse anthology called REVEAL with “Lone Wolf 2000″ on the cover and published in November 2002. Hope your weekend’s been good, everybody!

My brother Phil and his wife Ami just visited for a week. No pee-fights this time around,
though in our last couple of hours together we did collaborate on a jam comic.

It stars characters crafted by my brother in our childhood - Sockman, Detective Skelly, Robot Egg, and Ninja Thrasher!
( ~ my character designs were always lame & milquetoast…) Apologies to you blog-readers,
but I had to post this to at least amuse our childhood buddy Evan.

These “salvation army” battle scenes were doubtless inspired by our father’s plumbing occupation
and our family exclusively shopping at thrift stores.

Apologies for slow updates since returning from Europe. Believe me, I’ve been focused on HABIBI.

It’s sort of a comic book tradition for cartoonists to depict each other’s characters, but this time it’s for a book in progress.
Fellow Portland cartoonist and drawing buddy Jen Wang gifted me with this amazing drawing of HABIBI’s lead characters
Dodola and Zam. Her watercolor is on the left ~ and to the right is a panel from the second chapter.

And here’s dueling portraits — Jen’s drawing of me drawing — and my drawing of Jen drawing (drawing me drawing?)

Thank you again, everyone, for blog comments. For those in the States, watch for MENOMENA on tour — though I won’t be with them for this round.
I will, however, be talking with Matt Wagner and Shannon Wheeler at this year’s WORDSTOCK festival, November 11th on the Borders Books stage.

Home from the tour! Here’s a quiet domestic scene from Lyon — Alanis, Laëtitia, Koupaïa, Samuel, Frédéric …

… and here’s one last rocknroll image — the song “twenty cell revolt” performed in Barcelona. (stolen from “elchicodelaleche” ~ lots more on FLICKR)

Big thanks to my dear Menomena buddies Danny, Brent, and Justin ~ and to Sascha and Severin for managing this adventure.
Also thanks to Jared, Teak, Danni, Benoît & Valéry, Frédéric & Laëtitia, Anne-Julia & Walter, Samuel/Koupaia/Alanis/Solveig/Anton, Mylène,
Kathleen, Dupuy & Berberian / Anne & Niki, Jeffrey/Jack/Helen/David, Uncle Hansje & Mara, Alessandro and his parents, the Disney crew,
Miriam, Marta, Carlos, Lisa, Thais, and all the kind folks we met.
Thanks to all of you who made it to the shows, and thanks to all the venues that hosted and cleaned up our messes.
Heck… here’s one last photo. (Gracias, Álvaro) The sweatiest shot of Danny I could find, and the completed wall at Barcelona seconds before
I ripped it to shreds. (whoah ~ my shadow is well-hung.)

Check out Danny’s satisfyingly detailed tour log at LOCALCUT. Now back to serious work. Cousin Brianna, please e-mail!

My first chance to update while on the road — my apologies to all neglected emails!
Thank yous to all who made it to the Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam shows. The drawing
seemed best-received in Paris, though it was inspiring to hang out with Jeffrey Lewis and the Jitters
in Amsterdam. Presently resting at the home of Frédéric and Laëtitia in Lyon while the Menomena
boys play Germany and Switzerland. The below photos were taken by Frédéric, except for the
final by my Portland friends Geneva and Jeff who happened to be in Paris. In two days, I leave
for Milan and will be editing HABIBI on the train. More photos at PITCHFORK and the
Pete Townsend finale at YOUTUBE.

(Danny on drums, Brent on keyboards/guitar, Justin on bass/sax,
Jared the soundguy, Sascha the tour manager, and me doodling.)