Fresh home from Portugal. Big “obrigado” to Paulo Monteiro for organizing the festival in Beja and spoiling all us guests! On the left, a sketch
André Caetano made of me (looking intense & scruffy) during my talk with Pedro Moura. And on the right, a glimpse of Beja from the castle.

Beja’s a charming, laid-back city a couple hours outside of Lisbon and the festival is cozy and friendly and flowing with endless pitchers
of wine and sangria. Most of all, it was a great honor to spend time with the guest and local cartoonists. Below is Pedro Burgos and I
on the streets of Lisbon. Now I’m good and fueled to get back to work on HABIBI!

The Stumptown ComicsFest seemed a success. I was especially grateful to have laid-back time with cartoonist friends Jeff Smith and
Mike & Laura Allred. It was these very cartoonists that drew me back to the comics medium, with their books BONE and MADMAN.
Jeff visited my studio on Friday to peruse Habibi pages, and Mike & Laura stopped by on Saturday.
Plus we had time to enjoy the summery sun and eat good foods.

Big thanks to all of you that made it to my Sunday talk and/or signing. You were a pleasure to meet! Also thanks to Douglas Wolk for moderating.
I wish I could share some of the images from my “powerpoint” on the blog, but I think they’d be too much of a spoiler in this form.
Here’s a simple glimpse of pencils-to-inks that shouldn’t ruin any storytelling.

Photos by my buddy Alessandro Q. Ferrari

Seems like it was an amazing year to be at the Angoulême festival in France. A huge exhibition of presidents
Dupuy & Berberian’s work … plus Blutch won the Grand Prix! Three of the most inspiring/influential cartoonists in the universe.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in attendance this year. Nipping the travel after my indulgent Hawaii escape to stay focused &
productive on Habibi. Here’s a photo of me vandalizing a page of Charles Berberian’s pencils in his Paris studio, 2005.

Revisit this posting to read more about my “euro influences”. And here’s some peeks on the newest chapter of HABIBI.

Thanks as always for your outpouring of encouragement. Very motivating to return from vacation to so many comments!
As Kurt mentioned, there are still four more chapters to go, but the book is two/thirds finished, and now I’ve the energy to dive back into it.
In Oahu, I visited my French friends Laëtitia & Frédéric & their kids Samuel, Koupaïa & Alanis. You may remember them from CARNET DE VOYAGE.
Alanis is a new edition. And they’re currently living in the the non-continental United States.
Of all the activities I engaged in – surfing at Threes in Waikiki, bodyboarding at Makapu’u, snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, kayaking in Kaneohe Bay,
my favorite was a North Shore shark cage.
Fortunately, Frédéric had along an underwater camera to document these beautiful & haunting Galapagos Sharks.

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 2x4s 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.