Pressing it all Out

I've been taking a letterpress class for the first time ever, which has been so exciting and great! I totally love it and love the process of placing each letter and space into place.

Our first assignment was to do some wood type and metal type on one page with a quote or definition. I did a Frank O'Hara quote from my favorite poem of his "Having a Coke with You."

We also did images by doing linocuts and then setting them up on the printing press as well. This was my favorite thing we did and mostly what I'm doing for my big final project. I did a linocut of a page from my new mini-comic bananaslug! I will have some of these for sale in Milwaukee next weekend. I did 3 separate runs in three different colors.

As mentioned, next weekend already is the Milwaukee Zine Fest! Which holds a sentimental place in my heart since, not only was it my first zine fest I tabled at, it was also when we got the idea to start working on Chicago Zine Fest. Crazy it was only a year ago!

So I will be busy all weekend getting stuff made and put together for that.

Also, bananaslug! is up on my etsy now.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/leslieperrine

And here's a little comic I've had for a bit..

The banana slugs are coming!

Just arrived back from this Philly Zine Fest this weekend. I met some of the nicest people ever there. And ate some super good, amazing food. And got to hang out with my good friend Ramsey away from Chicago, which was awesome.

In preparation for Philly I was going nuts finishing my first official MINI-COMIC! I'm very pleased to be able to say I got it finished in time, and it's now available. If anyone is interested let me know..it's $2 plus a stamps worth of shipping. Here's some samples from it:

this is the cover which is stencil painted and hand bound.

a few pages:

Also, in exciting news I'm doing a reading October 23rd. Here's the flier I made for it:

happy fall everyone! I can't wait to be in michigan this weekend and do some apple picking!

October! Aaaah!

This is possibly the busiest October OF MY LIFE. Which means a lot to talk about!

Tomorrow a whole slew of us Chicago kids are heading up to Madison to table for the Madison Zine Fest it should be a good time. If anyone knows any great Madison hotspots--let me know!

Then next weekend Ramsey and I head out to Philly for the Philly Zine Fest

I'm mostly just excited about being on the East Coast for a bit and meeting a bunch of zine kids I haven't met before.

In preparation for these two events I've been working on something totally new...a mini-comic! And it's not even just drawings of myself over and over! It's been fun to try to make a story move without a narrator. Seems totally backwards from being a writer. Here's a sample page:

The weekend after next I head to Michigan for my brother/sister-in-law's baby shower. I made the invitations for it:

Such a fun project to have. I forgot how much I love just doing the tedious work of the same thing over and over (I made 20 of them) when it's not the same two books I spend hours making over and over.

Then the weekend of the 23rd I will be doing a reading at The Moving Castle House. I will post a flier (when I make it).

And lastly, what should I be for Halloween?!

Here's another long lost summer comic about feeling out of touch with Chicago...

I'm back!

I've been away so long! I've had a lot of summer adventures and then my computer died and my scanner stopped working. This is the main reason I haven't been able to upload stuff lately. But I finally found the right driver online and now I can sort of scan things again in a round about way. Hooray!

Things are in full swing in my studio this fall.

I'm starting a new project to hopefully have done for the Madison Zine Fest, which I'll be tabling at October 2nd.

Also, on a whim, I'm flying to Philadelphia with Ramsey (who just put out List #14 --and it's awesome!) to table at the Philly Zine Fest October 11th.

Very excited about all of this!

I'll be updating a lot more regularly in the coming weeks since I have a lot of backed up work to upload onto here.

Here's one of the long lost comics of the summer:

July, July

On my way to Minneapolis today to participate in the Twin Cities Zine Fest!

it should be a lot of fun! I'm very excited. If you're in the area, please stop by and say hello.

Also, I'll be doing a reading shortly after I get back here's the info:

July 31st, 2010

Fritz Pastry (they have vegan donuts!!)

4-6pm

We had our first Chicago Zine Fest 2011 Meeting this week!

So much to think about! I can't wait to get the ball rolling for it.

We're trying to get some flyers together to hand out at the Printer's Ball, which is an awesome event also, at the same venue we held the zine fest!

This is somehow all the info online about it:

http://printersball.org/

Here is one of my first finished pages from the paper cut book I've been working on:

Comic_june25th

I just got back from a great trip to California, it was nice to see people I hadn't seen in a long time.

I visited Mills College while I was there to look into their creative writing and book arts degree. Unfortunately only one student is in the program and hasn't graduated yet! So they are still figuring a lot of things out. I'd like to find a bookmaking and creative writing program but maybe one that's a little more flushed out. I'm going to find out more about SAIC and their interdisciplinary program.

Tomorrow I will be tabling at this event:

which is sure to be really awesome, AND a lot of the tablers (including myself, Neil Brideau, Matt Whispers, Michelle Aiello and Busy Beaver Buttons!) will be donating a percentage of their proceeds to The Chicago Zine Fest!

And we are starting to talk about the 2011 Chicago Zine Fest already. Very exciting stuff.

Also, if some certain things work out and stars align I will be tabling at the Twin Cities Zine Fest on July 10th

And lastly, here's a comic I drew while I was in California...

Happy Summertime!

This is what my days have been like lately.

Nice weather makes it so hard to get things done!

Rainy weather makes it so hard to get motivated!

Mondays are hard to get things done.

Blah, Blah.

But progress is being made.

Drawing groups are hopefully getting together.

I'm cutting bits of paper at an alarmingly slow rate.

Here's a comic about it: