comic_jan19th

I had the best weekend hanging out with kids from Milwaukee and Columbus. I love hanging out with people who aren't worried about the kind of image they're giving off to everyone else constantly.

So, last year on New Year's Eve I did a one night zine about the past year. I didn't have time to do it on New Year's Eve this year, but I did decide to do a year in review zine again. It was nice to force myself a lot of what had happened over the past year--good and bad. Sometimes it's just easy to let time keep passing without really looking at what you've gained and lost from it. This zine "Where are you now?" is a look at just that what I accomplished, learned, lost, miss and had in 2009. If you would like an actual copy of it, please let me know and I we can work something out.

it's a happy new year

Happy New Years everyone. I've been busy busy with zine fest things. It's looking like it's going to really happen and on March 12th and 13th. I will let you know more when it's closer to the time.

I think the holidays makes everyone very reflective, thinking back on past years and how far you've progressed. I've been feeling really good about where I'm at right now, literally and figuratively, which is great. But things do always feel pretty temporary these days. So this is kind of sad, but really I'm feeling pretty good.

Happy new year everyone, I love you.

comic-dec10th

You'd think with it being cold and staying inside I'd be more productive than ever lately, but this unfortunately is not so. We have been making a lot of progress with the Zine Fest and pretty much have a location set and a date which is so exciting! I am starting a new project to hopefully have for that along with all the old standbys. We also have been really busy making chocolate and we have truffles now up our etsy shop--check them out!

With all my time at home I have been drawing and watching television on the internet (boo) but it has given me a chance to watch the rest of the 3rd season of 30 rock..

comic-dec 5th

With the winter coming I've been staying in a little bit more. It's good for getting things done, but not so much for the social life. An example of a hopping Saturday night for me..

contact

I recently re-watched the movie Contact for the first time in many, many years and it made me remember a bunch of funny things which I don't really think about anymore. Winter always makes me nostalgic and I guess I would usually just write in my journal about it but since I've been trying to draw I figured I would try to draw about it.

shameless self-promotion

So, in news other than writing my friend Toby and I have been working on starting a vegan chocolate business.

Bum's Candies is officially up and open for business!

Please, visit our etsy shop here and our fellow blogspot here, any feedback would be great or if you have any flavor suggestions we would love to hear them!

Also in other news, tomorrow night I will be participating in an open mic event for my friend Amy's literary magazine Two With Water

The story I'm reading came from a writing prompt that Matt and I did earlier this week. So far they have been almost all helpful and we have written some good stuff from them.

Here is a snippet from that story...

I started to stay up most nights, as late as I could take, doing god knows what, just to avoid the nightly cat fights. It was around that time that I started trying to teach them simple English to try and communicate with them. I talked to them as you would a baby, just learning how to make sounds and form them into ideas.

“You. Cat. Andy.”

“Me. Human. Michael.”

I would point at their tails and say, “Tail. Can you say tail?”

Ralph, who was big and gray and whom I loved more than Andy, seemed more receptive to the lessons. He would mew and cock his head, as if asking me to, “Explain that again? Maybe slower this time and possibly in cat tongue?” His big green eyes curious to the sounds I was making and the response I was looking for. Andy, on the other hand, would just scamper off, looking for food or a toy. He was a very cat-like cat and I guess I resented him for it. He thought only of cat concerns and seemed to be telling me he had no use for this higher knowledge I was wasting his time with.

If you're in Chicago, please come to Cafe Ballou on Western between Division and Chicago around 7pm Tuesday to hear the whole story!