CowboyOrange

Today was one of the most exciting days of my life, and from a political perspective, today was the best day I have ever known or imagined.

I can’t describe it; there is just nothing that can compare to the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States of America. I wept today for joy at the birth of an America I never dared to imagine. This is truly a watershed moment in American history.

It saddens me deeply that it took eight years of George W. Bush to come to this moment, and that even now this was (popularly) a narrow election. I hope that I am seeing the end of the darkest years of the 21st century. This has been a hard, painful and despiriting time.

But this is a new era.  Not just for America, but for the world.

For the first time in history, the most powerful man in the world is a Black man, the son of an African. This is important, and this is transformative. This is a great day.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, they shall count themselves accursed that did not vote today.

It’s time for me to rest.  I’ll see you all in the morning, in a new, better world.

I know it’s been a dog’s age since I posted. I have new stuff, but I ain’t showin’ off jack. Not that I don’t love all of you, but I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment.

In the meantime, I’d like to share with you some of the incomparable awesomeness I got for my birthday. This is why my friends are the best people in the world.

This first one is from my good friend Sean Ford. He is easily my closest friend in WRJ, and an immensely capable storyteller to boot. Even as we speak, he is hard at work on the next issue of Only Skin. I strongly recommend you check it out.

This bit of hilarity is from Gabby Schultz, aka Ken Dahl, the genius behind Monsters and Gordon Smalls. He’s sweet and thoughtful and knows me so well he’s comfortable with portraying me giving a reach-around to Wikipedia.

Finally, there’s this little gem from the impossibly brilliant Joe Lambert. Joe is one of the nicest guys you’ll ever know, and one of the best cartoonists I’ve ever known. There’s a lot coming from Joe in the next year or so; keep your eyes peeled. He’s one for the ages.

So, I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I tossed my name in the hat for the Public Radio Talent Quest. I’ve been told for years I ought to try out for public radio, and this was just too sweet (and simple) an opportunity for me to pass up. Go here and vote for me! And say nice things about me! And then do your own!

And before you ask, I am still drawing; I’ll have a new art post up in a day or two.

I’m sorry I haven’t been keeping up on the blog these last couple of weeks - the last couple of weeks of the first year of The Center for Cartoon Studies have been grueling. After Chris, Ivan and Seth left, it was on to an intensive two-day workshop on perspective and 3-d cartooning with Jason Little, and then into the final assignments and an intensive two-day critique of our entire year’s output.

The perspective workshop was useful - it encouraged me to begin experimenting with isometric and orthographic perspective, though sadly we never made it to an intensive on curvilinear and fish-eye perspective. Too bad. Still, Jason was charming, engaging, thoughtful and skilled as a teacher; it was a joy to have him visit.

I learned a lot from the final critique, which is to say, it was bruising. It took me about a day to recover from it. And still, I’m plagued with the fear that, while people may appreciate whatever technical abilities I bring to the drawing board, they’re not much interested in the stories I enjoy telling. I dunno. Seems like I’ve got a lot to work through.

I’ve got a whole lotta good news from the edge of civilization out here, but I can only share some of it (I’ve got secrets!). The best news is I landed a job as intern at Chelsea Green Publishing. They’re a progressive publisher with a substantial national presence (they’ve had a New York Times bestseller and won lots of awards), and as a company they are committed to “environmental and political sustainability.” It’ll be exciting to put my skills to use for a cause I believe in.

Beyond that, all I can say is I hope to be doing some work out of Northhampton soon, and my professional prospects get better every day.

Finally, a question to all of you: I need to choose a thesis advisor for my MFA. My favorite prospects at this stage, all of whom have worked or will work with the school, are Alison Bechdel, Jason Lutes and Jason Little. I’m leaning toward Alison, but nothing is set in stone, and I wanted to hear from you about who you thought I should work with. Name names! The sky’s the limit - a lot of great cartoonists have expressed an interest in working with the school, and as this is a paying gig, I suspect a lot more would be interested.

More soon, and maybe, if you’re real sweet, I’ll let you in on my secrets.

Every culture has a spring holiday celebrating rebirth, renewal and resurrection; yesterday was such a day for me, the most ancient and hallowed holiday among my people, the Geeks: Zombie Day.

To celebrate, Colleen and I set up the projector and played nine hours of zombie movies for our friends at the Center for Cartoon Studies. I don’t have a lot of the more obscure zombie movies that I love (Bio-Zombie, Zombie, etc.), but we did watch some good ones: Undead, Bride of Re-Animator, Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and (of course) Night of the Living Dead.

Thank you to everyone who came out to watch movies with us. And for those of you interested, I’m now taking suggestions for next year’s Zombie Day showing. Already on my list are the two I mentioned earlier; any other ideas?