I’ll be at the A.W.P. (Artists With Problems) table (A62) this weekend for MoCCA with chapters 1 and 2 of How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less.

(someone reading Julia Wertz’s Fartparty at MoCCA 2007)

Coco Wang has made some amazing and moving comics about the earthquake in China and the rescue efforts afterwards. Says Coco:

“The amount of incredibly moving stories of victims, rescuers, volunteers is simply shocking at the moment. I have been collecting newspapers of all the stories, and telling them in the form of comic strips. I hope these stories could show the UK readers the love, warmth and courage of the Chinese people, also the sad and cruel reality of the horrible 5.12 Earthquake.”

You should really read these! You can find them here:

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/133_china/133_china.htm

The complete entry from this day can be found by clicking HERE

I’ve been reading Stephen Ambrose’s book on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Fascinating stuff! He refers to the Gary E. Moulton edition of their journals, published by University of Nebraska press. To my surprise, the entire annotated journals are on the University of Nebraska website, free for the looking (and searchable too!) I love skimming through these. I thought it would be fun to make some journal comics out of these as something to keep me busy during slow days at work. I have no idea if I’ll keep up with them, but here’s a journal comic from day one of the journals…

By the way, the links embedded in this post aren’t showing up as a different color so I’ll post them separately here:

Stephen Ambrose’s book, Undaunted Courage:

http://www.amazon.com/Undaunted-Courage-Meriwether-Jefferson-American/dp/0684826976

Journals of Lewis and Clark at the University of Nebraska:

http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/index.html

UPDATE: Yeah, life is busy again. I’m shelving this project until further notice. Maybe I’ll wait until the 2008 calendar catches up with the 1803 journal calendar.

Instead of a Stumptown rundown like I said I would write (its too late now, and enough people have already done so) I’m going to post about this instead (from the NY Times):

“GAZA — The American State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted them permission to leave.”

This just makes me so angry. The strangling of Gaza’s food and fuel supplies is bad enough and it should have become clear by now that collective punishment of the Gazans is not going to weaken Hamas in the slightest. But this? Denying their brightest students a future? These are the very people who could change Gaza from the inside and become examples to other young people who turn to violence because they see no other future for themselves.

Hadeel Abukwaik, a 23-year-old engineering software instructor in Gaza, had hoped to do graduate work in the United States this fall on the Fulbright that she thought was hers. She had stayed in Gaza this past winter when its metal border fence was destroyed and tens of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt, including her sister, because the agency administering the Fulbright told her she would get the grant only if she stayed put. She lives alone in Gaza where she was sent to study because the cost is low; her parents, Palestinian refugees, live in Dubai.

“I stayed to get my scholarship,” she said. “Now I am desperate.”

She, like her six colleagues, was in disbelief. Mr. Abdullah, who called the consulate in Jerusalem for further explanation after receiving his letter, said to the official on the other end, “I still cannot believe that the American administration is not able to convince the Israelis to let seven Palestinians out of Gaza.”

…was amazing! Portland is a great little city with a lot going on and the weather was inexplicably clear for our entire stay. I am still in the west coast, visiting various friends and family, so I dont have time to write up a full report yet, but I’ll get to that in a week or so. For now, my biggest news is that I won the Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration! This was so exciting for me, and I was honored to be nominated along with so many great cartoonists. So thanks to any of you who voted! It means a lot to me that people are actually reading and enjoying my comic and I’m super pumped to get started on the next chapter.

OK, a complete SPX rundown and my list of favorite work I picked up in a little bit.

I’m really excited to be going to the Stumptown Comics Fest this coming weekend, especially since I’ve never been to Portland before (and hear its great). If you’re there, come to this party at Guapo Comics on  Friday night.

poster by Aaron Neils Stanke.

also, the NYCC was weird.

Chapter Two of “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less” is finally finished! I’m done drawing and scanning and should have printed copies ready within a week or so. You can “pre-order” it on the comics page or read a 7 page preview.

Also, I was very surprised to be nominated for the Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration! The award goes to self-publishers and the voting is open now!

The nominees are:
Rina Ayuyang - http://www.rinaayuyang.com/comics/

Liz Baillie - http://www.lizbaillie.com/store.htm

Jon Chadurjian - http://studentpages.scad.edu/~jchadu20/minicomics.html

Sarah Glidden - http://www.smallnoises.com/comics/

Alex Holden - http://www.alexholden.com

David King - http://www.reliablecomics.com/promo/ddakoa_web.pdf

To vote for me or any of these other great comics makers, email Jesse Reklaw at reklaw@slowwave.com and he will send you a ballot.

The voting will be open until the 20th of April and will be awarded at Guapo Comics in Portland, OR, on April 25th. That night will be a big ole party and I will be doing a reading from the Israel comic. Also reading will be Julia Wertz, Liz Baille (also Kukoc nominated), Austin English and more!