Ok dooders mark you calenders. A Comic book reading of maximum proportions is about to unfold. Expect rad comics, expect them to come to life before your eyes with magic, music and sound effects. Expect Beers and yummies. Expect new art on view and above all expect the unexpected!!! For those of you who missed out on My "What Are Crass" Reading at the Library as part of Zinesters Talking. This is you're opportunity to see what you missed out on. There's new material, a house jam freakout session and more mega pals reading comics with me. I may even be apearing as Bob Dylan for mega Pal Julia Gfrorer's Mega book. Whatchu know about that??? This is not to be missed. This Event is being organized by Jesse Reklaw of "slowave" for the grand re-openning of the Guapo comics! Join us and you will never be lonely or cold in these winter months again! read poster for details.
Through the trees (one of the images I made for the show)
Hey doods. So many mega pals and I were invited to be in a friendly style art show for the holiday season. We all made images that were square like a quilt block and made a beautiful friendship quilt of all our images on the walls of the Together gallery. The opening was Saturday November 29th and there was a massive (Seriously ENORMOUS!) attendance between the 30 some artists in the show and friends of them and the Together Gallery. It was truly beautiful and warm. Tim Karpinsky, David Wien, and Seth Neefus were exceptional hosts. The show went from sharing rad times with close friends and making new friends to hanging out with friends parents over drinks (Brodie your mom is my favorite fan ever!) and then having a sing along session in the dark at the gallery before casting off glowing with red cheeks in the cold night air. Thank you everyone who came. Aaron, Raquel, kaia, Julia, Brodie, Graham, Rebecca, Amy, Aaron & Ayumi, Seth, Tim, David, I love you dooders, you are the radness!
My Name card painstakingly rendered by Jesse Reklaw
with Julia Gfrorer & Brodie Kelly Manning the table post me.
Whoa! What a weekend!
So I was invited by the magical Jesse Reklaw who does the super rad Slowave comics, to participate at Worstock about a week before it would open. Wordstockis a festival of sorts dedicated to all Literature stuffs basically.I was asked to do a workshop. I gathered myself and set out in a panic thinking about what I could pull together in a week. I went and roamed the city for about 2 hours to think it out. I finally sat down under the influence of a cup of coffee in the main headquarters of wordstock, “Powell’s City of Books” and began to work out the details of what was going to be the raddest workshop I could muster! At headquarters I ran into my buddy Kathy who calmed my nerves and anxiety of this new endeavor, she gave me mega good words of comfort and support. I decided the workshop would be about how to become your very own Jam Comics Champion, or “Jampion” if you will (thanks Brodestar!).It is going to be based on my general understanding of my jam comics group (Vortex Comics) and our nearly psychic connections to each other. Most importantly I wanted to make people inspired to be creative and work with friends, but make things that were super amazing quality comics.Surely the penis joke is hella funny, but not all jam comics have to end with a dick joke or nuclear holocaust. REALLY THEY DON’T!
Tiger Vendor from Vortex!
In mega production mode I decided I would try to put together at least a tiny mini comic from my Vortex comics jam group and have it available as an example of sorts.
I worked diligently at outlining the things I thought were important and then enlisted mega pal Catherine Peach to help and be my partner in the workshop. We worked in a panicked way over the next week to get Awesome. The workshop made many twists and turns but we finnaly came up with a solid pamphlet of sorts to hand out outlining all the major keys of being a Jampion!!!
Then We embarked on day 1 of Wordstock. On arrival Catherine and I had to center our radness, and then mega Pal Theo came and swooped in and we had celebrations of rock fingers all around!!! We made haste while taking notice of the enormous Alien seed in the convention center that was on display (was it real and filled with aliens or was it really just asculpture???). Jesse Welcomed Catherine and I, and got us all settled in nicely.We got to set up next to mega bro Dylan of Sparkplug comics and Theo whowas to be helping him as well as sell his own new mega book “Capacity” along side his publishers (Secret Acres) other books.Mega Pals Brodie Kelly and Julia Gfrorer made there entrance and got rad at a table. Julia was to do a workshop on book binding and
The hours seemed to zoom by and then it was suddenly go time! I slammed a piece of pizza in the crowded
convention center hall, then chugged a burger that Brodie Generously purchased. Catherine and I set up and JAMMED!!! We got Awesome Jamming with Jesse, Julia, Brodie, Conch, Alex and dooders across the board! It was awesome and crazy fun!!!People seemed to like the Pamphlet and get a good laugh out of it as well.The only thing that could have made it radder was to have chairs and clipboards to enable more people to participate.Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and getting to know not only Jesse better, but so many rad dooders.John Isaacson! You’re the raddest!!!
Day 2 was Awsome!!! NO MEGA AWESOMEEEE!!!! It was a day of inspiration indeed.I had, had a bizarre night after day 1. It began with a lovely sit down and drink sessoion with Theo, Heather, Brodie and Julia. I had to call it an early night though, as I had to be to work early in the morning before making it back for round 2 at the convention center. On my way home I was alerted that one of my family members that I have particularly strong feelings (Long story) about had died. I followed it with a night of poor sleep.When I got up I had to be at work at 6am and then race to the Convention center immediately after. In transit I read and was lifted and rejuvenated by Jesse’s new mini simply called “Diary”.It’s a Diary of his recent book tour.It inspired me both as an artist and also to make my own.I have always wanted to log adventures in this format. However I felt like there was always too much radness to pack into a diary comic.He has it broken down so that large things over 3 or 4 hour periods are covered, it seems.This keeps it concise and engaging.
On arrival at the convention center Jesse was midway through his workshop and asked both Catherine and I if we had any dreams.He had been making fast comics on a large paper pad live from the crowd as they told him their dreams overnight.I had not dreamt much and was foggy on it from my poor sleep. Catherine had a pretty amazingly embarrassing dream that she squirmed through while Jesse and I burst out in Laughter.Jesse is very thorough and articulate with is questioning on the subject. It is obvious that he has been doing this for years, mastering this skill, and it shines on him in his every question expression, and flick of the pen.He got all the necessary points of Catherine’s dream to paper and we got settled.I was entranced making buttons at this table with 2 brothers of about 10 years of age or so.They were trying to raise money for their own computer by selling buttons they pre made, or for 50 cents more, buttons you designed yourself.They apparently had a tyrant of a father who wouldn’t let them use his computer for anything.One of the brothers had a shirt from a theme park of him riding a shark and his brother being eaten by the shark. His brother assured us that he had the same shirt in reverse.
These doods were clearly the radness, and they meant business! I made 3 crass pins (one for Brodestar, one for theo and myself), a pin of some new characters, I got a pin by Theo and Another of theo drawn by Jesse HAHA!!! Ridiculous!!! HAHA!!!I could have made pins forever!
John Isaacson did a rad print making demo of the coolest dino toy ever. Its part a transformer set called “Tamagoras”.I will likely be reading up on these for the next 2 days (thanks John).
Theo, Julia, Brodestar, Catherine and I all sat and soaked up the most inspirational talk by Lynda Barry. OOOOH Man!!! It was sooooooooo Good! I am not capable of describing the feeling it gave us all. The feeling deserves a new word that isn’t made ofan existing language or even spoken in a frequency previously heard. If you could see me right now trying to release it, it looks something like the rock fingers with no pants on and a
load of ecstatic eye twitching and thigh jiggling!!!
We got Awesome afterwards under some booze and met up with mega lady Amy mega Bro Stefan and mega pal Marcella. It was a lovely evening with a lot to think about.We all seemed to have left our wordstock duties with new goals, fresh faces and inspiration to move into even radder zones that we as mega pals and individuals alike are capable and destined for!!!!
A friend of mine alerted me to this glowing review of the "What Are Crass" Performance for the Zinesters Talking festival. I'm unaware if I spoke to her personally, but she wrote a very detailed very comprehensive review that made me cry joyous tears!!! Someone got it!!! She gives a dead on description of the comic that gave me faith in what I am Doing, and my wonderful collaborators/ mega bro's. Delilah who wrote the review also posted her own pictures from the event as well, so there are more to look at. Delilah, I Love You TOO!
All Photo's By Catherine Peach. I would like to thank the following people for being so rad as to organize this event! Jennifer May, Christopher Cuttone, Laural Winter & The Multnomah County Library A Mega Shout Out To at Guapo Comics For being so awesome! K, For making magical hats! I want to express my deep love and appreciation for Mega Team Who were there to Contribute and make this event the raddest ever! Gejius For Making the most phenomenal theme and sound effects! Trully making the show cohesive and Megatasticle!!!! You Got the skills bro!!!! Amy Kuttab for making the most Delicious fabric Popsicle and ice cream ever!!! Catherine Peach for being the best advice column and fixer upper repair artist ever!!! Theo Ellsworth for being in the mega zone and willing to Jump into anything and coming through on the most impressive projection skills in this universe!!! Raquel Dishner for embodying the mind, spirit, and voice of the crass with me, and giving one of the finest performances on any stage! You were there to keep it all together, I Owe you big time!!! Lastly, Julia gfrorer, Brody Kelly, Floating World Jason, Drew & Laura Wollman & Mega Bro Stefan Saito. Thank you guys for being super supportive and encouraging pals!!! I Love all you guys!
Hey Don't forget to come see the performance at the Portland Central Library! some of your friends and I, will perform excerpts of "What Are Crass" (Details below under "2 zine events").
Also Openning this coming 1st Thursday is a brand new mega show at the Pony Club. SO MANY PALS!!! SO SO MANY ARTS!!!! Come get radical with me!
Please pay close attention to dates. these are a month apart from eachother.
1st: The 8th annual Portland Zine Symposium held at PSU in the Smith Memorial Ballroom
- Saturday from 10:00AM until 5:00PM - Sunday from 10:00AM until 4:00PM
PZS is an annual, free and open to the public zine conference and social.
I will have a table wich will have everything you could ever need or imagine!
2nd: I will be doing a live performance of "What Are Crass" with real Crass's as well as a Q. & A. for the book on September 30th. More details later. for now here is the flyer for this event.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Dolphin Infinity! at the Pancake Clubhouse I made this image in the 5th grade. Also This one And this one hung at the official Pancake Clubhouse Bathroom!Amy Kuttab!
Bag Dolphin made by Jessica ??????
PIN UPS! At Tender Loving Empire
Yeah! So many mega Pals at once!!!!
YEAH!!!
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ALL I NEED ALL MY LIFE At Grendel's I want to extend my mega thanks to everyone who participated in this show, I love you all and you are magical beings for coming through so strong for me (In A Weeks time!!! NUTS!!!) You are all truly Awesome and True!
left to right: Ryan Iverson, Luke Forsyth, Ryan Iverson, Stefan Siato
Ryan Iverson, Sean Christensen A.B.T., Stefan Saito, Ryan Iverson
Ryan Iverson, Stefan Saito, Sean Christesen A.B.T, Ryan Iverson
Amy Kuttab x2, Theo Ellsworth x2, Julia Gfrorer x4
Amy Kuttab
Catherine Peach x4, Stefan Saito, Sean Christensen A.B.T x2, Brody Kelly x3
Magic Screen On (Theo on Projection Check)
