A MONTH OF SUNDAYS AND SATURDAYS

So, anyhow, I spent early-April to early-May on the road here and there, with weekend trips to Chicago, Columbus, Urbana, and Toronto for comix/zine shows.  Here is a cursory record of those events:

First stop was C2E2 in Chicago.  Joe Chips managed to wrangle himself a free table at this superheroey event (he was giving a presentation on Disability in the Comics) and I managed to wrangle a corner of said table from him.  I guess I was too depressed to take any pictures.  'Nuff said.

Next, out to good ol' Columbus Ohio, for good ol' SPACE.  This trip is always a high point of my year, as I really like Columbus.  I get to visit old High School friends (and their pets), and the show itself is low-key but well-attended by enthusiastic readers and artists.

Ginger Vitus, my l'il buddy.

Spit and a Half table, SPACE

JP, Carol Tyler, MariNaomi at SPACE

After Saturday's tabling we all went over to recent Columbus transplant Caitlin McGurk's new pad where Zeek the Cat slept through the festivities.  Everyone agreed that the Midwest is the new Seattle.

I stayed at my friend John J. and Michele's house north of Columbus.  (Artwork by up and coming cartoonist Mia J.)

I managed to spend some time at the Highbanks Metro Park before leaving Ohio.

Hoo Hah, then down to Urbana, Illinois for the second annual Midwest Zine Fest!

Quimby's manager, Liz "Caboose" Mason, talks to the MWZF crowd about zine distribution.

Midwest Zine Fest

Spit and a Half spread, MWZF

In case you've never been here, this is what Illinois looks like.

Had one last show to do: TCAF, in Toronto.  BFF Noah Van Sciver flew out from Denver to Milwaukee's 1950's era airport, and we got to hang out for a few days before Zak showed up from Minneapolis, and we all headed east together towards Toronto.

Zak left Mpls at 3 AM and I took over driving once he got to Beloit.  This is Zak trying to drown out the Jerry Clower blasting over the car stereo.

Yes.

Beauty, eh?

"Wanna buy a possum?"

Big City Lights

Noah on the roof of our hostel looking out over downtown Toronto, Friday night.

So-called "Supermoon" rising over the Bloor Street Metro

The show itself was so busy I didn't have time to take any photos.  As always, TCAF delivered.  It goes to show you how well it's run that this seemingly perfect show manages to get better year after year.  (Photo above courtesy MariNaomi's Facebook page.)

Saturday I participated in a panel discussion with Lizz Lunney and Darryl Cunningham, co-moderated by Simon Moreton and Ian Williams, on "Comics and Mental Illness."  Surrounded by Brits!  I kept getting distracted by worrying that I was gonna break out into a scouse accent.

L-R: Tom Neely (over shoulder), David Collier, JP, Emily Nilsson, Zak Sally, Noah, Pascal Girard.  Photo ripped from Noah's FB page.

The Three Amigos AKA Road Hawgs

Photo by Tom Devlin

Afterwards, people got together at a bar, but as soon as the Kool Jamz™ started I took off with Noah to book-shop at BMV.  I picked up the Agonizing Love collection, Fantastic Four Masterworks Volume Two, and a John Cleary Buddhist anthology that included Timeless Spring, a book I've been looking for for years...

Sunday was simply insane.

That evening I wandered around alone, trying to clear my head.  We ended up waking at 3:30 AM to head back home, jamming out to Van Halen II on our way out of town.

APRIL WEED AND WILDFLOWER INVENTORY

This year in the Stateline Area we had our April in March and our March in April.  So maybe the flowers were confused.  I know I was.  Here's a brief, incomplete list of sightings, including a couple noted on a walk in Ohio, while on tour.  Carry on!

Wild Geranium  (Geranium maculatum)
Garlic Mustard  (Alliaria petiolata)
Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia sororia)
Yellow Rocket  (Barbarea vulgaris arcuata)
Marsh Marigold  (Caltha palustris)
Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum commutatum)
Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
Trillium (Wake Robin) (Trillium recurvatum)
Shepherd's-purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)

Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata)

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)

False Rue Anenome (Enemion biternatum)

Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus)

Cutleaf Toothwort  (Dentaria laciniata)

Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense reflexum)

Dutchman's Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)

White Trout Lily (Erythronium albidum)

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica)

Sighted at Beckman Mill and Big Hill Parks, Beloit, Wis.; and Highbanks Metro Park, Lewis Center, Ohio.

POST OFFICE

Capitol Hill Station, Denver, CO

As a zine person I'm someone who spends an inordinate amount of time in Post Offices.  I love the Post Office.  People complain about it, but the fact that I can send something around the world for a few bucks has always been amazing to me.

In case you're not aware of it, the US Post Office is under fire.  There are people in this country (Republicans and their Corporate Overlords) that hate the fact that some people value things more than money.  They would love to destroy the Post Office for that reason.

You hear in the news every year or so about how deep in debt the Post Office is, how the price of a first class stamp is going up again, how Saturday delivery might be suspended and on and on.  But do you know WHY this happening?

I suggest you watch this video of progressive talk show host Ed Schultz explaining in simple terms what's been going on.

As a person in the world of small press comics and zines, if the Post Office goes out of business, I go out of business.  And there are plenty of small businesses around the country that are in the same boat.  Not to mention the postal workers and their families that will be affected by the heartlessness of the Republican agenda.

Paris cartoonist Laurent Lolmede holds up the King-Cat I mailed to him from the South Beloit Post Office.

* * *

Meanwhile, here's a brief trip down memory lane, about all the Post Office Boxes I've had:

PO Box 403, DeKalb, IL; 1992

After using my parents' house in Hoffman Estates as my de facto zine mailing address for years, I finally broke down and got my own PO Box in DeKalb.  I think there were only one or two issues of King-Cat that included this address in the indicia, because shortly after securing the box I decided to move to Denver.  Coincidentally, when one of my best friends, Al Stark, got a DeKalb PO Box about a decade later, he was also assigned #403.  So it's easy for me to remember his address when I send him a letter.

PO Box 18510, Denver, CO; 1992-1998

My original box at the funky and groovy Capitol Hill Post Office on Marion Street in Denver was a nearly daily stop for me in the six years I lived in Denver originally.  I'd load my backpack with outgoing orders and trade them for new mail when I got there.  I remember many sunny Denver afternoons walking slowly back down Marion Street to 8th Ave reading letters I'd received.

Seeing the same clerks every day, you get to know them a bit.  It becomes part of your day, part of your connection to the neighborhood, to the city.  When I was sick in 1997 I needed someone not related to me to witness my Do Not Resuscitate form, and it was counter clerk Tim at the Capitol Hill PO who signed it for me.

PO Box 95826, Hoffman Estates, IL; 1998

After my surgery in '97, Kera and I moved back to Chicagoland to be closer to our families.  My dad rented me this PO Box in anticipation of our arrival.  My memories of this PO are mostly stopping in at night, after the counter had closed, to pull mail from my box (I worked the late shift).  I remember the warm summer nights, the parking lot lights, the humidity in the air, and how good it felt to be back home.

PO Box 881, Elgin, IL; 1998-2002

After moving to Elgin in the summer of '98 I got this box at the downtown PO.  It became part of my crucial Saturday routine:  Walking down to the library to check out books, over to the PO to get my week's worth of mail and send same, and then over to the thrift store on South Grove to buy old New Yorkers for a dime.  I still remember the clerk who told me that Engelbert Humperdinck was the singer's real name.

PO Box 300637, Denver, CO; 2002-2003

This was the box I had for the one weird year I lived back in Denver in '02-'03.  I lived on Marion Street two blocks south of the PO and there were many afternoons of dragging my Rolly Cart through snow, slush or simply over Denver's raggedy sandstone sidewalks.  Always rushing to make it there before they locked the doors on Saturday at 12:30.

PO Box 170535, San Francisco, CA; 2003-2006

After a year in Denver we moved to San Francisco so Misun could finish acupuncture school.  My PO Box was at the Clayton Street Station, right off Haight Street.  Waiting in the enormous lines, sidestepping crusties and their pitbulls on my way there, seeing the same people in line everyday:  the guy who sold books over eBay, the Amoeba employees with their carts of mailorder...

PO Box 18888, Denver, CO; 2006-2010

And back to Denver.  I got another Capitol Hill PO Box, though we ended up living in the West Highlands our first year and a half back.  After that we lived at First and Broadway, so it was still a trek--  I'd drive my $600 1993 Subaru up there on Saturday mornings.  You'll notice the preponderance of "8"s in my PO Box numbers.  That's because ever since I was a kid I've had a hard time writing 8's.  The universe has made sure I've had plenty of practice, though I can't say I've gotten any better at it.

PO Box 142, South Beloit, IL; 2010-present

After my life imploded in 2010, I ended up in the sunny little burg of South Beloit, IL, the "Sand Capital of the World."  There are few anchors to my life here, but the friendly clerks at the Post Office are one of them.  I kind of feel bad on the rare day when I don't stop in.

* * *

If you frequent the Post Office, please be sure to let the employees know how much you value their work.  And write your congressperson and let them know the US Post Office is there for a reason:  because in a civilized society government should play a role in making its citizens' lives better.  It's the American Way.

WEEKEND WARRIOR

Hey all,

I'll be in a different town each weekend for the next month, hustlin' comics, so if you're in Chicago, Columbus, Urbana, or Toronto, why not come on out and say hi?

April 15: C2E2, Chicago IL

Tabling with good ol' Joey Chips! (Booth 419, I'll be there Sunday only, 10 AM - 5 PM)

April 21-22: SPACE, Columbus OH

Two full tables of awesome Spit and a Half merchandise

April 28: Midwest Zine Fest, Urbana IL

Ditto

May 5-6: TCAF, Toronto ON

Tabling with Zak Sally and Noah Van Sciver

BE THERE OR BE... SQUARE

PHYSICAL EVIDENCE EVIDENCE

So last weekend I had a couple events in Chicago with my old pal Zak "Sammy the Mouse" Sally, and my new pal Dale "TOOTH" Flattum.  We did a reading at Quimby's in honor of Zak's hot-off-the-presses Sammy the Mouse Volume One, which collects the three Fantagraphics releases in one handy book.  One handy, completely self-printed book.  Yes Zak not only self-published this one on his trusty La Mano imprint, but he actually ran the press it was printed on.  Pretty amazing, and it looks great!

The Quimby's signing was a lotta fun.  It's always a good time to be there, experiencing the magic that is QUIMBY'S.

Afterwards Zak and I got cranky and walked around Wicker Park looking for something suitable to eat.  I wish I had pictures, but I forgot my camera.

Dale's silkscreened exhibition poster

Zak and John discuss those ceramic tiles that line the wall of the Charles Schulz Museum.

The next morning we headed over to Rational Park, a design and exhibition space a little bit farther west on North Avenue, and set up for our three-person show, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.  For the show Zak hung every one of the 96 pages he drew for Sammy the Mouse so far, along with some beautiful inky poster originals.  Dale put up a bunch of his detourned xerographic screenprints and displayed his "Fluxus" boxes, handmade wooden boxes containing small repros of many of his works, a la Duchamp's Green Boxes.  Also on display were his handmade Brillo Boxes...  A box in every pot, a chicken in every garage!

Zak's wall.

TOOTH wall in progress.

I showed a variety of prints, drawings, photographs and original King-Cat pages.  I don't usually show my work on walls.  I generally like to hand it to people in zine form.  But it was nice to put up all our work together, and to be showing with these artists whom I admire.

John P.'s wall.

I wasn't sure anyone would actually show up, but show up they did.  Some old friends of mine made surprise appearances, and a bunch of Chicago Cartoonists were in attendance, stalwarts and whippersnappers alike.

Dale examines the proof of Zak's insanity.

(Photo by Johnathan Crawford)

Show organizer Grace Tran (left).

(Photo by Johnathan Crawford)

 

(Photo by Johnathan Crawford)

(Photo by Johnathan Crawford)

(Photo by Johnathan Crawford)

(Photo by Johnathan Crawford)

Afterwards we thought it would be a good idea to eat Chili at midnight.  Oops!

Sunday Morning Hobo Camp.

(Photo by Amy Jo)

Zak, on the way back to Minneapolis.

(Photo by whoever wasn't driving, I hope...)

(Photos by Stephanie Dorman, except where indicated)

Thanks to: Grace, Zak, Dale, Amy Jo; Stephanie; Johnathan; Quimby's; Rational Park; all who came out, and all at Johalla Projects.

CHICAGO EVENTS THIS WEEKEND

Hey everyone, two whoppin' big events in Chicago this weekend--

Friday March 23, 7 PM

Zak Sally's SAMMY THE MOUSE VOL. ONE Release Party

with Special Guests™ Dale "Tooth" Flattum and John "Lizzardo the Living Lizard" Porcellino. 

Quimby's Queer Store

1854 W. North Avenue

(773) 342-0910

INFO

* * *

Saturday March 24, 7-11 PM

Physical Evidence: The Artwork of Zak Sally, John Porcellino & Dale Flattum

A collaboration between Johalla Projects and Rational Park, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE is a group show celebrating the sustainability of DIY practices. The show, presented salon-style, will give viewers a chance to see the scope of the original works of art.

Hand-assembled and/or printed zines, comic books, gig posters and screen-printed sculptures by Sally, Porcellino and Flattum will be available for viewers to purchase. They are physical objects, hand-made and hand-distributed, reminders of the artistic means accessible to individuals with a desire to do it themselves.

Rational Park

2557 W. North Avenue

Facebook event page

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE