Had a great time in London with Ivy last week. Thanks to all the great people at UXLondon (hosts, guests, and attendees all) and to the friends who came out on ridiculously short notice to see us.

Swung by the British Museum, among other sites, and was reminded that they allow picture-taking, so I went to town on the sculptures (mostly with my iPhone, but later with a semi-real camera).

I wish all museums allowed snapshots. There are times when a postcard just won’t do, especially when looking closely at the rich textures and beautiful decay of ancient works like these.

Anyway, here are a few I liked.

Ivy and I are in London for my talk Wednesday at UX London. We arrived a couple of days earlier to beat the ash cloud from Iceland’s ever-spewing Eyjafjallajokull (can you pronounce it? I’m working on it).
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Taking the week off from blogging. Back to regular updates Monday the 24th assuming the volcano gods are merciful.

Back from Italy with a few photos, lots of great memories, and a 17 year-old daughter whose birthday lasted for 36 hours courtesy of a really long plane ride.

Thanks to my Italian publisher Vittorio Pavesio for a great visit, as well as the lovely Gina, and all the great folks at the Pavesio Comics booth. Shout-outs also to Fulvio, Maurizio, Gianfranco, Barbara, Ryo, Massimo, all our fellow guests, and the great teachers and students at Rome’s International School of Comics, including director Dino Caterini and our Rome translator Matteo.

Off to Rome and Turin with the family this week. Back at the beginning of next week.

Don’t want to promise anything but we *might* upload some photos while in transit before then, so check in occasionally.

Off to South Bend for my talk at Indiana University on Wednesday (see link at right for tickets). See you there!

As usual blogging may be spotty until I’m back on Friday. Feel free to keep debating the merits of thought balloons until then.

Another quick trip. This time to Liverpool for an in-house thingey at SCE. Back in a couple of days.

Quick note that I’m on the road to Philadelphia for a talk to students at the Germantown Friends School and William Penn Charter School.

Not public talks, I’m afraid, but I’m sure I’ll be back in Philly before too long (my last visit was 2006′s talk at Drexel University).

As usual, blogging might take a break until I’m back on Friday. Enjoy the week!

Back home from my visit to the University of Houston. Thanks to everybody who came out Tuesday for the lecture and to my gracious hosts. I especially enjoyed my stay at the slightly bizarre Hotel Zaza, with two great art museums right next door. I even found a painting of people curling which I had to call and tell Ivy about.

(Yes, my wife has been curling. In Southern California. How cool is that?!)

Some odds and ends:

Favorite Kate Beaton panel yet.

Mobile comics outfits have been moving into the iPad space (thanks to Zach in the last post’s comments). I’d be curious to know how many will be rolling out content in time for March. At the very least, retrofitting printed comics for the iPad will involve less violent “repurposing,” but ultimately I’d be more interested in comics designed specifically for the new device and its inevitable imitators. Douglas Wolk offers some thoughts here too.

Without the load times, this interface is actually kind of cool.

In other news: Heh. I’m such a nerd. That totally worked for me.

I just want it noted that I resisted the temptation to indulge in any “Houston, We Have a Lecture”-style headings. I figure the fine residents of America’s fourth largest city must be pretty sick of that phrase by now.

If you’re in the Houston area, drop by and say Hi. Lecture starts at 7 pm Tuesday.

I’m in transit Monday-Wednesday, so back to posting later this week.

Talked to a lot of people on my latest fact-finding mission to New York as I head into the rewrite phase of my graphic novel.

One of them, Nathan Schreiber, I had the pleasure of meeting last week, so this is as good an excuse as any to plug his great comic Power Out (image above) now running at Act-I-Vate.

Shouts out as well to Dean Haspiel, Seth Kushner, Christopher Irving, Matt Madden, Jessica Abel, Tom Hart, Leela Corman, Jason Little, Myla Goldberg, Martha Thomases, John Tebbel, Mike Cavallaro, Becky Cloonan, Keith Mayerson, Laura Lee Gulledge, Simon Fraser, Nick Bertozzi, Joe Infurnari, Leland Purvis, Christine Zehner, Editor Supreme Mark Siegel, and everyone at Deep6 and XOXO.

I don’t think I’ve learned that much in one week since I first discovered gravity as baby. Thanks, everyone!