Coming April 1st, 2025, Raina Telgemeier and I are proud to finally release our new middle-grade graphic novel from Scholastic: The Cartoonists Club!

Makayla is bursting with ideas but doesn’t know how to make them into a story. Howard loves to draw, but he struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time. Lynda constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes, and Art simply loves being creative and is excited to try something new. They come together to form The Cartoonists Club, where kids can learn about making comics and use their creativity and imagination for their own storytelling adventures!

The project was born years ago, when Raina, myself, and my family were at a Scholastic party at Comic-Con in San Diego, and Raina casually suggested that she and I team up someday to create a sort of Understanding Comics for kids. My family was, like, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and a few years later we all decided to make it a reality.

Raina and I collaborated closely on the book, tossing ideas, sketches, and whole sequences back and forth until it was hard to tell which parts came from which cartoonist—a true collaboration. Once the script and layout were finished (after three intense drafts), Raina penciled the kids and their “real life” interactions and I drew all of the artwork that the kids themselves created. Then it was inked by Ray Baehr and colored by Beniam C. Hollman.

The Cartoonists Club does indeed have sequences reminiscent of my books like Understanding Comics and Making Comics, but in the end, it was the stories of the kids themselves that we fell in love with. It truly is a story about friendship, and about why we cartoonists do what we do. A real love letter to the joys of making stories and art.

And naturally, Raina and I will be going on tour for the book starting in April! Kick-off events at right. (And YES, we’ll be hitting other cities in time; we’ll keep you posted.)

See you soon!

ATTENTION CALIFORNIANS!

Do you live in LA, Ventura, Santa Barbara or Kern County? Willing to drive to Thousand Oaks, CA this Sunday afternoon (Aug 14)?

I’ve got a difficult page coming up that requires an unusual crowd shot and I’ve decided I need photo reference. Aiming for 2-3pm. If you’d like to participate, please email me and I’ll send more details.

Thanks and hope to see you this weekend!

So here’s a picture of Patrick McGoohan and a telephone.

Well, this is fun!: Using my morning blogging time this week to learn some new software (suggested in comments, thanks!) and put together a REAL video tutorial, with voice, covering last week’s lettering tips and some other stuff.

Look for something in this space late this week or early next. Thanks for checking in!

(Yeah, yeah, I know most of you get this via rss and don’t need me to tell you when I have nothing to tell you that I have nothing to tell you, but some geezers like me still check sites manually, so…)

…so here’s a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Looks kinda like Liam Neeson, doesn’t he?

Google is celebrating the birthday of the late, great Will Eisner today with a terrific Eisneresque Google Doodle, and I had the pleasure of contributing a guest blog post to help celebrate the occasion as well.

Thanks to everybody at the Big G for honoring a truly important cartoonist, and a great friend to a century’s worth of comics-lovers.

Fondly remembered. Sorely missed. And now celebrated across the internet. Happy birthday, Will.

[Please note: Some news outlets are reporting that I drew the finished art for the Doodle. Not true. I was involved in early design discussions, but the final version was by artist Mike Dutton]

So here’s a picture of Archduke Franz Ferdinand:

And yes, I’m still kind of upset about Sarajevo.

See you tomorrow.

This blog will be taking a break until January 10 to make up for my health-related lost time and holiday craziness (and a 50th birthday cruise for Ivy).

I’m actually pretty healthy overall. This whole episode was probably the result of nothing more than a little calcium build-up, resulting in a kidney stone which led to pain, which led to blood pressure spikes, which (most likely) led to the dissection of my celiac artery.

This week we finally put in (and took out—OUCH) a stent for the kidney stone, and today, a small but permanent stent goes in for the artery.

With luck that’ll be it, and I’ll be back to 100% shortly.

Like a lot of guys my age, I need to lose about 30 pounds, but unlike most guys my age, my blood pressure has been pretty low over the years. “I love my job,” I’d tell them whenever they’d take my readings, and it’s true.

I’ll be working 10 hours a day, seven days a week again soon. I can’t begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.

One last link before the break: Here’s an anthology worth getting for the cover alone. Will 2011 be the year that mobile comics start sucking less? We’ll see.

Enjoy Christmas and the New Year!