Here’s one from the vaults. A one-page comic I did in 2004 for the short-lived Prophecy Magazine. Since very few people saw it at the time, I figured I’d share it here.

(Bigger jpg here.)

Thanks to Dirk, I have seen that two-page spread, and I have to say I’m with the Spivock family 100% on this one. Sex is a legitimate topic in all media, including explicit depictions, but putting vodka in mayonnaise jars is just not fair to consumers.

Just had the pleasure (via Bob Weil at Norton) of devouring an advance copy of illustrator David Small’s Stitches: A Memoir due out this fall. Get it and read it when the time comes, it’s strong stuff. Small comes to comics via children’s books, but he’s deadly serious about the form, and exploits it masterfully to paint an unforgettable picture of his harrowing childhood.

There are some amazing books on their way in the next several months. David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp is imminent (just assuming that one’s amazing like everyone else—poor David) and I recently got advance peeks at Hope Larson‘s Mercury and Vera Brosgol‘s in-progress GN for First Second, both of which are the best work to date from these two powerful cartoonists.

Comics is changing. Behind the drawing table, people who would have been content splashing about in other fields a decade ago are swimming to comics’ deep end without even taking a breath. And on the drawing table, there’s a growing understanding of comics’ power to relate emotion, POV, and the warp and weave of memory. The compact, literal, rat-a-tat of post-Kirby mainstream storytelling that I started out reading is finally giving away to something far deeper, stranger, and potentially more beautiful.

Comics may not have its Beethoven yet, but he/she might just be reading this stuff in a year or two, between Math and Social Studies, and realizing for the first time just what they want to do when they grow up.

Still catching my breath after China, but three more trips loom in the next five weeks. First Manhattan for the two-day seminar. Then Toronto, where the whole family will be joining me for TCAF, a show we’ve wanted to do for a while and which we’re all very much looking forward to. Then I’ll be swinging by Barcelona for the 27th Annual Comics Festival there.

Despite a busy spring, my travel schedule will cool down for the rest of the year as I focus increasingly on my new graphic novel for First Second, The Sculptor. In fact, the Manhattan seminar will be doubling as reference-taking for that story which takes place in New York City.

We announced The Sculptor before the blog relaunched, and I haven’t written much about the project here because it’s still in the very early stages, but hardly a minute goes by at home or abroad when I’m not thinking about it. As exciting as China was, I couldn’t wait to get back to the studio and resume work on this story. I may be away for 12 out of the next 37 days, but I’ll be devoting the remaining 25 days—and the 1,000 days that follow it—to finally using everything I’ve learned in 25 years to tell a story I love, as clearly and effectively as I possibly can.