When I finished the script and layouts for The Sculptor a few years back, there were parts of the story that meant one thing at the time, but would change meaning by the time it was published; and keep changing meaning in one case.

One of David’s night sculptures, above, is a case in point. When I included it among his many crazy bits of urban vandalism, it was just a jab at a rich demented celebrity with just a little power. Obviously, that power multiplied considerably this year. Now, the thing looks purely political but it really wasn’t so much at the time.

Another was the scene where David and Meg are walking down 5th Avenue and see several naked women on the steps of St. Patricks Cathedral, engaged in some kind of protest. David’s explanation: “Somebody must have said something in Rome again,” which made perfect sense with the hyper-conservative Pope Benedict, but seems almost to have the reverse meaning with his successor; as if the new Pope might’ve somehow encouraged it!

Finally, there was a line late in the book about Ukraine, written before the Russian annexation of Crimea. It still makes sense, but the meaning definitely got way darker. Note the spelling error in panel 5; caught before it went to press, I’m happy to say.

Any book is bound to change meaning over time, usually after they’re published. But I guess a little in-process change is inevitable when you’re as slow as I am!

It’s only February 2016, but Tom Hart’s incandescent memoir about the loss of his (and wife Leela Corman‘s) two year-old daughter will be talked about all year, and I’m confident it will come up again in year-end book of the year round-ups.

I know Tom and Leela, and briefly met Rosalie as a baby. But even strangers to their family will know them intimately when the story’s done. I hope anyone who stumbles on this page will give the book a try.

Okay, next up!

I’ve updated the sidebar at right with details about our national and international travel in the next couple of months.

Some of the mini-tours overseas are still waiting on specifics, but I’ll add details to the sidebar as they come in. Meanwhile, here’s a summary in plain English.

First it’s The U.K. and Germany (details soon). Then I fly home for the visual lecture at Wittenberg University on March 16, while Ivy heads back to the U.K. to cool her heels.

Next, we rendezvous in Paris for the Book Fair, as well as stops in Lyon and in Brussels.

From there we head back to the States, and drive to three schools to perform the visual lecture: Mississippi State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Rutgers University Camden (details TBA).

Then, I’ll be a special guest at the MoCCA Festival in New York before we fly to the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy. THAT is all in March and April.

But then, with May comes the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), and in July, Comic-Con International in San Diego—special guests at both. Hope you can make at least one, they’re great shows!

That’s our crazy 2015 so far. Let’s see how much crazier it will be by the time it’s done. And remember to contact me if you’d like the big visual lecture to come to your school or organization.

[Enlarge]

The Sculptor drops February 3 and we’re hitting the ground running with the official First Second U.S. Tour of 14 cities in 16 days, followed by six additional European tours in support of our foreign editions, plus presentations in at least four additional American cities; all in just three months (February, March, and April).

So if you can get to New York City, Portland ME, Boston, Washington DC, Houston, Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland OR, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Lansing MI, Huntington Beach CA (details at right), Burlington VT, Mississippi, Richmond VA, Springfield OH (details soon), or one of our multiple locations in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands (details soon), I hope I’ll have the pleasure of meeting you in the next 100 days.

Meanwhile, plans are heating up fast for summer, fall, and winter, with major convention announcements in the offing and even more appearances springing up around the world.

Most of our official publisher-sponsored tour stops (see above and at right) will be conversational, improvised events with some visuals included, focused on my graphic novel.

Meanwhile I’m also scheduling the big visual lecture throughout the year. That one is the huge fast-moving presentation on comics and visual communication which will be steadily evolving all year (I’ve developed a special interest in some of the broader issues of visual education, but more on that later). If your school or other organization would like to get info on THAT opportunity, feel free to drop me a line.

Regardless of where it happens, let’s meet soon. We have A LOT to talk about!

The hardcover edition of The Sculptor will finally be on sale February 3, 2015. But already, I can see I’ll have a frequently-asked question: “Will there be a digital version?”

It’s a reasonable question, and the short answer is Yes. As far as I know, there’ll be versions available for tablets and other devices. I’m grateful to First Second for standing by me during those five long years while we busted ass to make this the best book we could, and anything that helps them break even sooner is okay by me. Also, if readers are hoping for a more affordable option, I realize that digital sometimes has its advantages.

But on a creative level, I frankly couldn’t care less about any digital repurposing of this one. This book is designed for print and as far as I’m concerned, the paper and ink version will always be the “real” version.

I believe passionately in designing for the device, and in this case, the device was a BOOK. If I was designing for digital, as I have in the past, I would have been just as passionate about taking full advantage of that environment—and just as apathetic about any lazily repurposed print version.

The idea of any artist in any medium feeling they have to castrate their work to suit multiple formats makes me kinda sick. I hated it when newspaper editors/syndicated started requiring strip cartoonists to make an entire third of their Sunday comics disposable. I hated it when movie makers starting avoiding any local idioms or a strong sense-of-place for international markets. I hate it when webcomics embrace shitty online formats for the sake of future print collection—or vice versa.

I spent years talking about the limitations of print. With The Sculptor, I was able to finally work within those limitations knowingly and create something I hope benefitted from that tension and strained against those limits in a creative and interesting way. In only 6 weeks, I hope my readers find that struggle worthwhile, and I hope they’ll have that experience with a book in their hands.

What a great little story by Dylan Meconis of Family Man fame. Also out since my last post is the beginnings of a new Emily Carroll story, so don’t miss that either.

Oh, and I hope you’ve all bought Craig Thompson’s monumental Habibi by now. If not, what are you waiting for?! (Yes, it’s as beautiful and moving as everyone says).

And of course, congratulations to everyone who made it through 24-Hour Comics Day 2011 this year!

Still working furiously on the graphic novel, so I won’t be posting too much to the blog until further notice, but if anything important comes along, I’ll let you know.

Just a quick note this morning (’cause I wanna get back to drawing!) but just wanted to thank everyone who came out to Northwestern yesterday for the lecture, and all those who contributed to making this year’s Comics and Medicine conference such a success.

Porcellino's latest: A collaborative exploration of suicide, which I read on the plane back and highly recommend.

Had the great pleasure of finally meeting David Small and Phoebe Gloeckner, getting better acquainted with John Porcellino, Brian Fies, Ethan Persoff, “The Man at the Crossroads” Paul Gravett, the good folks at Quimby’s (the only store I know that’s so cool, they actually alphabetize their minis) and several new cartoonists and creatively-inclined scholars and medical professionals doing important work in an area of study that I’ll bet many of you hadn’t even heard of before last week.

One of these days, I’ll have to cook up some kind of grand unified theory of visual communication (hint: that IEEE conference in Norway from two weeks ago and the Comics and Medicine conference have more in common than you might think) but for now, thanks to the organizers for a lovely trip to the windy city.

Jordan Crane’s site What Things Do continues to post some real gems. Among them, Kevin Huizenga’s The Body of Work, originally commissioned for the Cartoon Polymaths show at Parsons.

Huizenga is a cartoonist’s cartoonist. If you haven’t had the pleasure, do yourself a favor and hunt down some more of his strange and wonderful comics.

Meanwhile, I really like Crane’s own long serialized comic Keeping Two (link goes to the new installment but it’s all in one big scroll). Crane’s been gradually assembling some amazing long works, mostly aimed at print editions. Can’t wait until they’re all together on my bookshelf.

[via Spurge]

Congratulations to all the Eisner Nominees this year. It was especially gratifying to see our old friend Barry Deutsch snag a nomination in the “Best Publication for Teens” category for his wonderful Hereville.

That it’s a tough category (Smile alone would make it one) is even more gratifying. Wouldn’t have a been a tough category at all just a few short years ago.

In other news, here’s an endearingly nerdy article on Mathematical Equivalence in Comics that was pretty much tailor-made for guys like me—and presumably some of you if you’re reading this blog.

Just found out that tomorrow is Mini-Comics Day! (love the small logo).

Part Two of Jessica Abel’s Helsinki report is up.

A few people on Twitter have suggested that, based on Belfast’s Build Conference website, Erik Spiekermann and I better than most at holding a pose.

And finally, here are some David Lasky Disaster preparedness comics, ’cause um, y’know, just in case.

Hm. Guess I’m in a random mood today…

ANYWAY, have a great weekend. See you Monday!

Following on last Thursday’s post, here’s another cool comic we got a sneak peek of in an old blog post that’s finally hitting the stands: Nate Simpson’s Nonplayer.

Simpson says on his blog that now’s the time (and by “now” I actually mean today, since I didn’t link to this sooner) to tell your local shops to order Nonplayer.

Looks amazing, no?