This Saturday, June 11, join me at Northwestern University’s Thorne Auditorium at 3:00 pm for a free public lecture in association with this year’s Comics and Medicine Conference and the legendary Quimby’s.

It’s a big room, so tell your friends and spread the word! This is my only Chicago talk planned for the near future, so let’s seize the opportunity to meet.

IMPORTANT: My lecture is FREE and open to the public! You don’t have to be a registered conference participant to attend. Everybody is welcome.

Thursday is Sky’s graduation(!) and I fly early on Friday, so back to blogging Monday.

Be there:

Saturday, June 11, 2011
3:15 PM – 5:00 PM
Arthur Rubloff Building, Thorne Auditorium
375 E. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 6061

Map it

I’m off to Bergen, Norway this week, Monday through Thursday. Back to blogging Friday or Monday.

EuroVis 2011 is an IEEE conference focusing on data visualization, an area I’ve grown increasingly interested in, and a field which comics may increasingly find common cause with this decade.

My dad was an engineer and had hundreds of old IEEE Journals on a giant bookcase in the basement. As a kid, I’d read to him from their articles (he was blind). Years later, when I was actually cited in one, I think Mom could finally relax; secure in the knowledge that I had a real job.

Attention Australia!: I’ll be joining cartooning legends Robert Crumb, Jim Woodring, Peter Kuper and others this summer (well, okay, technically winter) for GRAPHIC: A Weekend of Graphic Storytelling, Animation and Music at the Sydney Opera House.

Off to Norway Monday for EuroVis 2011. I’ve recently updated the travel sidebar at right. Click on the Belfast link to see a great homepage (someone on Twitter was congratulating Erik S. and I for our superior ability to hold a pose).

Sorry that I seem to have a lot of corporate or closed talks this year (as opposed to cheap or free public lectures; NYU, for example is a closed talk for the Liberal Studies freshmen only). Just the roll of the dice.

If you work at a university or other organization that you think might want to sponsor an old-fashioned public lecture, let me know and I can send along prices and details.

Not expecting to do much blogging while in Norway, so have a great weekend and a great week!

Here’s a new comic from the relentlessly strange and consistently intriguing cartoonist Brett Harder. I’ve mentioned Harder on Twitter a few times, but not here on the blog, so time to rectify that.

Returned from New York last night, following yesterday’s Doodle 4 Google award ceremony. The kids wore t-shirts with their doodles on them and were all super-adorable (and a bit nervous!).

Big congratulations to grand prize winner Matteo Lopez, his three winnners circle companions, as well as all 40 finalists. You were awesome.

The festivities were MC’d by the legendary Marissa Mayer along with doodle masters Ryan Germick, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Mike Dutton (who did the great final art for the Eisner doodle), and Jennifer Hom. I also had fun talking to fellow judges Jeff (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) Kinney, figure skater Evan Lysacek, and the Whitney Museum’s Kathryn Potts.

And yes, the food at Google’s new New York offices is just as good as Mountain View’s.

Regarding Tuesday’s post, You can read more about (and of) The Influencing Machine on Slate today. Check it out.

Finally, regarding Monday’s post, yes there is a comics writer named Stuart Moore, but no, this is a different guy.

Have a great weekend!

…unless it’s for a good cause!

Larry and I met in LA last week and I did a whole bunch of sketch cards for the CBLDF’s upcoming Liberty Trading Cards project. Keep an eye out for more announcements; a lot of great artists are participating.

Off to New York today and tomorrow for the Doodle 4 Google award announcements (I was a judge).

Back to blogging Friday!

[photo by Ivy]

Above: My snapshot, taken yesterday, of Jaume Plensa's haunting sculpture "Echo," now on view in nearby Madison Square Park.

Usually I take the week off from blogging while traveling but I kinda already did that while working on the lettering posts and videos, so…

As I’ve said on numerous occasions, Shaenon Garrity is Always Right. And you are hereby ordered to read her new column at TCJ (and not just because I’m name-checked in it, I promise).

Jorge Cham tries his hand at some RSAnimate-style lecture visualizations. Nice stuff. I’d love to see this become a new genre in education.

Meanwhile, it looks like a Minnesota political hack is pissing on Neil Gaiman this week. Neil is a friend, so I’m not remotely impartial on this, but I hope our community in that state will insure that this moron looks back on this particular bit of gutless pandering as a political mistake in the not-too-distant future. Full details on the event in question are provided by the more rational posters at the link (which I got via Roger Ebert, of all people).

Political bottom-feeders aside, I had a great time today at SVA’s Open IxD Festival. Thanks to the organizers, teachers, and presenters for putting on a great series of presentations.

Oh, and apropos of nothing, I say Parker Posey was born to play Lois Lane, and it’s really sad that no one ever made it happen. Who’s with me?

Have a great weekend!

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!

Hats off to the tireless Jessica Abel who has a great report on last month’s teaching comics seminar in Helsinki. She’s much better than me at recording what’s going on around her and I’m grateful for the record.

Also online are some of the excellent Webstock talks from February’s trip to Wellington, New Zealand. As usual, I had to decline to have my talk filmed (see Monday’s comments), but there’s lots of other great stuff up.

Spring is always a busy time for travel. Check out some of my recently-posted upcoming engagements in the travel sidebar at right.

I’m in Baltimore, Maryland today to keynote at the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2011 Conference.

Back to regular blogging tomorrow!

I’m off to the Finnish Comics Society’s International Comics Seminar in Helsinki this week, flying bright and early on Tuesday, so I’ll be taking this week off from blogging (probably, unless something huge comes up).

Enjoy some Chopin and Liszt in the meantime.

See you again Monday, March 28th. Have a great week/weekend!