Just a quick note to say I’ll be attending UX London May 19-21st since I know such corporate shindigs need a little extra planning (and extra coaxing of the boss in most cases).

Had a great time visiting Skype’s London office in November, but while there, I had a number of queries about when I’d be lecturing in the area, since that event was a company-only thingey. So, now you know.

UX London has a lot of great speakers on the bill this year, not just me. Hope to see you there, both from the stage and as a fellow audience member.

I’ve updated the travel sidebar with upcoming trips to University of Houston, Philadelphia’s Germantown Friends School, and Indiana University South Bend (not to be confused with the Bloomington campus where I visited last Fall).

Philly is in-school and not open to the public, but both Houston and South Bend are public lectures. South Bend is even selling tickets already.

I’ll also be at UX London this May and Comic-Con of course. I’ll post details on other upcoming talks as they come together.

Back from Portland where I saw about a dozen cartoonists (comprising about 1% of the Portland cartooning hordes) and had a great time with the bright creative students at Reed College.

Just a couple of links as I settle back into the studio:

Shaenon Garrity offers an incisive review of our recent Zot! B & W omnibus collection.

And, as linked to by dozens of tweets and news stories, Lucy Knisley has an interesting take on a technological generation gap between her and some of her cartooning heroes.

The gap’s been around for years, of course, but Lucy’s thoughts are interesting since she namechecks some of the more open-minded—and in many ways, forward-looking—cartoonists out there, and she clearly feels a kinship with many of them, even as she embraces new tools they’re wary of.

This sort of inter-generational moat-digging has been around since before Will Eisner met Rube Goldberg, but Knisley’s yearning feels different to me from a lot of the fractious father-killing that usually grows out of such gaps. Compare Knisley’s reflections to the recent grudge-matches between web and newspaper cartoonists for example.

You can tell that Knisley wants more of her heroes to join her across the river, but there are plenty of burning bridges downstream. It’ll be interesting to see how many find a way to cross in the long run.

Last week London, this week Portland. Two damp and wonderful cities (note Portland’s actual 10-day forecast as of Sunday night at left).

Saw some great old friends in London (while briefly in town for a session with the good folks at Skype) including “The Man at the Crossroads” Paul Gravett, webcomics innovator Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, and my old pal Ted Dewan, and had the privilege of meeting Pat Mills, Sarah McIntyre and Woodrow Phoenix among others. Sarah got a great shot of Paul, Woodrow, and me on her blog.

Woodrow’s 2008 book Rumble Strip made for some intriguing plane reading. It’s all “word specific” (i.e., without pictures, the words would still form a coherent text), and uses only images of inanimate objects to make its points as it mounts an all-out assault on car culture. An unusual and interesting book.

Here in rainy Portland I’ll be doing an in-class workshop at Reed College (not open to the public—sorry!) and will probably see about one in ten of the hundreds of talented cartoonists living in this lovable soggy city, but I’m sure I’ll be back before long.

After these two back-to-back trips, it’s non-stop drawing from here to February as I wrap up layouts on the graphic novel. Always fun to visit two of my favorite cities, but looking forward to getting back to work.

Sadly, I won’t be in town long enough to see much of the ongoing Comica: The London International Comics Festival, but I should note that the London comics scene is really hopping this month and if you’re in the area, be sure to hop over to one of the cool events taking place between November 5-26.

Off for a brief trip to London, so updates may be spotty this week.

It’s a private engagement (at Skype which, yes, is kind of funny when you think about it) but I will be in London again in May at UX London.

In addition to the upcoming trips to Portland and Philadelphia (see sidebar, right), it looks like I’ll also be swinging by the University of Houston in February. Details soon.

In the next few weeks, I’ll be finishing the first draft of the layouts for my graphic novel (working title, The Sculptor). Then on to revisions through February and production of the actual artwork over the course of two more years (it’s about 400 pages). It’ll be done in early 2012 (and yeah, 3 years for a GN may be a long time but hey, at least it’s still quicker than Habibi).

I’m not talking about The Sculptor much on this forum yet because it’s too early, but I’ve been more consumed by this project than anything I’ve ever done, so it’s definitely on my mind night and day. If First Second and I decide to share any of its progress visually next year, you’ll read about it here first. For now though, enjoy all the other great GNs on the market and know that I’m working seven days a week, eleven hours a day on this book when not answering email or traveling.

Speaking of which: My email inbox remains an ongoing avalanche, so please forgive me if my responses have been sluggish. I really am trying to answer all those various requests and urgent messages as fast as I can, there are just so many of them. Seriously, picture Ringo Starr in that Simpson’s episode where he gets around to Marge’s fan mail. That’s me.

I’ll be updating the travel sidebar soon, with upcoming engagements in Portland, Pennsylvania, Indiana (again) and London (twice). Not all are public, but I’ll try to give you fair warning if I’m coming to your city or school.

Back to the tablet!

I’ll be there. Hope you will be too.

Recorded in Barcelona in May.

Note that I don’t always talk that way. When getting translated in real time overseas, I enunciate a bit more and avoid too many exotic terms. Still I guess it adds a bit to the wonky atmosphere.

Ivy and I took way too many photos in Spain, some of which I’m still trying to wrangle after coming back from Woods Hole, but here’s something I had to share right away.

The festival guests at Vinetas desde O Atantico were frequently treated to “Pulpo a la gallega,” the region’s iconic octopus dish, but the strangest occasion had to be during our visit to A Coruna’s aquarium — in full view of real, living examples of the species. I got a cool video of one of them so here it is.

In other video news, Bert Hernandez’s magnificently insane kid’s show The Naked Cosmos is available again. Get it while you can.