Hey! Haven't posted in three years, and then I noticed this was linked to under a music video I made, bummer. This is a long update. It reads like a CV, sorry.
In 2014 I released 3 new comics as part of a series I called Now and Here. (Nowhere)
I like that together it spells NOWHERE. It's fitting of the books, which explore a fluctuating space and time through what I describe poorly as "poetic narrative". I say poetic because the words were chosen as much for their fluidity of meaning as for their phonetic substance. I tried to cut most of the articles out of a sentence and any passive wording. I imagined the text as an inner voice or collection or voices or perhaps the thoughts of an animal. These books were titled Now and Here #1, Other Way and Trial One. The first two were published with Caroline Paquita of Pegacorn Press on her Riso Machine. The third book was too large a job for the machine at 90 pages so I put it out myself with black and white copier and a double screen printed cover. Each book had a print run of 300.
Now and Here #1 and #2 are sold out from Last Gasp, but #2 is still available from co-publisher Pegacorn Press and from my site.
The third one is available from me and Booklyn in limited quantity as I screen print more covers. There are a couple available on my site right now.
I had a solo show at Booklyn Artist Alliance in November in conjunction with the release of Now and Here #3, Trial One, which was really wonderful. I made 50+ drawings, some prints 2 large paintings on panel and the show moved down to Open Space in Baltimore afterward.
A segment of Hyperspeed to Nowhere #2, Return to Entropy was included in Best American Comics 2014.Excellent!
I believe I went to 7 different small press and alt comics shows in 2014 (cake, ripe, spx, cab, zine friends, paper jam, pmf, maybe some others??) , it was fun but it burned me out too.
I was a special guest at the first Ripe in Providence which ruled, I was on a couple panels and I'm sure I put my foot in my mouth a few times.
I started a wacky sorta metal band called Gun Tit with my buddies Laura Perez Harris and Thomas Toye, both awesome artists in their own right and we played 7 shows in new york, chicago, detroit, baltimore, and providence.
Paul Lyon's first wrestling comics anthology Screw Job came out and I had a comic in it, he's now putting together issue #3. Also did one for Harris Smith's Felony Comics #1, whose also working on a 3rd issue now.
Everyone I ever slept with is got married or had kids. SUCKERSSS! jk, love you all.
This year I made an animated music video for super mega excellent Lightning Bolt's new album Metal East.
and did some more work on my animation Cunt Eyes, to be completed god knows when. I showed parts of it at a fun lecture at Parson's as part of the Comics and Picture Story Symposium lecture series.
I was a special guest at CAKE in Chicago which ruled, Gun Tit played a very bloody (fake blood) set, I can't remember what in hell was going on. I was on a great Speculative Fiction Panel, it's on youtube now I think.
My favorite people from Baltimore all moved to Chicago for grad school. SUCKERSSS! jk, do that thing.
I taught my first animation class as an adjunct to sophomore illustration majors at Parsons School of Design, I'm looking forward to next years class! Teaching, like animation, is difficult but rewarding.
After the Chicago fest I left on my green meanie '99 Kawasaki ZRX 1100 west, south west, to pick up on parts of the country I'd missed on my 6 month journey 4 years prior, I returned to nyc a lil' over 2 months later having covered 13,000 miles, when I was about to head north from astoria, oregon towards canadian rockies I changed my mind and high tailed it back east, going coast to coast in 4 days, one day I did 1,100 miles from west of Missoula Montana to Mitchel, South Dakota in 14 hours, that's the Iron Butt but I didn't have any of the paper work. Chicago to New York was only 800 miles but felt longer when I started late in the day after too much partying with best buddies till dawn and real foul weather on foggy Pennsylvanian mountain roads. Had to return to Chicago briefly for a wedding too but went by car, bicycle in back.
I been back for 4 days and boy do I feel funny, finishing up a comic for Ben Marra's Blades and Lazers book, my buddy Keenan Keller (of The Humans on Image, drawn by tom Neely) wrote a fun story for it and it'll be printed in Blue and Pink ink.
Hot Dog Beach #3 is finally at the printers and will be in my hands Wednesday. It's available for pre-order on my web shop. I co-published it with Space Face Books so it is available from their web shop as well.
I have a comic in the new, as yet unreleased Kramer's Ergot #9 which has always been a dream/goal of mine. It's a doozy called Kanibul Ball. ( yes I know that's not the right spelling perhaps I am suggesting a different meaning altogether.)
I will have a new 4 color riso book released by Breakdown Press at this years CAB in brooklyn, Nov 7th, as well as some new screen prints and possibly the third Hyperspeed to Nowhere...possibly, if possible.
ok. I just wrote this all here so it's up to date. What are blogs for? I like to make small posts on tumblr. It's easier/faster to put up images and links. lalewestvind.tumblr.com
bye.
