Still toiling away at the graphic novel, so this blog will remain quiet a few months longer, but I do have a tight cluster of trips coming up, so here’s a bit more info on each, starting with an important opportunity coming up next month.

The Two Day Making Comics Workshop comes to Alberta!

On March 21-23, I’ll be bringing the lecture and full 2-Day Workshop to the Galt Museum in Lethbridge, Alberta. SIGN-UP for one of the limited workshop seats, and get your advance tickets for the lecture starting on Feb 22.

This is the first time the 2-day workshop has come to Canada, and this and the Los Angeles workshop (see last post) are the only ones currently planned for 2013, so don’t miss this chance to learn two full days worth of comics-making strategies and techniques.

Out and About

Somehow, after a quiet autumn, I wound up with six trips in seven weeks. I’m not sure what happened there, but I plan to make the most of it. See sidebar at right for the full list.

Nashville’s Tapestry Conference is invitation-only, and we don’t have all the details on my visit to Vermont’s legendary Center for Cartoon Studies and Dartmouth College yet, but if you’re anywhere near Berlin or Santa Barbara on those dates, please come out to say hi.

In Berlin, on Friday March 15, I’ll be giving my lecture twice(!). Once in the morning at 10:00 am, to students, and then at 6 pm to the general public. Both are part of the Berlin International Literature Festival. Come with smelling salts, it’ll be awesome.

And finally, I’ll be rounding up this miniature trip-a-palooza with a very special Regents Lecture at nearby University of California Santa Barbara on April 10, at 8 pm. It’ll be in UCSB’s Campbell Hall which is a big room, so if you’re in Southern California, please tell your friends. I’ll be telling mine!

Anyway, that’s the schedule as it stands now. You can bet I’ll be drawing every day that I’m not traveling. And if all goes well, I’ll have a nice fat 480 page graphic novel done by the end of the year, and an equally exciting book underway after that.

This February, I’ll be bringing the Two Day Making Comics Workshop back to The Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art for a third year.

14 hours of everything I can teach you through lectures and hands-on exercises. An intense look at the art of telling stories visually. More info on my seminars here.

My students and I always have a lot of fun in these classes. Last year’s workshop even got a write-up in Fast Company by author Matthew May.

Here’s the link to SIGN UP. As always, availability is limited. See you in February!

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And see sidebar for more on my very busy spring including stops in Nashville, Berlin, Alberta, Santa Barbara, and White River Junction, VT—a total of six trips in seven weeks!

This blog is going to be pretty quiet this year while I continue work on the graphic novel, but wanted to pass along a couple of links.

Congratulations to Spike and Diana Nock for a successful Kickstarter for Poorcraft, and to Jeff Parker and Erika Moen for the recently completed Bucko, both of which will be out soon in book form.

Also recently completed is Kane Lynch’s The Relics and if you have an Android phone, be sure to put some Merlin in it.

Two artists in trouble this month: S. Clay Wilson and Tony DeZuniga. Help if you can.

Two recent passings that struck a chord: The great Moebius, who had a huge influence on me (and most of my generation probably). Also very sad to hear of the loss of Peter Bergman of Firesign Theatre fame. I had the pleasure of spending time with Peter at a conference in Colorado about 15 years ago and was able to tell him how much his work had shaped my teen years. Moebius, I met only once (at Comic-Con). I told him he changed my life and he just laughed and said “I’m so sorry!”

That’s all for now. Back to the Cintiq. Many pages yet to draw, so you won’t hear from me much for a while, but I hope it’ll be worth the wait.

You can also find me on both Twitter and Google+ (where I pop-up a little more often than here).

[Image from the cool webcomic Poppa Bears found via Spurge]

The Making Comics 2-Day Workshop heads north to beautiful Montreal, May 28-29.

Sixteen hours of everything I can teach you through lectures and hands-on exercises. An intense look at the art of telling stories visually.

Here’s the link to SIGN UP. Availability is limited as usual.

Need another excuse to visit Montreal in the spring? How about the fact that it’s Montreal in the spring!

Join me this Monday night (April 2) at 7pm for a Free Public Lecture at Tidewater Community College, in the Roper Performing Arts Center (Norfolk Campus).

If you’re in the Tidewater Region, don’t miss it. I have lots of cool pictures and stuff!

Join me this Wednesday, March 28, for a public lecture at The University of Idaho in Moscow. I’ll be speaking in the Ag Science Auditorium (Room 106) at 6:30 pm.

(And if you’re coming in from out of town, be sure to swing by the legendary Safari Pearl, our Moscow hosts during our 50 State Tour in 2007. I don’t have a formal signing this trip, but I plan to swing by and say hi while in town.)

Tom Spurgeon said it best on Twitter: “I would empty my wallet for Jim Woodring were he to walk up to me and ask, so of course I’ll give something to this…”

I’m always excited by a new Woodring book, but when I can tell that Jim himself is especially excited about a book, that’s an event in the making. Let’s help make it happen, shall we?

Come see my lecture at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, this Monday morning (Feb. 20) at 10:50 a.m. in Boyd Recital Hall (Wilson Hall).

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Details here. Hope you can make it!

A new comic from Patrick Farley, and boy, is it a stunner. (NSFW)

451 Participants… Yikes!