Life Lessons

When I was living in Mexico City I would often go to the Lagunilla flea market on the weekends, a massive sprawl of stands selling all kinds of knicknacks, antiques, bootlegs, clothing, and food. In one of the many book dealers' stands there I found a large sheet of paper printed with these inane and charming "educational" cards for children. The colors are just beautiful and are of course mostly off-register. [I have re-posted the images so that if you click on them you can see a larger version.] Many of the "cards" are wonderfully surreal in their careful illustration of utterly obvious concepts. This one, for example, helpfully compares a clean child to a dirty child:



This one illustrates the difference between standing and running well and badly:



There is also a morbid streak running through these little lessons, as in this one which graphically warns children of the dangers of sticking foreign objects into their orifices and admonishes them never to play "dangerous games":

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Note from a Newbie

In the midst of getting the hang of blogging in general and upgrading to Blogger Beta I some how misplaced 15 comments that came in in the last few days. These have all now been uploaded for your reading pleasure, and a few have been responded to. Sorry if you thought your comment had gone missing (in fact, it had!). Read more...

A New Comic

Here's a one-pager I just did for a French magazine called Polystyrène. It's translated into French but I think you can follow it pretty well even if you can't read it. No plans yet to publish it in English...
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99 Ways in Japanese

And check out what's hidden under the dustjacket:

Detail:
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A Few Subway Sketches

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99 Ways chez L'Association!

I guess I can retire from comics now: I've been published by L'Association, one of THE great comics publishers ever. This is the definitive edition of my book: much nicer paper stock, flaps, and an expanded color section. I just got my copy from the printer; the book goes on sale in France in mid-November. Read more...

20 years of Schizzo

No, not Ivan Brunetti's comic, this one's Schizzo with two z's. It's a critical magazine of comics that's been published over the last twenty years by the unique comics cultural center Centro Fumetto Andrea Pazienza in Cremona, Italy. They are celebrating their anniversary with a show and catalog and since Jessica and I have had books published in their Schizzo Presenta series they asked us to contribute a drawing. In 2004 we did a workshop in their wonderful vaulted space. Swissair misplaced our luggage, hence the potato sacks:
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A Little Textbook Preview

A Little Textbook Preview

Here's a preview of something from our textbook. it's an explanation of a common reading order mistake in comics (I drew this one in a quasi-Tezuka style, just for fun):


Why did these guys get blown up? Didn't the other guy get the code? Well, did you? Let's see. Maybe you thought it was:




But wait, how do you know it wasn't:



Without arrows, there's no way to know for sure. This situation is rarely this fatal, but you want to avoid pointlessly presenting your reader with such an ambiguous situation. Read more...