Scenes From Spain and France,
Starting with Two Sculptures To Remember
...and hangin' out with the Simpsons at the comics festival.

Now On With the Travel Pix

Take a look at some of the folk dancers we would pass while strolling through the hotel plaza
Here we are grabbing a quick lunch before boarding our bus back to A Coruña.

Following the Comics Festival,
A few days in Southern France

Bayonne has a cathedral or two, too.
No roof-climbing this time, though.
Eddie and I got a quickie tour of Toulouse courtesy of my comics-writing-&-translating pal François Peneaud.
Science-fiction writer Laurent Queyssi and his wife Laurence
escorted Eddie and me around Bordeaux....
...as did our longtime long-distance friend Patrick Marcel, an award-winning translator and one of the early contributors to Gay Comix during my editorship a (gulp!) quarter-century ago.
Madrid was our last stop in Spain as well as our first one, and during this last leg of our trip we were able to spend an afternoon and evening with graphic novelist Lance Tooks (on the right in the photo above) and erotic artist Kevin Taylor (in the middle). Lance's wife Suni joined us after this picture was taken; otherwise you'd see her as well.

Another Sculpture

Eddie snapped the picture below of a plastic Batman that we came across in a Bordeaux comics shop. (Note his strategically-placed signage.)

At the feet of Cervantes in Madrid...
Giant puppets in a procession outside A Coruña's City Hall
Eddie pauses at seaside during a sightseeing stroll
I did some sketching along the way
Some fish and Eddie contemplating each other at A Coruña's beautiful Aquarium Finisterrae
...and a university courtyard in a converted monastery.
A cathedral tour guide takes us up on the roof. (Fun fact: there's no elevator.)
The cathedral as seen from a distance...
Cartoonists and other festival participants boarding the bus that will take us to Santiago to see that city's amazing Catedral de Santiago
...and from up close.
The festival gang sits for a group shot in the cathedral courtyard. Next came some free time to explore other corners of Santiago...
...like a gorgeous tree-lined pathway in one of Santiago's several grand parks...
...and a colorful street market...
Speaking of being escorted around colorful European cities during our trip, it was Fabian Alvarez Lopez (pictured at left), one of my fellow contributors to the 2007 Young Bottoms In Love anthology (Fabian scripted "The Coupling," with art by Melody Shickley), who generously volunteered to give Eddie and me a first look at Madrid during our airport stopover on our way to A Coruña. (See Fabian's account of our visit in his own blog.)
And who better than the Caped Crusader to remind you that Eddie and I weren't getting brought to Spain just to see beautiful sights. With my secret identity as a "celebrity graphic novelist" came responsibilities. (Click here to see me in Guest Artist Mode.)