(1) The just-published May issue of The Commonwealth (a printed manifestation of the multi-faceted, public-affairs-forums-fostering, non-profit Commonwealth Club of California, has arrived sporting the cover art I told you I was working on several weeks ago while juggling home renovations and a death in the family. And there’s an online version of the complete magazine that midwesterners, southerners, and easterners can access should time pressures prevent them from hopping a jet to California to chase down a copy of their own to read.

(2) My cover art for the December 21, 2006 issue of Birmingham Weekly (one of several covers serializing J’Mel Davidson’s "Destroy All Santas") was picked up for inclusion in Comic Art Now, an attractive hardcover book by Dez Skinn (with Tim Pilcher on board as Commissioning Editor) that showcases a dazzling international array of comic book artists. And following fast on the heels of the British edition issued today by iLex Press will be an American edition of the same volume coming later this month from HarperCollins.

Below: The roving camera of Jeremy Clowe, Communications Assistant at the museum, snaps a moment of opening-reception collegiality featuring ComicMix’s Editor-in-chief Mike Gold, Mark Wheatley, Marc Hempel, me, and exhibit curator Martin Mahoney.

Anyway, the museum has sent me their anticipated lineup of activities for next Saturday, so I’ll pass them on here for the benefit of any of you who are likely to be in or near Stockbridge on the 3rd thinking, "Gee, a comic arts festival would really hit the spot right around now."

An exciting day of workshops, lectures, book signings, and conversation with noted comic artists and historians in celebration of LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel. Got mini-comics to swap? Here’s a good place to exchange ‘em.

Refreshments will be served, and lunches will be available for purchase.

10:00AM Welcome to the Norman Rockwell Museum
Curator of Education, Tom Daly, and LitGraphic Curator, Martin Mahoney

 10:30AM Graphic Novels: An Illustrated History
A lively visual history by Robin Brenner, librarian and Eisner Award Juror

 11:30AM Drawing in the Galleries
An On-Site Demonstration with graphic novelist, Lauren Weinstein, whose original illustrations for Girl Stories are on view.

 11:30AM-4:00PM Wet Ink!
Create and Post Your Own Comic Art: A drop in, hands-on workshop with Jack Purcell, comic book artist and educator

12:00PM Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels
Author and library director David Berona will offer an illustrated look at his new book

1:00PM Creating Comics:
A Conversation with Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley
The two comic creators, whose art for Breathtaker is on view, will discuss their work with comic art collector and historian Warren Bernard.

2:00PM Howard Cruse’s Comics Vault
Artist Howard Cruse will offer personal commentary on his comic art, which currently is on view            

3:00PM Collecting Comics
Personal viewpoints on collecting by Scott Eder, founder of the Scott Eder Gallery and Comic Book Art Dot Com

4:00PM Book Signing
with David Berona, Robin Brenner, Howard Cruse, Marc Hempel, R. Sikoryak, Mark Wheatley, and Lauren Weinstein

4:30PM-5:30PM Carousel and Wet Ink Reception
A series of comic slide shows by artists, with illustrator and cartoonist, R. Sikoryak, and graphic novelist Lauren Weinstein. Join us for refreshments!

Plus the All-Day Mini Comic Exchange
Share your art with fellow artists and comics aficionados. Tables will be available for your use.

Festival admission is free with regular Museum admission. Children 18 and under are free. Please be advised that graphic novels sometimes address adult subject matter. Parental discretion is advised.

For more information call 413-298-4100 ext 260

I was briefly a grad student at Penn State University forty years ago. My stay at PSU in the fall of 1968 was funded by a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship, and a couple of my short plays (one of which can be found on this very web site) even made it onstage as part of the theatre department’s Five O’clock Theatre student workshop series.

Personal issues quickly derailed my attempt to be a Very Good Fellow that fall, unfortunately, and I fled to New York over the Christmas holidays before making much of a dent in my Shubert money.

Despite the inauspiciousness of my grad school career, though, I had a mostly good time at Penn State during my brief stay, the odd depression and panic attack aside. I forged several enduring friendships, helped paint the set for a main stage production of O’Neill’s Ah Wilderness, and even made good grades somehow in the courses I took.

So despite the fact that so much time has passed since then that not a single inch of the campus I encountered looked remotely familiar, I nevertheless felt a definite twinge of nostalgia when I returned to PSU last weekend at the invitation of Eileen Akin, coordinator of PSU Special Collections Library’s Audio-Visual Collections and Fred Waring archives, who asked me to give a talk as part of the Graphic Novel Speakers Series she spearheads.

Below: Eileen and I commune with cartooning greats in the Waring collection’s Cartoon Room

An honorary member of the National Cartoonists Society and the host of annual NCS golfing retreats at his Shawnee-on-the-Delaware home base, Waring was the regular recipient of thank-you art from his legion of grateful ‘tooner friends.

Hence the "Cartoon Room" at Penn State, because of which the PSU library’s Waring archive is as notable for its walls full of framed cartoon originals that almost nobody has ever seen as for its long shelves of Waring choral arrangements and displays of fascinating memorabilia from the decades during which Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians graced music-lovers with their unforgettable performances and broadcasts.

Below: Just one of the reasons why Eileen Akin’s lair at PSU is a feast for any cartoon-lover’s eyes.

You can bet that we’ll be carrying the Hillary banner proudly in the general election, though, if she ends up copping the nomination. She’s not short on confidence-inspiring qualities (particularly when she lets her better angels carry the day). And we urge present-day Hillary folks to similarly work their butts off to elect Barack if his campaign for the nomination carries the day. Let’s don’t let the White House remain in the hands of the party that’s spent eight long years inflicting more damage on the U.S. than would have seemed humanly possible — even given the track records left by Reagan and Bush the dad.

Between Clinton and Obama, we think Omama offers more than his opponent does of what America needs in a leader today. So Eddie has packed his bags and headed to the Pennsylvania hills to act on his beliefs.

He does that kind of thing. It’s one of the attributes that made me fall for him 29 years ago.

Nobody under, I dunno, 40 will know what this sketchbook drawing from 1982 is talking about.

Sorry about that, kids. I’ll cater to the Youth Vote another time.

1. Sincere thanks from Eddie and me for the condolence notes left in the blog’s comments section last week, as well as for similar messages that have reached us by other routes.

2. I’ve lost so much time due to Evelyn’s death (and pressing work that got sidetracked because of her passing) that I may not be able to compose blog entries of any substance for a week or two. To avoid leaving a dreaded BlogVoid during this period, I’ll probably throw up raw, obscure artwork from my past for your amusement occasionally—like the sketchbook drawing above.

‘Bye for now.

How’s she doing? Well, Evelyn’s got a lot more recovering to do in the wake of her recent hospitalization and subsequent stint in rehab, which can take a lot out of a 95-year-old.

In the privacy of her home, however, Luna is less camera-shy. In fact, she was happy to show off her excellent taste in literature for her mom’s camera a few weeks ago.

Once she’s old enough to blurb instead of burble, I’ll know who to turn to for my books’ back-cover endorsements.

On Valentine’s Day I made a return visit to White River Junction, VT, at the invitation of that city’s new creative crown jewel, the Center for Cartoon Studies.

CCS, which was conceived, founded, and is now overseen by graphic novelist James Sturm, offers a two-year course of study for aspiring comics creators ready to settle in Vermont and get serious about honing their craft under the tutelage of cartooning professionals like Jason Lutes, James Kochalka, Stephen R. Bissette, and others.

This was my second time to swap thoughts about comics with a batch of Steve Bissette’s students. Steve and I go back a ways, of course, having swapped war stories about the comics industry in various settings over the decades. Like hosts of comics fans, I had admired his talents from afar well before we found ourselves conversing face-to-face at assorted events where cartoonists congregate. Steve helped raise my profile beyond underground and gay circles by interviewing me, along with his co-author Stanley Wiater, for their 1992 book Comic Book Rebels, and when Eddie and I first moved to the Berkshires Steve was quick to invite me up to White River Junction to speak to the students in the CCS class he was teaching at that time. I enjoyed myself back then and had a similarly entertaining time this year.

Steve amazes me. In his alternate identity as a blogger, he puts me totally to shame. Where does he get the energy? Where does he find the time? It’s been two weeks since I visited CCS and only now am I managing to get my act together to compose a few paragraphs marking my trip. It’s a good thing it’s not up to me to funnel "breaking news" to CNN!

I learned recently that Steve and I both spent time during the 1980s collaborating with one "Jovial Bob Stine," the man who edited and largely wrote Scholastic’s Bananas magazine before mutating into R. L. Stine, the fabulously (and deservedly) successful author of the Goosebumps juvenile horror novels.