Alec Longstreth's Blog, page 29

There is a lot going on right now!

Fall has finally arrived in White River Junction, and it has been raining pretty much non-stop for the last couple of days. It is hard to put into words just how much this has improved my mood. For me, there is no better feeling than making a cup of tea, walking through the rain to my studio and then sitting at my drawing table while water falls from the sky outside my window.

I've been getting a TON of work done on Basewood these past few weeks. I've been finishing a page of inks every two days, which is the pace I need to maintain if I want to finish this chapter by the end of the year (and I DO want to do that!) Basically, I just need to keep my butt glued to my drawing chair!

I'm going to briefly unglue myself this weekend, for a trip up to Vermont's capitol, Montpelier, where I will be giving a brief lecture about 24 hour comics at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library. At 11am, the Trees and Hills Comics Group will be hosting a 24-hour comic challenge, which anyone is welcome to attempt! I won't be drawing a comic (I already drew my 24-Hour Comic for 2010, remember?) but hopefully I can get the group pumped to dive in on their own 24-Hour Comics!

Hmmm... what else? Newsarama just posted the first part of a two-part interview with Aaron all about his new graphic novel Walker Bean, which I colored. In this interview, Aaron talks a lot about the coloring process, so check it out if you want a glimpse into how we made the book look the way it does.

Aaron is currently staying at MAURICE SENDAK'S house where he is one of four fellows (!!!?!). He's staying there for a month and working on Walker Bean 2 and learning all kinds of amazing stuff from Mr. Sendak. Last week James Sturm and I got to go down and visit Aaron for a small lecture/conversation that Mr. Sendak had about one of his old editors. It was only about a dozen people, so James and I both got to meet Mr. Sendak and talk with him a bit. It was a very special afternoon. But the COOLEST part for me, was getting to see Aaron's new pages from the next Walker Bean book! He's going to be coming up to CCS for a week after he's done at Mr. Sendak's place, so it will be nice to hang out with one of my oldest comics friends (AND one of my favorite cartoonists!)

On the Weezer front, the band has announced that the remastered Pinkerton Deluxe two-disc set will be released November 2nd, AS WILL the collection of never released Weezer b-sides Death to False Metal. The tracklist for Pinkerton Deluxe was recently released, and similarly to when the ALONE albums were released, it was slightly disappointing to see how many of the "new" tracks I already had.

Don't get me wrong. OF COURSE I'm going to get the album. I think if you are a casual Weezer listener this collection will really knock your socks off. But if you are hard core, chances are you have already tracked down all of the B-sides from this album. Oh well, it will be nice to have it all on one disc, instead of having it scattered across random soundtracks and import singles, EPs and miscellaneous mp3s. Plus I'm chomping at the bit to hear "Getting Up and Leaving" and "Tragic Girl" (both of which I've never heard before!) and what I'm assuming will be a full-band version of "Long Time Sunshine". Hopefully "Death to False Metal" will have more stuff I've never heard before.

Any way you slice it, there has never been a better time to be a Weezer fan!

I've started getting letters from Claire, who is down in Australia right now. It sounds like she's having an amazing time traveling around with her friends. She's already been to Melbourne, Adelaide and now they are in Sydney. Vicki posted some photos and I stole this picture of Claire, posing as a Koala Bear, from some photobooth pictures they took.

Two more weeks and I will be heading out to APE in San Francisco. I arrive about 8 hours before Claire gets back from Australia. I'll table at the show all weekend with Greg and then Claire and I are piling all of her stuff into a van and driving back to Vermont together! It's been about 8 years since I drove cross country, so I'm pretty excited about the trip. ALSO, because it means that Claire and I will finally be in the same place together. WOO!

Star Wars in 3D??!

I loaded up starwars.com tonight to watch the new episode of The Clone Wars, and I found the above image sitting at the top of the main page.

STAR WARS IN 3D???!

The article says that Episode I will be out in 2012. And John Knoll says, "It is not something that you can rush if you want to expect good results." And I DO want to expect good results, so I'm assuming it'll take a few years? Maybe one movie every six months for THREE YEARS???

I'll take any excuse I can get to see Star Wars on the big screen, and especially if it's 3D. That's something that has to be seen as big as possible, so it's totally immersive. Anyway, WOO! I'm super excited.

Drop Target #1 is now available!

Well, as some of you might have heard, Jon Chad and I have started a pinball zine! It's called "Drop Target" and the first issue is now available for ordering.

I have to say, I think it's probably the coolest zine I have ever made (sorry Dvorak Zine). When I self-publish, I don't usually go in for many bells and whistles, but Jon is the MASTER of bells and whistles, so this issue has a few.

Drop Target #1 is a half-letter zine and it clocks in at 52 pages, with a red construction paper...

Everything Must Change

I've been listening to the new Weezer album Hurley A LOT. It's really great. I think it's my third favorite Weezer album ever (current order of preference: Blue, Pink, Hurley, Red, Rad, Make Believe, Green, Maladroit). As with the release of any new Weezer album, there have been a spate of reviews, interviews and fan reactions. On the whole, I would say people are really into this album, except for the usual naysayers, who are living in the past.

One such example is this review from...

Seriously, it never stops

Friday, I took the train from White River Junction to Washington D.C. This took a long time, but I didn't really mind. I caught up on some much-needed sleep, wrote some letters, and worked a bunch on a TOP SECRET illustration assignment (just you wait!) I arrived at the SPX hotel a little after midnight, only to find that the hotel bar was crammed full of almost all of my favorite cartoonist pals. SPX is the best.

After a quick dinner of BEER, I headed up to the room with Greg, Nate, and

The fun never stops

Well, I'm still reeling from my night backstage with Weezer. There is some aftershock-awesomeness from that night which is still playing itself out, but I probably shouldn't talk about that yet. I will, of course, report on these goings-on when it is appropriate.

In the meantime, Weezer started streaming their entire new album "Hurley" the other day over on their MySpace page. Check it out! There are some seriously rocking tunes. I have been listening to it non-stop, natch. The album...

THE NIGHT OF MY LIFE!!!

As I sit down to write this blog entry, it is 1am. I just came home from what will easily go down in history as one of the greatest nights of my entire life. And it's all thanks to one man: KARL KOCH.

(WARNING: this is going to be one of those really long WEEZER blog posts, just deal with it!)

By this point, you should all know that I am a HUGE Weezer fan. My first Weezer album was given to me by my sister Galen in 1994, when she was getting rid of some CDs before going to college (she...

10 Days in Hawaii

I'm finally back from Hawaii! I've actually been back for a few days now, but I have been going totally bonkers trying to get caught up on everything (mail, email, laundry, grocery shopping, faculty meeting recaps, etc. etc. etc.) so I haven't had a chance to blog about the trip... until now!

Needless to say, it was completely amazing. Hawaii really is a paradise, and I was so lucky to have a chance to go there. This was entirely due to my parents' generosity, because there is no way in...

San Fran Summer

Well, I'm in California again. I must say, the 70 degree weather and total lack of humidity has put me in a pretty good mood. Or wait, maybe it's CLAIRE.

On Claire's birthday we went and saw Scott Pilgrim, which is the best movie I've seen all summer (also, pretty much the ONLY movie I've seen all summer). It was a blast, I can't wait to see it again. We also went and got formal Sears portraits taken, which was pretty hilarious (I'll post the photos when we get them back).

We also hit my ...

August Blog Dump!

YEESH, another week has flown by, and the next one promises to do the same, so I better do some blogging quickly, before it's all been forgotten! Let's use NUMBERS, shall we?

1) We just wrapped up another week of Summer Workshops here at CCS. Holy cow this was a jam-packed week of cartooning. We had an insanely talented group of students, who turned out some amazing work in just a few short days. It was totally exhausting, but also totally inspiring and completely worth it. There's...