Anders Nilsen's Blog, page 32

CartoonInk!

On Sunday I finished a wall drawing I was asked to do for the CartoonInk show at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Sullivan Galleries. The show was curated by Surabhi Ghosh, Christa Donner and Jeremy Tinder with help from Sara Drake. There's a bunch of cool stuff to see there, including a new piece by Deb Sokolow (which happens to be right next to my wall drawing) and one of Lisa Cline's originals which is completely gorgeous – the photocopier doesn't do them justice. After a number of delays the show opens next weekend.

Here's an image of the flyer for it, with a nice little Marc Bell drawing (did I mention I'm going on a little East coast book tour with him in a few days?).

sketchbooks

The first of these sketchbook spreads are two people with whom I shared the Megabus on my way back to Chicago from Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago. The other two feature drawings of people on the El.


The last, left hand page, below: I was drawing the person sitting in the audience in front of me at Mark Bazer's Interview Show the other night, and then she turned out to be another guest on the show. Her name is Cameron Esposito. She's a comedienne. She was completely hilarious. This is her ear.


Lastly, by virtue of the timing of my trip to Minneapolis for the reading I did there on August 18th, I was forced to miss this year's epic skateboarding/camping/beer trip to Wisconsin. You can see pictures of the festivities at the, ahem, dude life blog.


So my videographer was getting drunk around a campfire somewhere in the badger-state wilderness but I decided to document my exploits nevertheless. In a more nineteenth century kind of way. It rained that night, so it was all in a trio of covered parking garages. At one point a cop rolled through and asked me the above question, before rolling on, and when I did finally get kicked out of the last spot, the security guard helpfully suggested that it was okay to skate in the one next door. This doesn't happen anywhere outside Minnesota.

Interview Show at the Hideout Tomorrow

Friday night I'm going to be on Mark Bazer's Interview Show at the Hideout. Come drink beer and heckle me about being over-exposed in Chicago this week.

Wow, that was kind of amazing.

The thing at Lula was really wonderful. More so than I could have even hoped. I don't think I got to talk to half the people I wanted to, because it was packed like sardines. There was already a line outside before the doors opened. Huge all encompassing thanks to the folks that made it possible: Jason and Lea and Susannah at Lula (and the servers and cooks who all made it seamless), John and Zak for making fun of each other in public, The Kyles (O and B) for their lovely meditations on fatherhood and that pesky generational gap, Liz from Quimby's who had the job of writing out everyone's credit card information and fending off angry fans when the book was gone. Amy Honchell who let me take half her work down for a night. Who else...? It's hard to say because it almost felt like everyone I know in this damn town was there. Kind of choked me up for a second. Y'all rule. For real. THANK YOU.

TUESDAY!!!

THE BIG QUESTIONS HOME TOWN SPECTACULAR
THE BIG NIGHT.

Come down to Lula Cafe in Logan Square  7-10 and let's toast the big fat book. And I'll draw a picture in one for you. It's going to be awesome. Everyone's going to be there. Original art, slide shows, literature. Rock and Roll. Food. MC'd by the fantastic Mr. Kyle Obriot.

Awesome. Stupendous. Outrageous. Super Fun.

And a portion of the proceeds will go to support Sara Drake's Independent Media Project with Arts Network Asia--that is comics and women's literacy in Cambodia. So it's even for a good cause!

Oh, and here's a little window display I just installed at Quimby's yesterday.

For a Limited Time

I'm doing a little experiment. In addition to readings, music and food at the Lula event on Tuesday, there will also be an impromptu, one day show of originals from Big Questions. I'm putting up a number of the featured pieces on my picture store. Sales will go live Tuesday--both to locals who can come out to the show and to internet browsers who can't – at about the same time. There are 12 pieces listed now – full pages and a few individual panels as well. More to come.

It may be worth noting that Big Questions originals haven't been available since around 2005 when I realized I needed to hold onto them in anticipation of the editing for the book. I'm making these few available now only in conjunction with the tour.

Recent Happenings in the Press

I made a sidebar (see right) with links to some of the reviews and other articles that have come out in the last few weeks regarding Big Questions. The interviews at Publisher's Weekly and Comic Book Resources, and the article in the Chicago Tribune are the most extensive and wide ranging. I just read over the one from the CBR site and was really pleasantly surprised--I did the interview while driving the rental car, between Portland and Seattle, and I remember feeling a bit distracted. But I don't think I come across that way. Alex Dueben had some really good questions and did his homework. A sample:


If we looked back at your sketchbooks as a kid, what would we see? Would we see a lot of nature studies and animal drawings?
Probably not. I remember there's a lot of Dungeons and Dragons characters. There's a lot of kids skateboarding and skate parks. In high school I started drawing skulls a lot. [Laughs] I definitely had that phase. I would draw these hot rods with giant engines and flames coming out of them and weird troll creatures driving them. Whatever came across my path I would draw.

Also discussed:
–whether the landscape of North Dakota is bleak
–comics and democracy
–how the Xeric Grant is like a golden egg
–lulling your reader into complacency and then sticking a knife in their ribs


James Romberger's piece at PW and Christopher Borelli's in the Trib are equally attentive and thoughtful readings (even if Borelli did say I was a server at Lula. Blasphemy--I was a cook). The press so far has been gratifying and humbling.

Toronto Sketchbook

Including a stop at the Royal Ontario Museum to draw dead animals.

Minneapolis

Some of the hairstyles I wore as a punk kid in Minneapolis in the eighties:

1) skater bangs
2) long stringy hippy hair with Axel Rose bandanna
3) flopped over mohawk
4) flopped over mohawk, dreaded
5) big fire-engine red mess

Come to Magers & Quinn in Uptown tomorrow (Thursday) at 7:30 for my reading. I'll bring pictures.

Next Stop: Toronto

I'll be at the Beguiling in Toronto on Saturday, reading from the book and signing copies.
Come on out!