FEAR OF BLOGGING STRIKES AGAIN!

And this is your last chance, WordPress. Today I’m being helped by the fabulous Raymond Larrett, better known as Norman Dog, one of the most talented cartoonists in America and certainly one of the funniest. And he knows LOTS more about the internet than I do, so if he can’t help me, nobody can. And if I still can’t get WordPress to behave, I’m finding another blog server. Looking back at my blog, I see that I was so traumatized by my terrible experience putting up the last blog, that it’s been at least two months, so let’s go back to March, and
I’ll relate my adventures in Florida and Switzerland:
First came Gainseville, Florida, where I was keynote speaker at a great feminist comics conference at the University of Florida Called “A Comic of her Own.” Aside from some fascinating presentations, “A Comic of Her Own” featured the best looking program I have ever seen at a conference or convention, and here it is (art by Leela Corman).

I had never been to Florida before, but now I want to go again. They have alligators!
(And they are very proud of their gators. Did you know that that’s where GatorAid comes from?) This one was just dozing in the sun a few feet away from me. And they have Spanish moss! (I took some home) And the university has built two bat houses (Batman, step aside!), where people collect just before sunset, because at sunset the bats
emerge from their houses and great clouds of them darken the sky. On my last morning I awoke to a dense fog, and what with the fog, the Spanish moss, the gators and the bats, I wanted to shout, “Quick, someone! Film a gothic horror movie RIGHT NOW!” So, yeah,
despite the fact that it takes 9 hours to get to Gainseville from San Francisco (One more hour and that’s the time from San Francisco to England!) I wanna return.
A plus was that I got to hang out with cartoonist Megan Kelso, who was also a guest, and with Leela Corman and her husband, Tom Hart, who is Executive Director of the Sequential Arts Workshop (http://sequentialartistsworkshop.org/wordpress/), the cutest school I have ever seen. It’s in a small store front, snug and user-friendly, with all sorts of great stuff up on the walls, and a very good cafe around the corner. I am a big fan of Leela’s graphic novel, “Unterzakhn,” which for a change is NOT a memoir but a real
NOVEL about twin sisters growing up in New York’s Lower East Side in the early 20th century. It’s been nominated for an Eisner award, and she has my vote. Soooo…Two days after I returned from Florida, I was off again, to Switzerland, and the flight only took 3 hours longer than the flight to Florida. But lemme tellya, a 12 hour flight when the person between you and the aisle has an iron bladder and NEVER ONCE
during the flight gets up, is no fun!
Lucerne is a medieval town with fairytale towers and covered bridges spanning a swan-filled lake, and the convention was held all over the town, so I got to see the whole town. My big disappointment: twice I hiked up the hill to the wall that circles the town, only to join small groups of other disappointed tourists as we discovered the wall was
closed to walkers. (Maybe they open it in the Summer?)
Switzerland is beautiful but expensive! The only thing I bought was chocolate — lots of chocolate!
Next stop: Springcon in St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 18th and 19th.
(http://midwestcomicbook.com/) This is one of my all-time favorite conventions; it’s held on the state fair grounds, which are still closed for the Winter, so it’s like a really cool ghost town. Last time I went to this con, 2 years ago, there was a tornado, which
was exciting, but disappointing, as the tornado struck nowhere near our building and thus did not whisk us away to Oz. I’m not sure if the weather will oblige me again this year.
Aside from the fact that Minnesota folk seem to be the friendliest in the world, I’m excited about this con because of their special guest, Elizabeth Berube. In the 1970s, Liz Berube was the only woman drawing for DC’s romance comics line. She contributed charming art nouveau and art deco-inspired fashion pages, astrology pages, and general beauty advice (“Beauty on a Budget”) and even one six-page comic. Meanwhile the guys who drew for the books were completely clueless about drawing a believeable up-to-date young woman, figuring if they gave her a short skirt and boots it would be fashionable.
I’ve written about Liz in all of my histories of women cartoonists, and now I will finally get to meet her face to face, and we’ll be on a panel together, where I’ll interview her and show a Powerpoint presentation of her work.
Next: San Diego! But I’ll write about that later…

Dear friends, because Word Press is so weird that the only way I can include pictures with my text is to put the pictures up and include the text as captions (and there’s no human being to contact for help!), in my attempt to put up my pics, I have put my blog up BACKWARDS!  That’s why it starts with “And finally…” which is where it should end, and ends with Victoria, which is where it should begin. Verily do I call it “Fear of Blogging!”  Try reading it from bottom to top.

bark-in-space-cover.jpg

Finally: WordPress is so wierd! Every time I try to put up my blog another strange thing
happens. (And there’s no way to contact a live human being to help you figure out what’s
going wrong!) Last time, the only way I could put up a picture was to post it as a picture,
and put the rest of the blog up as a CAPTION (!!!), and that’s why my blogs looks so
wierd. The result was that I was unable to include a pic of the cover of my latest
Chicagoland book, “The Bark in Space”. (And that’s why I call this “Fear of Blogging!”)
I love this book and I want you to see the cover, so here it is.

Still more…

Next week: on to Gainesville, Florida, for “A Comic of Her Own,” a feminist conference at the University of Florida.  Here’s how the website describes it:

This conference hopes to foster the scholarly exploration of intersections between women’s writing in comics, women represented in comics, and the women who read them. To accommodate this goal, the conference will feature a mixture of formats: keynote lectures, workshops and Q & A sessions with guest artists, a round table discussion, and traditional academic conference presentations. Guest speakers: Jeffrey A. Brown, Leela Corman, Megan Kelso, Trina Robbins.

Finally, I’ll be home for two days before flying off to Lucerne, Switzerland, for Fumetto 2013, which promises to be a fascinating comics convention at which I seem to be the only American! I’m there for the part of the convention called “Robert Crumb and the Underground,” and I’ll be speaking on March 23rd at noon.  The convention goes on forever, from March 16 to March 24, so I’ll only be there for part of it.  The English language website is http://www.fumetto.ch/, and I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.

Then: home, and lots of sleep!

More…

Next, on to chilly Chicago for Limmud, an international Jewish cultural festival, where I
presented a talk on my graphic novel, “Lily Renee, Escape Artist,” and taught a
comics-writing workshop to teens. The only trouble with Limmud is that it’s a one-day
festival and entirely too many good things were crammed into that day, forcing me to
make some tough decisions about which presentations to take in. I decided on one about
secular Jewish music, and one about Jewish demonology, and I wasn’t disappointed –
fascinating stuff that I want to look into much further. And here I am with a talented
young man I met there: Darren Kwiatkowski has illustrated a charming book for younger
readers called “The Book of Roots,” and I predict we’ll be seeing more from him in the
future.

FEAR OF BLOGGING CONTINUES TO GO EVERYWHERE!

First, to Victoria, where I discovered a new (to me) woman artist. The Victoria film
festival put me up at the elegant Empress Hotel, one of the oldest and most famous hotels
in Victoria, and the classiest place I have ever stayed. But right in front of the hotel is a
statue of a middle aged woman in sensible walking shoes, with a monkey perched on her
back. Who was she, I wanted to know. Oh, silly, provincial me! She was Emily Carr
(1871-1945), merely the most famous woman artist in Canada, and now I know about her.
There’s a lovely graphic novel called “Four Pictures by EMILY CARR,” by Nicolas
Debon, and it’s a very nice introduction to her life and work. Then, at my booksigning at
Legends comics, a very kind man named Jon Blair gave me a copy of Emily Carr’s
journals, called “Hundreds and Thousands: the Journals of an Artist.” You can find out
much more and see her paintings here: http://bcheritage.ca/emilycarrhomework/main.htm.
On to the Victoria film festival for a showing of “Wonder Women: the Untold Story of
American Superheroines,” where the lovely volunteers had dressed like superheroines
just for the showing, and here I am with them.
Hey, San Franciscans and Bay Area people: The Womnder Women film will be showing
at the main branch of the San Francisco public library at 5:45 pm on March 19th, and I’ll
be there along with the film maker, Kristi Guevara-Flanagan, to talk about the film
afterwards. Come see it, you won’t be sorry! And it’s free, as are all films at the SF
public library.

FEAR OF BLOGGING GOES EVERYWHERE!

What I did:
Last December I went to the International Women’s History Museum for a screening of
Kristy Guevara-Flannigen’s documentary, Wonder Women! The Untold Story of
American Superheroines.” Yes, it’s about Wonder Woman, but it’s also about the
depiction of women heroes in the media and pop culture, and the empowering of real life
women. And I have the honor of being one of the people in the movie, alongside Lynda
Carter and Gloria Steinem!
Among the many attendees (It was a full house!) was a great group of teenage girls who
belong to a truly empowering club called Girls Inc., and here I am with them, all taller
than me and all superheroine material.
What I’m Doing:
And in less than a week, I’ll be seeing that film again, and discussing it afterwards, in
Victoria, British Columbia, at the Victoria Film Festival. The date is February 6th, at 7
p.m.,and the place is the Vic theater. Here’s a link to the festival website:

http://victoriafilmfestival.com/

And here’s a link to the film website so you can read all about it, and even see a trailer:

http://wonderwomendoc.com/

Earlier that day you can find me signing books at :
LEGENDS COMICS & BOOKS
633 Johnson Street
Victoria BC V8W 1M7
(250) 388 – 3696
And less than a week after that, I’ll be a speaker at the San Francisco Writers Conference,
on February 15th, talking about research, which I have done tons of in the course of
writing my histories of women cartoonists and my hitory of the Golden Age of Chinese
nightclubs in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Forbidden City. Contrary to what they always
say, you don’t have to write about what you know all the time — that can get pretty
boring. But if you want to write about what you don’t know, you gotta research it, and I
know how!
The conference is at the Mark Hopkins hotel, on Mason and California streets, from
February 14th to the 17th, and here’s a link: http://sfwriters.org/
THE NEXT DAY…
I’m off to Chicago, for Limmud Chicago, 2013. Limmud is a Jewish cultural organizatin
that describes itself thusly:
Limmud is an independent, pan-denominational, all-volunteer organization dedicated to
the creation of engaging opportunities to experience and celebrate Jewish learning and
culture.
I couldn’t have said it better! I’ll be giving a talk on Lily Renee, subject of my graphic
novel, “Lily Renee, Escape Artist,” and also teaching a workshop for tweens and teens
on writing comics and graphic novels. The date is February 16th (evening) and February
17th, all day, and the website is: http://limmudchicago.org/
SOOOO…If you’re in Victoria, San Francisco, or Chicago this month, come on by and
say hello.
FEAR OF BLOGGING IS HAPPY…
Because my latest Chicagoland graphic novel, #5 in the series, “The Bark in Space” is
now out, and I hold a copy in my hands. Tyler Page, the illustrator, has outdone himself,
and the book looks better than ever! I’ll be signing copies in Victoria.
And in March: Florida and Swizerland! But I’ll tell you all about that later…