A tragic thing happened to my computer (I spilled some hot tea on it while reading Twilight fanfic, alright) resulting in some unfortunate silence in my corners of the internet over the course of a very exciting fortnight. I will now catch you up with an extraordinarily excitement-dense blog entry.

The first ten pages of Flesh and Bone are going to appear in Best American Comics 2011, guest edited by Alison Bechdel and to be released on October 4 (Saint Francis's feast day, which I like to spend watching Brother Sun, Sister Moon and opening bibles at random for advice) of this year. What! Excitement.

Wallid H. Felding of Underground Brilliance posted a nice little review of Ariadne auf Naxos. He even explained how to pronounce my name.

J. Caleb Mozzocco reviewed Too Dark to See for the Newsarama blog, and Justin Giampaoli reviewed it on 13 Minutes. Both of these reviews are beautiful and thrilling and you should check them out.

I was also interviewed by J. T. Dockery for the Victorian Squares blog. We talked about some of the cultural touchstones that influenced Flesh and Bone, and I cleared up some stuff about the story that was confusing him.

Finally, Too Dark to See has been distributed to my distributors, and you can buy it from them as well as from me. Visit Global Hobo, Miss Valerie Park, and Sparkplug Comic Books for online retail comix thrills.

Too Dark to See is officially released and if you bought it from me online you should get it within a few days. If you didn't, um, the Etsy listing is here, or you can get it at Floating World or Pony Club.

The library reading last week was a success, and was recorded and made available as a podcast. We read from Too Dark to See and Ariadne auf Naxos. Jesse performed such a perfect Graham Faulkner impression that I nearly died on the spot, and I later learned that his excellent Wolverine voice was actually in imitation of the inimitable T. Edward Bak. According to eyewitnesses I was also very funny and said many witty things.

Also the Stumptown Comics Fest happened. Now that it's over I barely know what to do with myself.

"Here in Sleaze City" is my guest Slow Wave comic, which I wrote and drew and Jesse colored. A few minutes after sending this home I got an email which inquired, for coloring purposes, what was the topping on the turnip fries, and this was a question to which I did not know the answer, friends. "I don't know, something disgusting," I promptly responded. "Turnip sauce. Sleazy grease." And then I chuckled to myself about the phrase "sleazy grease" for about ten minutes. That cowboy type talking to Leesa at the club is Father Vivian O'Blivion, obviously. Sleaze cracks me up.

My week so far has been occupied with the satchelful of minutia which needs to be completed in order for me to be totally fucking prepared for the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend. For example, I drew some nice lettering for the cover of Too Dark to See (a mockup of the cover is visible on yonder preorder listing), I made fifty more copies of that book at the IPRC (twenty of which I valiantly collated by hand after forgetting to select the "collate" button), I drew a badly-needed label for my bookplate packaging (customers must be told how many plates are within and how to adhere them), I filled out some contracts, and as always there is still a lot more to do.

Finding The Conversation on Netflix Instant Watch totally made my day.

I finished Too Dark to See on Thursday and made copies of its guts at Fed Ex. You can preorder it from my Etsy store. I'm still working on the cover image, which, when completed, eagles from Forest Park will pluck from my inky fingers and deliver to Dueltone headquarters, whereupon it will be swiftly screen printed, and then my books will be done. Already the cold fingers of lethargy and self-doubt are creeping up my spine. They sense my work ethic slackening. They want to kill me.

Another thing I did this weekend is a guest strip for by buddy Jesse Reklaw of Slow Wave, and you can see it in six days.

Jesse will be reading my comics with me at the Multnomah County Library on April 14, for this event. He kindly offered to accompany our reading on the ukulele, but after reading a few pages of Too Dark to See he pronounced its ideal soundtrack "moody silence." I will also be speaking as part of a panel at this event, so you can anticipate my extemporaneous attempts at humor and completely off-base observations on history and culture to be received with more moody silence.

I'll be sharing a table at this year's Stumptown Comics Fest with François Vigneault. Come see us at table D-14 for copies of my new book, plus teeth and book plates and prints, and more moody silence. Just kidding. Conventions are where I'm a viking.

It's impossible to sustain enthusiasm for a creative project long enough to get the project done. If you want to finish anything you have to go through periods of not liking the project, or not giving a shit about the project, and your commitment to the work you do has to carry you through. A couple of days ago I came out on the other side of one of those periods of antipathy and now I'm completing several pages a day of Too Dark to See and, which is unlike me, I'm so thrilled about this fucking book I'm practically effervescing. Imagine me effervescing.

Today I spent a couple of hours behind the bar at Coffeehouse Northwest where my barista friends let me sketch their espresso machine and counter setup. This resulted in the following three pages of comix, which I like so much I decided to post them online so you can see what's been cramping my hand these days. One, two, three. Then I danced around to a bunch of my favorite songs. Then I drew some more.

Then I got on the god damned internet and read about sixty eight five hundred thousand things that made me feel like nothing I do is ever going to be good enough and I wanted to disappear. Sometimes the internet is completely useless for anything other than harshing mellows and killing boners. I don't even understand what makes my fingers so sticky on the keys.

Today I waded through pouring rain with two of my favorite dudes to drop off three Theodicy prints at the Pony Club Gallery. So if you're scared to shop on the internet (and who isn't?) you can now buy them in Standard Reality.

Last week I got this really sad email from my publisher, Tim, of Teenage Dinosaur. He said he wouldn't be able to publish Ariadne auf Naxos vol. 4 in time for this year's Stumptown Comics Fest. And, I mean, I didn't cry about it, but I was pretty bummed out for about half an hour.

And then I decided to take this opportunity to dedicate myself fully to a longer, more serious comic that I've been shoving to the back burner for about ten months. It's thirty pages long. It's about a man getting raped by a succubus. I bought cover stock for it and started inking it today. God help me, I'm going to finish this son of a bitch in the next month or bust.

Another thing that I did today is spend a few hours printing self-promotional postcards and new notecards for my Etsy store on Ogami Itto. The postcards are green with that broken Catherine Wheel drawing printed in dark brown. They came out awesome.