Dark Corners, our latest 4-Square book, along with the new anthology Funny Aminals, will be having a joint mini-tour later in October. Dates will be:

Friday October 16th: Desert Island in NYC (Williamsburg, Bk), 7pm-9pm

Saturday October 17th: Hub Comics in Boston (Union Square, Somerville), 7pm-9pm

Sunday October 18th: Ada Books, Providence RI, 2pm-4pm

And we’re going to be giving away some free gifts with purchase! A copy of the gorgeous tour poster by Ignatz-winning artist Cat Garza will be available with purchase of Funny Aminals, and a limited-edition Dark Corners blank notebook/sketchbook will be given away with each purchase of Dark Corners.

Hope to see you there!!

This is late news here, but I was asked to write about tour, and all I can say is that it was amazing.

Here I am playing in Montreal at the Drawn & Quarterly bookstore. It was a little weird because it was a provincial holiday and it had to be a “quiet” set. Photo by Matt Shane.

This is in Northampton, you can see my good pal and snappy dresser Ben Jones in the background! He showed us his pilot cartoon for Adult Swim and it was hilarious.
Overall, I’d call it a success, I’m almost out of personal copies of my book, met lots of new people, made great trades, and I even saw a moose! I didn’t really get any other photos, so if you have some, send them to me!

Look out, lovelies, I’m coming to your town! Also, if you’re interested in purchasing my new book but you want to avoid having to go somewhere and wear earplugs, that can be arranged right here.

So, this is the first of the last two sets of pictures from the great excursion. Due to the delay since the last post, here’s all of California wrapped up into one nice huge post.

We left Crater Lake and headed South-West towards the California border, trying to get over to the coast to drive Highway 1.

Here’s Joe, photographing the coastline. Driving Highway 1 is an experience, even in a Corolla. It would’ve been nice to give it a go in a sports car, instead of a low-horsepower gas-saver, but worth it either way.

More coast.

Even more.

We rolled into San Francisco at about 10 that night, stopped to get gas, and were immediately accosted by a homeless gentleman who really, really wanted to sell us a jean jacket. We did not need a jean jacket, and therefore declined. We drove around the block to get away from him and then parked the car. As soon as we got out of the car, there he was, still trying to get us to buy his jean jacket. I guess we looked cold.

That first night we met up with our friend Susan. Here’s Susan’s back. She knows Joe Kimpel.

Susan is way too busy and spends way too much time at work, and should stop working so hard. But she’s the coolest EVER,… when she’s not at work. Which is not often. We spent the next couple of days intermittently hanging out with Susan and/or Joe’s cousin Andy, who has the bachelor-paddiest bachelor pad I’ve ever seen. He’s a Burning Man pro from way back, and has a lot of technical know-how from working at Dolby. One year his group made a 1,000-foot runway of lights that would move at the speed of sound while they blasted music from one end to the other. He showed us Burning Man photos on his ultra-projection screen, and took us around the Mission neighborhood, where he lived, to check out some of the local hangouts and restaurants. Andy also got us free tickets to see Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem at an amphitheater a bit south of the city, which was awesome.

Joe and I spent some time driving around the city on our own as well, and wound up here:
Best part was we found a cool CD stop at the end of Haight near the park, where we got 4 used CDs for 7 dollars. Just what we needed, as we had grown tired of pretty much all the music in the car by this point.

This is the kind of car people drive on the highway in San Francisco.

While in the area we headed down into the Silicon Valley area to see my Aunt and our mutual friend, Reda, who knows Joe Kimpel. Reda was an inspiration to us in our Sophomore year of college, because he almost never went to class but still got better grades than everyone else. He’s now programming the iPhone. My Aunt was exceedingly accommodating, and we stayed at her house for a couple days. She had basically an orchard in her back yard, complete with fruit like these:

I forget what they’re called and haven’t seen them anywhere since, but supposedly the make great jelly.

And we went on a hike and found Banana slugs! They’re really big.

After a few days there and a trip back up to Chinatown for a great meal with a $10 Liter of wine, we headed south, along the coast again.

There were hundreds of these guys just laying around one beach we passed.

A couple of the males were sort of fighting. Mostly just leaning on each other and looking tired. Then they’d take a nice long break, until one of them decided he wanted to lean on the other one some more, then they would kind of fight a little bit, then rest again.

Aren’t they just the cutest!

Sunset on the coast. The colors were, again, even more brilliant, but don’t really come through at web resolution.
We made it down to LA, ate some In-N-Out Burger (which was amazing), and met up with Joe’s friend Walt.

Here’s Walt and Eileen at Eileen’s place. Lauren O’Connell, of CCS fame, was also in LA and she came and hung out with us one night. Hi Lauren! She’s not in the picture, but we had a great time, and melted Dots and stuck them to the wall. Walt works at IMax, so we got to see the Transformers movie screened at IMax Headquarters. It was big and loud and I was a little bit dizzy for about a half hour after it was over.

Here’s Walt’s dog Tweety. If you thought the seals were cute, look at this little guy!

Next up, the last round of photos.
Vegas, Colorado, and the whole trip wraps up.

For those of you who haven’t been following, I’m chronicling the course of a cross-country trip I took from August through October with none other than Joe Kimpel. We’ve already been across the country, hitched a boat ride to Alaska, and have just returned to Tacoma, Washington.

From there, we went to Vancouver for a night.

This is the view out of the window of the hostel we were staying in. Looks like a nice, normal street, right? Well, we went out walking a little bit before sunset through the downtown area. We were at the southeast corner of downtown, and walked along the shore up to the big park in the northwest corner before the sun set. Then we wandered in and out of different parts of the downtown, eating and drinking, eventually making it back to the hostel late at night.

When we woke up, here’s what we found:

Yikes! A crackhead broke the window and stole a bunch of stuff out of the car. He stole my contact lenses, my art supplies, Joe’s air mattress, and my old, half-broken, useless cell phone. And half a handle of Jim Beam.

And then he drank a bunch of sodas and left the empty bottles on the floor! Talk about rubbing it in!

Well, it cost 600 PBRs to replace the window, plus the cost of the stolen items (we measured the cost of everything on the trip by the number of PBRs we could have bought for the same amount). We got back to Seattle late, which sucked, because I was supposed to go visit the Fantagraphics office that afternoon and missed the opportunity while the window was being replaced. Then it was back down to Portland, with our friend Kate, who had to make it down there for a wedding.

This is Kate paying for and pumping gas while the two guys stand around and watch. But she’s a track coach, and she could beat us both up, so when she offered to pump the gas we were afraid to argue with her.

So then it was back to Portland to meet up with Brad again. We went out on the town, and even tricked Kate and her husband Jon (both friends from college) into meeting us out at a strip club. They were so uncomfortable! It was great.

We were bouncing around town with Brad and he took us to the sites of one of his several jobs, a party hall by the name of Disjecta.

Here we are on the roof. It’s blurry because we’re all so fast. Don’t be confused by the picture looking like we’re standing still.

And the view from one side of the roof was this:

The famous Burnside skate park.

Our last day in Portland, on our way out of town, we stopped by Dark Horse Comics. Long-time editor and all-around awesome person Diana Schutz showed me around. She was as nice as nice could be. She was also Rich Tommaso’s editor at one point. Small world, right?

Then it was south towards California. We passed a lot of these:

Finally, right before sunset, we made it to our destination for that night, Crater Lake National Park.

We were there to meet fellow CCS alum and park ranger, Ross Studlar. Or as the people at Crater know him, by his radio handle, 4-2-5 Studlar (the u is pronounced oo).

Here’s Ross in uniform. We lived it up at the rangers’ end-of-season campfire the night before, then went out to breakfast the next morning before dropping Ross off at work. See how official he looks! And lest anyone think something looked weird in the picture, Ross did not go somewhere backpack-less, it’s there in the background, stuffed completely full as usual.

Next up: driving the Cali coast highway down to San Francisco.

Why is the Alaska part of our trip split up into 3 parts? Because we were there for 11 days. That’s a lot of days. And we made 3 different stops in 3 different ports, the last port being Dutch Harbor of “Deadliest Catch” fame.

Beautiful, isn’t it? From what I understand, Dutch Harbor is just the major harbor on the Aleutian island of Unalaksa. Yes, Unalaska, Alaska. Is there an Unoregon in Oregon? No. An Unnew Jersey in New Jersey? Actuall, maybe. But anyway, there we were.

The Aleutians were a Japanese target during WWII, which is why the US military built a bunch of defensive installations on the islands. There’s these run-down huts all over the place, in addition to a few now-gunless gun emplacements.

We saw at least 10 different bald eagles while we were there. Unfortunately, the adults were impossible to get close to (maybe fortunately, as they could rip our faces off with their talons). This adolescent was perched down a hillside we were driving on, and the road was sufficiently hidden from his view that we were able to get a few pictures without scaring him off.

If you’ve never seen “Deadliest Catch,” it’s about possibly the most dangerous job in the world: Alaskan King Crab fishing. All their boats are based out of Dutch Harbor. We did some crab fishing ourselves, except we pulled up the crab pots BY HAND. Here’s the spoils.

So then it was back to Tacoma, Washington. Here I am, spotting land. I was an integral part of the voyage.

Should I file this under “C” for can or “E” for empty?

Our arrival. Our dock is on the right, and that’s the impressive Mt. Ranier in the background.

Next Up: Crackheads in Vancouver, driving Rt. 1 on the California coast, and on to San Francisco.

After Anchorage, the next stop was Kodiak Island.

This is a view coming into the harbor.

Ships this large all require a pilot when going in and out of port. A pilot is based in one specific port, and knows it like the back of his hand. They’re experts at the delicate maneuvers involved in docking ships. And the guy we had to bring us into Kodiak landed on the ship in a helicopter the night before. A helicopter landed on the ship. How cool is that.

We went fishing for salmon once we got to Kodiak

The river where we started.

Me looking all ready to fish. Or whatever.

The first spot we went to wasn’t so great, but the 2nd spot was amazing. The river was running so thick with salmon you couldn’t not catch something. We were in the middle of the up-river run of “Pinks.” There were a few of the more desirable “Silvers,” but mostly Pinks. We caught enough to fill two big garbage bags to the point they almost broke they were so heavy.

And then, we got a visitor.

There are signs all over the place telling everyone that, in the case a bear shows up, you should walk quickly to your car and get the hell out. We didn’t do that. We just stood there and stared. Kodiak grizzlies are a sub-species of grizzly bear, known for being much larger than normal grizzlies.

This guy came with a buddy, but the 2nd bear disappeared pretty quickly. This one just went a little bit into the river and started scooping out salmon one after the other, taking one big bite out of the middle of the fish, and discarding the remains. He did this for 8-10 fish, then wandered off. Couldn’t have cared less if we were there or not. Which is good, because I wasn’t in the mood to be eaten.

We brought our bounty of salmon back to the ship for the chefs to cook up for the whole crew. Fresh salmon. Delicious.

Alaska Part 3 coming soon.

We rolled into Portland just in time to make it down to the Oregon State Fair to take in a Heart concert. That’s right, Heart. How awesome is that. Tickets thanks to our friend/host Brad.

That’s Brad! At his house, not the fair. Hi Brad! Brad knows Joe Kimpel.

I thought the show was just going to be a solid piece of 80’s fare but then Ann Wilson had the best voice I’ve ever heard live. That chick can really wail. The fair was a true state fair. I think that sums it up. An overweight, “rural” looking woman told Brad, Joe and I that we all had beautiful eyes. I remember because I was eating deep-fried zucchini at the time.

We had a good time hitting up the bars/microbreweries/etc in Portland. Brad hosted a party Saturday night and built bike parking in his yard with plumbing pipe because people need something to lock their bikes to because everyone in Portland gets everywhere by bike. We also got this free couch from a yard sale the afternoon before the party.

If you look closely, those are Joe’s feet sticking out on the right.

After that it was up to Seattle. We decided to play Hole’s “Rock Star” on repeat the entire time we were driving through Olympia, because a) Courtney Love is batshit nuts (in a good way) and b) because we like to express our general stupidity.

Space Needle! We’re in Seattle.

We stayed with our friends Jon and Kate (they’re married…how messed up is that?). They live in Ballard, right by the Nordic Heritage Museum. We ate a bunch of good food and played a bunch of bad pong. Our collectvie skill levels have decidedly dropped.

The original! With nipples!

Me and Jon carrying groceries back from Pike’s Place market.

Jon and Kate’s two Siamese kittens, Sven and Svia. They were a little sick and hence had diarrhea and horrible, horrible gas. But they’re so cute!

Hermer came to visit. He knows Joe Kimpel.

Jon, Hermer, and Joe’s finger.

Then it was off to Tacoma to catch our boat to Alaska. Boat to Alaska? Yes, boat to Alaska! What!? Stay tuned to find out!

After making it through the Badlands, Wyoming, and up to Helena, Montana that day, we headed North for Glacier National Park the next.

But of course we wound up on the worst highway imaginable. We had to wait for our escort through the construction zone. About 15 miles of uneven dirt and gravel construction zone.

But we finally made it up to the park, albiet later than we had hoped.

Most relaxed dog ever. He was laying right next to a road, and we still had to watch him for a few mintues to make sure he wasn’t dead. But he was just resting.

I always sat watching the news over in the east ignoring all the summer forest fire reports from out west.

The park was absolutely amazing. If you’ve never been to the Rockies, it’s just a very different experience from all the 5000 foot mountains sitting in Vermont. These are much, much bigger. It’s a tad breathtaking.

Waterfall cutting through the rock.

We took a little hike when we got into the park and got great views of a long lake surrounded by wind-swept trees.

The glacier from “Inconvenient Truth.” It’ll be gone in 20 years.

Joe himself.

Just chilling a couple of feet from the edge of a giant cliff.

At the continental divide was a little parking area with some hiking trails out to get the multiple amazing views from both sides of the divide. Some of the most amazing sights were up there.

About halfway up the hiking trail, looking back.

I’m sooooo reflective.

There was a goat eating roots in a cluster of low trees at the top of the trail. It freaked us out. But it didn’t care if we were there or not. It had roots to eat. Then it took half a step towards us so we ran away. But that was nothing, because once we got back down to the parking lot….

That’s our car on the left. A ring of people in SUVs surrounded the goat to get pictures from the safety of their automobiles. We hung out for a while really, really hoping that the ram would attack one of the SUVs. But it didn’t. It just wanted to eat crud that people had dropped in the parking lot throughout the day.

We got out of Glacier as the sun was setting. Just when it got dark, we were following a Jeep on the road out of the park and I saw something bounding across the road. A black bear cut out into the road right behind the Jeep, and I had to slam on the brakes to keep from running my car into the bear. The bear went on it’s way as if nothing happened. The statement “We almost hit a bear” was repeated several hundred times over the next few hours.

We made it all the way to the Eastern part of Oregon that night, and slept a couple hours in a rest stop on the side of the highway. Next Up: Portland and Seattle Part 1.

Hi everyone! Joe Kimpel and I have returned to civilization and here I am, ready to continue posting the pics from the trip. We left off in Chicago, heading out of the city towards Minnesota. The weather was less than nice so we skipped a stop in Madison, Wisconson to continue on to Minneapolis. We forgot to take pictures the entire time we were there. That’s the type of people we are.

But we drove around the city, and hit up Bryant Lake Bowl in Uptown for a beer. The next day we had the ultimate high/low culture day. We started at the renowned Walker Art Center with an amazing exhibit of Picasso and his influence on American art. Then:

The Mall of America (we thought this would be the low-culture bookend, but this was only half way). This mall is insane. After a while Joe and I just looked at each other and said “We have to get the hell out of here.”

So, you may ask, how to you go lower when leaving the Mall of America? Easy!

The South Dakota Corn Palace! It’s a big building with a bunch of corn glued to the outside. In patterns! Corn!

Also:

Kum & Go? Are you serious?

We slept in a rest stop that night and got up early to go see the Badlands.

Cool lookin’ mountains

Joe taking a picture

The “Yellow Mounds.” My favorite part of the park

These guys were all over the place.

The Badlands were definitely a great stop. I highly recommend going if you’re ever in the middle of South Dakota for some reason. After that we hit the famed Wall Drug, and it was off to Mount Rushmore.

View from side of the road where we wouldn’t have to pay to park.

Joe fits in right on the end.

This will explain it better.

Side view.

After that we went to stop by the Crazy Horse monument, but they’re not very far along and it was really expensive, so we just turned around and took off for Wyoming. This is what the car looked like after a day driving through South Dakota:

The picture doesn’t even do justice to the sheer volume of bugs stuck to the bumper.

Next up: Montana and Glacier National Park.