I’ve been wanting to do a calendar for ages. I finally remembered to do it before the new year! (Okay, so next week is November… I barely made it.) Now’s the time to secure a festive Jane’s World wall calendar to decorate your home or office for the new year. Just click here to order: Jane’s World 2010 Calendar
My pal Lex and I were in Tokyo at the same time for “Peanuts” biz a week or so ago. Having endured the long plane flight the day before we decided to walk from the hotel to the licensing office in Tokyo.
Now for any of you who haven’t traveled to Japan you should know that the paper and pen products in Japan are FAR superior to ours here in the states. Even a corner convenient store has stationary treasures to be discovered.
Case in point… A few years ago I was traveling there with Stephan Pastis and we stopped in the Japanese equivalent of a 7-11 store where I picked up a sampling of brush pens. One of which he absconded and now only uses that pen for his comic strip. We pick up several boxes for him every time we go. (Actually, this last trip Asako in our UMKK office was kind enough to order them wholesale.)
Back to my story… So on this last trip, Lex and I are walking to the office and we pass this small stationary store. We were ahead of schedule so we decided to check it out. I found this really cool pencil case and while fumbling around with it, dropped a $5 Japanese coin on the floor which then rolled under a shelving unit. Now, for a $1 or even 50 cents I would have let it go, but being a thrifty cartoonist, $5 was too much to walk away from.
Lex picked up a long plastic ruler and started trying to fish it out… we were both on the floor (looking like American yahoos I’m sure) when this diminutive older Japanese woman proceeded to almost throw us out of the store.
Using basic mime skills and hand gestures I was finally able to communicate what had happened. She left and returned with a big metal ruler which solved our finance problem.
Lex did this funny drawing in tribute (He is the moose and I am Jane):
I get Jane as me, but I was asking Lex, what’s up with the Moose??
Lex said that he came up with SEK during a recent trip to Sweden. He noticed the reindeer and moose motif on lots of Swedish items so he became an avatar for Lex on the trip. His name is SEK because Swedish currency (the kroner) is abbreviated to “SEK.”
It seems that SEK is a international man of mystery–invading stationery shops worldwide.
At approximately 11:00 a.m.
At approximately 3:00 p.m.
At approximately 6:55 p.m.
I spent the week in Tokyo and check it out… I met my eye wear soul mate, Sone (Hi, Sone, Hope you don’t mind that I posted this visual shout out to you!… say hello to all my new pals at Sony.)
Lex and I also made a stop on the Snoopy floor at Kiddy Land. That’s me, awash in Peanuts goodies.
See everyone at APE this weekend. You’ll know me, I’ll be the one who will likely look the most sleep-deprived.
Just a friendly reminder that the coolest comic event all year happens this weekend in San Francisco. I love APE. Small venue, great exhibitors, tons of cool stuff… lots of inspiration to be had for both creators and fans.
I’ll be in booth 340.
The very talented Lark Pien has organized a panel of local cartoonists that will happen early in the day on Saturday. Come check us out.
12:45-1:30 The ABCs and Zs: The SF Bay Area Scene of Comics, Zines, Community, and Everything in Between: The comics and zine scenes based out of the Bay Area are a great example of San Francisco’s long-standing traditions of art and inclusive community. This panel features a variety of active local creators who wear a number of hats in this current scene. All are friends, fans, creators, organizers, promoters and more, each sharing their beginnings, own work and nearby favorites. Panelists include Paige Braddock (Santa Rosa, Jane’s World), Jennifer Yin (San Francisco, Asian Art Museum, coordinator of manga and Tezuka events), Ryan Germick (San Francisco, indy cartoonist, worked on iGoogle’s homepage themes by selected artists), Fran�ois Vigneault (San Francisco, indy cartoonist, coordinated ZineFest for three years), Andrew Farago (San Francisco, curator, Cartoon Art Museum), and moderators Jing Mei Bentley and APE special guest Lark Pien (Oakland, indy cartoonist and artist, Long Tail Kitty). All of these panelists enjoy bringing people and comics together. Find out how they accomplish that at this panel!
When I was in high school and first started using an old school quill pen and dipping ink I had this big mishap. The drawing board was slanted and the genius that I was, I put the ink well on the slanted board. Now, mind you, it wasn’t tilted at a drastic angle… only slightly tilted, but it was enough that when I bumped the ink with my hand the whole bottle spilled right down the board and onto my mom’s nice wool carpet. My parents still has the drafting table. My dad uses it for general correspondence and it still bears the big ink scar down the center of its wood surface.
However, I do learn from my mistakes. Ever since this event, I secure my ink well to the desk top with a nice piece of drafting tape 
This little sketch was done with a 6B pencil on some water color paper. Nice texture, I thought.
The book I illustrated for Hallmark is finally out. I think you can only get it in Hallmark stores though, I haven’t been able to locate through Amazon or elsewhere yet. Here’s a look at the cover
