Land of the Midnight Sun

Actually, most of these outdoor photos were only taken around 10pm. I beg your pardon.

But I saw a moose! It was right on the shoulder as we were driving home. And after taking a half-dozen terrible photos I realized my lens was foggy with condensation. Hence they have an ambiguous, Sasquatchy quality to them. But this was totally a moose.

Earlier in the day I visited a library and got a hundred and twenty-odd kids to blow me a raspberry. Then I proceeded to take a bad picture of that as well, but these are totally human children.

Look how pretty Alaska is. That's glacier running down those mountains.

Pretty soon I'll get back to posting some actual art or something.

I Can See Russia From My Hotel

Other things I saw during my run this morning, in chronological order:

–Mountains hemmed in by snowy, languid clouds
–Plants with perfect little clusters of white flowers like they're boutonniere factories or something
–Fuchsia flowers like fireworks
–Violet flowers so intense you could wear them around your neck at a rave
–Mud flats!
–Fishing trawlers!
–Quietly still, heavy water
–Waterfowl!
–Instructions for what to do if I meet a moose
–A small prop plane AND a beautifully refurbished old blue and gold passenger train (slogan suggestion to the Alaskan Board of Tourism: Anchorage–Where the Twentieth Century Comes Alive!)

I had a great morning. This afternoon I have my first library visit, at the Z. J. Loussac branch. Pictures tomorrow.

7-Imp

Mac Barnett and the good ladies at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and I are all talking about Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem today. There's a ton of art over there, including two or three pieces that can't be seen on this blog.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't give you something to look at. This is quite possibly my favorite piece from the book. Click to enlarge.

Citizens of Alaska!

I will be visiting the Anchorage and Seward areas in the coming week, talking about my work, reading, drawing on command, and signing books. Just look at all these events:

Tuesday, July 28th, 2pm at the Z.J. Loussac Public Library.

Wednesday, July 29th, 2pm at the Samson Dimond Branch Library
and 7pm at the Scott & Wesley Gerrish Branch Library.

Thursday, July 30th, 10:30am at the Muldoon Branch Library
and 6:30pm at the Z. J. Joussac Library again for a program aimed at teens and adults.

On Friday I'll be traveling to Seward.

Saturday, August 1st, 2pm, I'll be at the Seward Community Library.

Early Work 2

Another bit of early work, this time a drawing I did when I was three (EDIT: four, actually. I seem to have learned little about basic math since then). Again, presented with editorial comments.
Click to enlarge.

Misc. Department

This is apropos of nothing, but I had lunch at an IKEA the other day–doesn't "elderflower juice-box" sound like a lyric from an early nineties Beck song?

Early Work

Since moving back to Arizona my mom has dropped by some old drawings and stories of mine that she'd kept. I wrote this when I was seven. I present it now with editorial comments.
Click to enlarge.

Doodle

I little digitally painted head from last night, drawn and rendered with my Wacom while I was waiting for my wife to finish something up in another part of the house. I thought I'd been at it a while, but apparently the whole thing took twenty minutes. Which is telling me that I may be over-thinking things in my work as a whole.

Come Along and Ride on a Smektastic Voyage

I mentioned a while back that the paperback edition of The True Meaning of Smekday is out in paperback, and features a new 2-page story that didn't appear in hardcover. Naturally, I wanted to entice people to buy the new edition. But it's been out for a couple months, so I'm now willing to give the new short story away to readers of this blog. I want those people who were kind enough to read Smekday in hardback to read these two pages, so if you know such a person, please send them here.
Click the image to enlarge.