Train Life

We survived Prague! After spending our last day carefully packing our things and booking tickets for an early morning train, promising ourselves we’d be good and go to bed early … we promptly went and got drunk at an underground Irish Pub where we stopped when we first arrived.

That was where we got to witness a bar chock-full of mostly Brits singing along heartily to “Country Roads”. We exchanged awkward laughs with a dude from Chicago over the fact that we were in an Irish bar in Prague listening to non-Americans singing along passionately to a song about West Virginia. This is why I love traveling. All about the mish-mash, baby.

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Grumpy as fuck, we still managed to get up and make our train with plenty of time to spare. On our first leg, from Prague > Berlin Spandeau station, we got one of those tiny four seater apartments on the train, which is always fun. Or, it was until a dude wedged his rolly suitcase into our car and locked us into squished positions for the remainder of the ride.

Upon arriving at Spandeau Station, we discovered we had about 30 minutes to get food and get on the next train to Cologne. We split up to get food with hilariously slow results. I chose impractical ingredients for a French picnic - a FULL sized baguette, cheese slices, and fruit snacks from a tiny grocery store. James, for his part, picked the more reasonable to-go hot sandwiches but got stuck with the one worker who didn’t speak a word of English. I got stuck behind an elderly lady checking out who had a lot of questions. But at least she said “Entschuldigung” to me, which is one of the few German words I now recognize. Mental note to make a master list of how to say these phrases in different languages: Hello, Thank you, Please, Sorry.

That’ll get me far, right? I always attempt to speak the language where I am and either they respond to me in English because they’ve seen through my ruse, or worse - they respond to me in that language and then I have to admit I’m an asshat and don’t actually know anything beyond what I said.

Flustered and scrambling to make our train clutching our food, we ended up on the escalator behind an elderly woman moving comically slow. It reminded me of the series of events that immediately followed me renting my first U-Haul van on an icy day in Baltimore, when both an elderly man with a cane AND a woman with a stroller jumped out in front of me on the road. Have you ever been in such a rush that the universe collaborates to throw the slowest pokes in your route? Magical. (Oh — and no one died that moving day. I swear.)

We made the train, and James managed to eat his sandwiches on the platform before it showed up, all throwing his trash away and brushing away crumbs, all spic and span. My dumbass was still holding a full size baguette while winding my way through a hot, overcrowded train. But I was committed now — this was my choice and I was going to follow through with it, g’dammit! This bread is mine!! It’s too late to go back! I ended up squeezing myself in the seat next to an extremely neat, prim German woman. She was nibbling out of a tiny tupperware of carrots brought from home - I, on the other hand, was the monster ripping off pieces of crumbly baguette and horking down cheese before it melted. This monster - this is what I’ve become.

Finally after 8 1/2 hours of train travel, we made it to Cologne!







A Smarter House in Prague

I’ll have a buncha thoughts about Prague (because Prague … FUCK YEAH!) Never been here before! Ignorant as fuck! All I knew about this place going in was “it’s gorgeous and wasn’t blow’d up in any wars”. Cool, I’m in.

BRB, googling the history of the astronomical clock and Franz Ferdinand and all about why this place is so fucking amazing.

One of my favorite initial impressions so far is the “smart house” AirBNB we’re staying in. Among its many fine features (lack of light switches, a leaking shower that results in a deluge of water in the bathroom, aka NOT where to dry your hair) there is a giant glass cube that houses the toilet and the shower. You get to CHOOSE (yes, it’s your choice) whether you want to be seen or not seen when you’re washing your private bits and/or taking a shits.

I don’t know about y’all but I was raised as a repressed Catholic who never, EVERRRR went to the bathroom with the door open and just dealing with dear friends who are cool with that has been a struggle. Plus I live with a man who’s fine with all open doors all the time all bodily fluids. And thank god for that because now, here, when the automatic smart house curtain sllloooowly rolls back as I’m pooping, I know my husband delights in the hilariousness of it, and not my deep ingrained shame.

Plus this happened:

We hit the button for “intimate bedroom lighting” on the smart panel because duh, and the bedroom lights dimmed, but yet somehow the bedroom curtains FLEW OPEN, which resulted in my husband, butt ass naked, jumping behind the totally transparent bathroom cube, hand over his junk, as I hit all the wrong buttons to reverse the situation. Maybe in Prague it’s all about the voyeurist in us? I’m not judging. We were just in Amsterdam.

I laughed about this for long enough that he laughed about it.

Reporting in from Berlin!

I miss blogs! This is going to be some random stream of consciousness bullshit.

The hubs and I just got to the second leg of our wintry European tour - the crispy cold, foggy geometric landscape of Berlin! We arrived last night after a fun train ride from Amsterdam where the announcers changed which connecting trains we needed to take five times. All while telling us the corrections in Dutch, German, and English which was quite impressive and took a while. Luckily we skittered over to the right connecting train (along with everyone else who was going to Berlin) in the nick of time and managed not to knock over anything important with our backpacks in the stuffy, sleek train compartment. I wish I could say the same for the man putting on his coat and knocking the flower vase and coffee cups off his breakfast table in Amsterdam the morning we left - his wife and kids laughed at him out onto the street. The STREET. The indignity.

James disappeared to the cafe car and returned with a beautiful sight - tiny bottle of wine and focaccia with pears and cheese melted into it. All I’ve been eating here is some form of bread and cheese and I could not be happier (though my pants probably want a break). Does it balance out with all the walking? Yeahhhh … no.

Berlin experiences!

  • I can’t for the life of me retain or speak German, and when I try it’s with absolute fear

  • Gluhwein is mulled wine and it is fucking delicious

  • We have robot blinds in our AirBNB that don’t recognize us as their master

  • The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is one of the best art installations and experiences I’ve ever seen

  • Trying to navigate a washer/dryer in a foreign country is hilarious - and by hilarious I mean insanely frustrating

  • I was expecting to see a lot of epic winged black eyeliner and big black boots in Berlin, and I have not been disappointed

Local Times and Sportscar Designs

Hi guys, it's me! What have you been up to this summer?

After running around to different states the last couple of weekends (Boston 2 weeks ago, California 1 week ago), I'm finally here to stay! So here are some of the (exciting) things happening that I get to tackle now that I've got the whole rest of the local year ahead of me ...

  • My next graphic novel (written/drawn by me and published by Oni Press) is ALL DRAWN! Now it just needs to be scanned, sent and VAMOOSH you guys will be seeing it soon! Can't wait!!
  • My comic 4 States 2 Months, which you may/may not have been following in its sporadic spot on my website, is now almost complete and will be available in print at this year's SPX!
  • Speaking of SPX, I will be there this year but FIRST I will be at Baltimore Comic Con at Table A-234!
  • And . . . oh right, I've got a wedding to finish planning! Expect some possibly-complainy blog posts about that to come.

As far as my trips went, my fiancee and I checked out Monterey Car Week for a few days (total lifelong dream of his to be basked in hot cars and foggy, perfect weather) this past weekend. Not being a car person myself - I see my car as IT BETTER LAST FOREVER rather than a stunning piece of engineering equipment - I was surprised at how enjoyable it could be for a spectator. I mean, yes, most of the car "shows" took place on gorgeous Carmel Valley golf courses, on breezy/sunny days, where all you do is walk around with your solo cup of wine and peer at the most beautiful vintage sports cars you'll ever see - so really, what's not to enjoy. My favorite part was seeing the crowd of fans - a perfect blend of fancy European men in tailored suits and old, chubby white men who dress like my dad. I overheard a lot of important conversations, but the people who really knew what they were doing were the wives who brought pop-up picnic tables stocked with wine, cheese, and camped out behind their husbands' cars for the duration. I was more than a little jealous of these women.

One of the things that fascinated me the most was the combination of colors and textures people chose for the exteriors/interiors of their car. So while my fiancee was snapping off engine pics and getting the full car in the frame, I was focused on all of these lovely combos:

Oh, but then I couldn't help but take a picture of this little guy too:

I love when form and function are considered and put together in such a fun way. You sportscar fans out there can have all the horsepower and torque you want, but throw in a good deep orange and some houndstooth pattern and I'm sold.

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West Coast Signings - THIS Weekend!

It's West Coast Whirlwind Weekend Time! This weekend I have TWO signings coming up on the west coast:

I can't wait - I may never leave. I'll be signing books, drawing sketches, and I'll have prints and original art with me to browse through. Come visit and say hello!

(psst - and if you say the magic word - aka QUELLISH - get a free sketch of your choice!)

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4 States 2 Months

Whew!

2 weekends of 2 back-to-back local comic conventions are over! They were SUCH a blast. Attending SPX this past weekend was a total whirlwind of emotions. SPX was the first show I ever attended (in 2001) and exhibited at (in 2002, back when I was just giving out free stickers and telling people to look at my website - webcomic marketing at its finest!). Since SPX was a regular trek for me every year and held conveniently close to my home, it's always held a squishy, warm place in my heart. Many of the connections and friends I've made over the years have been due to those close quarters in the old hotel conference rooms, the hotel bar, the hunt for restaurants that would take 20 people, the chocolate fountain.

However, the last couple of years I've missed out on tabling for various reasons, so I was starting to feel disconnected from this show that had really kicked off my involvement in comics. So THIS year, with table-aggedon (i.e. the enthusiasm with which all of us exhibitors broke the SPX online registration system) I was convinced I would yet again be relegated to showing up an hour before the end of the show and trying to worm my way into some friends' dinner plans. Luckily the wizards at SPX Headquarters managed to get me a table, and I had the joy of participating in a MUCH bigger, happier, and more packed SPX than I've seen . . . well, ever. I've read a bunch of other recap posts about how the enthusiasm and the attendees were the biggest attractions of the show and I agree - you guys all made me love and appreciate and get excited about comics all over again! I mean, I'm already obsessed with comics and stuff, but injections of inspiration are never ignored!

So anyway. Just a brief love letter to SPX 2013 and now I'm on to other THINGS! For one, you may have noticed that since Book 3 wrapped up, Gods & Undergrads hasn't been having many (any) updates. It'll be on a hiatus for a little bit, so's I can make actual progress on this Oni book and catch up on other things. But since I AM obsessed with comics, while I was on several road trips this summer I thought it might be fun to take down some notes and compile a little travel journal comic about my experiences (Lucy Knisley-style). So while Gods & Undergrads is taking a snoozer, I present to you 4 States, 2 Months, a webcomic updated Wednesdays starting October 2nd! Weee! Happy Fall, everyone. :)

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