Since U Been Gone

MoCCA Fest

I'm laughing and saying, "Someone kill me now."

I am pictured here in the middle standing by Meghan Hogan of 2D Cloud and tall Sean Lynch during the MoCCA Fest in NYC. Co-tablemates Raighne Hogan and Nic Breutzman not pictured, nor is trusty table-assist Mako Homura. Photo stolen from Shawn Hoke. I couldn't resist the rhyme in the above title.

Speaking of Breutzman and Hogans, if I were in Minneapolis this weekend, I'd go to this. Yearbooks is really something, a fucked-up tense, paranoid vision of high school. I don't get the European spelling of 'colour' but everything else I do.

Buy Ghost Comics!
Ghost Comics is now available at several Minneapolis stores, including Arise! and Big Brain Comics. You can buy it on-line from Magers & Quinn.

Review Round-Up Round 2
Dark Cloud Comin' reviewed at The Comics Reporter. Tom Spurgeon says, "I would suggest paying attention to what Ed Choy Moorman does over the next few years."
And review at High-Low. Rob Clough says, "There are a number of striking images in this comic... Moorman is bursting with ideas, and each successive comic of his I read is better than the last."

I'll be interviewed by the Inkstuds radio show sometime soon... I really recommend this podcast, and am thrilled and confused that this is going to happen, as I have been listening to the eps in which Robin McConnell interviews Jaime Hernandez, Mariko Tamaki, and Ivan Brunetti. Listening to Mariko's interview was especially good to hear as I am working on some comic projects as a writer only, and Skim (drawn by Jillian Tamaki) is a blinding beacon of comic book brilliance. I think graphic novels or indie comics from teams as opposed to just solo creators is making a slow resurgence. Eddie Campbell and Dan Best made a wonderful book called The Amazing Remarkable Monseur Leotard that was also an inspiration to me showing a great team effort.

Europe


I recently visited Vienna and Prague as a mini version of the classic post-college European trip. I stayed with family friends the Reichmeirs and my friend Alex Roche came along for the ride, as I joined her in Prague during her own, longer Eurotrip.

Pictured above is the statue of Jan Hus in Prague's old town square. I was crazy about this thing for probably obvious reasons. Every Czech statue looks pensive, tense, some of them ready to cry. Statues in Vienna are all flexing their muscles in righteous victory or crushing their enemies.

I didn't see the Kafka Museum or anything relating to him, unfortunately. He was a favorite in high school. I strained my foot walking up big cobblestone hills, which hurt my mobility a bit for the rest of the trip.

I was lucky enough to see an Egon Schiele retrospective at the Leopold Museum. Schiele is pictured above, 60 years too early for post-punk.

Schiele is my second favorite painter, after Ben Shahn. Klimt is third, and a number of his works are available to see at the Belvedere in Vienna (including The Kiss, which it turns out has gold and silver plating). Other museums seen and recommended: Momuk (modern, was lucky to see the animations of Maria Lassnig and the Cy Twombly retrospective that gave me a new view of his work) and the Secession (only thing to see then was Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, but it is worth the insanely expensive entrance fee).

Here is Schiele's The Family from 1918, one of his last paintings before he died. It is from Schiele's "Late Classic" period, where everything got calmer and steadier. More subtle. Schiele's wife Edith died of the Spanish flu while pregnant, and Egon died three days later. I couldn't get away from this painting at the Belvedere.

A zine of my drawings and notes from museums there will follow soon.

We also were lucky to see the opera Faust and the Tchaikovsky ballet of Anna Karenina at the Vienna Opera House.

Twitter
You'll see on the left that I just started using this Twitter thing. Kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Zinefest
I will be at the Twin Cities Zinefest on July 11 & 12 at Stevens Square Center for the Arts. I plan to be premiering 2 new zines:
Egon Schiele Draws Butt Hair: A Tiny Travelogue
Friendship Bracelet with Abby Mullen