things since august

It has been a while since I wrote! Paranorman came out, and will be out on DVD soon (November 27th in fact). Anya's Ghost won a Harvey Award for Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers. I did an illustrated book review for the New York Times. I drew a few more dresses. I cut down a giant tree in my backyard and made a bunch of jam. It's raining and cold and Portland's all hunkered down for the winter. I'm super busy at Laika so I don't know how much will be showing up on this blog, but I'll try to pop in and post some drawings as they happen. Stay warm and dry folks!

paranorman is OUT

Tragically this is probably the closest to on-model I've ever drawn him. Paranorman is out August 17th, which is TODAY!!! In North America as well as Iceland, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Netherlands. I saw it last week and am seeing it again tonight (and hopefully even more times after that). I am so so proud to have worked on this movie with the most talented and awesome crew I've ever encountered. Please go see it this weekend with as many of your friends as you can muster! Brave independent animation needs your support! I promise it's way better than Expendables 2.

Reminder that I'll be in LA on Sunday for the Nucleus Paranorman panel!

And another reminder that today is the last day to vote in the Harvey Awards, possibly for Anya's Ghost. The ballot is online here, it's super easy!

Okay, back to refreshing Rotten Tomatoes.

adventure time!

I painted this for the Adventure Time show at Nucleus comin' up on the 18th! It will be for sale at and after the show. I don't sell paintings very often so if you want to own one of my paintings and like Adventure Time, well, you're all set. Also! I will be at Nucleus on the 19th for their Paranorman Artist Panel! Lots of cool dudes who worked on the movie will be there showing art. I'll be bringin' along a couple of storyboard sequences to pitch through, it should be fun! If you are in LA come on down.

Oh man. Paranorman is out in less than 2 weeks. So excited. Have you seen the awesome featurettes on the Weird Wins site? Or seen the amazing Art of Paranorman book? I hope you are half as stoked to see it on opening weekend as I am. That would make you pretty damn stoked.

woohoo!

Man, you can't beat that. This last weekend I had the amazing honor of winning the Will Eisner award for Best Publication for Young Adults (or possibly teens).  Fortunately they gave that one out pretty early so I got to stop being sweaty and miserable and enjoyed the ceremony quite a bit. Seeing so much love and appreciation for the medium (and George R. R. Martin breathing my AIR) was so invigorating, and made me want to run right home and work on my next book! But spending two more days seeing friends and looking at crazy stuff wasn't so bad either. There was a Paranorman panel that was a lot of fun to attend - the press junket for the movie is gearing up and there's all kinds of cool stuff. Mondo posters showing up in different cities, creepy boxes being sent out to bloggers, and maybe my favorite, a site with some behind-the-scenes featurettes focusing on the amazing, strange people who made the movie.  This studio's strength is in its craftsmanship and the amazing individuals making the movies, not a star-studded voice cast (not that that hurts) and it's so nice to see that get some of the spotlight.

Thanks so much for everyone who voted for Anya's Ghost in the Eisners, and the folks who came by the First Second booth to say hi, and everyone who told a friend about the book or asked their library to order it or ever supported it in any way! The comics community fills my heart with joy. Comics fill my heart with joy. YOU fill my heart with joy.

I will leave you with a picture of me and my comic-con boyfriend Robb Stark. Back to work!

comic-con times

It is almost San Diego Comic-Con time! Holy moly. I'll be there Friday through Sunday with a coupla signings at First Second — Booth #1323. Friday at 2pm and Saturday at 10am! Other than that I will be wandering around glassy-eyed and underslept. It's gonna be the best. I'll have almonds in my purse if anyone gets hungry.

come on grab your friends

Who loves Adventure Time? I do. I drew a variant cover for Marceline and the Scream Queens #3, written and drawn by the phenomenal Meredith Gran. I have seen some peeks for this comic, it's fabulous! Issue #1 is out next month, and the one with my cover is out in September. Check it out!

john and jeanyne

I did a watercolor for my good friend Malena's parents. They are super awesome people celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this year, which means they got married in 1972. Which means they were wearing some pretty stylin' duds at their wedding. That suit was actually paisley but there was no way I could pull that off. Congrats again, you guys!

hodor hodor hodor

I like the ASoIAF books a LOT. I've been doing a few doodles of characters as they are in my head, nothin' spoilery really. Not many cute things in the books but man, I cling to them like a liferaft. Also I added some new prints to my shop, you can check those dudes out! Maybe even buy 'em, who knows.

tcaaaaaf

Guys it is almost TCAF time. I am beside myself. I am ALSO beside Jen Wang and Emily Carroll at our table this weekend! (See what I did there.) We're actually in the exact same spot as last year, making us pretty easy to find! Table 105, right next to the info desk. I'll hopefully have my giant Anya banner so you can just keep your eyeballs peeled for that. I can finally sell Anya books this year, so I'll have a bunch of those (hardcover and softcover). I'll also have a bunch of new drawthisdress prints as well as prints of this Anya & Emily painting I did recently. No new minis, sadly, since I am trying to start a new graphic novel and that is a bit distracting! Please come by, Emily and Jen will have some rad stuff and we'll all give you winning smiles and handshakes.

Oh, and on Sunday at 4:15 I am in a Food vs Animals draw-off? Your guess is as good as mine!

things this week

I got some things goin' on this week! Tomorrow (Tuesday) I'll be doing a reading with T. Bak at the Central Branch of the Multnomah County Library at 6:30pm. If you are local stop on by! I'll be talking a bit about my process and will bring along some original comic pages if anybody's into lookin' at that kind of thing. And this weekend is the Stumptown Comics Fest! I'm not tabling, but on Sunday I am on a panel and will have some books for sale at the CLBDF table afterwards. Here is the bluuuurb: 2-2:45: Beyond the Cape: Genre Fiction in Comics

Join moderator Christian Lipski and creators Vera Brosgol, Brian Churilla, Brian Hurtt, Lukas Ketner, Batton Lash, Steve Lieber, Ron Randall, Dylan Meconis, and Brandon Seifert  in a conversation about the other kinds of comics.

Horror, sci-fi, western, romance -- creators talk about the world outside the super-human. Is the ‘mainstream’ expanding to include other genres, or are the smaller publishers growing their audience? What are the publishing options for non-super titles? Is it a worthwhile direction for authors and artists?

And the weekend after THAT (phew!) I'll be in Toronto for TCAF! Delight! More on that soon. Above is a progress picture of a new print I'll be debuting there.