for the last two years, i've been developing and drawing a new comic called last train to old town. i'm ready to show it to you guys now.

[ read all about it, below the fold ]

terry never thought much of my romantic decisions. i guess really he didn't think they were decisions at all.

[ i know what i know, below the fold ]

i went down to zuccotti park to see the marchers off, to chat with them a bit, to approximate and internalize their faces. this was not, in its conception, to be a terribly unusual use of a morning for me, but the project proved more complex than anticipated.

[ complexities and anticipations projected below the fold ]

[ read the rest of this comic at act now. ]

○ this is my first, and very probably last, political cartoon. it has been carefully crafted to piss off almost everyone i know, from my obamaniac friends to my most reactionary relatives. you can read the whole comic (it's only a little bit longer) and leave me angry rants over at act now.

you're looking at the people's reference librarian. one of them, anyway.

○ within minutes of my initial descent into liberty plaza, where the much-heralded occupation of wall street is now in its fiftieth day, i realized i'd been woefully misled. this was not so much a matter of bias, which, as an oft-obsessive consumer of news, i feel capable of identifying and accounting for. it was instead an utter lack of understanding among the vast majority of those assigned to report on the protest of what it was they were looking at (it doesn't help that many didn't bother to show up before settling in to pontificate). this haziness on the part of our media intermediaries has been widely perceived as a lack of purpose or organization among the occupiers themselves, but the absurdity of this appraisal reveals itself to physical visitors almost immediately.

[ more revealing immediacy, below the fold ]

[ a young man reads naomi klein to his friends on the east steps ]

have you heard about this?

despite the prohibition of amplified sound, the residents of zuccotti park have devised a way to be heard over the drum circles, jazz bands, political debates, and ambient city soundscapes that compete for the plaza's dense sonic space. it works like this: somebody (who can be anybody, because it's that kind of scene) shouts "mic check!"

to which more or less everyone within her sphere of audibility replies, "MIC CHECK!" in something usually very nearly approximating unison.

satisfied that "the people's mic" is functioning properly, the speaker continues with her announcement:

[ hear ye, below the fold ]

i did this illustration for an article about marriage equality in new york state on the act now blog. i also wrote the article. and then i had myself illustrate it. (i pretty much always get me to do my illustrations, primarily because of my extremely reasonable rates.)

[ buy this print. ]

at the age of ten, madison was still drawing.

in and of itself, the fact is oddly significant. by her age, most kids seem already to have identified the visual arts as something they do or don't "do." or perhaps something they do or can't do.

it's a perplexing phenomenon. most of us are pretty mediocre writers, and yet i've never heard somebody say, "oh no, i don't write," or "i only do tweets." to be fair, drawing is less closely associated than writing with one's appeal to potential employers, and so we are allowed, well before the age of employment, not to pursue it.

but i was among that endless stream of heretofore tone-deaf ninth-graders who decided to pick up the guitar (which remains, sixteen years later, one of the great pleasures of my little life). once sedentary college friends found devotion to intramural sports or modern dance. who's ever started drawing in her early twenties? "i only do stick figures," people will assure you.

[ continued below the fold ]

it was my first year attending s.p.x. as a civilian (rather than exhibiting), and i quickly remembered how much i enjoyed festivals, how much more i wanted to be there, back when they were play, before the time was spent worrying about my "career" and the many ways in which i was failing to advance it, before the whole enterprise seemed like something i was doing wrong. to be sure, i missed having a home base, and trading affectionate barbs with my tablemates, and the sense of being part of what all the fuss was about. but i finally had time to roam the floor, to pick up unfamiliar minis and chat with their creators, to be surprised by and excited about comics.

and comics are pretty exciting. if you didn't make it down to bethesda this year, or weren't similarly liberated to wander about, here's a few things you might have missed:

[ read all about all of that, below the fold ]

a few years back, my buddy barack got himself a fancy new house down in the district. i'd been meaning to get down there, have a look around, see where life and ambition had led my old friend since our days of knocking on doors and flyering for community board meetings, but you know how it is. and then last week i was in town on a travel job, put up in a fancy hotel on the hill with a few hours to myself, and figured i ought to have a look around.

[ what there is to see, below the fold ]