The International MANGA Award has announced the call for applicants for its 7th year! So spread the word and send your submissions. The application period is from April 15, 2013  to May 31, 2013. Recipients of gold and silver awards will be invited to Japan by the Japan Foundation to attend the award ceremony. Click here for details!
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I recently finished a cool new project, drawing comics and illustrations for HPGRP Gallery’s HIGHLINER! The HIGHLINER is a neighborhood culture guide for the Chelsea & Meatpacking District of New York City. It was interesting to write a short story about characters enjoying the area and to interpret some of the famous local architecture too. It is available for free at HPGRP gallery (529 W 20th St #2w, NYC ) and various shops in the area. So if you see it grab it! Here are some pictures ^_^

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Guess what? I’ll be at the amazing French comics festival in Angoulême again this week with friends at the Scarce table! We’ll be at table # F35 in the alternative bubble. Hope to see you there! Here is our signing schedule:

Fred Harper: Thursday: 10AM to 1 PM Friday: 3-5 PM Saturday: 1-3 PM Sunday: 10 AM to 12
Abby Denson: Thursday: 3-5 PM Friday:5-7PM Saturday: 10AM-1PM Sunday:12AM-2PM
Maxime Garbarini: Thursday: nope Friday: 10AM-1PM Saturday: 5.30-8 PM Sunday: 2-6 PM
Geoffo Panda & JL Mast: Thursday: 5-7 PM Friday: 1-3PM Saturday: 3- 5.30 PM Sunday: 2-6 PM

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My first illustration of the year – it’s my Mom!

Hope everybody had a great 2012! It was a landmark year for me – I got married! Also, it was my year of most travel yet, with a January trip to France for the Angoulême comics festival followed up with a side-trip to Belgium with my cartoonist friend Yuuko Koyama, who came all the way from Japan to join me for the adventure! Then, my book Dolltopia had a Spanish edition come out in May, so I planned a visit to Madrid and Barcelona for the occasion. 2012′s travels wound up with a 2-week honeymoon in Japan. I love to travel (and of course eat the great food on my travels) so lots of these comics are travel oriented. Enjoy!

Cafe de Copain in Shibuya has killer scones!

NYC fave Wafels and Dinges got the comic treatment this year!

The Godiva SWEET party at the NYC Wine and Food Festival was fantastic as usual!

I got to see what all the fuss was about with NYC newcomer Dominique Ansel Bakery!

This comic shares my love for the amazing (and gigantic) cookies at City Cakes!

There are so many lovely sweets and bites to enjoy in Spain!

Illustration of my father and I (as cats) having tapas in a plaza in Madrid.

I visited the Neuhaus flagship shop in NYC. Recommended!

Choice Eats was great as ever!

I had the opportunity to take a chocolate dessert lesson from Francois Payard as part of the New York Culinary Experience!

I visited Belgium for the first time. Loved it!

I got to taste so much lovely cheese in France!

So much lovely cheese…

Happy New Year!

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Matt and I are back from our honeymoon and I’m finally getting some time to start writing about our amazing trip to Japan!  We went for two weeks, visiting Fukuoka, Nara, Osaka, and Tokyo. A highlight of our Tokyo trip was exhibiting in the Artist Alley of Kaigai Manga Festa (seems like their site is being updated now, but here is the official twitter), the first ever international comics show in Japan which was put on in conjunction with the quarterly indie comic event, Comitia! Originally, we were going to exhibit with our friend Yuuko Koyama at Comitia as I had done in the past (full post on that here), but when the Festa was announced we felt we should be there to represent our aspect of American comics. Luckily we were able to get a table and it worked out great!

Comitia and the Kaigai Manga Festa ran for one day, Sunday Nov. 18th from 11am-4pm. It took place at Tokyo Big Sight, a huge convention center that features two giant inverted pyramids as part of the design.

(this is a shot of one of the rooms of the main Comitia floor)

Big Sight is huge, pretty much the equivalent of Javits Center in NY, probably bigger, I’m always impressed with this show because of the sheer quantity of self-published manga artists that participate, far more than would in an American indie comics show.

(semi-aerial shot of the Festa floor, the left side is where talks were happening, Artist Alley was on the right side)

The Festa was located at the entry lobby to Comitia, so the Comitia attendees could see us as they came in and anybody who was particularly interested in international comics could find us easily. That was a major plus of exhibiting there as opposed to being part of Comitia’s main floor, though both are fun! The Festa had also arranged some panels featuring very important and famous manga artists Katsuhiro Otomo and Naoki Urasawa as well as several major European artists. It was an honor to be associated with them and Matt even got to meet Katsuhiro Otomo when he walked by our table! Cool!

I have to admit I didn’t get to look around much at the other tables since we were busy at our table almost the whole time. Our friends from TCAF and ShiftyLook were there as well as Deb Aoki and Erica Friedman, Marvel had a booth too. I was psyched to meet FSc from Singapore, she was exhibiting at the Comitia floor, many thanks to Professor Fusami Ogi for introducing us! I sold nearly all of the copies of Dolltopia I brought as well as several minis. I also had fun trading minis with other artists. Mini comics are so great for trading!

Big Sight is not far from Diver City where the big Gundam statue is, so we had to stop over there for a visit afterward!

A big highlight for us was getting to meet other artists and I got to reunite with Kaneko Atsushi (author of Bambi and Her Pink Gun, Soil, and Wet Moon), who I had met earlier this year at Angoulême. Matt and I had a great time hanging out with him and his editor Yoshi from Comic Beam at the festival guests’ after-party. If I was more literate in Japanese I have a feeling Comic Beam would be my favorite manga magazine (the cover copy bills itself as “a magazine for the comic freaks!”), I’ve got to learn more kanji! The titles Wandering Son and Thermae Romae run in Comic Beam, and you can get those in the US now, so check them out!

All in all, we had a great time, the staff of the Festa (especially Youri Morinaga, Yoko Oikawa, and Simona Stanzani) were amazing and a great help! Many thanks to them, they did a great job. I’ve always wished for a more international show in Japan that we could participate in, and now my wish has come true! We are looking forward to next year!
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Please consider backing The Big Feminist BUT on Kickstarter, it’s a comics anthology about modern women’s–and men’s–attitudes towards feminism. The lineup of artists is amazing and I am honored to have a piece in this book. Please check it out and share! Below is an excerpt from my story!

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Updated  New maps! Lots going on this Fall! Matt Loux and I just got married ^_^  For our honeymoon we will be going to Japan. We will be participating in the Artist Alley (map above – we’ll be at table A-09) of Kaigai Manga Festa, an international comics festival held in conjunction with Comitia at Tokyo Big Site. If you are in Tokyo, please come and say hello! Below is a full map of the Festa.

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I’m thrilled to announce that Matt Loux and I will be exhibiting at the Kaigai Manga Festa in Tokyo on November 18th. It will be part of our honeymoon trip to Japan too ^_^ If you’re in Tokyo, please come by and say hello!

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 Dominique Ansel Bakery  – 189 Spring St, NYC
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