Monkeybrain Comics publishing my Amsterdam sketchbook! Also, meet me this summer in Spain, France, or New York!

WEDNESDAY JUNE 4 -- Monkeybrain Comics is publishing a 19-page collection of my sketches from Amsterdam!  Life drawings, doodles, and comics, all completed while on the trip, in one clean digital comic file.  If you like process and sketchbooks, I think you'll enjoy this.

Yes, the cover for this digital release is where my new banner for the blog came from! ^_^

Meet me in Spain, France, or New York!
I have quite a bit of travel ahead of me, and I wanted to list it out for any readers who might be interested in a meet-up in one of these cities.  I'll try to go to cafes (and maybe bars) to life draw in each city, and give some warning on Twitter before I do.  If you'd like to join me and chat or draw, I hope you will!

June 6-8 Amiens, FRANCE (I’m a guest at the BD festival, but I’ll be around town in the evenings)
June 9-14 Annecy, FRANCE (I’m attending the Film Festival, but should have lots of free time)
June 28-29 Granada, SPAIN
June 30-July 1 Madrid, SPAIN
July 2-4 Barcelona, SPAIN
July 16-21 New York City, USA

What's new?
I had a really nice mention on the Forbidden Planet blog last week.

I animated a thing I was very happy with.

Recently I've had a flurry of meet-ups with friends and readers in Paris.  It's been really fun!  I met a couple of American backpackers on their gap year in the Tuileries Garden for a picnic and a long talk about traveling in Europe.  A reader living in France introduced me to a fun bar with French slam poetry in Belleville.  My sorority sister Kayla and friend Alyssa are on a big Eurotrip together and we met up for dinner and drinks near the St-Martin Canal.  Author Isabelle Bauthian met me for a drink and a nice talk about language, comics, and American vs French styles of acting.

I was also lucky enough to attend my first two French concerts last month.  Both venues were beautiful, old concert halls with chandeliers and decorated ceilings.  And both had seating for this old fogey!  People stood up near the front, but it was possible to enjoy the show (and my drink) from a seat.
Manu, previously of Dolly, played an intimate show at the Resevoir.  She performed new material (including a song in Japanese off of her new album!!), but also a lot of big hits from Dolly.  I even knew some of them, thanks to Nico introducing me to the band back in January. 
I also got to see Renan Luce in concert at the Trianon.  We got to sit in the center of the balcony.  This show was really fun--Renan's music is playful, and I like trying to follow the stories he's telling.  Check out La Boite if you haven't yet!

I took the B2 DELF exam this month and that was...interesting.  The 2.5 hour written exam felt fine, actually, but the oral exam was terrifying.  We had 30 minutes to read an article and draft an argumentative speech meant to last 10 minutes.  I only had my introduction and bulletpoints for the rest of my speech when we ran out of time and had to go off to our examiners. @__@ I'll find out July 8 whether or not I passed; fingers crossed!

 I went to the Arts & Metiers museum for the first time last week.  It's free every Thursday night!  The museum is dedicated to scientific tools from the 1750s to the present (everything from telescopes to looms to computers).  I love the way the instruments are presented as artwork in addition to their scientific context.  Recommended!

I got to visit another French cartoonist studio in May.  That's such a pleasure for me--I love seeing how people work, especially groups of cartoonists.  It's surprising how much we all have in common!  This studio houses a lot of cartoonists I admire, and I felt a little like I was walking on hallowed ground.  I drew a little but I mostly walked around admiring the space. :)

I got to attend the Paris premiere of Godzilla with Boulet at the Grand REX Theater, and we made reaction comics after. :) On my movie review blog, I posted about 10 new reviews in the last 3 weeks for readers who requested movies for me.

I visited Bois de Vincennes again with some friends for a picnic.  It was PACKED; I couldn't believe it.  My friend Emilie took us back into downtown Paris on foot via La Coulée Verte: a 4.7km long park built on top of an obsolete elevated train track.  VERY pretty and a nice, green break from downtown.

Last but not least, I attended the Other Writers' Group at Shakespeare & Co last night, and that was a great time.  About 20 English-language authors met to share works-in-progress and give each other rigorous constructive feedback.  I couldn't believe the meeting really took place in the picturesque second-story front room over the bookstore.  Well worth the 6 Euros, and I'm sure I'll be back.  Maybe with print-outs of my next comic if I'm feeling brave!

 

He who must not be named

...Guys, proceed with caution. I know you are adults and you can choose for yourself what you do and do not want to expose yourselves to, but...René la Taupe cannot be unseen. This is the 2 Girls 1 Cup of joke songs. It will haunt you.

Anyway, for the brave, here is a LINK.

Nico says it was impossible to escape this song for about 6 months. People set it as their cell ringtone, and it played on the radio, in the grocery store, when you went shopping... x_x I realize that I may be spreading the infection by even making this comic, but...ugh. It's too horrible not to share.
 

We count our dollars on the train to the party

VOYAGE FRANCE week 3

Woof, I'm writing this after a grueling hike to the top of Seyssel's Montagne des Princes (900m elevation).  On Saturday morning I set out with a bunch of parents from the area to pass a test that would allow us to chaperone our kids' school snowshoeing trips this winter.  The test was mostly about finishing the hike in under 2 hours, but we also had to answer emergency scenario questions (in French!) one-on-one with a Department employee, and I felt lucky to get even half of the points on that.  Honestly, I would have gotten a couple of the questions wrong in English!  I hope I'm never the only chaperone on those trips... (0_o)

 

Nice view from the top! Cows jingling their bells by a drinking pond, sprawling landscape, snow-capped Alps in the distance.

My host mom bought a second car for me to use!!!  I am mobile!  I started learning to drive manual transmission cars in August under the tutelage of my friends Cat and Jeremy, since pretty much all cars in France are manual and I knew that driving would be a part of my job.  Currently I'm comfortable enough to run errands alone, but it's still stressful for me every time I get into the driver's seat (not least of all because the roads here are scary.  I don't even want to risk freaking my parents out by describing them).  I stall on every single hill stop.  Ugh.  But by next summer, I want to be a pro!!

I had my first difficult night watching my kids, and it all started with telling a 12-year-old he could NOT play his new video game (Grand Theft Auto 5). (-_-) My two kids had two friends over, and while the girls were getting into trouble upstairs, the boys were locking themselves in the TV room with the video game downstairs.  I had to watch both groups while making dinner and cleaning up after.  It was overwhelming.  I will say, though, that I'm very thankful that in 3 weeks I only JUST had my first difficult night, and it was an abnormal situation.

In happy news, I met another au pair (let's call her "A"?) who lives next door to the one I met last week ("C").  I really like them both, and they were super welcoming to me.  We had a night in and a night out this week and they were both fantastic.  We bonded more than you would imagine over missing Mexican food, and are laying plans to recreate it as best we can between the three of us!  And there's a good chance we'll be in the same French class (starting tomorrow!!).

Annecy nightlife gets my prance of approval.

The way that comics are used/treated in France makes me SO. HAPPY.  My 6-year-old is learning comics terminology in school right now.  Her textbook uses text, images, and comics to teach.  She and her 12-year-old brother both have projects in school where they have to make comics (like, a report, but in comic form!).
Here's a sign at the entrance to the forest near Seyssel:

My host mom made a good point that since there are so many tourists in France who don't speak French, comics are a great communication tool.  If the words don't make sense, the images alone might.  And here's a full page in this week's Elle magazine for Penelope Bagieu and Joann Sfar's new BD, Stars of the Stars:

More photos from this week:

I was proud to introduce my host family to Lorde's Royals this week!  It started playing on the radio a few days later.

MEANWHILE IN PORTLAND: Rose City Comic Con was this weekend!  Check out this aaaaaawesome It Girl cosplay by Ellie, with author Jamie S. Rich: