Mike Baehr, Janice Headley and I are headed down Friday for this weekend's Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, and we will be bringing along about 150 comics and books for you to browse and get signed all weekend long by our amazing line-up of attending authors:

Saturday:

11AM Johnny Ryan
12PM Kevin Huizenga & Bob Levin
1PM John Pham & Johnny Ryan
2PM Daniel Clowes & Ted Stearn
3PM Jaime Hernandez & Megan Kelso
4PM Jaime Hernandez & Dame Darcy
5PM From MOME: Jonathan Bennett & Tim Hensley

Sunday: 

11AM Megan Kelso & Kevin Huizenga
12PM Jaime Hernandez & John Pham
1PM Daniel Clowes & Ted Stearn
2PM Dame Darcy
3PM Dame Darcy
4PM Jaime Hernandez & Johnny Ryan

Meanwhile, Jordan Crane, Esther Pearl Watson, Chris Ware (yes, Chris Ware!), and others will also be appearing at the show. How can you miss it? It runs 11 to 7 Saturday and 11 to 6 Sunday. 

Esther Pearl Watson, not the type to sit around twiddling her thumbs while we get her Unlovable book ready for the world, told us about her new multimedia art project when we saw her at Comic-Con, and now it's underway: she and fellow artist Martha Rich are road-tripping across the U.S.A. to interview people about their ideas of beauty, a process they're documenting on their new blog. (Hat tip to the USA Today for the links.)

We're also dying to see Esther's Unlovable video starring Leslie Hall as Tammy Pierce. I mean, come on!

Look for these UNLOVABLE stickers at Comicon... 

 

Opening tonight at Grass Hut in Portland, OR, a show from the artists of Yosemite Studios-- Souther Salazar, Seonna Hong, Mark Todd, Martin Rich, and Esther Pearl Watson.

If you like that Mark Todd "Captain America" piece you have to see the Secret Headquarters show in L.A. where Todd does interpretations of old Marvel comics covers. Awesome work.

Los Angeles PBS station KCET interviews Jaime Hernandez, Esther Pearl Watson & Mark Todd, Johnny Ryan and Carol Lay about their lives as cartoonists in L.A. in a special series of web shorts. (Pictured above: Johnny "Kittycat" Ryan.)

If you're in L.A. this Saturday, TRACK 16 GALLERY is hosting the opening reception of the L.A. WEEKLY BIENNIAL, featuring a four foot flying saucer painting by Esther Pearl Watson, along with a lot of other great stuff.



I was glad to hear about this show because it gives me an excuse to mention Esther on this blog. One of the books I'm most excited about for 2008 is a book collection of Esther's UNLOVABLE minicomics (also seen every month in BUST magazine). I was only peripherally aware of UNLOVABLE until last summer's San Diego Comic-Con, when Jordan Crane pretty much shoved all of Esther's minis at me and told me I had to read them. I was hooked immediately, as was just about everyone else I've forced them on since, and now we're doing the book collection at the end of 2008. UNLOVABLE is an adaptation of a diary of a teenage girl that Watson found some years ago (or so the story goes, anyway). The simple version is that it mines similar adolescent territory as some of, say, Lynda Barry or Lauren Weinstein's comics, but that kind of simplification is a disservice to all three of those exceptional artists, so excuse my laziness. But it is very funny and moving stuff, and it reads better than ever in book form. A lot of the material in the UNLOVABLE minis was presented out of chronological order, focusing on stand-alone scenes more than the longer narrative. The material in the book will be presented in the proper order, and the whole story just gets even better with the additional context.



Anyway, don't forget the art show this weekend if you're in the southland:

"SOME PAINTINGS"
THE THIRD LA WEEKLY BIENNIAL
curated by doug harvey
January 12 - February 16, 2008
Opening reception Saturday, January 12, from 7-11 P.M.