MoCCA Approaches, Along With New Comics

Dear Readers! I apologize. A cursory glance at what’s up on this blog fails to really capture what’s been going on in my life this semester. I’ve been working hard to create new comics, which I will be selling in New York at MoCCA Fest in April. Mostly I’ve been drawing comics about kids jumping through the air on skis, and I’ll soon post pages from that on The Cartoon Picayune. But I’ve also repackaged that short comic about cheese into the handsome $1 mini you see below. Yes, they all actually have a hand-cut window on the cover.

In short, there’ll be more from me soon, that I promise you. In the meantime, here are some pictures from when I was Montreal recently with my girlfriend.

Press Roundup, an Announcement, and Some Pictures

So, because I said there would be, here are some pictures from my trip to Thistle Hill farms earlier this month. Compare the comic to “the real thing,” if you dare. See all the pictures larger at my flickr.

Also, this week has kind of been absurd in terms of the outside exposure I’ve been getting. Some of it is kind of bizarre, but all of it is pleasant, so here’s the rundown:

1. Last Saturday, local talk radio station WNTK. aired an interview with me and Beth talking about CCS. If you’re here, you will probably be surprised if you look and see some of the syndicated shows that this station plays, but on weekends a very nice woman does a local show called Twin State Journal and we were on it. I never heard it, and there is no link, but supposedly it went well.

2. On Sunday, an article about me was on the front page of the Rutland Herald! It was the last article by Dan Barlow, who helps run the excellent Trees & Hills Comics Group (website’s not working so here’s the facebook group). The article came out great.

3. At some point this week, the Harry and Potters Sleep Over Show came online, and I’m in it with Beth, Pat, Ben and my friend Zach. You’re just gonna have to watch that. I’m not mentioned by name here, but these guys RULE hard enough to tour Scandinavia, so I thought it was worth putting here.

4. And yesterday Culture Magazine, which is THE cheese periodical, reposted my cheese story from last week. Sweet, right?

Oh, and I’m not making a big deal out of this yet, but I’m launching a journalistic comics zine, and you can sign up on the super-awesome-early-adopter mailing list at cartoonpicayune.com.

Time to get back to work! More pictures below.

One Place, One Cheese

If there are two things that I love, they are comics and cheese. I’m starting into my senior thesis in earnest now, and I’m looking around for things to report on. This summer I discovered that a cheese I had been selling for years, Tarentaise, is made only twenty-five minutes from where I live now in Vermont. I went there recently, just as the leaves were turning, and was blown away by the beauty of the place. Cheese people will value the significance of this fact: their aging room is amazing — zero ammonia or harsh smells. Here’s a piece I did based on my trip. It will be published later in a To Be Announced volume. Click on the pages to see them larger.

Don’t worry, they’re not all gonna be this dense. Next week, pictures from the farm!

Much More Cowgirl

As my summer working for Cowgirl Creamery in the ferry building full time draws to a close, I very much have cheese on the brain. Here’s another strip I did for the newsletter:

I have done more just sell cheese recently, and I invite you to peruse my most recently uploaded pictures on flickr. However, it seems to appropriate to regale you with just how deep I’ve ventured down the Cowgirl rabbit hole. We recently had a potluck where each ‘monger cooked a dish involving one of our cheeses. Not so surprisingly, people who love cheese so much tend to love to cook also and there were some real slam dunks. Hits include a Humboldt Fog cheesecake, homemade Capricious sausage, and if I do say so myself, my Mountaineer gratin:

If that doesn’t make your mouth water, then I’m truly sorry. I also recently took my boss Debra up on her offer to see Petaluma and Point Reyes. These are the towns in Marin County, north of the city, where our cheeses are made. I have been hearing about our two creameries and our warehouse since I first started working in the DC store in fall 2006, so it was really satisfying to see how things work up close.

Of course I’m “havin’ a ball” here, and I can’t wait for a certain someone to arrive so we can go on our trip south, but soon enough I’ll be back on the east coast, and in September I’ll be back in Vermont.

Cowgirl Creamery Comic Strips

Well, I’m nearly half into my summer stint here at Cowgirl Creamery. Once word got ’round that I’m in ‘toon academy, I was invited to create a comic strip for our staff newsletter. I jumped at the opportunity, not only because of the uninhibited esoteric cheese jokes, but also because many, many cartoonists have greatly improved through a regular gig. Here’s the first one, to be “published” this Sat. when we get our paychecks. (Click to get it bigger.)

So yeah, these proved to be easy, fun, and — most importantly — fast. This second one was done specifically for Cowgirl’s montly e-newsletter (circ. 6000), and it came out way smaller than I would have liked (scroll to the bottom). There’s also a fairly silly profile of yours truly. As fun as these are, they are most certainly not what I’m usually into, and I’ve been working hard in the ink-only sketchbook, especially with the brush. More of that to come.

I Still Love Food!

To new readers of this blog, it might appear like I am only interested in comics. But lo ho ho dear reader! This summer I return to one of my passions — selling cheese! I can hear you snickering from here, but it’s true! I’ll be working for at least two months in the Cowgirl Creamery shop located in San Fransisco’s Ferry Building. I’ve only been to California once, so I’m really excited to live there for a little while and “soak up the sun” as pop poet laureate Crow has said. Anyway, I found out yesterday and it was snowing for real again here, so I celebrated with this hearty meal:

Nothing fancy, but extremely delicious nonetheless. Harpoon beer, good tomato soup, good olives, and a fantastic grilled cheese. (Also note my mental meal: Adrian Tomine cover of The NYer and Bone in one volume on the left-hand side.) For grilled cheese, bread is important, and so is butter (Vermont Butter and Cheese Co. butter is the obvious choice), but it’s all about the cheese. When you’re melting cheeses, it’s important to take texture and melting temperature into account as well as flavor when choosing. For instance, I love Parmesan, but it takes forever to melt and it usually doesn’t melt completely.

My ideal cheeses for grilled cheese are “semi-soft” cheeses: good up to the rind, they have some give when you press them, and well, they melt beautifully. In my mind, the first cheese I think of in this category is Appalachian, made down in VA. Anyway, this sandwhich had two of these cheeses, but the one I can remember the name of is Dorset, a local washed-rind cheese that’s new to me but that I like very much. Also, see that green spot in the soup? I have to thank Pat and Caitlin for their tip about making ice cubes of cilantro — super useful.