Oy Vey, as Dan would say. Where have we been you ask? Working! Slaving away at our desks making comics, books, posters, prints. Spring has sprung and I’m in NYC instead of Pittsburgh PA cuz, well, overall there’s cuter girls here and um, oh yeah, we’re putting together the new issue of Comics Comics.

It’s also been a week of Gary Panter events that I couldn’t pass up. First, there was Gary’s exhibition of paintings at the Clementine Gallery that was pretty awesome. Next was a signing at the Strand bookstore with Jonathan Lethem and Gary. It was a packed house and Mr. Lethem dutifully introduced Gary and kind of framed Gary’s work from his point of view, how he discovered it. When the Q&A began I immediately asked Gary about the powerful symbols that he uses in his work, how conscious was he to their assembly, to their arrangement? He said that it’s like channeling, “But not like from Demons or something. Y’know when you meet Demons you gotta greet them like old friends or they get all freaked out and scare you.”

And then the girl with the microphone asked “Next question? Anyone else?” AND NO ONE ELSE raised their hand so I said “I have a follow up,” and grabbed the mic. I couldn’t believe it. The Strand Bookstore. New York City. Packed house. Jonathan Lethem and Gary Panter. And no one is asking either of these two titans any questions. What kind of cow-town is this? Pittsburgh? (and where were all the new york cartoonists ?- there was “no one” there except the usual suspects which on that night was just me and Mark Newgarden)

So I asked them to talk about Omega the Unknown. They obliged but I can’t really remember what they said. Gary told his story about dropping his pages off at Marvel. Jonathan talked about how Marvel was surprised that he didn’t want to do any of the major characters. That was about it. It was cool. More soon.

Labels: Gary Panter, Jonathan Lethem