17 May 2011

Travel notes

This Saturday evening, I'll be hanging out and signing books at Philadelphia's Locust Moon Comics from 6-9. The co-owner Chris Stevens and I collaborated on a short comic many moons ago, so I'm looking forward to our mini reunion. All you locals c'mon out for some comics and booze!



Over the past several weeks, I've been traveling and exhibiting at a lot of comic festivals trying to get the word out on VIETNAMERICA. It's been an amazing time, but poorly documented because I basically didn't have a camera when anything interesting happened (yet another case to be made for coming out of my technology cave and upgrading to a smart phone?). Thankfully, other people had cameras so here're some random pics...


Portland, when not raining, is absolutely beautiful... even to a jaded, callous city boy like myself.



During Stumptown, I finally got to meet in person Thi Bui, a fellow Vietnamese cartoonist also chronicling her family's refugee experience with comics. No feelings of competition and intense rivalry there; not... one... bit. An interview we did a while back just posted at HYPHEN, and check out the current issue for our little collaborative comic! (True comic nerds might recognize the Ignatz Awards which serve as great bludgeoning weapons. Unfortunately, neither of us can claim any of the prestigious comic trophies in this pic—they all belong to Craig Thompson)


Some sketchbook pages from the road...



My awesome hosts for TCAF were my cousin John, a musician and producer, and his wife Lillian, an animator. Workaholics, both of them!



Cintiq envy:



For pics of all the TCAF exhibitors, check out Jamie Coville's archive. He also recorded a few panels, including the one I participated on—Telling True Stories—which you can listen to here.

With freelance apparel graphics, you never know if your anonymous commercial work ever actually makes it into stores so it's always fun to see one of your designs in the wild on a stranger:


My final dinner in Toronto (animator cousin included free with meal):


And on one of the few days I actually spent at home, Spring finally arrived in the form of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's Cherry Blossom Festival:

2 comments:

Brady said...

Also, Portland has the best beer culture in the country. Totally unrelated to your blog post, but I'm just saying

GB Tran said...

Yeah, Portland's definitely the winner for food and libations among all the travel I did... especially since I was staying with my chef sister-in-law: www.inspiredcookingcoach.com!