Artwork coming to a college/university near you?

Huge, incredible news with VIETNAMERICA:  Davidson College has chosen it as this Fall's new student orientation common reading book! It's the first comic selected as their common reads in the program's 20 year history!

"Davidson College is devoted to the life of the mind and the development of the whole person. We believe that one of the best ways to begin your journey here is to read a common book, discuss it during orientation, and apply what you learn to your life at Davidson. We are excited to announce that the common reading selection for New Student Orientation 2012 is Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey by G.B. Tran."

To all the freshman who will be reading, taking notes, and discussing my little graphic memoir:  I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY sorry the pages aren't numbered!

While on the topic of higher education, here's one last peek at illustrations for the upcoming Bedford/St. Martin's college-level writing guide I've been previewing:

The textbook contains plenty more artwork, but best to save the rest for when it's on campus bookstore shelves.

New studio = new work

Here are more pieces from the college textbook project mentioned earlier:

Continuing my studio hopping ways, June begins a summer stint in awesome animator Kneeon's space. Perks include being located a stone's throw from home and SNES lounge with ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGHBORS (but no tv... so cruel!):

Less work commute = more quality time with these lovely ladies:

Zombies LOVE Vietnamese food!

Here's a recent piece for the next Secret Identities anthology for Bao Phi's story about two freedom fighters in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. Between dismembering the undead and liberating labor camp prisoners, they dream of the perfect bowl of pho. Truly a tale after my own heart. Sketch > ink > tones:

Not to jinx it...

... but I'm trying to get back into weekly blog updates.  This week's edition even comes with explanations!

Here are more layouts for a nonfiction book I'm pitching with a collaborator.  I usually don't include page roughs among the sample artwork and just instead provide finished sample pages, but in this case it's crucial that we show how I interpret her source material since there's notable tweaking and editing on my part.  It provides prospective publishers a better idea of our work dynamic since I'm more than just drawing from script.  I'll spill the beans on this project as soon as we start shopping it around.

These are more illustrations for a college writing guide published by Bedford/St. Martin's.  It's an enormous gig containing over 50 pieces ranging from tiny spots to section openers, and I'll continue to post excerpts as the book approaches completion.  This was a blast to work on, and the continual back 'n' forth with the editor, writer, and art directors was a truly collaborative experience.  A really great time, and hope to be doing more projects like this!

Work week in pictures:

Look hard enough and there's a baby in there somewhere.

News from all fronts:

From the "VIETNAMERICA" front, I recently found out it was selected to be part of this year's American Illustration annual!  Quite an honor to be included among such amazing illustrators which you can view alphabetically here.

And from the "work" front, here're some tiny quick spots for a forthcoming college textbook for Bedford/St. Martin's:

And last Wednesday was my final day of occasionally working at Greenpoint's Pencil Factory among some extremely talented folks.  Here are P'Factors of past/present and peeps bidding farewell over doughnut ice cream sandwiches:

Clockwise from top left:  Gavin Potenza, Jesse Ragan, Neil Swaab, Jennifer Heuer, Liz Meyer, Alex Eben Meyer (no relation), Paul Hoppe, Jing Wei, and Dan Cassaro.

And from the last-but-certainly-not-least "personal" front, my latest ongoing life project is coming along quite nice:

As the dust settles from MoCCA...

... I received a bit of news that could only be filed under "Holy sh*t!": VIETNAMERICA was included in TIME Entertainment's recent Top 10 Graphic Memoirs list, which include personal favorites like 2006's FUNHOME and 2008's ALAN'S WAR. Thanks to them for this phenomenal honor to be included among all these amazing works that have inspired me and enriched my life.

As mentioned in the previous post, here's my badge artwork for this year's MoCCA Fest:

Knowing they would only print in black and worn by five types of guests—exhibitors, panelists, press, VIP's, and volunteers—I wanted to create something that was greater than the sum of its parts. Sadly, I don't think many wearers realized each was part of a bigger design and probably were just confused by the weird illustration shape on their respective badges.

The best thing I got during the show were these wonderful original artworks from Mike Roll and Kelly Tierney, fellow illustrators in the trenches who upon finding out I just had a girl, spontaneously made her these adorable gifts!

Leading up to MoCCA, I did a VIETNAMERICA talk and gathered some cartoonist friends for a chat at the A/P/A institute:

Thanks to everyone who joined Jerry Ma, Christine Norrie, myself, and Fred Chao for a fun evening!  Alright, enough pics for now. My new studio mate is ordering me to get back to work:

This weekend:

This weekend is the first of only two comic fests I'll be doing this year: MoCCA. I'll be at table H1 selling my last few special edition copies of VIETNAMERICA and various other ephemera.  Swing by and say hi... and even if you don't and try your best to avoid seeing my work, I created the art for the show badges so there's no escaping the sight of me. Mwahahaha!

Speaking of artwork, here's a recent illustration for the current issue of American Cowboy about the 12 rodeo circuits.  Thanks to art director Eva Young for being open to my lighthearted spin:

Crossing another item off my bucket list:

VIETNAMERICA is nominated in this year's Eisner Comic Industry Award's Best Reality-Based Work category!

For those unfamiliar with the Eisners, they're basically the "Oscars" of comics but with less tuxedos and shorter speeches. Voting is open to creators, editors, publishers, educators, librarians, and retailers here. So to everyone that fits any of those descriptions who's enjoyed VIETNAMERICA and helped it find a home on book shelves, I humbly request you consider voting for it before the ballot deadline of June 4th.

And while I have the attention of the locals, I'd like to mention a free public VIETNAMERICA event on Thursday, April 19th at the APA Institute:

It includes a discussion with fellow awesome cartoonists Christine Norrie, Fred Chao, and Jerry Ma! Additional deets here, and APA requests RSVP-ing at their site or Facebook event page for seating and catering purposes. APA throws great events so I hope to see some familiar faces there!

Staying in practice...