Guest Speaker: Fairbanks Library Foundation "Alaska Author Night"

I'm humbled at the opportunity to talk at a very important venue, the Noel Wien public library, for a lecture series hosted by the Fairbanks Library Foundation. It'll be this Wednesday, August 19th from 6-7:30pm.Hopefully folks will have a lotta laughs and a little learning (the opposite of in the classroom) with my stand-up sit-down routine. For once it'll stay focused on funnies, no artsy-fartsy, no politics, nor any drugs, sex or violence either. Okay maybe just a hint.

Along with the usual demo stuff, and a portfolio of process pieces + sketchbooks, I'll unearth the archives and see what books I actually have on hand to sell, along with some original artwork and stickers. This'll be after the approximately 45-minute show & tell of one-hundred slides, which I am rather pleased with in that it covers a lot of ground: I'll have samples of work spanning history from highschool and colleges; from New York, to Alaska, to Georgia, to Maine, and back to Alaska; from freelance to commissions, artist residencies, and over fifty cartoons spanning over almost half a century of doodling, and twenty-five years of teaching too. 

While I haven't come out with a new book (aside from a few titles over on the Lulu site) in at least a couple decades, this talk will double as a warm-up/teaser to a big upcoming event in 2028, marking my forty-year anniversary of being in the local paper. And so plans are now afoot to offer a new collection should fill in the big blank from 2008 onwards, and a tshirt, and a few new stickers. That and beat the drum/spread the gospel about the crucial importance of literacy, especially at a critical moment in society, and how comics can inspire a lifelong love of literature. And all this has resurrected a long-simmering plot to shift more energy & attention back to supporting this institution, as it's been a while since holding a gig down at the library.

Something different will be the inclusion of family influences, namely with an opening dedication of this presentation to the memory of my mom. Fittingly enough she was a librarian, and along with the teacher/bookseller dad, indelibly shaped my journey though the pages of my own life story. Or in this instance, comic book.