The Years of Magical Thinking

My evolving relationship to the book by Joan Didion, published in The New York Times

Last November my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. A few weeks later her father died. I’ve never before felt the passage of time so acutely as I have of late.

This cartoon essay appeared in the Sunday Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times, and has been published on their website here.

If you missed this in print but would like to have a physical copy of the comic, you can get one by joining my *Almost* Monthly ‘Zine Club. I regularly self-publish new mini-comics and ‘zines and mail them out to members for only $5 a month (or $54 annually, the best value). A slightly reformatted and expanded edition of this cartoon essay will be going out to all subscribers in the month of March.

Cartooning Lessons - Author Visit Assemblies

I have been out speaking to students about comics and graphic novels at quite a few schools lately. Here are some pics from a few recent assembly visits to Holy Child School at Rosemont in Bryn Mawr, PA, Maple Place School in Oceanport, and Indian Hill School in Holmdel.

My assemblies run 45-minutes long, and combine a funny and colorful cartoon-filled slideshow presentation with live drawing and comics-making demonstrations. They are interactive and highly engaging, and appropriate for students in a wide-range of grade levels, from 2nd up through 8th. I charge a very competitive rate, and during a full-day visit, in addition to a series of assemblies, I will also conduct a smaller lunch-time workshop with a class or group of students. I had a blast doing this with twelve amazing students this past week at Indian Hill School. Four kids from each grade were selected to join me for pizza and cartooning. We did some fun doodling and drawing activities, and then all wrote Jam Comics together. It was fantastic!

I have quite a few more school visits lined up in March for Read Across America, but am always interested in speaking to school librarians or educators about setting something up. If you think the children at your school or library might enjoy meeting a graphic novelist, please reach out. In addition to assemblies, we can also arrange hands-on comics-making workshops.

Thanks as always for reading along!

Mike