*NEW YORK CITY/PHILLY WRAP-UP..
Had a marvelous time hitting the east coast for the AAN Convention and MoCCA Festival. Always a pleasure hooking up with folks like Mike LaRiccia, Pete Friedrich, Hilary Price and my infamous gang of radicals, the Cartoonists with Attitude.

One of the coolest things I did and one of my cheap-ass moves of the week was to take the Chinatown bus from NYC to Philly. Have you ever taken one of these things?It takes you from one Chinatown to the other. $20 round trip. 2 hours. Clean. Efficient. Excellent. I recommend it over Greyhound, Amtrak, and all the others alternatives. They also do Boston, D.C. and a lot more. http://www.apexbus.com

I made some nice connections at AAN, which is the yearly Alternative Newsweekly Convention. I think I'll be picking up at least a coupla papers in the near future, including one in Vermont and Washington D.C.

One more cheap-ass move: If you're gonna take money from an ATM, and your bank 's ATMs are nowhere to be found, use the Chinese or Korean bank ATMs. The Bank of America surcharge for using their ATMs is $2.00. The Chinese bank that I used: .50c!!

*SPEAKING OF WASHINGTON D.C...
I cannot overstate how important it is for me to have my daily strip, "the Knight Life", secure a permanent place in the Washington Post. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go by their website and say something nice about the strip:

http://comicsurvey.washpost.com/survey.cfm

Another important paper testing the strip is in Raleigh, NC.:
http://share.triangle.com/node/3528?page=63

Also, the Orange County Register is taking a survey about what they should add to their paper:

http://ocregister.upickem.net/engine/ApprovedSubmissions.aspx?contestid=1864

*MY CARTOON ART MUSEUM ART SHOW OPENS THIS WEEK..
..though I won't be there. I'm gonna try to come up for a late opening event in August. I gots ta wait for the little one to arrive, and the big book, too.

For more info: http://www.cartoonart.org

*CARTOONING WORKSHOP AT THE HAMMER MUSEUM..
I'll be conducting a cartooning workshop at one of L.A.'s swankiest museums, courtesy of 826LA, in July. It's open to kids, aged 8 to 12. For more info, go to

http://www.826la.org/workshops/


*HOW SWEET IT IS..
..to be a Boston sports fan. Sure, the Pats blew it, but they've tasted victory in the past few years already. Congrats to the Boston Celtics for hoisting for the first time in decades.

A coupla things:
*The Celts were always known as the white guy team. Not anymore. Wonder how the Townies feel about that
*I went to high school with the black dude sitting behind the Boston bench (Mr. Ellen Pompeo).

Labels: 826la, boston celtics, cheap-ass, Knight Life daily, MoCCA, New York, Philadelphia

 
*I'M SITTING IN LAX AT THE MOMENT...
...watching minor celebrities walk by.

This pee-wee see-leb is on his way to New York and Philadelphia, for the Mocca Comics Fest and the AAN alternative weekly newspaper convention.

I hope folks can make it to the Puck Building this weekend, June 7/8 for one of the country's finest Indie comix fests. I'll have the new K chronicles collection in tow, some other books, bags, and original art, and a preview copy of my 500 page collection from Dark Horse (this sucka is HUGE!!)

Remember: Puck Building, NYC, this weekend!!

Lots more to come!!

Labels: MoCCA, NYC, the new K Chronicles collection

 
*MOCCA CHOCOLATTA YA-YA WRAP-UP..
Ahhh, MOCCA. Does it ever really matter that I don't sell as much stuff here as I do at SPX, APE, Wondercon or San Diego? It's New York fer chrissakes!! It's about the connections, the experiences, the people!!

I had a great time stayin' in Queens at Marginal Prophets producer Jamie Lemoine and wonderful wife Dearbhla's lovely Jackson Heights estate. A great neighborhood for Indian food and the walk to the Roosevelt Ave. subway totally reminds me of London.

Thanks to AOL/Black Voices and my former Africana editor Ken Gibbs fer gettin' me into a Smirnoff sponsored afterwork party last thursday. It was smokin' with free food, open bar and great deejays including Pete Rock. Things got even better after my sunglasses fell into the toilet.

Hung with K Chronicles coolection ( I met to spell it like that!) graphic designer Pete Friedrich at the amazing Top Shelf ten year anniversary party. Although I just missed the shrimp, open bar was to be had and all the dolmas I could eat. It was in this super-smooth bar called G-Staad, Once open-bar was done , I heard some drinks clocked in at $15. I was outta there long before that happened.

But before I left, I got to meet big-time indie rapper/producer MF Grimm, who was at the Vertigo booth at MoCCa promoting an upcoming graphic novel based on his life. And quite a life it has been.

My slideshow on saturday went super groovy. People laffed when they were supposed to. And the MoCCA staff did a great job running it..Kudos to them. And a shout out to Calvin Reid from Publishers Weekly for attending the event.

The coolest thing that went down in New York was I got "peoped"!! What is getting "peoped"?, you ask. It's this way cool portrait/interview done by great New York artist/cartoonist Fly. It comes out like this.

Fly encapsulates everything that I think is great about New York City. I hope to be part of her next collection of Peops. If any publishers are interested, give her a shout out.

Actually, MoCCA this year was all about the females. Along with Fly were recent Rueben award winner Hilary Price, Every award under the sun winner Alison Bechdel, the hilarious tooners Rina Piccolo & Julia Wertz, fellow CWA-er Mikhaela Reid and the world's youngest professional cartoonist, 7 year old Alexa Kitchen .

In conclusion, New York rocked, despite low sales. Shout outs to L.A. homies Rob and Georgene, fellow eMPee Chernobyl Def Gee, Now Jersey rez Kaffy P, fellow CWA-ers Masheka Wood and
Brian McFadden, and everyone else who came by the table to say hello...

*HEY..THAT "THIS IS DEDICATED TO THAT ONE BLACK KID" K CHRONICLES STRIP HAS REALLY TOUCHED A LOTTA FOLK..

Wow. You gotta check out all the letters to Salon about it. Here.

Some letters of the week..

Keith,

I liked the K Chronicles comic from the other day, the one "dedicated to the
black kid." You are the ballsiest cartoonist I've ever read.

-N.
-------------------------------------------------------
This one white kid...

...thinks that was one of your best ever - GREAT
cartoon, man!

C.

--------------------------------------------------------

Good afternoon, Mr. Knight.

I am an recreational reader of Salon and have come across your very imaginative and amusing work for a bit. But for some reason, today I delved deeper and checked out your website - bio, etc.

Fascinating.

I am a Black female, more Creole-ish than African-ish, a writer, pr person and great appreciator of most things articstic.

It is in this spirit that I was moved to take a few moments from my workday to type these words to you.

May you know success and no bill collectors ringing your phone, but may you not suffer the slings and arrows of Aaron McGruder and Dave Chappelle. No one should really have to suffer for his art.

You've done well for a department store Jacko.

Pax vobiscum.

K.
Chicago

*OH, A COUPLA MORE THINGS..
I did a K Chronicles comic about being cheap and one of the things I put in there was to pour cheap vodka through a Britta filter to make it better vodka. Some folks didn't believe it, but the results are right here.

Yikes! I just got word from the C-Ville Weekly that they're down-sizing and (th)ink is on the chopping block. Next week will be the last one. If you are in the area, send letters and emails to the editor, but wait til it ain't there anymore.

Labels: Cartoonists with Attitude, female cartoonists, Marginal Prophets, MoCCA, New York