*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

 
*GREETINGS FROM THE WORLD'S WORST BLOGGER...
So I'm still trying to find out when my new daily, the Knight Life, will be launching in the Washington Post and the Boston Herald. I'll post it as soon as I find out.

Meanwhilst, it has started in the Detroit News and will be launching in Albany, New York, where I gave the worst interview of my life. I kept on talking about Detroit, then I realized two-thirds of the way through that I was talking to a reporter from Albany.

Wanna get away?

The posters are slugging it out on the Sacramento Bee's forum about the strip. If you want to put in a good word, head on over to the site by clicking here.

*I'LL BE IN SANTA ROSA AND SAN FRANCISCO THIS WEEKEND!!
Doing the artist in residence thing at the great Schulz Museum on Sunday May 18th from 1-3pm. I'll be drawing and signing copies of my new K Chronicles collection, I Left My Arse in San Francisco.

My Arse will be in San Francisco, Tuesday May 20th at Intersection for the Arts. It'll be a graphic novel panel sponsored by the JCCSF and will feature Miriam Libicki, Ariel Schrag, Jaime Cortez and yours truly. Slideshow and panel starts at 7pm.

Attend both and win a prize!!

*LETTERS/EMAILS OF THE WEEK..

When I flipped to the comic section this morning I
nearly flipped out in surprise. They are test-running
your strip in our paper!

I've followed your strip on Salon, bought all the
K-Chronicle books and am gearing up to get the latest
one. I sincerely hope your new strip will catch on
with the readership... tho fearfully I suspect
Sacramentans are "Garfield" people. But I went
straight to the paper's web forums to post my props,
and saw a whole bunch of others voting "yes" for
Knight Life in 08! Here's hoping!

Also, congrats on the Solo Show @ Cartoon Art. Totally
swinging down there in June to support your work.

L. aka C.

Hi Keef,

I am stoked to open my Sac Bee and see you in the pages. Congratulations! I wore my Keef on the Throne t-shirt today as a sign of support, and I will tell the Bee that this is the most brilliant strip I have ever read and will cancel my subscription if they don't pick you up for good -- even if you left SF for LA.

It's got to be tough to break into the daily paper. Some of your work that are my favorites deal with some of the less than family friendly topics. But don't forget the politics. And we love our babies; do you have your own little diaper soiler yet?

Best of luck to you, and hoping to see you every day,

m.

K,

"Once upon a time in the play ground"

You should win a Pulitzer Prize for that one!
I am behind the curve, I should have said these years ago!

Much Love for what you do,

A.

(going waaay back for that one. before the war started.-kk)

Keef,
I've been a fan of yours for some time, reading your work on
Salon.com. When I saw "The Knight Life" in the pull-down on
comics.com, I was expecting... well, some sort of midieval
Wizard-of-Id thing. Figured I'd check it out. Didn't even have to
see the byline to know that I would now be seeing daily goodness from
you.

(Adds to bookmarks)

I must admit, though, that I am DYING to see how far you push the rules of
syndication.

Rock on, man.

--C.

(i'm dying to see how far I can push it, too.-kk)

Labels: cheap-ass, email of the week, I left my Arse in San Francisco, intersection for the arts, letters of the week, Schulz museum

 
*EXTRA!! EXTRA!!
Just got word that I'll be having a solo exhibit of my work at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco (woo hoo!!) from June- October of this year!!

Haven't worked out all the details, but it looks like approx. 40 pieces will adorn the walls in the back gallery California artist section.

The exhibit will include the K Chronicles, (th)ink, my MAD magazine work, my sports strip from ESPN the magazine, and a few choice strips from my new daily comic, the Knight Life!!

*THE KNIGHT LIFE LAUNCHES!!
Thanks for all the well-wishes concerning the launch of my new daily strip. They want to hear feedback in the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Sacramento Bee, so please send positive emails telling them to keep it.

My evil twin sis sent contact info for the Seattle Paper:
TEST COMICS: We're running a month's worth of two new comics. Please e-mail us your
thoughts at picomics@seattlepi.com.

The Boston Herald hasn't started running it yet. I'll let you know when it does. Also, it recently got picked up in Denver, Albany , NY., and Provo, UT. Look for it to start up in those locations soon.

If you work for a paper, and you're interested in adding the new strip, contact me at syndication@knightlifecomic.com.

And the new website: http://www.knightlifecomic.com

*CHEAP-ASS MOVE OF THE WEEK..
We're shopping for Baby stuff for the upcoming arrival of "He-Who Cannot-Be-Named", and we've found that craigslist is ideal for picking up inexpensive, uppity baby stuff fer cheap.

The key is to limit your search to all the rich sections of town. We've found some incredible deals if we search for stuff in Santa Monica, Brentwood ..and all the other uppity places in L.A.

*WHAT IS UP WITH SOME OF THESE (TH)INK READERS?
I recently did a (th)ink for Earth Day where the Moon, looking like a doctor, tells the Earth that it is infested with "destructive parasites"...

I don't know if someone whined about it on talk radio, but I got a few emails of folks who were extremely bent out of shape. Here's a sample:

"What about all the doctors, musicians, artists, engineers, pilots, taxi drivers, teachers, mail carriers, fire-fighters..just parasites?

I'm a hard-working, honest citizen trying to earn a decent living for my family. I don't like being thought of as a destructive parasite. Should I tell my children they are destructive parasites too?"

Another person wrote; "What if I called African-Americans parasites? Not so funny now, is it?"

Geez Louise. Relax, will ya?

Labels: (th)ink, cartoon art museum, cheap-ass, Knight Life daily

 
*GREETINGS FROM THE WORLD'S WORST BLOGGER..
I'm supposed to be updating this every Tuesday night for Wednesday. It ain't working out too well. But I've been hard, hard, hard at work on the not-so-secret-anymore secret project that is set to launch on May 5th, National Cartoonists Day (and Boy's Day somewhere else).

Anyhoo, come see me at the Festival of Books this weekend and I'll tell you all about it.

*LOS ANGELES TIME FESTIVAL OF BOOKS..
This was my first big event that I attended after I moved to La-La Land last year. The festival smothers the UCLA Main Campus with tons and tons of authors, publishers, book shops and the people that love them. I will be parked in ye olde McSweeney's Booth once again hockin' my brand new not-sold-in-stores K Chronicles collection, I Left My Arse in San Francisco. I'll also have copies of the extremely rare out-of-print Dances with Sheep and Passion of the Keef collections. Git yer ass out there this Sat and Sun from 10am-6pm. Booth #685

*DARK HORSE'S 500 PAGE K CHRONICLES COLLECTION..
..is on it's way to the printer. Gosh-darn it looks swell!! I hope to have a page up in the store where you'll be able to pre-order the book for lots off the cover price. I'll give a holla when it's set up. But for now, you can pre-order here.

*CHEAP-ASS MOVE OF THE WEEK..
Since we're in a recession, I've decided to add a new feature to this blog called "Cheap-Ass Move of the Week". It's where I, the Phat Friar of Frugality, share with you a nugget of money-saving goodness...

The big question is--How can a cheap-ass get even cheaper in times like these? I've always lived life like there was a recession, so what do I do now?

Go to McDonalds!!

That's what I did for the past two weeks. They just introduced their new Iced Coffee. And in one of the local rags they had a coupon to try it for free ..

I'm generally a tea drinker, but I'll try anything once...Twice if it's free (actually, 15 times if it's free)..

Apologies to folks who opened their free weeklies and saw something mysteriously ripped out. It wasn't Big Brother.

Anyhoo, so every other day I go get my free Iced Coffee and head on over to the library to draw comix. Pick up a coupla DVDs and walk home. No money spent!!

Oh..And I gotta give it up for the Santa Monica Main Library for having Pete Bagge's big fat Hate collection on their shelves. Guess it helps to be located near the fine comics shop Hi-De-Ho.

Okay...Good luck to everybody going up to Stumptown up in Portland. Let me know how it is..

Cheers,

Keef

Labels: cheap-ass, dark horse collection, Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, stumptown