- Mattotti’s website

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He was in town from Italy for Book Expo last week. He did an event at the Society of Illustrators which I wasn’t able to attend, but he was also doing free sketches at the show, at an Italian publishing booth on Thursday morning, so I eagerly lined up for it. He was drawing mostly angels and an occasional odd creature for people, inside a sort of brochure for Oltremai. I wish I could tell you more specifics about this brochure, but I didn’t actually get one, because when I handed him my copy of Dr. Jeckyll & Mister Hyde (probably my favorite of his books in English), he drew in that instead. So I didn’t get a hangable piece, but I did get a very unique and awesome Mr. Hyde in my book.

Last Thursday I had the treat of being in Cambridge and seeing this unusual performance of The Pirates of Penzance at the ART. I highly recommend it, though unfortunately it’s only running a few more days.

I got a “promenade” ticket, which involves essentially being on the stage — except it’s not really a stage, it’s a carpeted area with benches, coolers, kiddie pools, and a slightly raised platform, all of which are fair game on which to sit, but which are also used by the performers, so you periodically get shooed off of your seat and have to move around a fair bit. That was pretty cool, and an unexpected bonus to being on the stage was that the lights never really went down, so I was able to sketch much more effectively than at most other plays I’ve seen.

Partway through the show, I noticed that in the audience were none other than Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer! I immediately did a couple of quick sketches of Mr. Gaiman. I’m afraid neither came out very well, perhaps because I was slightly star-struck. After the show, I went up to him and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Gaiman? May I show you this mediocre sketch I did of you?” He graciously smiled and asked if I would like him to “scribble on it,” at which point he took out a fountain pen and (after asking my name) inscribed it as you see below. I then gave him my business card, mentioning that I draw graphic novels and would be posting these sketches here on my blog. That was about as much as I was comfortable intruding on his evening, so I floated off without mentioning any more about my books, our mutual interest in Beowulf, how much I enjoyed his writing and reading of The Graveyard Book, etc, etc…

In short, Neil Gaiman is a class act, Pirates rocks, and it was a great evening. And without further delay, here are the aforementioned sketches.

But here’s a decent one I did in the Heather Garden at Fort Tryon Park.

Even so, I always feel like I miss a lot. For example I missed most of the pieces selected for ‘best of show’ type prizes this year. But here are a few things I bought or noted I need to get later.

http://www.alphabetapocrypha.com/

http://www.grimwilkins.com/comics/

Seven Samurai prints and art book by http://www.gregthings.com/

I heard http://www.lucyknisley.com/ sold out of her new book, Relish, and I can’t say I’m surprised, as it’s beautiful.

Unfortunately missed http://jilliantamaki.com/ this year.

“The Greatest of All Time Comics Anthology” from Ninth Art Press and members of the Boston Comics Roundtable, Jesse Lonergan and Dan Mazur

http://gastrophobia.com/

http://www.mollyostertag.com/

There’s a giant pile o’ books I need to buy from Self Made Hero, especially their Don Quixote.

Top Shelf is now officially so cool they don’t need a sign over their table.

Met the brilliant Gabrielle Bell and got her new book The Voyeurs.

…and much more!

That’s a small sample of the highlights as I saw ‘em. Bottom line, MoCCA continues to be a great show, with more gorgeous work on display than you can shake a stick at.

http://hellogiggles.com/my-recipe-for-gorgeously-grand-graphic-novels

In preparation I looked up what audiobooks I listened to for the 14 months I was working on Romeo & Juliet (previously: what I was listening to while drawing The Odyssey). Here they are, in no particular order:

11-22-63 (Stephen King) – good, but WAY too long.
A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula LeGuin) – still great, but too short.
Out of the Silent Planet (C.S. Lewis) – still fun, but WAY too short.
Apprentice Adept (Piers Anthony) – I’ve long since outgrown his writing, but this series is still fun and I think it’s high time we made “The Game” in real life. Who’s with me?
SEAL team Six (Howard Wasdin) – I don’t quite know what possessed me to read this. It’s not bad, but pretty much just what you’d expect.
Steve Jobs (Walter Isaacson) – good, but repetitive. Needed better editing. The ubiquitous cover photo has caused numerous people to tell me I look like Steve Jobs.
Ready Player One (Ernest Cline, read by Will Wheaton) – fantastic! The perfect audiobook, at least for a child of the ’80s.
Divergent (Veronica Roth) – at times I enjoyed this, but found it ultimately unconvincing, and I have a pretty strong feeling “the intellectuals are the bad guys” is not just a convenient plot device, it’s something she believes.
David Copperfield (Dickens) – couldn’t finish. It was bad enough when the protagonist was a non-character, but when he turned into a debauched twerp I couldn’t take it any more.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson) – holy exposition Batman! Couldn’t finish. Tried the film, and still don’t understand why so many people like it. I found it to be a weak mystery with weak writing and chockablock with horrible gratuitous unpleasantness.
Winter’s Tale (Mark Helprin) – pretty interesting, but I couldn’t finish. I think the reader killed it for me.
The Bluest Eye (Tony Morrison) – brilliant, and oh so unpleasant.
The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) – ditto, but in a different way.
A Farewell to Arms (Hemingway) – even more depressing.
Snuff (Terry Pratchett) – not his best, but quite good.
The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorn) – I enjoyed this way more than I was expecting based on my very vague memories of it.
Soon I Will Be Invincible (Austin Grossman) – I enjoyed this more in print, I think. The readers are mediocre.
The Ring of Solomon (Jonathan Stroud) – Awesome, awesome, awesome.
The Wake of the Lorelei Lee (L.A. Meyer) – as with the rest of the series, highly enjoyable, thanks mostly to the fabulous reading of Katherine Kellgren.
Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson) – good.
Better (Atul Gawande) – Complications was better than Better. I was hoping for more insight on how surgeons stay on the top of their game, especially with the long hours that seem to come with that job.

…
and of course my favorite audio series, which I constantly revisit, Sherlock Holmes.

The first two titles in the series are One Dead Spy and Big Bad Ironclad, published by Amulet Books (a division of Abrams). They are narrated by the historical Nathan Hale, with a hangman and a British guard as his fictional audience / peanut gallery. He first tells his own story (One Dead Spy) and then the story of the major naval clashes of the Civil War (Big Bad Ironclad!). With a deft touch for cutting away everything extraneous, and a healthy helping of silliness to spice things up, the two Nathans make these tales accessible and fun in a way that had me laughing and shaking my head with admiration all the way through. This is the point in my review where I have to admit that American history is my Achilles Heel. In school I excelled at most academic subjects, including math, science, and English. But American history I almost failed twice. For some reason I find it difficult to retain historical information, and American history in particular. Some of my friends are gasping with shock here, but yes it’s true, my brain and American History are like reversed magnets, oil and water, republicans and democrats, truth and advertising… you get the idea.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales are the most engaging history books I’ve ever read. Quite possibly a real history buff would argue that this is “dumbed down history” but if so then maybe that is just what some of us need. The books are not lacking in historical detail — they’re actually quite dense. I’d say they pack significantly more factual punch than Larry Gonick’s critically-acclaimed History of the Universe for example, while being just as funny, and narratively more compelling (I love Gonick’s work, but it doesn’t really stick with me. Hale’s effort seems, so far, to be sticking better). In short, these are books I wish I’d written, and I will definitely be looking for the next installment.