JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

These were drawn while watching a play at the Kabuki Theatre in Tokyo, once upon a time.

Gordon Clark and the guys at Wild Brain recently made an entertaining in-flight safety-video for Virgin America Airlines. I really like the pencil-testy look of it. Gordon styled the spot and designed most of the characters that made me laugh (I checked) and he also did the voice-over narration. I recently took a flight to LA and decided to fly Virgin just to see this amusing movie in action, but unfortunately the little TV monitors were not working on that particular flight. DOH!

One of the many fun things that I did when back in Australia, was to hook up with my brother Rob, my Uncle John and my old travelling pal Stuart on one sultry hot day in Sydney’s Circular Quay area. Before getting some coffee by the harbour, we all attended an exhibition of artwork by TIM HAWKINSON, that was on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art. (The MCA can be seen on the left of the pic of Sydney Harbour).

The show was called Mapping The Marvellous, and although the subject is often mundane, such as a sculpture of an eyeball (made in part out of discarded green pens) the intricate way they’ve been executed is indeed marvellous. The artist seems obsessed with playful representations of the human body, but his musical mechanical sculptures were what took my fancy. There was something ingenious and wonderful about them.

The piece called DRIP fills a small room and looks like a vaguely sinister deep sea creature. Entering the room, you hear a dripping sound as water spurts out of the cling-wrap tentacles and strikes pie-tins held inside an array of buckets below the gently pulsing alien polyp overhead. Although the sound is initially reminiscent of rain drops, unlike them it is not random but rhythmical and musical, due to an elaborate hand built mechanism that opens and closes switches in the creature according to a musical score. This interplay of simplicity and complication, organic forms and mechanical gizmos, intricate work that somehow seems fresh is what I liked about his work.

Hawkinson is originally from the Bay Area (though now based in LA) but I had not heard about him until I travelled all the way from the Bay Area to Sydney. I will definitely keep track of his upcoming exhibitions, in hopes of seeing the UBERORGAN; musical sculpture on a colossal scale. It recently filled up THE GETTY with its whale-like honking bulk.

Here is a panoramic photo taken at Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney. I spent a very pleasant few days catching up with two of my dearest childhood friends, Peter Lawlor and John Dillon, as we all stayed at a beautiful property just a few minutes walk from where this picture was taken.

A five week trip to Australia seemed like more than enough time at the planning stage, but it was not nearly enough to do all that I had wanted. I had a very full social schedule in my home town; catching up with my family, comparing bald-patches and love-handles with old school-friends, attending family weddings and birthdays, a trip to the coast with all my siblings and of course all the stuff associated with a home-town Christmas and New Years.

All of that meant that I didn’t have much time left when I went to Sydney, where I also have many friends to see… There was a threatened Airline strike that would have delayed my outbound flight and I found myself hoping that it WOULD happen so I could get a few more days. But that was not the case, my flight left on time and I wasn’t able to visit some Sydney animation Studios, and do a bit of touristy travel stuff as I had originally intended.

My trips back to Australia are always primarily to see my friends and family, and consequently take me back to my old haunts. NEXT time I go to Australia I want to set aside some time to visit parts of the country that I have not yet seen. I am very well-travelled when it comes to other countries but my experience of Australia is mostly limited to the area between Sydney and my home-town.

Anyway, it was a great holiday, where I didn’t think of anything other than what was going on each day. I wasn’t able to access the internet for long periods, hence the lack of blog-posts over the last few months. Those will pick-up in frequency presently, though I don’t have any sketches of my trip to share. I didn’t do a lick of drawing the whole time I was away.

Happy New Year everyone. Let’s hope that 2008 is a good one.

I’m still in scanning and archiving mode. Here are some of my very rare life-drawings, done on a cold winter’s day at Tokyo’s UENO ZOO. The apes had gone inside to escape the cold, though they couldn’t escape prying eyes, as we human beings could observe them in their little shelter, from behind super-thick plexi-glass. The observation room was relatively warm and a good place to do some sketching. As other visitors came and went, I got to really study the gorilla as he sat in a very relaxed pose apparently not even noticing the crowd. Suddenly, he sprang into a classic SILVER-BACK pose and banged his fists on the glass so hard that the plexi-glass pane went BOOM!

This terrified everyone, and sent them running and yelling out into the cold, clearing the observation room, only to slowly fill up again with a new group of people who were unaware of how much jeopardy their underpants were about to be in, because over the course of about 40 minutes, I saw the gorilla pull this move about once every 7 minutes or so. After the first time, it was pretty funny to watch him affecting this “I’m not watching you guys” attitude but then, with a little tell-tale glance at the crowd (just to make sure that the observation room had filled up) he would again unload a KING KONG moment, which was guaranteed to scare the ramen-noodles out of everyone– me included.

These are some of the illustrations for an English Language text book for Japanese readers. I drew them many years ago while I was working and living in Japan.

In the early months, my income was mainly from Teaching English, so freelance illustration jobs were a welcome distraction from my limitations as an English Language teacher…. I didn’t teach at a school (if you can call what I was doing “teaching” at all) instead, I put on a tie and an ill-fitting suit (bought from a shady tailor in Bangkok) and went to teach on-site at several businesses around Tokyo (including National Electronics and Toshiba) that had conversational English classes as part of the training program for their employees. I spent a lot of time travelling around Tokyo by train, going from job to job. Using Google Earth and WikiMapia I was recently able to figure out where some of my old teaching posts were.

This was part of a long period in my life where I rarely participated in a fluent conversation. In the evenings, my students mangled my own language (under my earnest direction) and the for the rest of the day I mangled theirs, as I tried to learn Japanese. Though I was a language-teacher at night, in the mornings I was a language-student myself, attending Japanese language classes. I am sad to say that I never got very fluent, despite my very best efforts (a Japanese friend tells me that I speak Japanese like a little girl) but I managed to pick up enough “survival” Japanese to get around, order food and have limited conversations with anyone patient enough to listen to me shred the verb conjugations of their language.

Thankfully, both for me and the well-being of my English-language students, I soon found a job that I was better qualified for; working in animation (at TOEI Studios, on a Superman TV series) and so I quit being an English teacher. Though the full-time job meant that I unfortunately had to give up my morning Japanese classes, it was a relief to be able to take off the baggy suit and neck-tie and draw all day. I continued to do freelance illustration jobs, in addition to the animation work, right up until I left Japan.

I recently found a pile of sketches that I drew when I was living in Tokyo. These days I don’t sketch from life, but back then I often doodled what I saw, perhaps because everything was so new to me and I had a lot of time on my hands, living in a vast, complicated metropolis where I didn’t know many people and couldn’t really communicate very well with most of those few people whom I did know. I’m not sure what inspired me to go to Japan in the first place… but I remember having a fascination in going there from my late teens onwards. It may have been because I had grown up watching Japanese TV cartoons? Even though I didn’t know that they were Japanese as a child; to me they were just Cartoons.

I was raised on a combination of Australian, British, Canadian and American movies and TV shows. Some Japanese shows too, but they were all cartoons. Whereas I had formed an impression of what REAL life may have been like in Britain and the USA from watching a wide variety of their dramas and comedies, I had no idea of what Japan was really like after watching SPEED RACER. Imagine forming an impression of daily life in the USA from only watching Scooby Doo and you will understand the depth of my sensitivity towards the ancient and complex culture of Japan when I first set foot upon its soil, at the age of 22.

Even though Japanese culture has become so intertwined with western culture that we feel it to be our own, we don’t really get an idea of what daily life in Japan is like from their cultural exports, because for the most part the Japanese export their fantasies; games, comics and cartoons, rather than slice of life dramas. So my interest in going to Japan had developed without any clear idea of what to expect. When I arrived in Tokyo I was blissfully unaware of anything about the place, including what it even looked like. Arriving with no preconceived notions whatever made those first impressions of Tokyo very powerful indeed.

I remember seeing the modernity of Tokyo’s SHINJUKU area for the first time. Like a lot of other Westerners who arrived there in the mid 1980s, the only thing in my experience that I could compare it to were images from Science Fiction movies that I had seen. The density of the crowds, the modernity of the architecture, the visual noise of the neon-lights, the giant TV screens on the sides of buildings and the buzzing efficiency of the place were like nothing I had yet experienced. It amazed me that I had not heard of this place before I had visited it myself. I had vivid mental snapshots of Times Square, and Piccadilly projected inside my skull before I ever set foot in those places. Impressions formed not only from TV and movies, but also from conversations with friends who had visited them. I knew a ton of people who had been to London but had only met two people who had actually been to Japan before me… and why hadn’t they told me about GINZA? Or SHIBUYA? The first I knew of all these places, I was standing neck deep in their amazing spectacle.

Tokyo is a remarkably ugly city, and especially so given the fact that the people who live there are very much concerned with the appearances of things. But maybe “ugly” isn’t the right word, perhaps “disorganised” is better? But even that word shows up the paradox, because the Japanese are rather concerned with order as well, though apparently not when it came to the building of Tokyo. Right around the corner from where I lived was a bubble-gum factory, which was next to a school, next to an apartment next to a Temple. If there are zoning laws in Tokyo I can’t imagine what the restrictions must be…

For that reason it is a delight for modern architects. A Swiss architecture student I met one day, as I walked about the back-streets, opened my eyes to that fact. He had only come to Tokyo to see the buildings of Kenzo Tange and I used what little language and navigation skills I had acquired to help him find Tange’s church. Unlike me, I don’t think the Swiss guy cared much for Tokyo, other than the buildings. He kept asking me “Vhere are zee prOstitUtes?” I had no idea. My budget didn’t run to such things.

Ugly or not, Tokyo is a fascinating city to spend time in. Its wiggly streets noodle out all over the place, full of little nooks to explore, but newcomers learn the way to and from their daily haunts by rote, afraid to stray from the familiar path that they have hacked through the eccentric and tangled jungle of buildings and lanes. That is how I was at first. Later, I stumbled off the routes that I had known and often discovered that one block over from the path I had taken daily, there was a whole other world. Funny little shops. Themed cafes and restaurants. Weird buildings… and charming juxtapositions of things you wont see in any other city. There isn’t a better metropolis in the world to let yourself get lost in, which is just as well, because getting lost is very easy to do.

It is probably true to say that Tokyo is a difficult city to make friends in, though I did make a few, and acquaintances I made a-plenty. Sadly, I have lost contact with the Japanese people I knew back then, though I’ve managed to stay in touch with one or two of my foreigner pals. The subject of how hard it was to make friends in Tokyo was a common topic of our conversation. Some people would read a lot into it but It didn’t bother me, or even surprise me. I take it for granted that it is difficult making friends in any big city. Add to that a few other factors, such as not being able to speak the language, or the fact that the Japanese don’t traditionally entertain in their homes, and the GAIJIN can feel a bit left out.

In any case, none of that worried me… maybe it would have if I had spent more time living there, I don’t know… The truth is, I never felt connected anywhere, even in the place I had come from. At least in Tokyo I had an excuse for my alienation; I was an Alien! (We gaijin had to carry a finger-printed ALIEN ID card. I wish I had it now; what a souvenir!)

Sketching Japanese life was something I only did in those few still spaces here and there; parks, coffee shops restaurants and trains, but when I was on the move, which was most of the time, I took about a million photographs. I am so glad to have both the drawings and the photographs now, as a record of the the very happy years I spent in Japan. Mostly, it is only after some time has passed that I am able to look back on a certain time and realise how lucky I was to be there at that specific time and place. However, when I lived in Tokyo I was smart enough to realise that I was enjoying myself in the moment. I’ve only had that clarity a few times in my life and perhaps Tokyo was the first time. It is a great feeling to know that you are in the right place at the right time, at THAT time.

I always get jealous when I hear that someone I know is going to Tokyo, in a way that I don’t when people go on trips to other places that I enjoy… I am not sure why that is so… another mystery is why I have let 10 years pass by since I last visited Japan…

Perhaps it is time for me to go back for a visit?

NO Credit? NO Problem!
Here, at last, is the Abismo/Nerve Bomb San Diego Comic-Con report for 2007.

JIMMY “Easy Terms” BAKERSFIELD and RODDY “Deep Discount” MONTECARLO working the CON.

A COMIC CON trend that some small-press and indie exhibitors complain about is the growing presence of huge media companies using Comic Con as a place to pimp their wares and offer previews of up-coming games, toys, films and books. Their enormous displays with all the bells and whistles, and appearances by Hollywood movie stars are crowd pleasers for sure (judging from the spike in attendance since this trend began) but it makes it hard for the little guy selling home-made books to get any attention.

With these deals, we must be CRAZY!!
In the spirit of “if you can’t beat em, join ‘em”, Rhode and I resolved to go CORPORATE. Salesmanship itself was going to be our marketing “angle” this year.

You can trust Jimmy; he’s a professional.

But what do a pair of self-publisher fly-by-night cartoonists know about MARKETING? Plus, after paying for the Abismo/Nerve Bomb booth space, we didn’t have much money left over in the budget for booth decoration, which makes it hard to compete with all the full-scale Pirate Ships, Giant Robots and sexy Booth-models of other displays. What’s a down at heel indie self-publishing duo to do?…

Thankfully, two expert salesmen came to our rescue and offered to help out in exchange for taking a controlling stake in the burgeoning Abismo/Nerve Bomb business empire.

Ladies, Roddy is here for YOU!

Our new C.F.O. RODDY MONTECARLO and and C.E.O. JIMMY BAKERSFIELD took over the booth display this year, and really came through for us. Who better to work the CON than two bona fide CON-MEN? Thanks to their oversight, the Abismo/Nerve Bomb booth was transformed into RODDY and JIMMY’s Discount Emporium which was, without a doubt, one of the classiest on the showroom floor this year. To match their natty jackets, pumped up sense of style and full-bore salesmanship, Roddy and Jimmy tricked out the booth in snazzy signage and covered it in plaid, even though finding THAT much LOUD fabric was no easy feat.

As seen on TV!
The customers were really pulled in by the crazy mark-down signs, especially the FREE TOASTER deal, though sad to say, nobody spent the $1000 on comics that was required to take it home (as mentioned in the fine-print). That may be just as well, otherwise Roddy wouldn’t have anything to make his breakfast toast with.

The FREE TOASTER SCAM DEAL.Everything must GO!!
The New C.E.O. of Nerve Bomb anticipated higher sales this year but even despite all the NEW product (my Dad’s elephant book, a new mini-comic and some Giclee prints) sales were not much more than in 2006, when there was nothing new to sell. It is tough to figure out the key to sales… it isn’t simply a matter of new product, good booth placement and high attendance, that is for sure… because all those things were on hand this year, and KILLER salesmanship as well.

Act NOW to avoid Disappointment!

Roddy works a sucker customer!Thanks to Roddy and Jimmy’s help with the booth, Rhode and I both had time to do some socialising. One of my favourite things about Comic Con is the chance to meet friends whom I haven’t seen in ages, including a lot of people that I only see at cons. Each evening, there are so many people that I would like to spend time with that it is getting progressively harder and harder each year to organise a get-together when so many people are involved.

Spending an hour or so on Wednesday evening (after Preview Night) wandering from pub to pub with a huge group of hungry people, who were steadily growing HANGRY (hungry and angry) I resolved to thereafter venture out to eat with a group only it had a reservation. A few years ago, it was possible to just luck into some place that had space to seat your huge party of chums but that just isn’t possible these days, at least in the nearby Gaslamp area.

San Diego is our town, Baby!Thursday evening we really hit the jackpot when a stripped down, special-ops task force of hand-picked and hungry folks successfully mounted a raid on a fantastic “all you can eat” Brazillian BBQ place called Rei Do Gado, which was scoped out by our San Diego food recon team of Jeff and Lovelyn (who took us to Hash house Au Go Go last year). Along with them, I spent a very enjoyable evening with Rhode, my good friend John Stevenson and the always hilarious Kirk Thatcher. We got an early reservation and hunkered down together to climb the meat Materhorn pausing between mouthfuls to disturb the surrounding patrons with both the tone and volume of our conversation.

Group Discounts!!
The next night, I had a very enjoyable dinner with another old friend, David Gordon, who now lives in New York. He introduced me to a whole table of his friends from Blue Sky. The service in the restaurant was slow but we weren’t in any hurry and had a very enjoyable time just chatting away about publishing and animation, while our food showed up bit by bit. As we ate, cellphone calls came in from reservation-less and hungry pals who were wandering the wasteland outside, looking for a place to sit and eat on a busy Gaslamp Friday evening, so by the end of the night our table was full of cronies from Pixar, ILM, Maverix and Blue Sky, as more and more friends came our way. Saturday night there was a big group heading off to dine in Old Town but I was very tired and the fact that the group was going a long way with no reservation made me balk (even though I later found out that they all had a fun evening and were seated no problem) and instead I went to dinner close by the convention center with Benton, Anson, Deanna, Bosco, Steve, Steward and his family and an old crony from my Colossal Pictures days, Antonio Toro.

Luscious French Toast.When you spend all day surrounded by nerds in spandex, it is good to have a hearty breakfast, which I did most days, starting with Rhode and Sam Hiti at the hotel we all shared a room at. Saturday, I had breakfast with John, Kirk and Dave at a Hawaiian themed diner by the harbour. The morning of the last day of the show started well with a HUGE Buffet Breakfast with Vincent Stall, and my hotel roomies Sam and Rhode.

Sunday evening wrapped the show with the traditional BBQ at the home of Derek Thompson’s ever gracious parents Barbara and Larry. This is the nicest end to the con for me. A large group of weary but happy attendees and exhibitors got together to wind down over gourmet hotdogs and drinks. Monday morning we slept in a little and had a breakfast at the SUN CAFE before we all made our separate ways home.

I managed to fit in a lot of socialising this year but I still missed out on eating with a lot of friends. That is what NEXT YEAR is for.

New Inventory!

No No No! Buy LOW sell HIGH!My SWAG for this year includes a book I have been seeking for some time, namely TIFFANY, written by Yann (prior collaborator with the great Denis Bodart) with artwork by Herval, an artist I first became familiar with through the Drawing Board. Herval has a clean style with great figure drawing and warm, clean colour palettes. The book is in French and although my ability to speak that language is close to zero, I can read it a little and I am battling my way through the book with a dictionary at the moment. The story is a whodunnit, concerning an elegant young woman, descended from the same family as Joan Of Arc, who takes over her brother’s detective agency after he is killed, to investigate his murder.

MONSTER ALLERGY by Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa, the husband and wife team that did Sky Doll. This time their artwork is an appealing fusion of both European and Japanese cartoony comics drawing styles.

GYPSY COLLECTED is an omnibus edition of 3 graphic albums, written by Thierry Smolderin and illustrated by a Swiss artist whom I admire very much; Enrico Marini. I first became aware of him when he drew in a very Manga-influenced style on a series called “Olivier Varèse” (also written by Smolderin) which was collected in an English edition called Negative Exposure. More recently, he illustrated a series called RAPTORS which was drawn in a different style. Gypsy shows his artwork in a transition between those two styles.

MASSIVE SWERVE by Robert Valley. I have bought about 4 variations on this book so far… hopefully Robert will actually put out a NEW Massive Swerve (rather than reprints and colour variations) sometime soon.

POPPING THROUGH PICTURES by Amanda Visell is a charming modern picture book in the tradition of little golden books; thick card stock pages and vivid painted, fun and cartoony illustrations. She also makes fantastic little toys which she sold at the con, and more of them can be seen in her Blog.

BUBBLES SKETCHBOOK by Luca Tieri was one of my favourite scores this year. This guy draws cartoons that leap from the page (or screen) with a crazy Pop-Rock energy. I’ve been a big fan of his energetic line and electric colour choices since I somehow stumbled onto his website a few years ago, so it is wonderful to finally own his book. Luca came all the way from Italy to attend the con and I had the pleasure of meeting him in person when he came by my booth with Rajesh from the Department of Art and Power.

Comic-Con exhausts even the super-salesmenI came by some great little books by way of swaps, including Marty Ito’s PAINTMONSTER book and
Doug Holgate’s SPAGHETTI WESTERN/CHECKMATE WORDSWORTH Mini, both of whom had come a very long way to be at the con (from Japan and Australia, respectively). In exchange for some hits of our OLD SPICE, Marc Nordstrom from B-Minus Comiks swapped me an anthology of their previous hilarious stuff plus a NEW issue of GO GO CHANGEBOTS, which is their very funny Transformers parody.

There were a few things that I wanted to buy but didn’t get, and I hope to pick up later. These include Chris Sanders’ new colour sketchbook, and Bill Presing’s beautiful BELLE DU JOUR book.

Close-out Sale!
2007 was the 10th year that I attended Comic Con, the 7th time as an exhibitor and the 4th time sharing an exhibitor-booth with good pal mr Rhode Montijo. In the time that I have been attending, Comic Con has not only grown in size but the focus and tone has changed as well. 10 years ago it was already huge but my memory of that time is that it was mostly about comics and the people you saw about the place, both exhibiting and attending, were overwhelmingly nerdy, pear-shaped or skinny, men.

Master huckster JIMMY “Easy Terms” BAKERSFIELD, Pimping some pachyderms!

In those days, the few women in attendance were most likely models paid by booths to be in costume. A few years later the numbers of women fans started to climb when we began to see tubby ladies dressed in Sailor Moon outfits. Now the Con is attended by a broad range of men women and children, and a lot of the fans walking around wearing HERO outfits are actually good looking… but thankfully there are still plenty of pear-shaped anime characters, fat Spidermen and skinny Hulks about the place because that is what Comic Con really is about, for me. On the subject of costumes I didn’t attend the masquerade this year so my costume watching was limited to what walked past my booth. This year there were a lot of buff-dudes strutting around in capes and speedos brandishing cardboard shields. Most of them were “spartans” methinks, but some had a Viking vibe.

Selling the hotel to a gullible tourist puts the operation in the red!

Red-Light Special
Highlights of this year’s con (apart from those mentioned already) were:

• Steve and Bosco’s reaction to the booth (which made it all worthwhile)
• getting a smile from Rosario Awesome.
• Steve Purcell winning an Eisner!

Product Recall
The only bummer this year was the Faulty air-conditioner in our hotel that blew piping hot toilet smell into our room.

No interest ’till 2008!

See you next year!I came away from this year’s show very inspired to do some new stuff for next year. The quality of self published books has really soared from the Black and White sketchbooks done at Kinkos a few years ago, to square bound books, and then to the hardbound full colour books that we see now. The affordability of quality small-run printing means that it is a great time to be a self-publisher but on the other hand it means that you really have to raise your game if you want to stand out these days. The number of indy artists producing their own beautiful figurines and toys is also very inspiring… it gives me a lot to think about!

See you all NEXT YEAR!

(thanks to Rhode Montijo, Jeff Hansen, Sam Hiti, Jav Hernandez and Bosco Ng for the great photographs!)

Recently I have been travelling back in time; scanning mountains of old photographs that I have taken from as far back as primary-school and e-mailing many of the pictures to friends. It has been fun to trade e-mails with ex co-workers, school friends, and old travelling companions about the memories that the pictures have dredged up… “Wallowing in Nostalgia” was the term used by my old pal Gary Page.

While sorting all these pictures and attempting to plug them into iPhoto in chronological order, I realised that I had forgotten a lot of details… not just names and dates, but the sequence of events. All of this has led me to think about the frightening impermanence of memory, and how it can fade if not sometimes replenished. I think that is one of the great things about photographs; that looking at them can help keep our memories alive.

Even before this photo-archiving project I had been writing down some funny little fragments of childhood memories for a similar reason; just to get them on paper before my mind goes completely. Continuing on from this recent Nostalgia-kick, My brother was in town last week and of course we swapped a few tales from our childhoods.

When I was a kid, I got a simple little Kodak Instamatik camera for my ninth (or tenth) birthday. I dont think that I ever managed to take an in-focus photo with that thing but that was the all photographic equipment I had up until I hit the road. When I was travelling in Asia I realised that I needed a camera more able to do justice to the fantastic sights I was taking in, and upgraded to a NIKON FG20. That did me fine for several years until it was stolen when I was travelling in Peru (along with a sketchbook filled with sketches of my travels for the 3 previous years). While still in Peru, I bought a fully mechanical NIKON FM2 which I have to this day. I have yet to go digital but that may happen sometime soon.

The period when I took photographs most diligently was from the time that I left Australia up until a little after I arrived to live in San Francisco. The time between those two events encompasses a lot of travel and many adventures in Asia, Europe and South America. It was a period in my life when I took pictures almost everyday for several years.

Part of me is sorry that I haven’t kept that habit up consistently since then, because there are some gaps in the photo record, but another part of me is glad I have sometimes laid the camera down as otherwise there would be even more to scan. And as it is, scanning my photo collection is already a massive job.

My habit was to shoot colour slides and Black and White prints. I don’t yet have the means to properly scan slides (I may buy myself a slide-scanner for Christmas) so it is the prints that I am doing at the moment, including some prints I had made from my favourite colour slides.

Many of the photos probably wouldn’t be interesting to anyone who isn’t in them, but a few that I took on my travels in South America, Europe and Asia (such as those shown here) may be of interest to even casual viewers. So I hope to have an updated online PHOTO gallery added to the site in the next few weeks.

UPDATE: The PHOTO section has now been expanded to include 3 new galleries. Each contains about 24 pictures, accessible via thumbnails. Please go take a look.

I have just spent two enjoyable weeks travelling around Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia with my Dad and my brother Jo, who have both become interested in the American Civil War. This daguerreotype (taken at Gettysburg) shows the members of the Lost Brigade:

(from left to right): Major Screwup, General Malaise and Private Parts.

In addition to Gettysburg, We visited other Civil War sites at Antietam/Sharpsburg, Manassas/Bull Run, Petersburg, Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley. For me it was a crash course not just in the Civil War, but also in a broader history of the USA, because we also took in some sites that were not directly related to the Civil War.

All throughout the trip we drove through some amazingly beautiful countryside but the most picturesque by far was the Skyline drive along the Blue ridge mountains. We spent an evening there staying in some very beautiful accomodations in Shenandoah National park.

I enjoyed visiting Yorktown, historic old town Williamsburg and Jamestown, which was the site of the first permanent English settlement in the United States (dating from 1607), and the original capital of the colony of Virginia. The city was abandoned last century and there isn’t much left above ground these days apart from a ruined church and a museum housing the artifacts dug up by an ongoing archeological excavation.

But the place was vividly brought to life for me by a living history guide we met inside the national park. He was dressed in early 1600’s garb, and told a group of us the history of the site, and fielded questions as he stayed very much “in character” as an actual historical figure known as John Rolfe, who was the husband of Pochohontas and was instrumental in establishing the tobacco trade. I found out later that the guide is actually one of his descendants.

I’m always a sucker for people bold enough to play act in silly costumes!

After about a week of touring around, we then headed back to my Brother’s home in Columbia Maryland for some quality time with his family, which included quite a bit of time drawing cartoons with my two nephews.

But we also managed to fit in some more US history field trips, including a visit to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which withstood a massive British naval Bombardment during the War of 1812 and inspired an onlooker to write the National Anthem.

Also, after 15 years in this country, I finally had a chance to visit the nation’s capital; Washington DC. The highlight of the visit for me was the marvellous monument to Abraham Lincoln. Seeing Honest Abe sitting in his chair after I had just spent several weeks absorbing the history of the Civil War, and the legacy of that particular President, gave the visit more meaning than it otherwise might have had.

After a few weeks of blazing humid heat it is certainly refreshing to be back in the cooler climate of the Bay Area.