Mike Dawson Comics

I actually fretted much more than usual about the graphic image for the post-Angouleme episode of the Ink Panthers Show that I put up earlier today. We had a few good ideas of what to use, but it was hard for me to hit on the one that worked the best.

One of them was to somehow use a picture of Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat), the pub in the town where a great deal of the afterhours socializing took place. It seemed perfect - it’s a Black Cat, afterall - but we didn’t have any pics without the trees in the way, and I was also unsure if it would immediately read as to what it was - since presumably people who haven’t been to the festival might not know about the pub.

Here’s my second attempt - kind of aborted before I really finished it:

(semi) Live from France! The Ink Panthers Show Post-Angouleme Festival Special! Featuring a few familiar voices, and introducing to the show, our lovely wives, Aliza and Kristen. Comments Welcome!

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Just returned from my trip to Angouleme yesterday, and wanted to post the bulk of my pics while it’s all still fresh in my mind. I am kind of a crappy photojournalist, and almost never take any pictures worth posting. I got very few pics of the festival itself, or any of the great art that I saw, or many of the people I met and spent time with. But, here’s the best of what I did manage to capture:

Alex Robinson and I signing books at the Rackham table.

“Velo!” is French for Bicycle.

A drawing from the Blutch exhibition.

I bought this little figurine of Nikita Khrushchev waving his shoe from a store in Paris.

Two days after Angouleme I took a train trip with Alex Robinson and Kazimir Strzepek to a great comic book store in Lyon called Experience. The owners treated us extremely well, treating us to a wonderful lunch, a tour of the city, and freedom to desecrate the ceilings of their store with our doodles. They have a lot of cartoonists already on the ceiling, but the only other Americans I spotted were Jeffrey Brown, Craig Thompson, Dash Shaw, and Keith Giffen, so I felt like I was in great company.

Kaz works on his doodle. My drawing of Ace-Face is visible at the top. I wrote my daughter’s name, Orli, on Ace-Face’s arm, but to my great shame, I misspelled it, Orly, which I am blaming on the proximity to the airport in France.

Alex’s pic near the entrance.

Here we are at lunch!

And here’s that same scene from the other direction. The man at the back is actually at the table next to us. His face turned an alarming shade of red as he drank his wine and ate his meat on his lunch-break. We were told this was a common look in France.

Seated next to the red-face man, towards us, is Cecile Mac Lennan, who does publicity work for Rackham, and took care of us a great deal of the time while we were there. She’s a delightful person, and a lot of fun to talk to. I am fascinated by the fact that her favorite TV show is The Wire (which I also love), since it’s a show that’s challenging enough to follow when English is your first language, let alone your second.

Me and Kaz in Lyon.

Me, Kaz, Alex, and our guide, Stephane. Stephane and Alex got into a heated debate about the value of the Pixar movie “Cars”.

Aliza is thrilled to finally be somewhere where there are no comics.

Kaz, Peter Kuper, Rackham publisher Latino Imparto, and Serge from Editions çà et là. This was from a signing back up in the Paris area.

And finally, one morning in Angouleme, I bought a bag of dates to eat, and someone took a picture of me holding them. I realize now that it kind of looks like I’m holding up a pair of testicles.

The final three pages in the MONDAY chapter of TROOP 142 are posted. Check them out.

This is nice timing, as I’m off to the Angouleme Festival in France next week. It’ll be good to have a little break, before I get back into it with the next chapter, TUESDAY.

If anyone is going to be at Angouleme, I will be signing every day at the Rackham booth. There are also some bookstores signings planned for Paris and Lyon the following week. My good friend Alex will be at each of those appearances too, so I imagine we’re going to have a pretty good time.

The cartoonist behind the new graphic memoir SMILE, Raina Telgemeier, joins us in The Panther’s Lair to talk about teeth, Junior High, Hobos, and more! Comments Welcome!

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Four new Troop 142 pages have been posted. Semi-NSFW, as usual.

In our big 30th episode, we preview our upcoming trip to the Angouleme festival in France, then The Desert Panther creeps into the lair to debate complicated math problems, nicknames, and more. Comments Welcome!

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Nine brand new Troop 142 pages have been posted here. I think this is a pretty funny sequence, hope other people think so too. Definitely NSFW, for language.

This is what I’d look like if I was a Jedi, who went to some formal gathering, where all the Jedis had to wear suits.