South of France for The Wall Street Journal

This was a fun assignment for the Wall Street Journal, illustrating an article about a couple's trip to France during 9/11 and the solidarity they found there. The south of France used to be one of my favorite vacation destinations so I was thrilled to do this illustration. You can read the entire article here. Thanks to AD Sheryl Dermawan!

3x3 Annual

Another piece of good news, I got several pieces into this year's 3x3 competition. I'm particularly thrilled that some of my sequential work has been selected. Above is my two-pager from Rabid Rabbit 11, below is the first page of my Coney Island comic for Syncopated, plus my Rabid Rabbit poster has been selected in the Promotional category. Many thanks to the jury!

Synocpated Nominated for Eisner Award

Another piece of news that I forgot to post: Syncopated – A collection of Non-Fiction Picto-Essays, to which I contributed a story about Coney Island, is up for an Eisner Award! Congrats to Brendan Burford, who has been editing and art-directing Syncopated for a couple of years now and works so hard to make it the beautiful book it is, and congrats to all other artists who contributed. Especially Nick Bertozzi, whose contribution "Why and How to Bale Hay" was also nominated for another Eisner, for best short story.

Sacramento News & Review

I did a cover illustration and a number of portraits for SN&R recently, for a story about their local elections. This is the main illustration, it was used for both the cover and the feature page. Don Button designed the type.

Below are some of the portraits. You can read the descriptions about the candidates here. Thanks to Art Directors David Jayne and Don Button!

THE WOODS

This is a first sneak peek at my next children's book, THE WOODS. It's a story about a boy who goes into the woods, and has to face his fears. It has been a project that's been in the works for years and my second self-authored picture book after HAT. I can't wait for it to come out. It's scheduled for release early 2011 from Chronicle Books.

SILA 48 Website

The Illustration West 48 Competition results by the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles are now online, you can see them here. My Snowplow illustration was selected in the Unpublished / Promotional section (you have to scroll down a bit to find the thumbnail). Thanks again to SILA and the jury!

HAT in French

At MoCCA this year, I met Serge Ewenczyk, the publisher of Editions de la Balle, a brand-new publishing house in France. He was interested in my book HAT, and we talked for a while. Just a few weeks later, I'm thrilled to announce that his house has aquired exclusive French language rights, and my book will come out in France in spring 2011. The book will be distributed by Gallimard, France's third largest publishing house.

So MoCCA had a GREAT outcome for me this year, and I'm excited that I personally had a part in initiating this deal!

Apart from the original US publication, HAT now will appear in 5 other languages (German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and French), which is really amazing.

SVA Illustration Residency

For the third year, I'm teaching the Sequential Class in the SVA Illustration Summer Residency. Other teachers include Viktor Koen and Greg Crane. In my class I try to cover visual storytelling not only in comics and sequential art, but also include children's books and visual journalism. Besides my class, the program includes illustration projects, drawing, painting, studio visits and guest lecturers. Students come from a variety of backgrounds and countries. If you know of somebody who could be interested in this, here's the link!