EATaly

A completely crazy food experience is heading to New York City in around 4 months...

to find out what EATALY is..... CLICK HERE to read the article about Joe Bastianich's new project

just reading about has me juicy.

i can't wait.

s

counter culture heaven - MERMAID PARADE in coney island

you gotta love people in costumes on parade...? well i do!!!, especially when it's the natty
Mermaid Parade of Coney Island.

scantilly clad mermaids & mermen...from clumsy to carnivale and everything in between, it's a great event with Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson leading the parade!

we had a sensational time starting off the day at the coney island aquarium, and proceeded to the parade route and then a fantastic meal of Russian cuisine on the Brighten Beach boardwalk
@ Tatiana. Cherry filled ravioli, Borscht and then Chicken Kiev & Osso Bucco .

Jim Woodring WEATHERCRAFT opening

Wow, a big thanks to all the fans, friends, artists, bloggers, and Brooklyn neighborhoodies who attended the opening last nite. Those posters i put up in the neighborhood really worked!

Jim's Weathercraft art looked great hanging! We exhibited around 30 pieces including the 24 pages in a row from the end of the book. The art will be hanging for another month!...so try to come in to see it.

It was a great evening with Jim on hand meeting & greeting fans, signing books doing a sketch or 2 as requested...An old acquaintance of his brought in the first zine he made (1982 !!) that she got when she traded hers for his. This was quite THE artifact. very cool to see it.

The evening went swimmingly and the signed Weathercraft books, and limited ed. (50) silkscreen prints we made were hot items~! (contact me for the remaining few that are still available!! - artofcomix@aol.com )

*next time, a 50 lbs worth of ice! dang it was a bit hot in the gallery, and beers could have benefited from a tad more ice...note to self! tho i didn't hear any complaints ;-)

germany day 11& 12...final days of ERLANGEN

it ain't easy stayin on top of this. so, excuse me if i ramble and continue to make no sense like i usually do! the final 2 days of the show were great. amazing times, great biz, and a lot of fun seeing old friends and great artists. to start with Thomas Ott came by and said hi. He, the Swiss master of scratch board art is still making some of the coolest art around. i had a lot of fun with him stopping by and saying hi. also, a real trooper award goes to Veronica in her Wonder Woman costume!!! yes. plus there's a pic of the special dish i was talkin about called Blaue Zipfel in Zwiebelsud.

also great news for my new friend , female artist Ulli Lust who took home several major honors at the awards : !!!!

ICOM prize- independent comic prize _ Erlangen & Munich comic festivals

best graphic novel of the year for "Heute ist der letzte Tag vom Rest deines Lebens" ok...that translates (courtesy of google translate) to Today is the last day of the rest of your life

and the german equivalent of the Eisner awards the Max & Moritz prize for the fans favorite!

and her book got the publishing rights bought by French, Spanish & Italian publishers!!!
so, congrats Ulli!!!!

so the last 2 days just flew by and next thing you know its time for dinner and another fine meal at the Kitzmann brewery....

final day of the show was great and then BOOM! it's over, time to pack up and head back to Munich. no matter what kind of show i've had there's always a sad feeling like "what?" it's ending already???? yep. so, we packed it all up and hopped in Christoph's van and were back in Munich in like 2 hrs. had an uneventful but convenient meal at a local beer garden down the street.
enjoy all these pix from the final days

germany day 10 - Erlangen Comic Salon day 2

woooooo, it was a busy and fun day. a lot of biz, a lot of friends, and a lot of activity at the booth. Night before when we ate at the Kitzmann brewery i really over did it...woke up to major heartburn around 3am. remember the old Alka Seltzer commercial?: i can't believe i ate the whole thing! ???...yes, that was me. luckily there was some xtra strength ant acid pills from a previous trip. unluckily not a great nit of sleep. soooooooooooooo, the big and important thing to report about that meal is the name of that special sausage cooked (and served) in that vinegar based broth: Blaue Zipfel im Zwiebelsud mit Brot. the transalation is boiled (blue as opposed to browned from the grill) sausage in a vingegar onion base, with bread. This is an exquisite and specific Bavarian dish local to this area. ok, enuf about thurs nite! back to friday

begins with the great breakfast @ Konig Otto hotel. after arriving at the convention and setting up all over again, we settled into the groove of the day. Some art i forgot to bring with me for a customer was in transit via the post office so i was regularly checking the tracking info and regularly disapointed, finding that the delay was caused by a german holiday.

My Italian friends Giovanni & Martina (couple) and an italian dealer Umberto brought art that was part of a deal i did with another collector from Roma. and our plans to meet up later back at Kitzmann were set. The rest of the con went on swimmingly sales wise and with a major purchase/trade brewing in the works.

It's easy going back to the Kitzmann brewery. plus the weather finally turned out beautifully so it was really nice sitting outside and eating. i went easy and ordered the lamb again. all was tasty and then our Italian friends showed up finishing the evening with us.

Germany - days 8/9 ...Erlangen !!

So, my good friends....we left Munich around 1pm on Wed and headed off towards Erlangen. got in around 3:30pm and went straight for the convention center to make sure everything was ok. picked up my badges, check out the stand, fixed a few issues, and then met up with my good buddy Marc Mokken from Amsterdam (a fellow comic/art/dealer/collector /friend) who was finishing his set up. the 3 buddies then set off in search of a much needed beer w food. so, we headed into the town center towards a restaurant i knew, only to find out it was now serving spanish food. uh uh. no thanks.

our next course of action was to go towards a wonderful brewery i knew about not far from the hotel...i remembered the general direction but not the specifics...like a name! anyway when we go near to where i thought it was we asked a shop owner and she kindly directed us towards the Kitzmann Brauerei
this is a wonderful place with EXQUISITE BAVARIAN cuisine. really special! so for dinner i had roasted lamb, with potatoes , marc had the duck w french fries and red cabbage kraut, and Christoph had this great speciality of Wurst cooked in a vinegar based sause with onions. MMMMM it was all fantastic. and the beer was great. we sat around blabbing about all kinds of stuff until it was time to split for sleep. yes the beer kept coming.

onto TODAY and the first day of the show. woke up and had the hardy german breakfast courtesy of my Konig Otto hotel. and then off to the show for start up. not the easiest thing limpin over there because of my sore calf. ug, getting OLDER sucks! presently i have 3 injuries...but that's another story, THANKS BJJ !!!!

anyhoo, at the show the set up went well and eventually all the old friends and customers started showing up, and the days business got off to a very nice start. Ulrich Merkl*a collector /friend and publisher of a wonder Winsor McKay book called Dream of the Rarebit Fiend
stopped by to say hi, Alexander Braun who helped create an art show at the Salon from his collection came by, and a bunch of other local dealers and neighbors from previous shows.
a great morning.

sadly i can't report having ate anything noteworthy for lunch. but, as the show winded down we attempted to reserve for dinner at a fave place close by the convention center only to find out that this lovely little Bavarian place was now serving pizza and pasta? there was only 1 thing to do!!! KITMANN BREWERY !!!! yes. and glad we did. another really fine meal accompanied by their delicious beer. C & i started off with sharing Baggers (german potato pancakes) with a very tasty type of kraut, plus the side order of those delish wurst in vinegar w onions...i'll get the name of it later! mark had bavarian carpaccio. then for the mains, marc ate what i had the night before and C & i order the Schäufele (roast pork shoulder) with dumplings and kraut. it was absolutely amazing and the crispy skin perfect! i was stuffed and couldn't even finish the dumpling. oh it was delish!!!!

we ate outside and there was no rain in site. the weather starting to get nicer.
it was great day!

munich - day 7

Grüß Gott,
hey everyone...another nice overcast day in munich....so what did i do? had a nice lazy morning with bernadette at home. and then headed off by bike towards the Pinakothek's . Stopped for lunch at a cafe/restaurant part of a wine shop called SoulKitchen . A nice prix fixed lunch special (5.90eu) which consisted of a potato soup (brothy kind), and schweine schnitzel with bbq sauce, baked potato and salad. All very nice.

then it was off to the Alte Pinakothek to see the great old master collection of art. It's really an incredible collection with great examples of Rubens, Van Dyck, Durer, the Flemish school, Rembrandt, and of course other great German painters: like Albrecht Altdorfer. I've never seen his work in other museums but i can assure you his skill and hyper detail of battle scenes (Alexanderschlacht ) and exquisite landscapes is second to NONE. It's really astonishing
and incredible. As far as Rubens, i doubt there is a better single collection of Rubens art any where. they have in 1 room 15+ GIANT paintings, and then scattered about beautiful prelims and other paintings by him. They also have a strong collection of Italian Masters as well.

After a nice after noon at the museum i biked back home, and then after a little tooling around it was time to head to the park for my bi annual soccer match with Christoph & Bernadette's friends!!! i was nursing a calf sprain coming into the game and about 3/4 thru the match i was Kapput...so i spent the rest of the time in goal. actually it was a lot of fun (except for the not being able to push off on the right foot.)

afterwards we went back to B's cousin Erme's house for dinner and they're theatrical practice session for a friend's wedding coming up. they had a comical musical performance they were working on. i couldn't understand a word of it, but from their laughing i inferred a lot.

Everyone was very nice ...Marcus and wife, erme's husband, and their kids....the eldest (a big soccer fan...6 yrs old!) took the group picture.

a very nice day. ok, i need some aspirin, but today (day 8 morn) it's easy as we're finally heading off to the ERLANGEN COMIC SALON .

i'll give my calf much needed rest for the weekend!

ciao,

tschüss