The Official K Chronicles and (Th)ink Website

*MIDWEST TOUR UPDATE FRI. OCT. 20TH-CLEVELAND

Man..I am soooo tired….we ended up doing SIX slideshow events yesterday..Four in Ann Arbor, one in Dearborn and one in Detroit…and then we drove to Cleveland last night, so we wouldn’t be late for the 10:30am event at the Cleveland Institute of Art. AND i drew my ESPN comic, scanned it, colored it and sent it in the middle of all this. (I will never do this again..)

Anyhoo..it’s all good. We’ve been having a great time..Dan at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn hooked us up with food and drink and a small but well extremely talented crowd of local Detroit cartoonists. (including int’l supa-star Matt Feazell)

Oh yeah…anybody who doesn’t know Sean Bieri’s work, hear me now. His stuff kicks bottom.

But the show of the tour so far has been the CCNDC Community Space event in Detroit with hip-hop crew Dope Poet Society. BIG shout out to Jhon, who put together our biggest crowd yet. A very enthusiastic mix of anarchists, politically active folk, artists and music fans…it was great stuff. We sold a lot of shite…

*POST ANN-ARBOR EVENT..COURTESY OF IAN CASSELBERRY’s BLOG..

It caught my eye right away. I had to look at it. A few years ago, I
was at a comic book shop and a book called Fear of a Black Marker was
waving its arms at me from across the room. The strips inside were
hilariously funny, but also thought-provoking and challenging. And the
always-aspiring cartoonist within me admired the looseness of the art.
This guy just got his thoughts on the page, doing what he had to do to
sell the point. I almost read the whole book right there in the store.

>From that point on, I’ve been a huge fan of “The K Chronicles” by
Keith Knight and have purchased virtually everything the man has
created. (Okay, I haven’t gotten the t-shirts and coffee mugs. Not
yet, anyway.) His strips are a big reason I’m subscribed to Salon and
ESPN the Magazine. And he won my adoration forever when I ordered What
a Long Strange Strip It’s Been from his site, and he signed it “Ian!!
Peace out, my pale brotha!” C’mon, how cool is that? And I was pale at
the time! How’d he know that? (Watch those “pasty” cracks.)

I once met Keef at the San Diego Comic-Con and in the midst of fawning
and slobbering all over him (I took a picture, but it was with one of
those stupid disposable cameras and didn’t turn out), I begged him,
“Please, please, please, Mr. Knight – please come to the Midwest
someday!” Keef patted me on the head, said “Maybe someday,” and wished
groupies would come to his table instead of me.

Well, “someday” finally came last night. Keef has been touring the
Midwest (as “the other black cartoonist,” who’s not Aaron McGruder of
“The Boondocks” fame) with a slideshow presentation of his strips, in
conjunction with promoting a new project of his, The Beginner’s Guide
to Community-Based Arts, and Ann Arbor was on the itinerary. Hell
yeah, I was there!

The event at the Ann Arbor Public Library was sponsored by 826michigan
(an organization I just may have to get involved with soon – brought
to you by the same people who gave you 826 Valencia and 826NYC), and
provided an entertaining evening of poetry, singing, comics, laughter,
and, best of all, discussion. Knight had some fascinating thoughts on
the language of cartooning and demonstrated how comics are able to
convey information that other art forms – such as film, music, and
literature – can’t.

I didn’t start off the evening very well, however. I’m often
uncomfortable meeting people whom I admire. I’ll just stand there,
nodding with a stupid grin on my face. Or try so hard to act cool that
I won’t say anything at all. Or I’ll try to say way too much in that
quick two-to-three-minute window of time and sound like a babbling,
blithering idiot. I got to the library early, while Keef was setting
up, took a seat, and read through a couple of newsweeklies I’d picked
up. Soon after I placed the Metro Times on the chair next to me, I
felt someone looking over my shoulder. And that usually bothers me, so
I turned around to see what was up. It was Keef, who was intrigued by
the cover of the MT’s 25th anniversary issue.

“Cool,” he said. “Is that from Detroit?” OhmyGod, I wasn’t ready to
talk to him yet! I was keeping cool, thinking of what question I’d ask
after the presentation, or what I could say once he signed my book.
But hey, there he was. And it was early. Hardly anyone was in the room
yet, so maybe I could strike up a conversation. Or not. All I could
muster was a feeble “Yeah,” as I considered asking him whether or not
he wanted my Metro Times (which, unfortunately, doesn’t run his
strip). Idiot.

After the show, however, I squeezed a few bucks from what remains of
my college loan, bought two new books, and strung a few coherent
sentences together for Keef. We talked about him finally coming to the
Midwest and a few cartooning techniques before I handed him my books
to sign. When he asked who to make them out to, I showed him my signed
copy of The Passion of the Keef (I know – geek!) and said my name. He
took one look at his signature and drawing (of a hand holding a black
marker triumphantly), and said “Ian? Casselberry, right?”

Have you ever heard those old tapes of the Beatles’ appearance on The
Ed Sullivan Show? Ed said, “Ladies and gentleman, the Beatles!” and
this explosion of screaming came from all the girls in the audience.
That’s similar to the noise I made when Keith Knight said
“Casselberry, right?” “What?” I said. “Yeah! You remember me… ?”

Keef smiled. “Well, there’s two Ians on my mailing list. You and Ian
Nagy, who’s right over there.” (I believe Ian Nagy and I went to
school together at some point, too.)

Hey, I don’t care how he recognized my name. He recognized my name. I
shook the man’s hand, let the man enjoy his Zingerman’s sandwich, and
walked back to my car like Fred Astaire. What a cool evening. (And I
bet it was way cooler than Adrian Tomine and Chris Ware in Iowa City
for the New Yorker College Tour. Figures that would happen after I
left Iowa, by the way.) Thanks, Keef.