The Official K Chronicles and (Th)ink Website

*HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME…

last week was my 38th birthday. i wore my traditional birthday hat and proceeded to score free stuff all day…(makes me wanna pull out my old fake i.d. so i could pull this off twice a year…)

anyway..last weekend’s marginal prophets performance at the cherry bar in s.f. was very nice and bittersweet because our long-time producer, jamie lemoine, was in the house..he’s moving to new york city in a coupla weeks and will be sorely missed…

so that means: the noble def g is in l.a. jamie lemoine is in new york. and i’m still in s.f. yet we still won’t break up!!

thanks to everyone who came..

my d.i.y. panel at sadie’s flying elephant went well, too. always a pleasure to hear the infamous lil’ mike spins stories of san francisco lore. plus, the free food wasn’t bad either.

*THE NEW K CHRONICLES COLLECTION..

is under construction and will be put out by manic d press in early 2005. the title will be announced on this site soon.

*”HERO” AIN’T ALL THAT..

man…the new/old jet li flick “hero” is nice to look at, BUT THE BEST FIGHT WAS AT THE VERY BEGINNING!! with donnie yen, boston-born martial arts supa-star.. i was expecting it to get even better with each fight, but it never happened..

*THE MARGINAL PROPHETS WILL NOT BE PERFORMING ON KQED..

but i still will be on professing the importance of public television, whilst begging for your donations…it’s happening on weds. sept.22nd at 7:30pm

cheers!

keef

*SAN DIEGO COMIC CON WRAP-UP

i know, i know…it’s a week late. but it’s taken that long to recover and catch up.

san diego was great, as usual. although it didn’t start out that way.

i can no longer fly down. i have too much stuff. i was lugging mutiple cases of four different books, three different cds, shirts, mugs bags, original art etc.

i missed my flight. when i got down there, the hostel screwed up my reservation. i stayed in a junkie motel the first night i was there. no, SERIOUSLY.

then when i got to the con, they didn’t have my badges. i was put in the small press section, cuz they cut 50 tables in artists alley (where i’ve been exhibiting for 9 years)..

but in the end, it all turned out for the best. it was my busiest convention, …once people found me.

great panels, too. three different black cartoonist panels. the one that i missed was the aaron mcgruder panel, which i heard was the very best. many folks (including the wifey) came down to tell me mr. mcgruder gave me props and the audience was clapping after he mentioned my name. he came over to my table and jokingly gave me grief for the strip i did about him. he asked me if i’d send him a print..i said only if he’d do the introduction to my upcoming k chronicles collection. he said he would.

we also talked about his upcoming “boondocks” tv series. it was a good conversation..i wouldn’t be surprised if i found myself working with him in the future…

check out his new book “birth of a nation”. with reggie hudlin and kyle baker. good stuff.

lessee…hung out with my pals garrett izumi (who sold a $200 book to jeannie schulz, wife of the late charles) and mr. stephen (“bob the angry flower”) notley (who sold out of books by friday!!), and vegas cartoonist homie, v3Zun…

also..me and the wifey stumbled upon this restaurant that had MAINE LOBSTER FOR $9.95!! can you believe it?? you can’t get lobster that cheap in boston, anymore!! i cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but it’s on 5th in the gaslamp right next to tgifridays. and the lobster special is ONLY ON THURSDAYS.

what else…saw the new bill plympton animated film…winced at the new star wars film title “Revenge of the Sith” (should’ve been “Rise..”, but better name than the other two)…put together the first “nappy hour” meeting of black cartoonists at the tivoli bar on friday night.

picked up joe matt’s “the poor bastard”, ruben bolling’s “tom the dancing bug” books which are out of print, “birth of a nation”, a bootleg of the animated “clone wars”…

oh..and check out art balthazar..he and his partner had the table next to me. they were funny and nice and do a great kids book…

expect some neat website updates soon…

*yawn*

*ANOTHER EMAIL O’ THE WEEK:

Hi Keith,

I’m a soon-to-be 19-year-old white male who has been reading your comics for… geez, almost three years now. I decided to finally write and offer you my words of encouragement, since I’m afraid Patriot Act II will pass and Ashcroft will send one or both of us to Guantanamo Bay (if we’re lucky). K-Chronicles is the highlight of my Wednesdays, when I log on to Salon.com and go directly to your comic (actually, the only thing I read on the site is the comics). K-Chronicles, Life’s Little Victories, (th)Ink (when I can find it), I love them all. It’s so hard to find a comic that can be both brutually honest and funny. Doonesbury comes close, but because of his daily syndication status he sacrifices opinion for joke-a-day formula; The Boondocks is the best contender, but McGruder just seems to have given up on story and just makes cynical comments and recycled “Yo-Mama!” jokes.

I also started listening to samples of The Marginal Prophets through your website, and I must say I liked it a whole lot better than I thought it would be. I’m not sure how good my opinion is, though… I like everything from John Lee Hooker to The Grateful Dead, to Foo Figthers and Linkin Park (for the record “What If” is the only Creed song that doesn’t make me yawn). Music from a comedian is something I’ve been suspicious of since I heard a piece of music by that band Stephen King and Dave Barry made… thankfully, TMP has healed the scar I got from that.

I’ll be ordering “Twist the Nob” quite soon and add it to my collection of your previous three books. Keep drawing! I can’t imagine life without K-Chronicles!

-Zac Cardona – electronic journalism major, conspiracy theorist and computer nerd

(Yes, somehow I get counted as white despite my Spanish herritage)

P.S. – “I get phat on the mike like a honey-galzed ham.” That’s just classic.