whoops. i guess that's what happens when you go on "world tour".....you stop updating. a busy october with ministry and a very full life apart from ministry. i have a few updates to summarize the month. here's the comic and video game version.
 
up first was a trip out to brooklyn to see adrian tomine...a rarity among rarities: a respected asian american graphic novelist who is frequently reviewed and referenced in the new york times. in fact, he is a regular in the new yorker magazine with one of his covers voted as a readers' favorite! his new graphic novel, shortcomings, had just been released and he had a signing, q and a, wine and cheese tasting and usual schmoozing at book court.....he had a long line of folks waiting for him to sign but i asked if he would do a sketch. he politely said sure if i was willing to wait until after all the books were signed. so towards the end, after all the books were done, there were 2 or 3 of us who got sketches too.

i asked adrian if he had ever been to the small press expo in bethesda. with a little remorse, he said that the small press expo was one show he needed to add to his tour to go to.

while adrian tomine did not make the small press expo....we did! it was our first small press expo(spx) since 2004. 2005 was the year we moved to the city and in 2006, we were in hawaii for the cony's wedding.

some other friends we made were matthew and robbi of idiot books...easily the most interesting and innovative stuff at the show. not really comics but great, great art by robbi who illustrates crazy thoughts by her husband matt. they even have a subscription service for their odd books:8 books over the year for a set price. they also have an entertaining blog at thebarnstorming.com  the name comes from the fact that they really live in a barn.

after weeks of waiting for nintendo world store in nyc to stock chibi robo for the ds, i gave in and went to walmart in germantown, md to pick up the game for my sweet t. its a game where you play a robot who cleans(that's the kind of stuff she likes) in the original, you clean a house. in this sequel, you clean a park. the japanese are nuts! and the koreans love it!

it's a walmart only exclusive as the label says but the nintendo store vowed to carry it because: "we ARE the nintendo store". shortly after i bought this, the nintendo world store did stock it as promised. oh well.


 
we also picked up ddr for the wii and promptly shared it with our friends at peggy's birthday get together. as the night wore on, club vision got lazier and lazier with more and more people playing the 2 player game....then playing while sitting....then playing while doing whatever mike was doing. an indirect factor i'm sure was the consumption of the house wine.