You know pen pals is passé right?

These days email has completely ruined the thrill of getting something in the mail. It seems so instantaneous to open an email and quickly read it. Long forgotten it seems is the art of handwriting. While email is faster and more efficient to get communication accomplished, don’t you miss the fun of actually receiving the mail? Unsure of it’s exact contents, there is an excitement to it, rivalled only by a child’s enthusiasm on Christmas morning.

In an effort to bring the fun back and have a good cultural exchange, I participated in a candy swap with a friend in Seattle. The idea is a simple one. Send candy or chocolate which is unique to your region. Post that selection to your chosen recipient and vice versa. Wait a week or two. Magically – something will appear at your residence. Carried by a strange man wearing a uniform. You seem to vaguely remember him.

Oh that’s right. A postman! Wow. They still exist!

Open your parcel to find a magical bounty inside! Unbelievable! It’s sugared treats from a distant far away land.

If you have a friend from another country, I recommend it. It’s fun to organise. It’s actually more fun trying to pick out a nice selection that you think will represent your region well, which, hopefully, will be enjoyable for your candy swap partner in crime.

Thanks to Renée for my bounty! Now that I have officially documented it with pics, I can devour!

Thanks for reading
Marc

June. It’s great news if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. The summer has officially begun and springtime will fade into the long summer days. That is exciting. It also means a good deal of comic conventions start up as well. In fact a few good ones have been already, but the grand daddy of them all – San Diego will kick in mid-late July generally. I haven’t been to San Diego since 2005, but I love that show. There is just a great atmosphere and the vibe that is in the city, it’s a great place to be! I won’t be attending this year unfortunately. If you have the opportunity though, I encourage you to go for at least one of the days and take in some of the craziness that descends upon San Diego. I truly miss hanging out with all the good friends I made when I used to attend. I hope some day I can catch up with them all again soon.

Here in New Zealand June means winter. We just had the last public holiday that we’ll see for some time. There is this long drought of public holidays now, and there won’t be another one until the winter is over. Winter in Auckland usually means a lot of rain. This year I did the smart thing and bought some leather shoes for rainproofing. The good thing about the winter season is, that I am more inclined to stay inside. This means that despite the cold, I should be more productive. More time inside = less commitments elsewhere. Less time elsewhere = more time drawing. You’ve got to take the positives that you can out of a situation – getting more drawing done because its wet outside. That is a real positive.

Since we’re now getting started into the second half of the year I guess we’d all best evaluate what we’d like to achieve before the year is out. I have a few things coming up. I have been confirmed for the Auckland Zinefest in August. You can check out more information about that here. If you are in the Auckland area, please do come out and say “hello”. I like meeting people and will be nice to you. Promise. Should be a great opportunity to sell some more comics. What else? I’ll be briefly in Christchurch at the end of this month. That should be fun. In September the wife and I are going to head to Melbourne for a quick look around. I have never been there before so i am really looking forward to that. Might also pop in at Armageddon Auckland in October. I’m not too sure about that one, but it is a “probable” at this stage.

Above is a sketch I did for a twitter pal in Wellington. Hi, Fi!

What about yourself? What plans do you have for the second half of the year?

Thanks for reading!
Marc

Monday night and I find myself heading over to Auckland’s North Shore instead of my familiar trip home which is the opposite direction from my place of work. Tonight Henry Rollins was in town bringing in his particular brand of insightfulness, humour and reflection. Knowing I would have some time to kill I made sure to stop into Burgerfuel Takapuna and help myself to a decent sized burger and a coke to help wash away some of the pre show time. Burger wasn’t bad, but I found that particular franchise branch not as good as my local one. Just not as friendly or something? Nonetheless the burger did its job and I was hungry no more!

After a short stroll around Takapuna I made my way to the Bruce Mason Centre. Rollins hit stage at 8pm. True to past times I have seen the man speak it was basically on from the moment he hit the stage. Just a marathon of observations seen through the eyes of an American who likes to live life to its fullest. There were no breaks. No pauses for sips of water. There was plenty of anecdotal stories shared though. Thoughts that covered the gamut of everything from acting in TV shows, through to Racism and homophobia being properly relegated to a thing of everything that came before the 21st Century.

Henry Rollins has a beautiful way with words. Many a laugh was had with the observations he has gained from being in the unique position of living on the outer edge of media and pop culture. One of the funnier ones was his recollection of the shame that went with being a travelling American while George Bush was now in office. A man who butchered the English language on a daily basis. He explained that he loved the fact that the USA now has a President whose middle name is Hussein. Who is intellectually capable and then some of handling the job. A guy who has memorised the Webster’s dictionary and speaks in perfect 12 point Helvetica.

Delivery is everything. Henry always has the audience in the palm of his hands. Even if you have no idea on what the mans history was, you would walk away impressed with his ability to string words together for just under three hours and hold your attention. As he remarked. The audience at his shows are his social media. He doesn’t need Facebook, as long as he has an audience waiting and a city to travel to. It truly make you feel like you aren’t living life to its fullest potential when you hear about what this guy does, just so he isn’t caught in the position of doing nothing.

It was an awesome night. Henry was on stage for such a long time, that my eyes were fried from the over head lights by the time he was ready to call it a night. He thanked us for our patience with his ramblings and then in his own words he “gave us our asses back”. With that he was off the stage and no doubt readying himself to leave and conquer another city on one of his excruciatingly long world tours.

Thanks Henry. It was impressive, earnest, fun and educational as always.

Thanks for reading
Marc