Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Snowy Travels, New York and Angoulême

Time to answer a reader question:

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Blogger Clare says...
What happened to Mr. Hatke?

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Well, Clare, it's been a busy couple of weeks since my last blog entry. I've finished a set of illustrations for an edition of G.K. Chesterton's The Ball and the Cross (still, I think, my favorite of his crazy novels), and I've been hard at work on my next, Not-Yet-Announced graphic novel (it's very exciting and I'll be able to talk about it soon, I promise!). I've also spent a lot of time working with my friends at Mirandum Pictures on the book trailer for Zita 3. Book trailers are a funny phenomenon... But this one came out wonderfully,thanks some very talented people, and it will be online very soon.

Last week I made a trip up to New York for an actual in-person meeting with my publishers, the good people at Macmillan. The snow storm turned a one-day trip into a magical two-day adventure. There was a moment after sundown when I was walking down the snowy, take-your-breath-away cold streets of Brooklyn toward a friends apartment when I stopped to push a car out of a snowbank. And as the car crawled away on the unplowed street, I walked on, thinking about how how weather brings people together.

Oh, and this arrived yesterday! It's a really real thing now:

And finally here I sit, surrounded by half-packed bags as I get ready to go to Angoulême. I've been studying French furiously and, I'm afraid, to very little effect. Quelle tristesse!

So if France and beautiful comics are your thing, stay tuned for my Angoulême report! There will be pictures. Oh, there will be pictures...