Sing a Travelin' Song

This next Monday, April 30th, I will be at the International Reading Association conference in Chicago. I’ll be speaking and signing throughout the day. If you'll be at the conference, come say hello!

It’s also come time for me to mention that the Hatke Family is once again strapping on their collective traveling shoes and returning to Italy to see friends and family for the first time in nearly 4 years. We will be leaving in just two short weeks and staying until September. Here’s a little painting I made of the village last time we were there:

I’ll be posting regularly throughout the summer and maybe even putting a little of the “adventure” back in “Art and Adventure.” This ol’ blog’s gotta start living up to its name.

I’m also hoping to post weekly photos in addition to new art. And to that end I’ve put a lot of original art up for sale in my HOUSE HATKE ETSY SHOP with the hope of raising money for a new camera. It’s finally time to admit that our poor old 2004 SRL can’t focus (yelling "come on! FOCUS!" has stopped working). So feel free to poke around the shop! I’ll be closing it down for the summer in 10 days. Robot comics! Original Zita pages! Watercolors!

Stay tuned.

Back from Texas

My visit the the Texas Library Association in Houston was a whirlwind of activity and excitement. My first visit to Texas was brief, and I can’t say I really got to see much of it, but the people were friendly and the Texas librarians are true crusaders for reading. I expect I’ll be back there someday.

One of the highlights of the trip was chatting with the renowned Orson Scott Card at dinner, trading books and talking about history. I’ve been a fan of his books ever since a friend handed me a copy of Enders Game in college. The next morning (was this only yesterday? Oh how travel warps time...) I was up bright and early for a panel discussion about comics and storytelling with OSC and authors Shannon Hale (Rapunzel’s Revenge, The Goose Girl, Princess Academy) and Gareth Hinds who uses his excellent draftsmanship to create graphic novel adaptations of classics like The Merchant of Venice, Beowulf and The Odyssey. It was universally agreed that Shannon Hale won the day.

The most personally exciting moment for me, tough, was getting my very first look at a real physical copy of Legends of Zita. I’d say First Second did a pretty bang up job with production. I thought the printing looked great. In fact, here, take a look:

Legends of Zita flipthrough from Ben Hatke on Vimeo.

So here’s to everyone I met in Texas! You made my short visit a delight.

Robot Comic #15

(newspaper format here.)

Heading to TLA tomorrow. Here's a little more about it from the First Second Blog.

Robot Comic #14

(newspaper format here.)

This has not been my best Monday.

But the good news is this: I inked a whopping two robot comics this weekend while I was waiting to have my car's breaks replaced (poor car really needed it). Of the two, I decided to color, scan and post this one because ...well, maybe in the hope that explosions sometimes lead to rainbows?

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Books, Beautiful Books.

I love books. I love the smell of old libraries, and bindings and covers and printed illustrations. I still design my books with paper in mind. When drawing comics I design page spreads, rather than individual pages, and I often put a lot of thought into the last image on the right hand page. The image that makes you want to turn that page.

Books can be so beautiful. Maybe if a huge portion of content migrates to digital platforms the books that continue to be physically printed will have a greater emphasis on beauty of form.

A boy can dream.

Artist on the Run

Oh what busy times! I’ve been meaning to mention, here on this little blog, a couple events that are coming up. Events at which I will be appearing! Events at which I will be talking about writing and drawing!

The first thing on my “event horizon” is the Texas Library Association conference in Houston. I will be there on April 19th. At 8 am I will be participating in the Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List panel, along with authors Shannon Hale, Gareth Hinds and Orson Scott Card. ORSON SCOTT CARD!

Also, I just might be carrying around an actual print copy of Legends of Zita!

The other event is the International Reading Association convention in Chicago. I will be there on April 30th and at 11 am that day I’ll be participating with other authors in a talk called Visual Literacy Through Graphic Novels. Dave Roman will be there! And some signings and things in the afternoon.

Oh airplanes, I wish I weren’t so terrified of you.

Robot Comic #13

(newspaper format here.)

Spring is, I guess for obvious reasons, a particularly water color-y time of year.

Robot Comic #12

(newspaper format here.)