Lookin' Back at 2007

Hope everyone is having a nice holiday! I bring you greetings from all of the fam, as well as this little elf man. I'm sure Lileks would get a kick out of this guy - he'd been posting photos of a particularly sinister elf in his possession.



Projects, projects projects... I definitely hope I get to do many more projects in the upcoming year. It's good practice, as it always has been, and hopefully I'll get more stuff published. Speaking of which, this was the year I got something officially published (Thanks, mnartists!)
Anyway, here's a little glimpse of a small 3-pager in the works.



And introducing Photoshop! Definitely more colors to come thanks to a thoughtful little gift. A quick color job of Tumei, the Soft Earth leading lady...



And a little summary of my favorite things this year:
Favorite Albums:
Lost and Safe by The Books. I'm so glad I discovered this American/German band, and doubly so that I saw a performance at the Walker Art Center. There's something very folksy about their music, which seamlessly blends rich cellos with weird sound effects adopted from anonymous bargain bin videos. The first track I ever heard (and still my favorite) is "If Not Now, Whenever."
Wincing the Night Away by The Shins. This puts their Garden State songs to shame. Haunting, but at the same time comforting. The track "Red Rabbits" will undoubtedly be in one of my animated films.
The Reminder by Feist. Everyone loves her now, and with good reason. Her cute song "1234" is on all the iPod commercials, but the quieter songs like "The Water" are where it's really at.
Mali Music by Damon Albarn. Albarn, of Gorillaz and Blur fame, went to Mali to record traditional music, and complements it with a soft techno edge which accentuates the African musicians instead of detracting from them. "Bamako City" is beautiful.

Favorite Films:
Juno only confirms what we all knew in out hearts. Minnesotans are the coolest people in America.
Knocked Up, according to a New Yorker I read, is the future of romance films. And that's perfectly okay.
Tekkon Kinkreet is a candy-colored animated delight. It possesses the charm of a child's drawings, along with an adult's chilling nightmares.
Pan's Labyrinth will scare the crap out of you. Watch it.
Children of Men will also scare the crap out of you, because it looks so much like a documentary that it's unnerving. I think this is the best science fiction film in at least five years.
The Pursuit of Happyness is cute. It makes me cry, and affirms the excellence of Will Smith and his progeny.
Ratatouille is great. If this doesn't spark a generation of foodies, I don't know what will.

Favorite Books/Comics: I'm not even going to try. There's just so many. And I'm sure 2008 will be an even better year for my chosen profession.

I guess that's it. I'm work-work-workin' away as always, and I guess all I can hope for is another great, productive, exciting, and inspiring year. And I wish the same to everyone else. Happy new year, yo!

Can nothing more be done?

Blue's Great Swiss Adventure! Part 5!

Where we last left our heroes, they were in Geneva. And it was cold. So cold.


That's Mont Blanc. You know, the tallest mountain in Europe? That's the one. We saw it entering Geneva, and if you knew where to look, you could see it looming not too far away.
Geneva's actually not that cute of a city. It's very historical and important, but visually, it's pretty bleak. Kind of nice from the rooftops, though.




One interesting thing about Geneva's layout is that one of the main streets is car-free. Pedestrians can cross easily, and are only deterred by the public train that occasionally runs down the street. But it was peculiar to go along such a bustling street without the honking of cars.


Geneva at night:


And a park. I had fun playing a game of giant chess with one of my fellow travelers here.


The symbol of Geneva, on one of the park's walkways:



One morning, I gave in and went to Starbucks. Hardcore travelers may grumble and shake their fists, but I figured that I wouldn't see any of these until I got back to the States. Plus, I seriously needed some hot chocolate.




Obligatory Church Crawl: here's an interesting ceiling.


Ditto interesting tiles:


Obligatory Museum Crawl: The Red Cross Museum. That was great! Definitely a museum I would visit again.


Isn't it something?


And here's me.


More after the new year. Sorry if this post is a little half-hearted, but I'm tired, and I'm having too much fun relaxing and reading magazines that have piled up in the last four months. I love Wired especially! But in any case, happy holidays, everyone!

Look at me still talking when there's science to do!

Weekend Getaway: Lucerne

Hey there, chochachos. Just taking a study break, so I'm putting up pictures of a trip me and two of my friends took a couple of weeks ago. Ladies and gentlemen, Lucerne!


This was a really cute city. It's about the same size as Lugano, but with a completely different atmosphere. Where Lugano is bright and bustly (and sometimes slightly rude), Lucerne is mute, cloudy, quaint, but very friendly. Of course, it was raining almost the entire weekend, but that didn't stop me, Camille, and Ashley from exploring the city.



This is one of the big chapels in Lucerne. Cool architecture, huh? All of the buildings here are fascinating to walk by. In German-speaking Switzerland, the houses are very boxy, but they're painted in pinks, greens, and blues so that they look like rows of presents. Cars can't go on most of the roads, so the winding avenues of the shopping district belonged to pedestrians.


It sure was cloudy, though. I think in other circumstances, the town would be almost eerie. The way the mist surrounded the valley where the city was situated made it seem like there was nothing, vast expanses of nothing outside of the town. Sort of like that Twilight Zone episode where the kid sent his enemies to the cornfield. In the early evening, the mist even seemed to creep into the streets, pierced only by the Christmas lights strung between houses.


Not to say there wasn't any color in the town, far from it. I loved this old bridge crossing the river which divided the city in two. It's been here forever. Not too far away was an outside market which wrapped along the riverbank, selling bread, cheese, and all kinds of Christmas ephemera. Every morning we would get a nice big loaf or braided bread and take turns eating it as we walked along. Yum.


We found a bunch of great places to eat, actually. Our hostel provided nice breakfasts, and we frequented the many bakeries scattered around town for snacks and sandwiches. One night we ate at a cozy Indian restaurant, and spent the next night in one of many kebab emporiums, enjoying our chewy wraps while watching some mindless show on the German VH1. All of our walks were punctuated by a stop at Starbucks to warm up and absorb the holiday music wafting from the speakers, which isn't very adventurous of us, but it was nice all the same.


I was astonished at how many people there spoke English! Apparently, it's an early part of Swi-German education. This was a nice surprise in itself, but I must also mention how friendly everyone is! Always greeting you and helping you out - a young woman at one of the stores even politely asked me how to say a couple phrases in English.


And here's just some pictures from exploring one of Lucerne's museums. There's an outdoor park called the Gletschergarten, marking where a glacier ground its way through the area thousands of years ago, leaving crazy holes in the rock. Nearby is a famous sculpture of a dying lion commemorating fallen Swiss soldiers in an old battle.


The museum attached to the GG was something else. For some reason, there was a mirror maze - the kind you see in funhouses and horror movies. Pretty fun getting lost in there. And outside were some of those mirrors that distorts your image.




And inside the museums were some of those dioramas of what Lucerne used to look like millions of years ago. Did you know that at one point, Switzerland was a tropical island? No joke!


In any case, Lucerne was really fun, and I'd like to go back again, maybe in the spring. When it isn't, you know, insanely cold and wet.

Looks like I might do one more post before I go home. I'll try and make it a BGSA.
Happy Sunday!

'Cause it was wintertime, and we wanted some more time

Winter Times!

I'm not dead, it's just December. I'm so excited for everything going on this month - but none of the good stuff starts happening until halfway through the month. Right now, we've got finals! Yippee!
I mean, bleh.
Hopefully, I'll have time for one more update before I head back to the States, and I'll make it either another installment of the BGSA or talk about my weekend in Lucerne. But that'll have to wait a few more days. I'll also keeping updating stuff from home, but there's no scanner so drawings may be scarce.
Speaking of drawings, here's some stuff:


Same drawing as before, but I added some text to give it a movie-poster look. It's fun knowing Chinese! I can always tell you what it says, but if there's no requests I'll keep it secret.
Then there's this. Hope you like brown.


Why won't I write stuff in English? Because I like to make my readers suffer. But this is a quick-quick Photoshop image I did this afternoon. I've got a really really good idea behind it, sketches and everything. Hopefully more soon.
And finally, a little Chrishmash card to the world!


Aww... Heidi and her rabbit friend gaze at the stars from atop Edelweiss Present Mountain. I tried to make it cute, hope it was.

In a room all filled with Chinese lamps