Now through Christmas, you can order Picket Line for 25% off the cover price! That’s just $15! Visit the store to stock up on copies for the book lovers on your list, or simply buy a copy for yourself, because you deserve it, and you like saving money.

Make sure to order by December 12 to ensure delivery in time for Christmas!

And now, to sell you on it…

What people are saying about Picket Line:

“Admirable in its emotional complexity” – Alison Hallett, Portland Mercury

“The characters are nuanced and the drawings advance the action before occasionally breaking out in a full-page landscape that shows Wiederhoeft’s artistic chops.” – Jeff Baker, the Oregonian

“Outstanding, well-developed and believable” – Chris Smith, Englewood Review of Books

“Exceeded my expectations every step of the way” – Kevin Bramer, Optical Sloth

“…a complex plot involving the themes of idealism, first love, marital infidelity — themes that reflect a depth not often associated with comic book.” – Jeanne Kolker, Wisconsin State Journal.

If you’re convinced, head on over to the store and order Picket Line today!

A while back I received a drawing from a reader named Meed. I meant to put it up here sooner, but here it is! Thanks Meed!

Olga invited the ladies over for a craft night. “I’m actually not very crafty,” I said, so instead I documented. Or at least I documented the corner of the room that I was facing (sorry to all the other crafters who were out of my line of sight!) Can you imagine the conversations happening in this room? Classic!

Pictured are Autumn, Bailey, Tiffany, Mariia, and Olga.

Hannah Glavor and I made a zine! It is a short story about a cowboy named Levi. You might have to zoom in to read some of the words, as the typewriter was very much on its last breath.

Speaking of Hannah Glavor, she’s putting out a record soon, but has released a track for our enjoyment. If you haven’t heard it yet, I highly recommend! You can listen (and download for free) over here.

This is technically cheating, since I posted a drawing of a person yesterday, and I’m supposed to draw a place today. But I made the rules, so I can break ‘em! I needed to draw an updated head shot for my “about” page (which, too, was due for an update… I never know what to say there.) So I drew this to reflect my longer hair. If you want, check out the updated bio!

Say what you will about Bil Keane’s comic Family Circus – heaven knows I, like so many jaded Millenials, have made my share of jokes. Say what you will, but this comic, and this man, was important. This comic had heart. It was shamelessly sentimental, yes, but whoever decided that was a bad thing? As a kid, before I learned about sarcasm and irony and the often mean-spirited humor so favored in entertainment, I drank the Family Circus up. It was the first thing I flipped to in my parents’ Sunday newspaper. As a child, I could relate to those wide-eyed children, just like I’m sure many parents have chuckled from the perspective of the adults, and grandparents have knowingly smiled at the universally heartwarming misunderstandings of their very-literal grandchildren. “How nice! Bob and Mary named their baby after me.” “They named their baby ‘Grandma’?” And I defy you to find me one person – any age – who didn’t enjoy tracing Jeffy’s dotted path through the neighborhood. It didn’t matter what shenanigans he got into along the way, it was that invitation into the journey that got us.

Maybe Bil Keane could have roped in readers of all ages by featuring a prominent teenage character (though he’d likely turn out as out-of-touch as Chip from Hi and Lois) but I think he stuck with what he knew, and if that meant losing readers while they trudged through the cynical, muddy waters of adolescence and early adulthood, there were probably many who returned once they started a family circus of their own. Bil Keane delivered exactly what he promised.

As a kid, I was frustrated by the more adult comics with punchlines that I couldn’t understand. I developed a theory about comics which was basically the Emperor’s New Clothes Theory, in which none of the jokes actually made sense but people pretended to laugh so as to appear smart (I think this still applies to many New Yorker cartoons). Sometimes I would pretend to get the joke and would laugh, but with Family Circus I never had to pretend. The jokes were written to be understood instantly, to smile at, and take a warm fuzzy feeling into your day. No, that’s hardly what sells in comedy today, but regardless, that early experience – having someone like Bil Keane who took children seriously enough to speak their language – probably made a world of difference for me. It kept me reading the comics, then later reading them with a more engaged and critical mind, and eventually creating my own. And the thing that he held so dearly, that sense of heart, that’s exactly what I’m striving for now in my own way.

Bil Keane’s death has made me feel a genuine sadness, though I haven’t read Family Circus in years. It might be heavy-handed to say it feels like losing a grandfather, but for some reason that is the comparison that keeps coming to me. The Family Circus did not push many creative boundaries (though his artistic legacy is not without his innovations: the passing of time with a dotted line keeps coming to mind) but there’s no denying its importance in the world of comics, and in the hearts of his readers and cartoonists for years to come. Yeah, that’s a pretty cheesy line, but in the spirit of Family Circus, let’s leave our sarcasm at the door and just accept it. This man was like a grandfather to us, and he will be missed.

There was probably a time toward the beginning of this century, though I can’t remember for sure, when I swore I would never own a cell phone. After a few years of owning a cell phone, then, I similarly vowed I would never own a smart phone. Once I got a smart phone, I promised myself I would avoid certain trends, such as the ridiculous game Angry Birds, with it’s annoying bug-eyed mascot and overly glorified place in pop culture. Of course (can you see how this trend is shaping up) I now have that very game loaded on my phone, and play it whenever I want to kill some time, and occasionally get obsessed when I reach a level that takes more than a dozen do-overs to beat. It’s probably the worst time-waster I’ve been engaged with since facebook, and the Sims before that, and I threaten every day to uninstall it from my phone.

But, the other day as I was slingshotting disgruntled fowl at a stack of wood and smirking boogers (what are those green things supposed to be?) I learned something about myself. I realized that as I play Angry Birds my brain in engaged in such a way that I begin to make slight adaptations, based on what I’ve learned from previous plays. I adjust my angle, my velocity, and my entire strategy accordingly, and begin to gain certain skill at playing Angry Birds. Yes, I realize that this could be said of most any game, and I realize that the skills acquired in playing those games is generally pretty specific to the game itself, and not terribly useful in the real world – unless of course you find yourself on a mission to recover some kidnapped eggs. But on a very observable level, it showed me the power of our brain to adapt as we take in information, to solve problems, to increase in cleverness. In short, to learn. Which may seem completely meaningless in the context of a cell phone game, but it’s really awesome when you realize that the same brain that learns how to hit its colorful, animated target, is also capable of learning how to solve real life problems and come up with real life solutions. I think it’s harder to notice these adaptations because they happen more gradually, and across more platforms than a single game. But it’s the same brain at work, and it’s dang amazing. And that’s what I recently learned from playing Angry Birds.

The Lodge is a house in north Portland which is guarded by two magnificent fir trees. When I used to imagine what homes in Portland looked like, nothing comes closer than this place. I spent the afternoon there yesterday drawing with my dear friend (and resident at the Lodge) Jamie. If you notice the door is cracked slightly in this drawing, it’s because Jamie caught me taking photo reference of her house with my cell phone, before coming up the front steps. Oh, Jamie.

This is my grandmother in Chicago, when she was 21 years old, looking like a movie star on a Lake Michigan beach. She’s an amazing woman, as no line drawing could possibly capture. Of course I wasn’t born at the time this photo was taken, but I have a lot of great memories with my grandmother at Lake Michigan. When I was just a year older than she was here, I spent part of my summer receiving jaw surgery, and then the rest of that summer recovering. When I was just a few days out of the hospital, my mom and grandma took me to the beach where we had spent so many summer days as kids, Point Beach near Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The sun was twinkling brightly off the waves as we nestled our beach chairs into that familiar mix of warm sand and bark and pebbles. Before us seagulls swooped. Behind us, leafy birch trees rustled in the breeze, and though I myself couldn’t talk, I enjoyed the comforting sound of these lovely women in conversation. I’m convinced that nothing heals the body – and the spirit – like a sunny day at the beach, and my grandma must have known that.