This year’s San Diego Comic-Con is fast approaching: running from July 23-27, I will be there for all five days with the rest of the Flight crew at Booth #1228 for the debut of our latest anthology, Flight Volume 5! I have a new 7-page Jellaby story, “Lost,” in Flight 5 (pictured above), and I will also be there with copies of the Jellaby graphic novel on hand, as well as the new Jellaby sketchbook.

Also, the Sunday on the 27th is going to be Kids’ Day at Comic-Con, and I will be taking part in the Kids Draw! panel — the details as follows:

10:30-11:30 Kids Draw!— Join a great lineup of kids’ cartoonists as they draw their hearts out—right in front of you! Cartoonists including Nick Abadzis (Laika), Debbie Huey (Bumperboy), Johane Matte (Flight Explorer), Scott Morse (Visitations), Andy Runton (Owly), Kean Soo (Jellaby), and Dave Roman (Nickelodeon) will create art as you watch—with your help! Room 30CDE

I’m going to be totally out of my element and a nervous wreck drawing in front of people… so I’m sure it’ll be an entertaining time! Hope to see some of you there!

Shannon (care of her cousin, Tory) sent along one of the best pieces of fan art I have ever received. Thanks so much, Shannon!

I’ve been terribly behind on posting Jellaby fan art, but better late than never, I suppose. Here, Jerry Shamblin makes a (long overdue) return appearance with another great illustration.

I will be returning to New York City this coming weekend for the MoCCA Art Festival which will be running from June 7th-8th! This time, I’ll be sharing a space with Ryan North, Chris Hastings and Rosemary Mosco, at tables C4-6.

And as you might’ve gathered from the image up above, I will also be debuting a new Jellaby sketchbook that collects the various illustrations and comics that have run on this website and elsewhere for the past couple of years, including some material that have never seen print before. I will also have copies of the Jellaby graphic novel on hand, so make sure to stop by!

The Disney Book Group (which my publisher, Hyperion, is a part of) will also have a booth at the show, and I’ll be hanging out at their booth on Saturday from 3-4pm, to sign books and just shoot the breeze, so swing by if you’re so inclined.

And that’s not all — Hope Larson will also be at MoCCA, and will be debuting her latest book, Chiggers, at the show (check out the Chiggers minisite, up now)! She will also have copies of the soon-to-be out of print Salamander Dream, amongst many other goodies. She’ll be at table C10, and for her full schedule, be sure to check out her Livejournal.

(with apologies to Charles Schulz)

Just a quick update to let you all know that I will be attending this year’s New York Comic-Con for the very first time! I will be sharing a booth with the Comics Bakery gang at booth #2247, so you’ll be able to find me there for most of the con (I also hear that they will have scones at their booth — yum!). I will also be participating in a couple of signings and panels throughout the weekend:

Jellaby signing: Fri. 18th, 4:00 - 5:30 PM in the Autograph area (autograph table #8)
Flight Explorer panel - a conversation with Kazu Kibuishi and creators: Sun. 20th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM in room 1E08
Flight Explorer signing: Sun. 20th, 2:00 - 3:00 PM at the Midtown Comics booth (booth #1541)

Hope to see you there!

Flight Explorer is available in stores now! Order Flight Explorer online. To find out more about Explorer, and to see more preview pages, check out this Newsarama article.

Also on February 5th, I will be making an appearance at the North York Central Library as part of the Toronto Public Library’s ‘Keep Toronto Reading’ campaign, where I will be joined by Kazu Kibuishi to talk about our latest books, Amulet and Jellaby. The talk is scheduled to start at 6:30pm, so if you’re in the area, stop by and say hello! Full details on the speaking event can be found here. Also note that there will be a signing on the 6th with Kazu and I at the Beguiling (from 5-7pm) for those of you unable to make it out to the talk tomorrow! Hope to see some of you out there.

Oh, and one last thing: there’s a short interview with me up at the Keep Toronto Reading blog.

So. This is it! The cover for the first Jellaby graphic novel, and I’m pleased as punch. The book collects the first two chapters of Jellaby that were serialized here on the SFS (with new & revised art), and continues the adventures of Portia and Jellaby! Clocking in at 160 pages, the graphic novel is set to be released on February 5th, 2008 — almost 3 years after the launch of the SFS! You can order Jellaby through Amazon.com (or through other fine online retailers) in hardcover or softcover editions.

And if that’s not enough, there will be a new full-colour Jellaby story, “First Snow,” appearing in the pages of Flight Explorer, which is set to be released at the end of March 2008! You can also order the anthology through Amazon.com.

Once again, thank you to all of you who have supported us these past couple of years. You’ll definitely want to stick around in 2008, as Jellaby will be returning in some new web-only adventures!

PS. Don’t know what Jellaby is? You can read the first 62 pages of the graphic novel here, or check out some of the colour short stories here.