Howdy folks,

I'm in a great mood. I have several deadlines coming up in the next few weeks then after that it will be smooth sailing until the end of the year. I'll finally get to start writing my next graphic novel for Scholastic, I'll get started on my next picture book with Little, Brown, while illustrating a few other projects in the year. Meanwhile, this weekend will be the start of what will be many appearances in the upcoming Spring/Summer for the many books coming out this calendar year.

LA TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

This weekend is the LA Times Festival of Books. This will be the second year it is held at the USC Campus (previously held on the much nicer UCLA Campus) and I will be signing some of my new book releases at several places....

SATURDAY APRIL 21st

11:00 AM     DIESEL BOOKSTORE (Booth 975) - Sidekicks and others

1:00 PM       ONCE UPON A TIME (Booth 774) - Sidekicks and others

3:00 PM       LITTLE JUNEBUGS (Booth 559) - Bawk and Roll and others

4:00 PM       MRS NELSONS TOY AND BOOK SHOP (Booth 747) - Dog In Charge and others

See you there!

BOOK NEWS

Good news all around for the book titles I've worked on. OH NO! NOT AGAIN! Just received a starred review from Kirkus and DOG IN CHARGE also received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Abrams Books has really made a push to promote KEL GILLIGAN'S DAREDEVIL STUNT SHOW that they made it the cover of their Fall Catalog as seen here.  FIRE! FUEGO! BRAVE BOMBEROS comes out next week and has also been getting great reviews. I'll be posting a video next week on my process on how I did the art for that book. BAWK AND ROLL has been getting great reviews all around and author, Tammi Sauer is on a mad tear throughout the country doing speaking engagements. Speaking of which....

Sterling just sent me a crazy stack of copies and I may possibly have to think up a contest or something to give these suckers away. Stay tuned. It might be something simple like, "Hey, tweet about it" or some junk. We'll see.

On a semi related note the NHL Playoffs are here and my beloved (8th seeded) Los Angeles Kings are one win away from eliminating the top seeded Vancouver Canucks from the playoffs. The captain of the LA Kings, Dustin Brown has been on a scoring rampage putting in four goals in the first three games of the series and also layed out a out a nice highlight reel body check on Henrik Sedin. ANYWAY, Mr. Dustin Brown is also a contributor to the Guy's Read anthology edited by Jon Sciezcquiza .... Scieszka?... Is there supposed to be a 7 in there somewhere? Anyway, this is a little detail from the illustration for his story contribution. (For all you hockey fans out there, yes, I will be changing the other players number to 33) Go Kings Go!....

Speaking of playoffs and such, my graphic novel, SIDEKICKS, contiinues to get good