Still catching my breath after China, but three more trips loom in the next five weeks. First Manhattan for the two-day seminar. Then Toronto, where the whole family will be joining me for TCAF, a show we’ve wanted to do for a while and which we’re all very much looking forward to. Then I’ll be swinging by Barcelona for the 27th Annual Comics Festival there.

Despite a busy spring, my travel schedule will cool down for the rest of the year as I focus increasingly on my new graphic novel for First Second, The Sculptor. In fact, the Manhattan seminar will be doubling as reference-taking for that story which takes place in New York City.

We announced The Sculptor before the blog relaunched, and I haven’t written much about the project here because it’s still in the very early stages, but hardly a minute goes by at home or abroad when I’m not thinking about it. As exciting as China was, I couldn’t wait to get back to the studio and resume work on this story. I may be away for 12 out of the next 37 days, but I’ll be devoting the remaining 25 days—and the 1,000 days that follow it—to finally using everything I’ve learned in 25 years to tell a story I love, as clearly and effectively as I possibly can.

Dude, that’s totally Sky on the Great Wall of China.

Though most of our journey to China took place in spectacular Shanghai, we decided since it was Sky’s 16th birthday to splurge a bit on a couple of brief side-trips.

First to the enchanting Hangzhou with our great hosts Mikey and Alyssa and new friends David and Kim, where, thanks to some light rain, we fulfilled every tourist photographer’s dream: To make China look as much like China as possible.

Then, of course, to stately Beijing, for the great triumvirate of all photo ops: Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, and of course, The Great Wall of China (a ringed section thereof with some extremely steep and intimidating climbs).

Sky and I are home now. We arrived in Los Angeles about 40 minutes before we left Shanghai. Efficient.

In honor of Earth Day, the world just got a little smaller for my daughter and I—and much, much bigger all at once.

[Note: I’ve added many photos to these sets since Wednesday afternoon. Also finally adding some captions to these albums]

Just time for a quick update to my photos. Our time in China has been amazing, but also left little time for blogging. Sorry about that.

All five of my lectures and all our class visits are now complete. We’re taking a weekend in beautiful Hangzhou with our fantastic hosts, Mikey and Alyssa, and new friends Dave and Kim, then off to Beijing for a couple of days before returning Wednesday.

Meanwhile, if you’re in Portland for The Stumptown Comics Festival, you can say hi to Ivy and Winter who are visiting this weekend. Give them a hug for us. We miss them!

Sky has uploaded some pictures and I’ve uploaded more of mine. 

Still hoping to get captions in, but for now… sleeeeeeep.

Since we’re celebrating Sky’s 16th, it should also be noted that 13 year-old Winter is having some fun via a class assignment, Twitter, LiveJournal and her “fairy godfather,” the esteemed Mr. Gaiman. Details here on her Livejournal page which, surprisingly I was able to view here at Shanghai International Community School, even though it was blocked elsewhere in the city.

Just time for a quick post from Shanghai. Celebrated Sky’s 16th Birthday here in one for the first cities that the April 12th sun hit (when it was still April 11th back home in California).

Just some photos for now (like this one from the Modern Art Museum) and hopefully some captions soon, but suffice it to say that it was a great birthday, thanks to our gracious hosts/guides Mikey and Alyssa from the Shanghai Community International School and David and Kim from the Shanghai American School.

With only two of twelve days complete, this has already been a trip to remember and Sky had a great time (though, as readers of the 50 tour blog will remember Sky rarely smiles for pictures!). I’ll throw in more news and updates as time allows.

…starts Friday morning and will last 12 days, so updates to the blog might be a little spotty during this period, but I’ll see what I can post from the road.

From Monday to Friday of next week, I’ll be presenting lectures to school groups from the Shanghai American School, Shanghai Community International School, and Concordia International School (five lectures in all) and having discussions with students and attending some workshops. Then on Friday, I’ll be on hand to help kick off the Shanghai Student Film Festival. Should be an exciting week, to say the least!

Sky is coming with me and we’ll be celebrating her 16th Birthday in Shanghai this Sunday, and after the week of school visits, we’re also making a couple of neat side trips. Keep checking back starting in a couple of days and hopefully I’ll have more news and maybe even some pictures to share.

Okay, not comics maybe, but you might want to check out this nicely executed choose-your-own-emotion game/story thingey by Erik Loyer and Ezra Clayton Daniels that I just downloaded to my iPhone.

The online presentation tool Prezi goes into public beta this week. It’s a zooming interface designed for presentations which caught the eye of a few of us in the lunatic fringe as having potential applications for you know what.

Neal Von Flue posted an in-depth look at the comics implications of this new tool on his Facebook page when a few of us got advanced notice of the private beta in February. Unpack the comments thread for input from Krisztián Kristóf, a cartoonist and developer on the Prezi team who is also considering these issues.

Together with developments like Microsoft’s embryonic Infinite Canvas Alpha and the likelihood of multi-touch netbooks in the near future, Prezi may be part of a general trend toward continuous-space navigation in communication and the arts. If that’s the case, I hope comics will be a part of that trend.

I think that the biggest reason readers get upset when cartoonists change styles suddenly is because all their favorite characters are suddenly replaced by *drawings* of their favorite characters.

Just a random thought, but it led to this unexpectedly interesting discussion on Facebook, so…