Well, THIS has been one of the busiest months of my life.

Busy, but wonderful. The business side of Dork Storm Press is starting to fall into place. The switchover from Corsair is now complete. The big old DORK STORM in AUGUST event is going forward, and I've even managed to get my home printer working with the new computer (after the lovely and talented Judith did a quick search of the Apple web site for the right patch). Even got some updated software that seems to be running pretty darned effectively.

I just returned from a week in Minneapolis, for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention. As usual, it was a great time. Editorial Cartooning is a much more solitary profession than the comic book biz is. There are only around 250 such cartoonists in the country, so any chance to hobnob with peers is a welcome one.

I got up to Minneapolis early in the week, since both Steve Sack (The Minneapolis Star Tribune) and Kirk Anderson (The St. Paul Pioneer Press) are good friends, and I'd volunteered to help a bit.

At one time, I thought it would be a grand idea to try and bring the convention to Madison. This is a great city, after all, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Convention center is just something you wanna show off. Well, HAH! After just one day setting up the art show, I was beat. I have no idea how exhausted Steve and Kirk must have been -- and I don't really think I need to find out for myself.

The speakers list was exceptional, though: Thursday we were treated to Garrison Keillor during lunch and Charlton Heston at dinner. Keillor was magnificent, while Heston was - frankly - disappointing. He struck me as being just another talking head, while I was getting myself psyched up for some kind of epic clash of the titans. My fault, not his. I had just expected more. Politicians of any persuasion can come across as scripted and clean, and I just find them dull. Less dull but equally pedantic in his own way was Senator Paul Wellstone, who seemed to yell quite a bit, for no apparent reason.

Later that night - after I didn't get to ask Charlton my Planet of the Apes question - Steve Sack, Gary Markstein (Milwaukee), Chris Britt (Springfield, IL), Judith and I ended up braving the mobs of teenagers (who were returning from an N'Sync concert) to see the fine house band at Blues Alley. As is the case whenever Steve Sack is involved with anything, weirdness ensued, and we ended up drawing what WE thought some beloved cartoon characters would look like naked. All I need say is that I saved the napkins, and one day they WILL appear on the website. Unless Steve buys me off, of course.

Got a chance to meet one of my favorite comics, though - Will Durst, out of San Francisco. Durst spoke to the group on Friday over lunch, and was hilarious. If you ever have a chance to check out his act, DO so.

Since Judith and I drove up to the convention this year, I broke from tradition, packed my golf clubs and skipped out of the Saturday East versus West softball game for a golf outing. I was paired with a couple of cartoonists that couldn't have been further removed from me, ideologically: Pulitzer Prize winner Mike Ramirez, of Los Angeles Times, and Bob Gorrell. Both were super folks, though, and put up with my miserable with grace and good humor. In fact, Mike's just a prince of a guy, even if he did almost kill us a couple of times in the golf cart.

Saturday night I ended up talking theory and just yakking with a bunch of folks. Scott Bateman (Portland, OR), Joe Sharpnack (Iowa City, IA) and I were discussing what we're calling the Post Hatch movement in editorial cartooning. Basically, it's the direction the three of us have been moving towards for the last few years: simple, uncluttered lines and messages. The fact that Joel Pett (an honorary godfather of Post Hatch) won the Pulitzer this year was an inspiration to us all.

Anyway, I finally got to bed around 4:20 that morning. The last day of the AAEC always sees me doing that. A couple of years ago, I was so tired that I got on the wrong plane and ended up in an altogether different airport than the one I'd intended.

But it was inspirational, as it always is. Steve Sack, Kirk Anderson and AAEC Prez Steve Benson (The Arizona Republic) put on a fabulous show. I've kind of pulled back a bit from editorial cartooning since the comic book stuff's been so incredibly busy. Now that the DORK TOWER transition from Corsair is complete, I'll have real time for it again, and I'm raring to go. I'll even be releasing a collection of edit cartoons in the fall (I so need help with the title, by the way. Read more below).

PS: Indiana cartoonist Stacy Curtis put up some photos from the AAEC meet, in case anyone's interested -- http://www.stacycurtis.com.index.html, I believe. Judith and I are photo number 7 (http://www.stacycurtis.com/aaec/aaec7.asp) or something --

PPS: I've got a TON of stuff to get through in this newsletter, here, so PLEASE forgive the inevitable typos.