Follow Your Art

Roberta’s Comic Trips

I like to travel. But my ‘career’ as a quirky comics creator has managed to keep my income at a fairly low level (so far). There are places I’d love to go (Hawaii, South America), but I have also visited places I would never have planned, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Finland, Germany, France, Portugal, Britain, and more. All of these were journeys related to my comics career: invitations to conventions and expos, signings partly paid for by international publishers. Even my decision to move to Seattle from California came about as a result of the response to books I published in the 1980s. Churning out countless drawn pages is a very solitary endeavor: it is easy to forget that other people read our work, very often appreciate it, and sometimes generously help us expand our creative world.

This book is a huge “Thank You” to everyone who has made my interesting life possible, while living in a world which too often judges a creator simply by how much money they can make for a publisher.

And it is an invitation to everyone else to “come along for the ride!” Journeys overseas, road trips, short visits through my beautiful corner of the world, and long treks courtesy of Amtrak. Meet my friends and traveling companions: Bruce Taylor and Donna Barr.

I started writing lengthy comics stories about my journeys perhaps ten years ago, but I wish I had started earlier--they are fun to write and draw, and bring back fond memories of some great folks, plus the joy of budget travel. And there will be more journeys and stories in the future. It IS a wide world!

(The strip photo above is of porpoises in the surf off Carpinteria, which I saw while the train enjoyed one of its many pauses during the January train trip. Inset is of one of the trillions of wildflowers on Mount Rainier.)

Volcano-loaded landscape of Central Oregon, July 2009. Yes, once you start looking, you see them everywhere!

Coast to coast (almost) on Amtrak, October 2007. I found the long stretches of North Dakota anything but boring.

Road trip through Northern Spain, Summer, 2007. It was easier than we’d anticipated, even with lousy Spanish!

Photos of a few scenes described (& also drawn) in Follow Your Art:

Hedgebrook’s freaky Source Tree(s), shot with laptop-cam.

Bruce kicks back in the Pacific Parlour Car, Coast Starlight.

“Himalayas”-- a three hour drive and an hour hike from Seattle.

One of the “forbidden” photos of the Greenland glaciers.

Stockholm’s wonderful comics library with UFO-shaped desk.

A peaceful setting along one of Stockholm’s countless waterways.

Donna methodically measures one of many Mima Mounds.

The groovy rainbow cloud on the road to Oregon. Can ya dig it?

Paradise Inn, one of the surviving National Park lodges from the 1920s.

To read the comics below, click on each page for a larger image!

Follow Your Art is now available! You can purchase it HERE by Paypal, or by mail the old fashioned way, by sending payment HERE --and it is getting into bookstores, too.

If you are in the Seattle area, these great indy bookstores sell it (so far):

Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park--details HERE. Its fun to browse this huge store, and get a look at the Espresso Book Machine. Have lunch in the food court, or coffee break at the Honey Bear.

Balderdash Books in Greenwood-- details HERE. This is a homey but quirky neighborhood with a variety of food choices and cool businesses.

AND it is now available in LEAVENWORTH, WA at the fine indy bookstore, A Book For All Seasons. Do you ever need an excuse to visit this fun, artsy town full of Bavarian-Kitsch, gift shops, beers, bakeries and bratwurst? Details HERE.

Buy

it

NOW!

May, 2007. Two weeks in creative-person paradise: Hedgebrook retreat on Washington’s Whidbey Island.