Rina Ayuyang

Aw! The ALTERNATIVE PRESS EXPO (APE) is once again upon us this weekend. This year's show promises to be another fun and inspiring one with special guests Dan Clowes (holy crap, The Death Ray, hello!), Adrian Tomine (need to get new Optic Nerve), Craig Thompson (Habibi!!), Matt Thurber (1-800-MICE!!), Shannon Wheeler (Oil and Water) and Kate Beaton (Hark a Vagrant, dude!)

What's even crazier is that my pal and Comix Claptrap co-host, Thien Pham and I are going to do a LIVE show on Saturday at 2pm. So please stop by or at least just take a load off waiting for the Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine panel right after us! We'll be interviewing some awesome artists that I'm really excited to be chatting with in person! Check it out:

The Comix Claptrap...LIVE
October, 1 -Saturday, 2:00pm !

—Co-hosts Rina Ayuyang and Thien Pham record an episode of their enlightening, riotous, and controversial podcast, The Comix Claptrap LIVE at APE! At this live taping, Rina and Thien will be interv…

Good Vibrations, photo by Greg Means.
Greg took the photo above right after the three of us sat down to talk about potentially doing a book together. I had no idea back then how awesome the experience of working with Greg and Dylan on Whirlwind Wonderland would be. It pretty much changed my life forever.

It has been hard for me to write anything coherent since I heard the news about Dylan but I will try my best. Saturday, I was with my two sisters watching tennis on TV. I had my iPhone at my hip checking Twitter messages every five seconds because Warren Sapp was tweeting about the same tennis match I was watching. The generic iPhone ding went off and I was excited to see what his next tweet would be, maybe something about how Rafael Nadal was wearing normal short pants rather than his wedgie-inducing capri pants. Instead, it was an email from Greg Means and its subject was titled “Dylan”.As I started my career in comics in 2001, Dylan’s name would come up in conversation a…