Right now as I type these words, The Kameoka Diaries [ Direct iBookstore Link ] is the second bestselling comic in the iBookstore, and Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ] is in the top ten! For one brief, glorious moment, one of my books is outselling all those Walking Dead graphic novels that seem to have a stranglehold on the Top Ten. Yippie!

The reason for the bump is because Mark Frauenfelder was kind enough to mention my books over on the ever-wonderful Boing Boing website. Coincidentally, the Boing Boing post went up on my birthday, and I couldn’t have asked for a better present!

Yup, couldn’t have asked for a better present… except perhaps for this, a performance recorded for my birthday by two dear friends here in Kameoka:

The performers are none other than Kim Chi and Lonnie from this comic:
http://larsmartinson.com/kameoka-diaries-2/

So my sincere thanks to Mark, Kim Chi and Lonnie for making my birthday so great!

The two comics are The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One and Young Men of a Certain Mind (tentative covers shown above).

At first, I’m going to release them for iphone/ipad, through the iBooks bookstore. I’ve been tweaking the underlying code for a couple weeks, and I’m delighted to say that I’ve finally got them working great on both screen sizes. On iPhones/iPod touches, you see a panel at a time:

And on iPads, you see four panels or eight panels, depending on how you hold the device:

Like I say it works really great on either device (on both Retina and non-Retina displays), and makes for the most pleasant way to read the books electronically. I’m planning on selling them for 99-cents each.

As for a release date, it all depends on when (if?) Apple approves my seller application, and then when (if?) it approves the books after that. I’m hoping to have them up sometime in April. But again, this has more to do with Apple than me. Stay tuned!

***3/31/2012 UPDATE***
Apple has approved my initial seller application! Now I just need to make fill out paperwork/sign contracts with Apple, make final tweaks to the ebook files, and then upload the files, and then wait for their approval on the books themselves. Again, I don’t know exactly when the books will be up on iBooks, but shouldn’t be more than a matter of weeks (probably)!

***4/6/2012 UPDATE***
Okay, I’ve uploaded the book files to Apple and am now waiting for approval. Assuming they get approved, they’ll probably be available on the iBookstore in 1-4 weeks. I will, of course, keep you posted!

***4/28/2012 UPDATE***
Just thought I’d update to say… nothing new to update! It’s now been three weeks since I submitted it, and the status remains that it’s still being reviewed. Many people on Apple forums report that it took about a month for their books to get approved, so maybe it’ll be up next week. No guarantee though, of course. Well, I check the status everyday, so I’ll let you know when it changes!

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict
Part Four: The Cold
Part Five: Food & Drink
Part Six: Karaoke

And here’s Part Seven:

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For now at least, the 8th installment is available exclusively in The Kameoka Diaries e-comic, available through the iBookstore (click the banner below for more details). Sorry, I know that’s kind of obnoxious, especially for people who don’t have iPhones/iPads…

In any event, I’ll be posting more e-comics online in the coming weeks; as always, you can follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook as I’ll announce any new comics there. Bye!

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict
Part Four: The Cold
Part Five: Food & Drink

And here’s Part Six:

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Here’s the Douji Morita song referred to in this comic, in case you really wanna get the party started at your next karaoke outing:

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Read Part Seven>>>

As always, you can follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook as I’ll announce any new comics there. Toodles!

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict
Part Four: The Cold

And here’s Part Five:





































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Part Six>>>

(As always, you can follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook as I’ll announce any new comics there.)

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict

And here’s Part Four:

Go on to Part Five>>>

(Feel free to follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook;  any new comics will be announced there.)

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends

And here’s Part Three:

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Continue on the Part Four

(If you haven’t seen it yet, part one can be found here.)

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the second installment:

Continue on to Part Three

Part Two is now up! Read it here.

I have two appearances coming up this month in Japan, if anyone’s interested:

On Sunday, December 11, 2011, I’ll be in Nagoya taking part in a panel discussion/release party for Aftershock: Artists Respond to Disaster in Japan, an anthology to benefit Japan disaster relief. The Facebook event page with all the details can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/285808968131016/

Then on Saturday, December 17, 2011, I’ll be at the Tokushima Museum of Literature & Calligraphy ( 徳島県立文学書道館 ). This is in conjunction with a calligraphy show that runs from 12/16 ~ 12/18. Don’t miss your big chance to see a piece of my sub-par calligraphy! I’m not sure what times I’ll be there to and from, but I’ll update with that later.
There doesn’t seem to be an online event page for the show, but  the website for the museum can be found here (Japanese only):
http://www.bungakushodo.jp/index.html

Hope to see you there!

To all the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people reading this, sorry this entry is so late in coming. Between moving/settling in/getting sick/trying to prepare for lessons, I just never had the energy to do much of anything other than what was strictly demanded of me. Even now after taking the last couple weeks off, I still only really have time to phone in a quick entry. Hopefully once I’ve settled into a routine I’ll be able to devote more time to describing my experience here in this blog, but for now I’ll just write a few paragraphs on borrowed time.

Things have been busy but pleasant (other than getting sick). Classes started a week ago Wednesday. I’m teaching at 11 different schools; two junior highs and a bunch of elementarys. Some of the elementarys are way off in the country; the hour-long commutes though pine-covered mountain valleys will probably be pleasant once I know where I’m going, but I have to admit I’m not looking forward to trying to figure out the routes to each school the first time. I have a few schools within walking/biking distance, but the rest require a complicated series of bus transfers and being picked up by teachers at different times and places. I can’t imagine trying to navigate it without Japanese reading/speaking ability. Again, once I settle in and know where I’m going it’ll be fine, but in the meantime it’ll be a bit stressful.

So far I’ve visited one of the junior highs and one of the elementarys, and have had a bunch of great classes so far. I’m sure eventually I’ll have a few nightmare classes, but so far it’s been great. It’ll probably be a few months before I’m *completely* settled into teaching again, but for the most part I already feel like I’m already back into the groove.

Okay! I’d like to write more, but I’ll have to save it for another time; I’ve got a really busy day tomorrow, so I need to rest up for that. I have two three-day weekends coming up back-to-back, so hopefully I can write more then. Cheers!

Aftershock is a global response to the disasters of March 2011 in northeast Japan. Over 30 contributors from around the world have donated their artwork and stories to this compilation. The project has two purposes, the first of which is to act as an open letter of support and concern to the people of Japan. The second purpose is to offer physical relief in the means of monetary support. 100% of the proceeds from the book will be donated to relief efforts in the disaster struck areas.

The editor of the book, Adam Pasion, has set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund the printing of the comic. It’s a very worthy cause, so if you want to help Japan and get some great comics in the process, please consider donating:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324352192/aftershock-artists-respond-to-disaster-in-japan

My own humble effort to the anthology was a four page comic I wrote about my formative years, and how they related to Japan:
http://aftershockcomic.blogspot.com/2011/07/lars-martinson-i-was-teenage-otaku.html

If you want to read the rest of it, you’ll have to buy the book! :-)