I am on my way today to the bustling town of Agawam, Massachusetts to help set up and draw at my theme park caricature operation there at Six Flags New England. Yes, I will actually be drawing in the park on opening day (tomorrow), so come on by and get a caricature done!

Last week my good friend, illustrator and caricaturist Ed Steckley, called me to chat and told me about a cool painting get together he and some fellow pals had planned for the weekend. Ed was going to host a watercolor mini-class by MAD illustrator Hermann Mejia for just he and another MAD artist, Ray Alma. He invited me to tag along.

Hello frequent flyer mile awards.

I cashed in a few of those frequent flyer miles and spent the weekend in NYC. On Saturday we bummed around Brooklyn, and checked out Hermann’s show at RocketShip comics on Smith St. See pics of the show below.

Wow. I had seen a few of Hernann’s orginals before but these were really spectacular.

What a rare opportunity to be shown some watercolor techniques by a true master. The “class” was terrific and I will post about it and some of the work I did tommorrow.

Meanwhile if you are in the NYC area stop by Rocketship Comics in Brooklyn to see some amazing work by an amazing artist.

This one should be a dead giveaway. There were many correct guesses! Yes, I was in Havana, Cuba with a group of cartoonists from the Schulz Museum (all perfectly legal, I assure you). I return today.

I’m out of town for the week, and thought we’d play a little game… just exactly where am I? More pictures to come.

Yep, I’m off again on the final leg of what has been an insane year of traveling and speaking at cartoonists events and other functions… five continents in the last 5 months. This time I’m taking The Lovely Anna along to Sydney, Australia where I will be speaking and doing a caricature workshop at the Australian Cartoonists Associations Stanley Awards Weekend. However this time we will be staying for a week to see the sights including some time in the Hunter Valley vineyard area.

Look for a report from the Stanleys and a few others from “down under” over the next week, as well as the usual stupidity here on The MAD Blog.

After a great week in London, The Lovely Anna and I are going home today. Back to reality… and a couple of jobs needing urgent attention.

London was great fun. There are so many famous places and things to see that one week was no where near long enough. We could easily have filled another week and still only seen the major things. Still, we did pretty well and feel like we got a good feel for the city.

I accomplished most of my goals, except I got tired of fish n’ chips after the third day so “eating fish n’ chips everyday” was probably too ambitious a goal. I did have a meat pie, spotted dick, bread pudding, several kinds of tart and about a dozen different kinds of cask ale. Just to be clear, the “spotted dick” I had was the pudding and custard dessert with currants, not the kind that requires penicillin to clear up. I had that kind after a weekend in Tijuana.

The Richmonds and the Hearns

So, Cheerio, London! Back to the States. Turns out being overseas on April 15th does NOT excuse you from filing income tax…

The Lovely Anna and I are on our way to London for a week of sightseeing and relaxation. We are travelling with her parents, staying in thier timeshare in the heart of the city. I’ve never been other than trapped in Heathrow wating for a connecting flight, and have always wanted to visit England. I’ll have some posts from the other side of the pond next week.