The Center For Cartoon Studies is having a scholarship competition. All you do is fill out the application and draw a “two page comic story starring yourself, a snowman, a robot, and a piece of fruit.”

I’ve been admiring the center for quite a while, but I’ve never considered it as a possibility, since they don’t have much funding and lack accreditation. (It’d be so great if they offered an MFA.) But what an incredible thing: to cartoon for a year with teachers like James Kochalka, and a slew of top-notch visiting artists. (Kevin Huizenga designed their brochure, and Alison Bechdel drew her visit.)

It’s really tempting…check out their summer programs.

* * *

Speaking of Alison Bechdel, a little birdie told me that she’s going to appear at the Cleveland Joseph-Beth in October. She was just signed, so there’s no confirmation of it …yet.

* * *

Also: as another great experiment in shameless self-promotion, I’ve started a Myspace account. If you read this and you’re on Myspace too, what the hell, let’s be friends.

* * *

It was really hot this weekend, so we spent a lot of time at the movies. We saw the new Woody Allen with a 5 p.m. matinee/geriatric crowd, which was perfect, since the movie contains jokes about metamucil. The old lady sitting next to me had a husband who was hard of hearing, so after every joke she repeated the punchline for him.

While watching, it occured to me that I work on very small canvases: either an 8 x 11.5 inch sketchbook, or a 15 inch monitor. And the final form of my work, whether it’s a book, or zeros and ones on a computer monitor, is kind of intimate: it’s like something just you and I share. I draw it mostly in solitude, and you read it in solitude…

Film, on the other hand, is such a huge production, a collaboration between so many people, and I think it’s really only done justice by seeing it with other people, in a dark, cool theater, with the characters larger than life….

Okay, that is all for today. I wish you nothing but air-conditioning.