May Started off with a bang!  Or maybe a crunchy, squishy sound would be more appropriate as we began the first day of the month creating our annual steamroller print for the Wayzgoose Hand Press Festival hosted by King’s Books on St. Helens in downtown Tacoma!  As part of the yearly 2-day street party honoring and demonstrating the skills and wares of many local small press artists, like our friends at Beautiful Angle, for example, the CLAW is one of the teams selected to produce a giant-sized (4′ x4′) print created by inking the large square of linoleum into which our design was intricately carved reversed out and backwards, and then placing it in the parking lot next to the building where a piece of dampened paper is laid over it and cushions are added over the top and it is then SQUASHED by a massively heavy steamroller!  It’s always an amazing spectacle to witness and the various designs this year followed a theme of literary classics and creators!  The CLAW’s design honored Tacoma-born author Frank Herbert, the science fiction master behind the DUNE series!  I was especially excited about this year’s print because my design was chosen for the event!  (It should be noted, of course, that the actual carving was done by several diligent members of CLAW!  Mark Monlux, our VP James Stowe, Anique Zimmer, R.R. Anderson–and his son Max–and myself, Mark Brill, were the main CLAW Talons responsible for transferring the art to the large linoleum block!)  Jennevieve Schlemmer and Larry Erhardt were on hand to help the a fore mentioned members with the inking and printing!

Everything came off without a hitch–even my silly idea for a special effect to add a second color to the piece to give Mr. Herbert the blue eyes of his Spice addicted characters in his most famous work!  Our print was very favorably received and everyone had a blast creating it!  And our thanks to Destiny City Comics, right next to King’s and part of the festivities for finding a place for the CLAW table, where we handed out zines and showed the kids how to make mini-comics of their own!

Not too much other news, except that out usual 4th Wednesday Open Swim event, which we are now referring to as the “CLAW Community Art Project” is happening on the 25th of the month at King’s Books and everyone is invited to come down at 7:30 and draw and hang out with the wacky folks of The Cartoonist League of Absurd Washingtonians!

One last item–Crypticon, an amazing horror convention will be held over the last weekend of May, from the 27th to the 29th at the Hilton Convention Center in SeaTac and 2 of the CLAW’s Talons will be on hand to keep the Creepy CLAW flag flying!  Travis Bundy will be there with his partners promoting his Creator’s Edge horror titles!  And Mark Brill will be there in his Brillustrator guise creating monstrous caricatures!  (Hopefully meaning caricatures of people as monsters, and not just really horrible drawings!)  See you in June!!  **Watch for the June notice of “Captain Picard Day!” **

Greetings to all the C.L.A.W.’s watchers, followers, friends and disturbed on-lookers!  It’s April and that means showers and taxes and Fools!  But it also means that the C.L.A.W. will be participating in the annual Wayzgoose Letterpress and Book Arts Festival hosted by King’s Books on St. Helens in lovely downtown Tacoma!  It’s a wonderful celebration of printing and Tacoma artists and creators, and of course, people playing with a steamroller!  The C.L.A.W. is scheduled for a Sunday (actually the 1st of May) steamroller time, so come out and watch us smash out our tribute to Tacoma’s own futurist, Frank Herbert, creator of the Dune saga as well as many other classic tomes from the heyday of science fiction!  The event is 2 days, April 30th and May 1st, so come on down and enjoy the merry-making and print-making!

A few days before that, on Wednesday the 27th will be the monthly C.L.A.W. Open Swim meeting!  This event will also be taking place at the traditional site of King’s Books!  Yes, we hang out at King’s Books a lot!  The meeting is, as the name suggests, open to the public!  Come down at 7:30 that evening to hang out with cartoonists, draw absurd things and meet local celebrities…like R.R. Anderson and Mark Monlux and James Stowe–all founders of the Cartoonist’s League of Absurd Washingtonians!  If you have no earthly idea who they might be, now’s the time to drop by and find out!!

Oh, just thought I should mention, as an afterthought…there’s a little comicbook orientated convention happening in Seattle this month as well.  Just an intimate affair, hardly worth noticing, but just in case you might be interested, a few C.L.A.W. members will be there to give it some heft (well, the ones that could get tables anyway.)  The name of this little gathering escapes me at the moment, but it takes place at the Seattle Convention Center from Thursday the 7th until Sunday the 10th.  Emerald…something something ComiCon.  Anyway, check it out if you haven’t got anything important to do.  ^0^

Until next month my friends!  Keep noodling and doodling!