
Well, it looks like animal week is not to be. It was, however, opening day for baseball, and so we got a nice little front page piece on our own Fernando Valenzuela. And, hey, the Dodgers won today as well!
drawing the news every day in 2017 and, if the world doesn't blow up this year, maybe even beyond.


Some days the front page is across-the-board grim (but not for you, Eduardo Souto de Moura!). Today was one of those days, the centerpiece being this story about the death of Empire, NV. Why do stories about whole towns disappearing feel so specifically American? It must happen elsewhere. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's just my reaction to these stories--the dread, the feeling that it could happen to me no matter how big a town I live in--that is, at core, American.





I think it's safe to say that "fear," with three appearances since Sunday, is officially the word of the week. It certainly does seem to have permeated many A1 stories this week, from the very real, justified fears of the people in Japan and Benghazi to the hysterical, all-too-human fear-based run on iodized salt in China. Oh, and the supermoon freakouts here in good old California. And there's still one more day of the week left! Will fear rear its ugly head on the front page tomorrow? And if it does, what the hell will I pair it with?



A few things to note here: (1) I will never get tired of drawing the bigass smoke plumes that occasionally appear on A1, (2) I would never in a million years guess that I'd get to draw Mark Twain during this project, and (3) apparently UCLA is doing hand transplants now, which is both fascinating and kind of freaky.

