Japan Travel Diary: Day 2

Three more pages (in the order drawn) of my trip to Japan. The first two are from the first morning in the airport hotel just outside of Tokyo before we caught the train (last picture) to Kyoto, where the trip really got started.

The best part of the rather generic airport hotel was that it had a really great "American" sports bar with a baseball bat for a handle and a hodgepodge of international sports equipment tacked up everywhere. A sign announced the superbowl party would start at 7 a.m. the next morning. I'm still disappointed that I missed out on the free bar snacks. In my disorientation from the flight and general culture shock, when the waiter brought a platter of onion rings, fries, calamari, and some Japanese snacks around to our table I waived him away, meekly saying he had the wrong table.

Little did I know you were supposed to hand pick each item I wanted from the basket, placing it on a small plate. It was table side buffet. The oddness of watching a bar full of people, one-by-one, carefully choosing individual fries with a pair of tongs did nothing to dispel the aching lack of fried foods that was growing inside me. I readied myself for his return , which never happened. It is one my life's great regrets.

"Lee Post's Square Life" in Mat-Su's Frontiersman

"Lee Post's Square Life" by J.J. Harrier appears in today's edition of the Frontiersman's new art and cultural section, Bullseye, giving some more information about my semi-charmed life and the signing and inaugural comic class at Palmer's Fireside Books.

Lee Post never considered himself to be a comic book “square” growing up, but was left to revisit that thought last year as he was rummaging through old boxes his parents had saved of his comic collections.

“I like to think that my childhood was more than just sitting around reading comics,” Post laughed. “I had figured I was a light fan. Then I saw the old book covers from my high school texts, which were just covered from copied pages from comic books. I used to really study the artwork and characters a lot.”

Japan: Exposed!: the sketch diary

My wife and I are back from our whirlwind, 18 day trip to Japan. Horrah for us! The trip was beyond amazing, with unbelievable sights and events around every corner. To prove I'm not an inveterate liar, I filled a 50 page sketch book with the sights and people I saw, at least those I could easily draw in about 5 mintues each evening in black and white. I had a camera for everything else.

I'll try to post a few new pages every week, along with some choice pictures as needed, so keep checking back. This young man was the first Japanese person my wife and I saw when we hit the ground in Narita Airport, outside of Tokyo. He had kind of fussy bangs, and center and bilateral parts, along with a bouffant puff in the back. It obviously took hours to craft. He seemed very nice in his bright blue sweater vest, despite my complete lack of understanding of anything he said. He has a copy of my finger prints.

Fur Rondy - Run, Reindeer Run

I got the opportuntity to do another comic strip for Anchorage's Fur Rondy Guide and decided to play off of this year's new attraction, the Running of the Reindeer. 500 men and 30 or so Reindeer running down the streets of Anchorage, hopefully. No one is quite sure how it's going to come off. Mass goreings, reindeers standing idle, drunken douchbags trying to ride the scared animals. . . it's anyone's guess. I'll see it this afternoon. Here's hoping for a fiasco!

Oh, and here are some quick, dirty and fun illustrations I did for the guide which were going to be intersperced throughout the guide, but ended up being a coloring book segment. The theme I picked was kids freezing themselves outside while waiting for the fun to begin.