Comics from the Haiku North America 2013 conference (Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA).
As the official cartoonist-in-residence, I created comics during the event that were presented at the closing session.
31. Read the complete HNA comics at
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Editor's Notes
Haiku Canada 2009
My first review of conference in comics
7 comics
HNA 2011. Seattle. 17 comics
A lot of people arrived Wednesday and were a little bit jetlagged. As for me, I’m always a little bit sick when I travel on planes, in automobiles, and I was surprised that I was sick on the Queen Mary. Then I discovered you cannot be sick because the boat is permanently docked.
As the check-in desk, I met a haiku poet and his spouse. It was great to see spouses coming to support their loved ones with their haiku addiction. But two people means twice as many luggage.
The boat is really huge. It was hard to figure out where everything was at first.
Luckily there were those maps on each floor. YOU ARE HERE.
If you’re going to stay on a boat, if you’re going to live like a sailor, you should talk like one.
If you’re going to stay on a boat, if you’re going to live like a sailor, you should talk like one. Let’s see if you are good sailors. How do you call the front of the ship.
You are GOOD sailors.
Now can you tell me what this is? Any idea.
Overboard. If you are overboard, you are a... bad, BAD, sailor.
We went for our ginko walk and when we came back, there was a staff at the entrance greeting us back.
...
But was it US they were greeting back, I don’t know.
Then, it’s time to set up the books for sale table. I don’t know about you, but I always bring way too many books at the book sale. And you realize at the end of the week-end, that it’s another kind of books that flies off the shelf.
So that’s a lesson for next HNA, make sure to bring a freebie.
I love the haiga display that Kathabela Wilson put together. It has so many beautiful artwork by many talented poets and artists. It must have taken hours to organize the video montage.
In the world Old Pond, a haiga display is simply empty frames set in nature and then you wait until a dragonfly or a bird lies on it, just for a fleeting moment.
I went to the screening of a beautiful movie “Remembering Nick Virgilio” by Seann Dougherty and it reminded me
how much I loved that haiku by Nick Virgilio:
Lily: out of the water... out of itself.
I went to a talk by Sandra Simpson on the Katikati haiku path that features 43 haiku stones. The spark of the idea came when a friend of one of the creators of the path said: “Before I die, I want to see my haiku written in stone.”
I love hearing how Kriss uses apps on her ipad to create beautiful haiga.
It’s almost like her fingers are gliding on the page creating these beautiful artwork.
It’s really beautiful and fluid. It reminded my of a strider. Those insect that glides on water.
During the Science of Haiku I learnt that birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. Thanks to thatt poem by George Swede.
She also discussed mathematic haiku, geological haiku, weather haiku.
In his pecha kucha presentation on NaHaiWriMo, Michael Dylan Welch introduced us to the Paulownia. A flower with large, heart-shaped leaves arranged in opposite pairs on the stem. When Japanese illustrate the palownia, the leaves are in 5-7-5 pattern ; and sometimes in 3-5-3 which is closer to the number of haiku syllabels in english.
When Kaeru goes to a modern school, they are not allowed to talk about 575. Because when they do the “No 5,7,5 police” show up
And they get in trouble.
Fortunately, what Kaeru learnt during Michael’s presentation is going to save his butt.
Speaking of haiku police. During the twitter haiku panel, it was revealed that a certain person is trolling the twitter world, looking for bad haiku – I’m talking about the bad 575 haiku that we see coming from the general public – and providing the appropriate advices. The person goes on twitter under Sgt. Matsuo Basho.
It doesn’t help that the walls are paper thin.
Sleep. I think everybody will agree that it’s hard to get some sleep at HNA...
especially since they scheduled the ghost talk right before bedtime.
...
Am I the only one who wished they’d see a ghost cat?
I didn’t see any ghosts during my stay, but I felt a little a little bit uncomfortable walking back to my room, alone, at night. I really hoped I had something to comfort me. Like a teddy bear with sensors like the paranormal investigator guy had.
I just had a blast during this year’s hna. Looking forward to the next HNA in the state of New Year ina town I can’t pronounce but I love that name.
I’m going to miss the camaraderie, the late night talks, the having dinner together.
Thank the conference organizers.
The comics will be posted this week on my website. I will have to resize each comics individually for the web.
