Lubchansky Home News, May 2024
have you heard of this thing "vacation"? also ONE YEAR of Boys Weekend
Hello my good friends and readers! I hope you had a nice May. I was in Japan for most of it??? Have you heard of this country Japan? Very good food and cultural products and beautiful nature! I’m most definitely the first place you’ve heard this stated, but it’s weirdly so true! Anyway it was me and (official Wife of Lubchansky Home News) Jaya’s TENTH wedding anniversary so we went on a big long trip and it was amazing. Don’t worry, I made a big stupid list about food down there.
ONE YEAR OF BOYS WEEKEND?!
This week on Thursday the 6th, my precious baby Boys Weekend has been out for a full year! This is very crazy to me. If you have NOT picked up a copy yet, well, there’s no better time to do so than right now! You can also ask your local library to order a copy, this is perfectly legal to do!
If you have read it, I would really appreciate a recommendation to a friend, or a review on Amazon or Goodreads –– these things really do matter. The lifespan of a book is looooong and I’d like to keep making graphic novels. Thanks to everyone, really – for buying it, for reading, for saying something nice about it to me or anywhere else. It was really special for me to make it, a lifelong dream really, and it means so much to me when I see anyone engaging with it
.The other thing going on right now is that WEIRD CHILLS, my band’s new album, is out this Friday! Holy moly! I got home from our trip and there were boxes of vinyls at my house and I was OVERWHELMED. I’ve been wanting to press a record for like 20 years, it’s so amazing to actually get to do it. You can listen to THREE of the tracks off the album here, and preorder it on digital or vinyl.
Shirt Alert
From now until June 18th, proceeds from The Rolling Library’s Defend Your Local Library! shirt, drawn by me, will go to Queens Public Library. Along with the Brooklyn and NY public library systems, QPL is facing budget cuts that would end Saturday service, indefinitely delay re-openings of certain branches, and more. Grab one!
Food Corner: Japan Edition
This month’s corner corner is, naturally, about the food we got in Japan. So, I present to you, in no particular order, The Best Things I Ate in Every City In Japan:
TOKYO: Hot Soy Sauce Noodles at Udon Shin: So me and Jaya are very very obsessed with the cookbooks of Hetty Liu McKinnon. In her book To Asia With Love she has a recipe called “Life-Changing Udon” that we’ve been making now for a couple years and are totally enamored with. It’s a rough approximation of a dish at Udon Shin, so we absolutely had to go. Anyway! Life-changing is right. I’m a different person now. I do not think I’ve ever had noodles in my life before a few weeks ago. Impossibly good.
KYOTO: Tofu at Shoraian: Kyoto is known for its tofu, we learned! And rightly so. Near the bottom of Mt. Ogura, on the edge of the Arashiyama bamboo forest, there’s a tofu restaurant where you can get a little tofu tasting menu lunch, looking down at a river, surrounded by bamboo. That morning we also walked around a moss garden at a 1,300 year old buddhist temple. A very serene day that I’m very thankful for.
NAGASAKI: Unadon at Izumiya Eel: Grilled eel (they keep them in tanks up front) grilled by a 5th-generation eel griller. Simple and beautiful. Another food we ate and immediately thought: Have we ever had eel before?
OSAKA: Okonomiyaki at Houzenji Sanpei: Osaka is tough to choose one meal because I think we were eating 3 dinners a night just wandering around. What a place, I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so ALIVE. Anyway, there’s okonomiyaki everywhere in Osaka but this place was special.
Comics this month
Over on my Patreon (where you can see these puppies as they come out, earlier than anyone else! For the low low low low low price of $2/month):
Odds and Ends
E-Sims for Gaza is still going at the Cartoonist Co-Op, and you can get an avatar portrait from me.
Grabbing that Weird Chills immediately!