Joe Ledbetter stopped by GAMA-GO’s flagship San Francisco store yesterday, and not to rub things in, but between Joe up from SoCal and fans in from NY, everyone was talking about our spectacular Bay Area weather. Having just returned from Brooklyn, I can’t help but concur. Joe was in town to sign his brand-new art book, Creatures of Habit, published by SF’s own Last Gasp. Creatures contains the usual suspects in awesome full color: signature JLED characters like Mr. Bunny and Firecat, going about their business either A) about to unexpectedly get snuffed out or beset by a bit of ultraviolence or B) up to some mischief-making of their own design. I’m a big fan of collabs, so I particularly enjoy the pages of collaborations with Luke Chueh, Nathan Jurevicius and Alayna Magnan that I hadn’t seen previously. Creatures also features a forward by GAMA-GO co-founder Greg Long on meeting Joe and giving the young artist some pointers along the way, and a rumination by Joe on the question, “So, what do you do?” As a toy journalist, I field that question myself fairly often. There really is no right answer.

I hadn’t seen Joe since his last show at Gallery1988, and he was great to chat up and game to sign/draw for fans. A couple people brought DIY Mini-Munnys, and one lucky fan had a Lava Unicornasaurus. I’m a Qee guy, and I don’t care if the only Sharpie was a fat-nibbed sucka: this mini-fig is already at home in my collection with Joe’s Toxic Swamp Qees. GAMA-GO also had a special JLED shirt just for the event, as well as some stock from last season’s hoodie collab. Stop by and see if there are any remainders. Note to Saki: your shirt and signed book will hit the USPS on Monday.

[GUEST BLOGGER: Jeremy Brautman]

**IHCS is especially honored to have Jeremy Brautman on as a guest blogger (and hopefully a West Coast Correspondant?). He is an amazing person and incredibly talented writer. Welcome.**