[Above, It's a teen, it's a boat, it's an animated music video. Below, it's half-man, half-Dispatch.]

• James Kochalka’s fantastic diary comic strip, American Elf, is now….a video game? “Or rather,” Kochalka says, “A video game based on a dream that I had, and which I had drawn about in…American Elf.”
• Portland, Oregon’s mayor, Sam Adams, is pretty hip to the game – for the second year in a row, he’s declared April “Portland Comics Month,” and the Stumptown Comics Foundation has cataloged nearly forty comics-related events happening in the Rose City throughout this month-long celebration.
• As if you didn’t know, Saturday, May 2 is Free Comic Book Day. Make sure to visit your local shop for the gratis swag from all the publishers.
• Esther Pearl Watson’s Unlovable has been picked up by Urban Outfitters to test the trendy-waters in stores around the country.
• Harry Bliss, New Yorker cartoonist and half the team for Diary of a Worm and Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken, is now on a solo endeavor with Toon Books’ Luke Is On The Loose. The signing tour starts on April 16 through May 23 through the East Coast and Illinois.
• JC Roberts animated a music video based on “Teen Boat” the mini-comic series created by John Green and Dave Roman, featuring a new wave song written and performed by comics gal Abby Denson.
• On April 11 in NYC, “Titans of Small Town” is a one-day-only gallery show featuring work by (and the presence of) Ryan North, Chris Onstad, Chris Hastings and Emily Horne and Joey Comeau, at Brooklyn’s 303Grand on Grand Street from 6:30PM-midnight.
• Finally, the Girl Scouts have caught on! Now, thanks to the Girl Scouts of the Virginia Skyline Council, troopers can earn a Comic Book badge for creating their own little book or comic strip.
• Gallery 1988  in California has posted art from “Idiot Box” a new exhibit featuring artists like Jim Mahfood and Jeremy Tinder to pay tribute to television shows–think pure awesomeness with Ren & Stimpy, ALF, Gumby, Saved By The Bell, TMNT, and The Cosby Show.
• Bookslut profiles Gabe Fowler of the year-old indie comics mecca, Desert Island, in Brooklyn, N.Y.
• Essex County’s Jeff Lemire recently completed the album art and sleeve design for UK band ART BRUT’S upcoming album Art Brut vs. Satan.

–Adri Cowan