Shiny Beasts is Here!

Alan Moore Fans, Take Heed --

Well, we did it -- Rick Veitch, Alan Moore and I signed the same pieces of paper for the first time since 1999.

The earth did not shift, the sky did not fall, all went well.

But fair warning and high-alert to Alan Moore fans: this is likely to be your one and only chance, ever, to get all three signatures in one book, in one place.

You snooze, you lose. Jump on this opportunity.

To celebrate the release of Rick Veitch's latest trade paperback collection Shiny Beasts, Panel to Panel.net offers a once-in-a-lifetime, exclusive tipped-in bookplate signed by Rick Veitch, along with collaborators Alan Moore and Stephen R. Bissette.

As I've already boasted on this very blog, this new King Hell collection of primo past Rick Veitch treasures features one of Rick's and my key collaborative efforts, "Monkey See," from Epic #2. It's a story I'm still extremely proud of, and hope you'll enjoy. Shiny Beasts also features the one-and-only Epic story Alan Moore ever scripted, "Love Doesn't Last Forever," which also sports a graphic interstellar VD diseased panel ghosted by yours truly (making it yet another Moore/Veitch/Bissette collaborative effort from our personal 'golden age').

Like "Monkey See," "Love Doesn't Last Forever" has been out of print and hence out of reach for most avid Moore fans for almost a quarter-century, and it's well worth picking up the entire collection for this single jewel alone.

But Moore fans will want to jump on this singular signed bookplate most of all. It's no secret that (a) Alan has ceased attending any comics conventions or any US event whatsoever since the late 1980s, and (b) Alan chooses not to have any relations with yours truly, making a joint signing venture ever again in this lifetime highly unlikely (the last publicly-available signing was for Tim Underwood's hardcover limited edition of Stanley Wiater's and my own Comic Book Rebels, almost 15 years ago -- long out of print and out of circulation; FYI, the last co-signing of the three of us was for the contract necessary to the somber 1999 division of the '1963' characters and concepts as a legally-shared property).

Thus, PaneltoPanel is offering something exquisitely singular and rare here -- and quantities are extremely limited (there's only about 80 signature plates), so really, don't wait a moment to order. This may be your only window of opportunity.

Of course, all of this is gravy, really. Shiny Beasts is a collection well worth owning in any case, offering a one-stop overview of all of Rick Veitch's color comics work prior to his leap into the graphic novel form with the serialized Epic sf-adventure epic Abraxas and the Earthman (also recently collected by King Hell in a single volume, and essential reading). Actually, the Shiny Beasts body of work is sandwiched between Rick's first two graphic novels -- our collaborative effort on the Heavy Metal/Simon & Schuster movie adaptation graphic novel 1941: The Illustrated Story (1979) and Rick's Abraxas and the Earthman -- Rick really is one of the unsung pioneers of the graphic novel form, plunging into the expansive format a mere year or two after Will Eisner codified it with the pioneer A Contract With God (1977/78).

But what the hell, hardsell internet commerce sometimes requires further sweetening of the proverbial pot. All right, potheads, if you need any further coaxing --

order now, and receive free shipping on any other trade paperback collection from Rick Veitch's King Hell Press (here's the list, via this link).

So c'mon, what are you waiting for?

Don't forget to check out PaneltoPanel's other great exclusive bookplates, here; there's some great cartoonists, graphic novels, and rare signatures and bookplates to be found here!

Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, Rob Walton's Ragmop (among my favorite graphic novels of all time, pictured at left -- and one of the precious few graphic novels that's also hilarious), Michael Zulli's TMNT: Soul's Winter, Mark Martin's Runaway Comics (and the ultra-rare Runaway Comics 2.1), Bob Fingerman's delightful kids'n'zombies opus Recess Pieces, Gene Colan (!!!) signed bookplate for the Doctor Strange vs. Dracula collection, two volumes of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more Rick Veitch -- Abraxas and the Earthman and Rick's masterpiece Can't Get No -- are among the choice books and bookplates still available (others are sold out -- so don't miss out on your personal fave while it's in reach).

Now, I get nothing from all this; PaneltoPanel proprietor John Rovnak is indeed an old friend, and former owner of the late, great defunct comic shop Comics Route (the best comic shop Vermont ever had). But I love the fact that John is so engaged with promoting such quality work, and ceaselessly promoting the artists and creators whose work he loves. That's something worth supporting across the board. If we can't get more John Rovnaks in this world, let's all support the John Rovnak we've got -- and if this signature event is what initiates your making PaneltoPanel a primary online source for your comics, so be it.

But most of all, this fine Monday morning, it's important to alert those of you who are mutual fans of Alan, Rick and I to this singular opportunity to snag Shiny Beasts with this rare signed bookplate -- an artifact of happier times, for some comics fans and readers -- and to do so now.

Have a great Monday morning, one and all -- it's a beaut of a morning here in Windsor, VT, and I'm eager to get on with my day.

Sunday Morning Review of Books...

...and comics.

Well, at least an overview of some recent and upcoming publications that may be of interest to some of you.

An opening morning thought (compliments of HomeyM, thanks, Homey!):

"The creative process is a process of waiting, trusting, acting, it has a deep wisdom, if we will surrender to it. The power of the unconscious rises to the page. It can be frightening. It is difficult. But it is in the vitality of this struggle between the writer and the word that we can create transformative work. Each book I have written has transformed me in the process. I write myself to the other side of my question..."

- Terry Tempest Williams

This past Friday, Charlito and Mister Phil

of the popular podcast venue Indie Spinner Rack

visited the Center for Cartoon Studies and interviewed yours truly at great length; that'll be online soon. As CCS fellow faculty member Robyn Chapman points out, Indie Spinner Rack has been a great supporter of CCS -- "they are donating half of the profits from their upcoming anthology to CCS," Robyn says -- and they are excellent promoters. Charlito is also a fellow XQB (Kubert School graduate), and it so happens we first met and he was a student there when I visited the school and presented an early version of the ever-expanding Journeys Into Fear: A History of Horror Comics slide show lecture.

Anyhoot, among the many things Charlito and Mister Phil grilled me about was "Why isn't there any new Bissette comics?," a question touched upon ad infinitum here from time to time. Which leads me to this morning's subject:

My work appears in a number of new comics and books! Here's a quick review of those goodies, now out and/or about to hit the shelves:

* Rick Veitch's King Hell Press is just releasing Rick's new anthology Shiny Beasts; for more relevant info, memories and details, and a peek at the story and artwork I had a hand in that appears in this anthology, check out

this previous blog posting,

and this one,

and then there's this, too! All worth visiting or revisiting.

Best of all, though, is Rick's own preview section he's posted online, here!

* The latest issue of Bob McLeod's magazine Rough Stuff #4 features an illustrated overview of some of my Swamp Thing pencils, with insights by yours truly, and best of all a lengthy illustrated interview with my venerable amigo and fellow Swamp Thing vet John Totleben. Pick it up, and pronto -- it's on the shelves now, or you can order your copy immediately

at the TwoMorrows publisher website.

I wrote about this issue on the blog

here

and here, including art, links, etc. of interest and delivering some immediate gratification and eye-candy delights.

* So much for vintage Bissette -- there's new stuff, too. here's the upcoming (shipping in May!) Accent UK Zombies anthology, for which I drew a cover, some interior spot illustrations, and completed a brand-new four-page Edward-Gorey like humor piece working with my son Daniel Bissette,

which I first announced here,

discussed at some length here,

blathered more about with this post,

and provided bios for the anthology's fellow contributors here.

That Zombies also features some stories and art by Center for Cartoon Studies students is a plus in my book, too!

I'm not sure if this anthology is going to make it over to the US, so best you check out

the Accent UK site and see about ordering your copy online, just in case.

I'll be posting more info, links, and tidbits on Zombies -- and the planned US followup, featuring much all-new work (including new material by yours truly!) -- later this coming month and spring. Keep your eye on this blog!

* In stores right now is the third (and, alas, final) issue of Mark Martin's most recent anthology Runaway Comics

which prints the complete version of "Blog Opera," the amazing story featuring me, Steve Bissette, trying to rescue my friend Mike Dobbs's severed head, which I previewed here

(lifting the images from Mark Martin's marvelous blog "Jabberous," which is forever linked on the menu at your immediate right), and which places me at last in the Brain That Wouldn't Die pantheon I secretly forever longed to belong to.

Thanks, Mark! Do I give head as well as I take head? You'll have to buy Runaway Comics #3 to find out!

I also have a teeny, tiny li'l drawing that's part of Mark's eye-popping back cover painting,

and you can find out the secrets of this back cover painting here, including my part in it -- scroll down the menu at the left Mark has created, and click on the contribution by everyone Mark invited to "come draw with me!" (which is also covered -- pun intended -- in the pages of Runaway Comics #3)!

So, don't hesitate, run right out today and pick up your copy of Runaway Comics #3! While you're at it, get Runaway Comics #1 and 2, too -- all great, fun reading -- and all available

here, where you can also preview every issue as well, right now.

Check 'em out, and tell Mark I sent you.

* I've also written the introductions for two new graphic novel collections -- one a partial reprint extensively revised and expanded into a whole new graphic novel, the other reprinting for the first time a seminal body of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle work by Michael Zulli. Both, though, are well worth picking up, and pronto!

If you scroll down a bit, you'll find my writeup of Michael Zulli's excellent TMNT: Soul's Winter here,

and you can order a copy here (with Michael's exquisite & exclusive signed bookplate as a bonus)!

* The amazing new graphic novel I proudly scribed an intro for is Rob Walton's masterpiece Ragmop, which doesn't "just" collect the existing pair of Ragmop series from the mid-1990s -- don't believe those know-it-all online putzes and pundits who claim otherwise.
Ragmop, the book, is not a reprint edition -- Rob completely revised, revamped, redrew, rewrote, and expanded the whole into a complete, self-standing and mighty hilarious satiric epic that is hands-down one of my favorite graphic novels of all time!

Here's Rob's blog and site, always worth a visit (on a regular basis),

and here's where you must immediately go and purchase a copy of Ragmop with the limited edition signed color bookplate -- no, right now. No excuses.

You think I refer to something as "my favorite graphic novel of all time" lightly?

So, there. Some new Bissette, some old Bissette -- all in print now, and in comics shops and bookstores now.

Now, I personally know how many of you did (and most of all how many didn't) order my son Dan's zine Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits last year, with my first-ever all-new comic story of the Millennium. A vast yawn greeted Dan and I with that little wonder. There's a stack of 'em signed sitting here in the SpiderBaby backstock; Dan was so discouraged with the cosmic indifference to his first effort he damn near killed himself -- good thing I talked him down out of that tree. That's right -- and it would have been your fault!

You don't really care whether I draw comics again, you just like to gripe about it, and expect me to post whatever I do online so you can dig it for free. Well, I'm on to your little game. I can just glance over at the huge stack remaining of Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits and I know what's what.

So get out there, or just click your fucking mouses, and buy the books and comics above. They're all great! I'll know if you did or didn't, bunky. Quit whining about my not doing anything and go buy 'em all, or leave me alone!

_____________________

On another matter all together, which Ragmop creator Rob Walton and I talked about during his visit here, and which Clan Apis and The Sandwalk Adventure creator (and biologist) Jay Hosler had a lot to say about during his visit to CCS, check out the comments on yesterday's blog posting for a lengthy comeback from Luke Przybylski about

this Easter blog posting, which I still stand by (your writing still played to the prejudices I noted, Luke).

I've replied in kind in the same comment thread, so check that out, too, and feel free to weigh in

(and feel free to read the local article in this recent post, too -- scroll down past the Grindhouse writeup -- as followup; that goes for you, too, Luke!).

Happy to talk about it, if anyone wishes to.

______________________

And this just in, Naomi Wolf's sobering Guardian story about how we're currently perceived overseas, and justifiably so.

Thanks to Tim Lucas for the link -- and y'all have a good Sunday, now, y'here?

Farewell, Rob Walton --

Rob just hit the road; I've got a lot of legwork to do on catch-up here, but it was a great three+ days and the Center for Cartoon Studies interaction was vital and worthwhile (by all reports). So, score! Safe drive home, Rob. I'll be posting pix here once the students share that with me, or post them online themselves.

I'll post later today with something of substance, I hope.

For today, I've got a recording session via phone with Lance Weiler later this morning for an upcoming live-soundtrack performance event of Lance's feature Head Trauma -- more on that later today, once I know more myself. Bryan Talbot and I are into the next phase (or two) of our interview series, this one on Bryan's book The Naked Artist -- more on that later. I'm speaking at the Westminster West Library in Westminster West, VT at 7 PM tonight -- more info on that in a bit -- which I'll be prepping for all day. Finally,we've got our plumber in the basement, installing the long-overdue pressure tank so our showers are more than a flower-watering-can's worth of water pressure.

And that's likely more than you care to know...

More later!

Little Gray Dot --

-- that's what Mark Martin keeps posting to note the utter insignificance of the various scandals and outrages manifesting around this clusterfuck Presidency.

He's right.

More Americans know and care about (with collective necrophile obsessiveness) the ongoing Anna Nichol Smith clusterfuck than know, care about or even recognize the name "Alberto Gonzales." Fantasy scenarios about Katie and Tom and their baby and Scientologist doctrine and 5-hour-sauna-torture-of-Katie, and Brad and Angelina, or poor Johnny Depp's daughter ("The Agony of Johnny Depp!") are more pressing than the War(s), Abu Ghraib, Guantanemo, than tax cuts and -- well, you get the idea.

But that doesn't mean you ignore the reality, join the lunacy.
____________

All I'm focused on yesterday and today week is CCS and our visitor Rob Walton.

Having a great, productive week, or so I think; really solid pair of sessions with the students yesterday, I think -- but all that matters, really, is what the students have to say about it amongst themselves, which I'll likely never know.

Seemed to go OK, though. Inking demo was fun, too -- Rob inks Bissette pencils, Bissette inks Rob pencils, tips and taps. Staging exercises. Sharing info, knowledge.

That matters.

Have a great Thursday -- gotta run!

Monday Musings

Hey, who's that curly-topped moron?

No, the one on the left!

This photo arrived from my old Mirage Studios amigo Ryan Brown this past week, and I thought some of you might get a kick out of it.

I'm the bozo on the left, scouring the bins for weird collectibles; that's toy and collectibles dealer Bill Bruegman dead center, and a youthful Kevin Eastman on the right.

Ah, a lot of water under the bridge since then. (BTW, as Marge and I unpack, a lot of old photos from the convention days are beginning to turn up -- I'll be posting them from time to time here, so let's favor Ryan's sharing of this photo as a harbinger of things to come as well as days gone by, shall we?)

Ryan writes, "Remember when we all boarded the Magic Bus for Mid Ohio Con and stopped at Bill Bruegman's Toy Scouts for a look at all his old toys? Ah... those were the days!"

They were indeed.

But that was then, this is now.

That was brought home in spades with this --

-- the other surprise that Ryan emailed me this weekend --

-- which I'll post sans further comment for now.

_________________

My 'Cash Flagg' reference and evocation of the great 'Cash Flagg' (aka Ray Dennis Steckler)'s magnum opus The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies prompted a couple of email jeers, but hey, here's the proof: yes, the film not only really existed, it's enjoyed a healthy (if odd, appropo enough) life on video and DVD.

(FYI, I mentioned the film when I referenced

Artemis aka Ashley Flagg's blog, here.)

I first saw the film under another title in a northern VT drive-in -- Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary was the moniker it was re-released as, with "ax wielding maniacs actually in the audience!" as its ballyhoo. Drive-ins didn't serve this gimmick well: stooges in rubbery 'Cash Flagg' monster masks dashed around the grounds in the dark, waving cardboard axes. We could barely see 'em from our car, though everyone started honking their horns, making for high spirits and dissolving the narcotic effect of the film itself into drive-in delirium.

This film came up again recently, as a clutch of the CCS students plan their annual Easter zombie film fest. One of the programmers is pushing for The Incredibly Strange Creatures to join the lineup, but I cautioned him -- I mean, it's not a zombie movie (acid-scarred caged maniacs do not zombies make, whatever the title sez). Besides, though I love the film, it's deadly dull, dominated by mind-numbing stage musical numbers that kill any festive movie-viewing gathering (I know from experience!). That said, it remains Steckler's most famous and infamous film, bar none; The Thrill Killers is a far more entertaining followup, to my mind, and my personal fave of the 'Cash Flagg' pantheon, spiced with livelier lunacy and a dollop or two of then-shocking onscreen violence (decapitations) and a "where the hell did this come from?" B-western-like chase finale typical of Steckler's eclectic cineuniverse.

'Nuff said on that!

__________

However, there was some tragic news that arrived this past weekend. Rick Veitch emailed me before the weekend with rumors that our old self-publishing 1990s tour amigo Drew Hayes had died --

-- and damn, it turned out to be true.

This is a real heartbreaker; Drew was only 37 years old.

Rick and I had let contact with Drew drift since the heyday of the Spirit of Independents tours of the mid-'90s, though Drew's Poison Elves soldiered on, beyond the collapse of Capital Distribution and the rise of the Diamond Monopoly, thanks largely to Sirius providing a sorely-needed publishing umbrella.

I don't know yet what happened, save for what's on the links posted above. My best to Drew's family and friends; it was a privilege to tour with him, and Drew poured himself 100% into his art and comics.

Damn, comics claims some good souls. Gene Day, Wally Wood, and too many others -- Drew went too young. He'll be missed.

_________________

Work on the upcoming April WRIF -- the White River Indy Film festival -- is nearing completion, too, so I'll have some announcements (and an active link) to share by the coming weekend.

We've corraled an extraordinary lineup of films, complete with visiting filmmakers, panels and special events. I'll be hosting a panel of Vermont filmmakers on April 27, and if you're up for it, my lengthy presentation on Green Mountain Cinema: Vermont Films & Filmmakers helps kick off the event with a special April 22nd fundraiser.

More info next weekend!

_______________________

A Week of Walton!

Yep, my old pal Rob Walton is a-comin' in, so I'll be barely blogging after tomorrow. Rob is staying over with Marge and I here in our new homestead, and since he's sleeping in our guest room -- where the computer resides -- I'll be offline for the bulk of the week.

See you here tomorrow, then likely no more 'till Friday. No worries, I'll be back at it next week.

Rob is coming in part to work the Center for Cartoon Studies students to little nubs. We've got two intensive workshops planned -- a lecture-based overview of editing graphic novels on Wednesday morning, primarily composed of Rob's analysis of his revamp and revision of Ragmop into the graphic novel that saw print just last November, followed by a two-part afternoon drawing workshop we'll be tag-teaming on. See what you're missing, not attending CCS?

It's been years since Rob and I got to spend any time together, so we're both really looking forward to the week ahead. In the meantime, you can savor Rob's creations yourself, here in virtual space --

Here's Rob's website, always worth a visit, folks --

and that's not all. You see,

Rob also has a radio show, which you can access (with a little exploration) here. Enjoy!

OK, that's all for now -- have a great Monday, a great week, and see you here tomorrow. Got to get to my Monday duties...