Inkslingers, Assemble!

Compliments of curator Idoline Duke of

the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, VT

comes this tasty portrait from

this past Wednesday's VT cartoonists gatherum in Burlington.

From left to right, back row: Jeff Danziger, James Kochalka, and yours truly; front row: Harry Bliss, Ed Koren, James Sturm. A fine time was had by all, and the dinner afterworks (at the Pacific Rim eatery) was delish and great fun.
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Zombies Bios

Here's the lineup of fellow American cartoonists I appear alongside in the upcoming Accent UK Zombies anthology. More info & images as May -- and the anthology's publication -- approaches!

Daniel Bissette is a native Vermonter (b 1985) and has been drawing, writing and making music of one kind or another (drums, guitar, etc.) all life. His art appears in an Italian book on Lucio Fulci, onscreen in Lance Weiler's new feature film Head Trauma, on its companion alternative soundtrack CD Cursed, and his first self-published zine was Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits (2006). He lives in Brattleboro, VT, DJs for the local radio station, and he and his dad Steve jammed on a piece for the mini-comic Trees & Hills and Friends before re-teaming for this anthology.

Chuck Forsman currently attends The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont where he researches how to sleep less and draw more. Visit

http://mcbuck.wordpress.com.

Jaci June is a student of the Center for Cartoon Studies, and a former resident of southern California. Comix for Jaci are what brains are for zombies: vital sustenance.

Sean Morgan: Born a cowboy, raised a Creole, forever a Yankee. There's no button Mr. Morgan won't push. His artwork (including the monster cover/splash) graces the “Jersey Devil” minicomic packaged with the Heretic DVD release of The Last Broadcast.

Bob Oxman was born in Ohio and raised in New Hampshire where he discovered his three loves: comic books, skateboarding, and beer. Bob started drawing comics in math class using graphing paper. At the University of California Santa Barbara, Bob and Mark Smith cofounded the Comic Book Creator’s Co-op, creating comics published in both campus newspapers and teaching a popular colloquium on graphic novels during their senior year. After college, Bob drifted through a series of uninspiring occupations (temping at a gel implants corporation, working for an insurance company, etc.), eventually moving back home to NH to attend classes at The Center for Cartoon Studies. Bob is currently hard at work on Smuttynose, a macabre retelling of the infamous Smuttynose Island, Maine axe murders of 1873, and he brews several fine beers featuring comic labels, as he works professionally in art crime prevention at the Hood Museum of Art for Dartmouth College.

Against his wishes, Morgan Pielli was born in Connecticut. Here he began creating comics of dubious quality from the tender age of seven. At age twelve his cartoons began appearing in the school newspaper; and the tragic course he had set was clear. But in an unexpected moment of weakness, Morgan decided that a classical art education was needed. After four years of painting pictures of squares bigger than his head, Morgan physically pried a BFA from the cold unfeeling hands of Bard College president Leon Botstein. Dr. Botstein shook his fist and cursed Morgan, vowing to someday have his revenge.Currently Morgan resides in Vermont where he attends the Center for Cartoon Studies. His cartoons “The Dancing Paperclip of Tormented Souls” and “Morgan's Guide to a Fruitful Life” are read by several people world-wide and enjoyed by nearly as many. Morgan's work can be found at

http://morganpielli.rated-arr.net

if you're into that sort of thing.

Jeremiah Piersol is a 2002 graduate of Art Center of College of Design, Pasadena , California (Bachelors of Fine Art). He is currently studying cartooning at The Center for Cartoon Studies, White River Junction, VT. His past endeavors including interning at the The Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA, and volunteer work at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA. and The Water Street Rescue Mission, Lancaster, PA; he was born in Lancaster. Jeremiah’s interests include Art in all forms, comics, quantum physics, paranormal research, post-modern theory, and popular culture.

Denis St. John (b 1981) heralds from most of the United States (California, New Orleans, Washington D.C., the Midwest, etc.). Denis was a local children’s show host in Indiana and co-host for a midnight horror show, often playing the creature for the creature feature, alongside the very real and cranky Dr. Calamari. Denis is currently a student at the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, and is trying to move on with his life after the glamour of children’s show host fame has faded.

B.C. Sterrett was born and raised in Ogden, Utah. His ongoing comic strip "The Sweetest of Dreams" has been published by Young American Comics, in entertainment rags like Melting Music and The Salt Shaker, and various other school papers, zines, and newsletters. He acts as founder and current director of the Lost Media Archive Museum and Library, salvaging and saving forgotten and obsolete media formats. Previous host of the long running "Oddity Rock Radio Show" on KWCR, he and has produced and hosted various broadcasts of rare and unusual music throughout the years (i.e. "Outsider Music" on live365.com). He is currently a student at The Center For Cartoon Studies, in White River Junction, VT. Contact: bcsterrett@gmail.com

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BTW, speaking of Blair and his creative and archival endeavors, the January 13th Lost Media Archive Museum and Library event I noted

in my January 13th post on this blog (scroll down to that day's posting, just below the glowering Varnae art) yielded photos by Blair's friend Janean Parker,

which are posted online here -- check 'em out!

Check it all out, please, and savor the beauty of it all.

Have a Great Saturday, One & All!

Road Trip!

Last night's roadtrip with James Sturm to Burlington was a great one. The panel at the Firehouse Gallery wasn't heavily attended, but there were more asses in the seats in the audience than on the panel, which is all that matters sometimes. Those who were there really wanted to be there, and a good time was had by all.

I'll tell ya about it tomorrow, when time is on my side.

Today, though, it ain't -- off to teach my two sessions, road trip (my fourth trip north a-way up VT Interstate 89 this week) with the CCS students to the Helen Day Art Center to savor the VT cartoonists exhibition, dinner on Montpelier for all (on CCS's ticket, thankfully), then I drive north again to pick up Marge at the Burlington Airport after the students head home. She's been away all week, visiting our grandchildren in Texas -- then, barring air flight delays, the long drive home (again) from Burlington to home, sweet home.

So, tomorrow, compadres, I'll write something of substance tomorrow. Today, I'm up, out and running! Have a great Thursday -- or at least an OK one...

No Time! No Time!

Wednesday AM and no time -- so, feeble post today. Sorry.

Today's post title is true, but prompted too by the ongoing interview I'm amid with Bryan Talbot, whose new graphic novel Alice in Sunderland is soon to appear. More on that later -- when this white rabbit has time.

I've been working my way through notes on some of my old Swamp Thing pencils for the upcoming issue of Rough Stuff magazine ("S&M for Comics Pencillers"), prepping today and tomorrow's lectures for CCS, etc., all while making room for two trips north -- one today for

the Vermont cartoonists's panel in Burlington at the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts -- all the info is here!

-- and for a CCS class trip up to

Stowe to visit the Helen Day Art Center and the "Fine Toon" VT cartooning show.

Whew; don't be surprised if I'm absent from here for a day or two, but I'll try to ensure that doesn't happen.


Followup on an email query from 'anonymous': Alex Toth was indeed vetted by Heavy Metal art director John Workman to do 1941: The Illustrated Story. For more info, check out the TwoMorrow's zine Alter Ego #63, December 2006, edited as ever by Roy Thomas; it's Roy's Toth tribute issue, and John Workman's article "1941 And All That: Why the Graphic Novel Version of Steven Spielberg's 1979 Film Was Not Drawn by Alex Toth" (pp. 47-50) says it all.

John, bless him, says the final published book was "brilliantly done by the young and wildly exuberant team of Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette," and notes the graphic novel did make a profit, which was news to me. FYI, Spielberg loathed what we'd done -- I still have a copy of his extremely negative letter to the HM folks in my files, which I reprinted in the letters page of SpiderBaby Comix -- but hey, maybe it's because we saw the truth about 1941 and laid it all out on the page for all to see!

Have a great Wednesday, one and all --

VT Cartoonists Descend on Burlington, Wednesday Night, 2/21!


As promised, a follow up on this week's activities.

Yo, big time in the big town (Vermont's only city!) this week -- Wednesday, to be exact!

James Sturm and I are off to Burlington on the afternoon of February 21st for the Cartoonist’s Panel and Informal Public Cartoon/Comic Critique Session. The evening event will be moderated by James Sturm, Director of the Center for Cartoon Studies and cartoonist/graphic novelist; panelists will include Harry Bliss, Jeff Danziger, Ed Koren and yours truly.

The panel discussion is during the dinner hour, 5:30 pm – 7 pm, followed by an informal public critique session from 7–7:30pm. All this for just $5 at the door; we'll be in the Lorraine B. Good Room at the Firehouse Center.

This will be a special evening, so be there --

all the particulars are here, at the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts site,

-- see you up on the second floor at 135 Church Street, next to City Hall in Burlington, VT, 05401.

Contact info:

Phone: 802-865-7166

Contact: Melinda Johns
mjohns@ci.burlington.vt.us

Directions: The Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts is located in downtown Burlington next to City Hall on the Church Street Marketplace,

and here's a map for those of you not familiar with Burlington who are planning to come!

For further information, please contact Idoline Duke, 802-253-8538, Director of Exhibitions, Helen Day Art Center --

for more info, including the poop on the current Fine Toon: The Art of Vermont Cartoonists exhibit at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, click here!

Upcoming events linked to the exhibit (including my April 17th lecture at the gallery) are cited here.

More info tomorrow!

Monday Monkey See, Monkey Do:

Creative Burnouts go Fishing,
Reading Tyrant Aloud to Eli,
Panel to Panel Update,
Trees & Hills,
Blair's Music Blaring,
Mario Bava and More!

Why I Love Mario Bava Fig. 1: The Three Faces of Fear, Indeed!
Intergenerational bonding in Black Sabbath (1963)

A lot of ground to cover this AM, so heeeeeeere goes:
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Colin Tedford, co-founder (with Dan Barlow) of the Vermont/New Hampshire/Massachusetts/New England comics creative collective the Trees & Hills Group, just sent me their February update:

* Tuesday, 2/6: Creator's Group gathering and Comics Schmooze, one after the other in Northampton, MA.

* Saturday, 2/17: Trees & Hills Drawing Social in Keene, NH.

Plus: * Tim Hulsizer is running a comic art auction for charity.
* Keene Free Comics is reviving in honor of TV Turnoff week and calling for submissions no later than 3/18.
* New comics online!
* Brattleboro Commons seeks local political cartoonist (and others - scroll down a few entries for this one & be sure to read the comments).

All this and more awaits you

here, on their site.

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I've been posting a lot of Center for Cartoon Studies student websites of late, but also should keep you abreast of fellow CCSer Blair Sterrett's activities online. Chief among those, archivist of the unusual that Blair is, be his online music posts on WFMU's 365 Days 2007 Project:

His most recent post I know of is 365 Days #27 - General Electric - Go Fly A Kite (mp3s)

365 Days #20 - American Standard - Today We Bought A Home (mp3s)

is, according to Blair, "a mini product musical by American-Standard." It sports artwork by Suzanne Baumann, who Blair met "in person during the small press comic convention last fall. Strangely she recognized me in the crowd from photos of my old radio show... Start off by listening to track 3." BTW, Suzanne's comics website can be found

here; enjoy.

More of Blair's postings as he posts about his posts for us folks.

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This just in from James Kochalka, concerning the ongoing

Fine Toon (here's the link)

Vermont Cartoonists exhibition at the Helen Day Art Gallery in Stowe, VT (catch it twixt now and the end of March, it's a terrific showcase!):

"Eva the Deadbeat interviewed me for her awesome video blog (Stuck in Vermont). She cornered me at Fine Toon: The Art of Vermont Cartoonists opening at the Helen Day Art Center in Stowe Vermont, which was a smashing success:

Here's the YouTube clip!

I like the part where me and Eli are reading a page from Steve Bissette's Tyrant.

I provided most of the music too, except for the theme song at the beginning by Burlington band The Smittens."

Thanks, James, and it was great to see you and your family at the opening night gala!

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BTW, at that gallery exhibition, you'll not only see Kochalka originals (including paintings by the grand fellow) and Tyrant original art, but also originals from Rick Veitch's and my first full-color jam creation, "Monkey See" (from Epic #2, circa 1979).

The double-page spread that sold the story: Bissette & Veitch, 1978-79

But don't go scrambling for back issues of Epic via online auctions: Rick is reprinting "Monkey See," along with all his solo creations from the late '70s and early '80s for zines like Epic, in his latest trade paperback collection Shiny Beasts, currently listed in the April Diamond catalogue.

Rick and I have a long-standing agreement to allow one another to anthologize our collaborative work -- particularly our 'Creative Burnouts' creations from the '70s and early '80s -- and Rick's first up to the plate via his ongoing King Hell Press collections of Veitch's out-of-print creations. Shiny Beasts will also include his long-sought-after Epic collaboration with Alan Moore, a tale of love, sex and interstellar venereal disease that also features an eye-popping panel Rick called me in for. You want alien VD imagery to die for, just call Bissette!

Shiny Beasts collects, for the first time anywhere, Rick's key post-Kubert School years, pre-graphic novel period of development, much of which was executed under the steady editorial guidance of the late, great Archie Goodwin. Though Marvel's Epic magazine was initiated by editor Rick Marschall, it was Archie who helmed that publishing experiment (Marvel's short-lived retort to Heavy Metal's unexpected newsstand success) to fruition, and Rick was in every issue of Epic from its debut (wherein he colored John Buscema's art for a one-shot Silver Surfer story). It was the color spread I've posted above that landed Rick and I our foot-in-the-door at Epic, on the heels of our offering the piece to Heavy Metal's beloved art director John Workman; John wanted it, but as a stand-alone illustration, whereas Rick and I were hoping to sell a story using the painting as a springboard.

Now, I'd worked for editor Rick Marschall doing two stories for the black-and-white Marvel comics zines (including Bizarre Adventures, a sort-of precursor to Epic). Rick Marschall was still in the editorial chair when I showed up in his and (then) assistant editor Ralph Macchio's office waaaaay back in 1978. Rick M. liked the piece and immediately requested Veitch and I expand it into a story. We made a couple of attempts, first proposing a fantasy coming-of-age story concept (with roughs) Rick M. shot down. Back to the drawing board we went, and Veitch and I then concocted "Monkey See," which we jammed on as we did everything at that time, literally passing the pages (and bowls) back and forth until we had pulled something together we liked well enough to put to the brush. Thus, we shared all tasks: the scripting, pencils, inks, and colors, though it was Rick who was the airbrush maestro, pulling everything together with his painstaking use of that venerable commercial art tool. Rick was among the first wave of cartoonists to embrace the airbrush after Richard Corben's seminal early '70s underground and Warren creations, and it indeed opened many doors for Rick (and me: Rick graced a number of my first pro jobs with his airbrush tones) at the time. Rick Marschall accepted our revamp of "Monkey See," but by the time we delivered the job, Rick M. had been unceremoniously booted from his Marvel editorial position and Archie Goodwin was the man in the hotseat.

Archie graciously honored Rick M.'s commitment to publish "Monkey See," and thus was Rick Veitch's run of impressive Epic stories initiated (I only did one other, "Kultz," with co-writer Steve Perry, for Epic #6). Rick learned much from his subsequent efforts under Archie's steady editorial hand, culminating in

his first serialized graphic novel for Epic, Abrasax and the Earthman (now available, with a stunning signed and limited print by Veitch and Al Williamson, at PaneltoPanel.net!)

It's all those extraordinary Epic self-standing stories (and more!) that comprise Shiny Beasts; not to be missed!

I'll be posting Shiny Beasts preorder info, and more on "Monkey See" (including a peek at a few more pages) here later in February. Given Rick's ongoing solid relations with PaneltoPanel.net, I'd personally recommend waiting to preorder via PaneltoPanel -- there will no doubt be a limited edition print of some kind to savor! -- and I'll post that link here as soon as P2P guru John Rovnak sends me the specs.

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And speaking of John Rovnak and

PaneltoPanel.net,

I'm deep in work prepping another batch of online reviews for John's site; I'll post those links once the reviews are in John's hands and up for reading (I had two book introductions to get off my desk first, amid the moving and house buying-and-selling and all; as of this past Friday, those deadlines have been met and intros accepted by their respective publishers).

However, that's not the big news. Dig, for a limited time John is promoting his marvelous online comic retail site with the following "catch it while you can!" February promotion:

Join Panel to Panel.Net's comic book subscription service during the month of February, and receive two titles FREE for one year!

Simply order a copy of a PREVIEWS catalog

here,

and then email us back with your desired titles and books. Now you're buying books with Panel to Panel's excellent subscription service; and if your monthly orders are at a minimum $35.00 each month, you'll receive two titles (of your choice) for an entire year absolutely FREE!!

Titles to choose from include:

USAGI YOJIMBO (Dark Horse Comics)
THE SPIRIT (DC Comics)
ARMY @ LOVE (DC/Vertigo)
[Note: This is Rick Veitch's upcoming series, and it looks fantastic from the pencils Rick has shown me.]
GODLAND (Image Comics)
MIGHTY AVENGERS (Marvel Comics)
RUNAWAYS (Marvel Comics)
ELEPHANTMEN (Image Comics)
TALES OF THE TMNT (Mirage Studios)
BRAVE & THE BOLD (DC Comics)
SHONEN JUMP * (Viz Media)
LOVE & ROCKETS (Fantagraphics)

*counts as two titles

Plus, as a subscriber, you'll also receive 10% off all items ordered; and you'll receive the best customer service around, which has kept our subscribers happy for years.

I'm among John's long-time subscribers and customers -- here's my plug, along with one from compadre and fellow cartoonist Mitch Waxman:

"I've been using Panel To Panel's comics subscription service for over a decade and have been overjoyed with every aspect of it: the service, the attention to my interests and needs, and best of all the occasional bringing to my attention something I otherwise wouldn't have known existed. It's my one-stop comics and graphic novel shopping center!" - Stephen R. Bissette (Swamp Thing, Tyrant, Taboo)

"Panel To Panel knows exactly what kind of comics, artists and writers that I like, and makes great suggestions for new ones. They're knowledgeable, approachable and a great comics resource. Panel To Panel's subscription service is invaluable; I get the comics I want, without being overwhelmed in the comic shop (if I can find one near me). Panel To Panel has been sending me a monthly box of goodies for 8 years, making them king of comics convenience years before Netflix or Fresh Direct delivered their first movie or bread stick." - Mitch Waxman (www.weirdass.net)

Give us a try, and make us your online comics resource; We'd love to earn your business.
More information about subscribing with us is available

here!

February is a short month, so don't dawdle! Take advantage of this invite now. There's nothing in this for me, but plenty in it for you. Give John and PaneltoPanel.net a shot; he'll be a resource for my own past and coming work in the comics field for years and years to come.
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Did I say coming work? Why, yes I did.

2007 will be the year of my return to the medium (not the US industry) of comics, and there's much to share -- as and when the time comes. I've been busy, not only scripting but also working my pencil and slinging the inks, thanks entirely to my son Daniel, the folks at CCS, and a few tempting invites from friends.

Keep your eyes on this blog, the announcements will be forthcoming as winter gives way to spring!
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Why I Love Bava Fig. 2: The spectral Melissa at the window in Operazione Paura/ Kill, Baby, Kill!/Curse of the Living Dead (1966), a drive-in fave of my teenage years under any title.

Other excitement for 2007 that's got me wound up of late is the coming wave of Mario Bava DVD releases and re-releases, which my long-time amigo Tim Lucas (who happens also to be the Bava biographer of choice and the venerable creator/editor/copublisher of Video Watchdog, with his lovely Oz-collecting wife Donna) has been touting of late on blog (links below).

As many of you may know, Mario Bava's films were absolutely central to my own growing up. I savored some long discussion board debates about Bava's films on the old Swamp boards (in The Kingdom; alas, all gone and now longer archived online), but you must understand how vital Bava's films were and are to me. I was traumatized as a Catholic youth by Black Sunday; however, Bava's films were forever elusive, often hiding under retitlings and even sans Bava's name in the credits. I thereafter scoured the pages of Castle of Frankenstein and haunted the TV Guide listings, studied the 16mm rental catalogues (in high school, I ran the student film program and snuck Danger: Diabolik onto the programming, much to the outrage of a particular French teacher at Harwood Union High School; at Johnson State College, I booked a then-complete retrospective of Bava's films for the Sunday afternoon "Bentley B-Flicks" matinees) and (once I had my driver's license) the drive-ins and grindhouses for any and all Bava creations.

As I got into underground comics, I became convinced Bava's films were influencing other cartoonists of that generation and my own: consider, for a moment, Richard Corben's color horror comics, which seemed the first overt eruption of Bava's color aesthetic into the medium. I've never had that particular conversation with Corben, but I'm willing to bet Bava was as formative an influence on his Kansas City upbringing as Bava was on my backwoods Vermont adolescence and teenage years.

It was our mutual obsessive devotion and love for Bava's films that brought Tim Lucas and I together, via a letter I mailed to Fangoria in response to their publication of Tim's first article on Bava, and we've been friends ever since. It's sometimes hard to believe that almost every single film Bava made has been released on DVD, but there's more to come, and soon!

Why I love Bava Fig. 3: Another indelible gothic image from Kill, Baby, Kill!

First up, there's the coming

Dark Sky DVD release of a digitally-remastered and restored edition of Bava's Operazione Paura/Kill, Baby, Kill!

Tim's got my appetite up, and given Dark Sky's track record to date (I have nearly all their genre releases on my shelves, and in my head) and the promise of David Gregory's bonus feature, visiting all the key locations Bava used for his gothic gem, this promises to be the definitive release (at last!) of this minor masterpiece.

But there's more!

In his February 3rd post on the Video Watchblog, Tim reveals what's in store in Anchor Bay's upcoming boxed set Mario Bava Collection Volume 1,

and you'll have to excuse me, but I think I just came in my pants. This boxed set provides the best intro to Bava's work to date, and for the uninitiated among you, this is the investment to go for.

Jeez, I better go change my shorts.

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Have a great week!

I don't know if I'll be able to post daily this week, as it's a busy one for me: I'm speaking to two classes at Brattleboro's Center for Digital Art tomorrow, so I'll be on the road early. My daughter Maia is coming up to visit this week (and work on our comic project together; her bro' Dan has already completed his jam with his Pop, namely yours truly) and we have two guest artists at CCS this week --

Tom Hart

and

Leela Corman

-- which will keep us all preoccupied and happy.

Still, I'll be popping up here, too, as time permits.

Of Jim, Jobs, and Journeys:

I've been a bit jib of late, jittery at the juncture I've placed myself in, thanks to recent jeopardous jargon about Jim. Just this weekend, I jumped into a bit of a jam, injudiciously juxtaposing Jim for James's Dad.

Mystery Solved! Thanks to CCS student Elizabeth Chasalow, I finally know who I was talking to last Saturday -- the fellow named Jim, he-who-was-not-James-Kochalka's-Pop -- and without further ado, here's Elizabeth's email resolution to this rather tawdry and mildly embarrassing dilemma:

"I'm preeeeetty sure the guy you met was Jim Jarvela. He
was soft-spoken, and leaned in to talk, and I drew him a little alien who looked like it just wanted to hug itself, and then you drew him one too... It's Jacob's dad. (Jacob's the one with the square-ish glasses, brown hair, and chin fluff, if you haven't figured them all out yet) So, there ya go."

Jacob, natch, is a fellow CCS student. Gee, Jacob, why didn't you say so?

Thanks, Elizabeth -- that joyously jibes with (and jolts) my jumbled memory -- and jolly apologies to Jacob, Jim, and James. Justice is served! You may judge me a jester, jape or jeer at my jabber, or form a jocund juvenile junto to jail me as a jongleur -- but please, just don't jab my jugular!

Hope this jejune joking leaves you jazzed enough to join me as I further jiggle my jaw, jotting jovial journal entries in a jiffy.
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If email is any barometer of the national temperature, my having received no less than 42 emails with attachments of the composite photo of past-and-present President Bush enjoying a father-and-son fishing expedition in flooded New Orleans is telling. (I'll spare you the photo; I'm sure you've seen it. Best email lead-in is from Chris Kalnick, sardonically referring to father-and-son Bush "liberating unfortunates from Katrina's flood waters.")

So is the fact that I have, as of this afternoon, received 27 email variations on the following:

Q: What is Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade?

A: He really doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans, as long as they do it on their own.

Remember, you read it here, uh, 97 times after you read it elsewhere.
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Last week, I announced the upcoming Burlington Literary Festival's one-day comicbook symposium, which is happening next Saturday in Burlington, VT. It begins at 1 PM with an illustrated lecture by James Sturm, continues with the 3 PM panel moderated by yours truly (featuring James Kochalka, Tom Devlin, and Greg Giordano), and concludes with a 7:30 PM evening panel with Alison Bechdel, Harry Bliss, and LJ Kopf.

I'm really looking forward to the event, and hope to see some of you there. I've already posted tons of information

here...

...and the Festival website is

here.

If you have questions, contact Barbara A. Shatara (Outreach & Reference Librarian) -- or anyone, really -- at the Fletcher Free Library; phone: 802-865-7211 -- FAX: 802-865-7227.

Again, it's all happening next Saturday, September 24th, at the Fletcher Free Library on 235 College Street in Burlington, VT. Here's the directions, for those able to make the drive:

Directions to the Library: The Library is located on the corner of College Street and South Winooski Avenue at 235 College Street. We are located one block east of Church Street. The Roxy movie theater is across the street from the library.

From Route 7 South In Burlington, go through the rotary and stay on Shelburne Road. 100 hundred yards after the rotary bear right on to South Union Street. At the first traffic light take a left on to Main Street. At the next light take a right on to South Winooski Avenue - take your next right onto College Street. The library is immediately to your right.

From I-89 Take exit 14 west off of I-89 and proceed west on Route 2 toward Burlington. Drive past the University of Vermont. Continuing down the hill, you're now on Main Street, take a right onto South Winooski Avenue. Take your next right onto College Street. The library is immediately to your right.

Marj and I are looking forward to spending the day in Burlington, though I suspect she'll be bopping and shopping while I'm lopping off sentences and conjugating comicological verbs on the panel. I'm particularly psyched about the evening event, and it's a hoot the Literary Festival has expanded its canvas to include our favorite medium.

I'll post one more reminder next week.
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There's another upcoming event some of you might be interested in: I am presenting a Halloween Horror Comics slide lecture at the Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center on October 27, 2005. I promise it will be lively, gory, and mucho monstrous fun!

I'll post more info as that date approaches, but just a head's up for those of you interested -- and yes, the Comic Art in the Green Mountains is still in place at the Museum, featuring original art by yours truly, Frank Miller, James Sturm, Rick Veitch, and James Kochalka.
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Jeez, what a lackluster bunch of drivel. OK, livelier insights tomorrow AM, I promise. Back to work...

Next Weekend: Comics and Cartoonists in Burlington Literary Festival...

I'll be posting more tonight and tomorrow (AM and PM) on the Center for Cartoon Studies events this weekend, but here's an announcement that may be of interest to y'all, particularly if you're in driving distance of Burlington, VT. I'll be there, so read on:

* Saturday, September 24, 2005: I'll be in Burlington, VT next Saturday with a bevy of marvelous cartoonists as part of the Burlington Literary Festival, which shows we're all "moving up" in the world, eh? The fact that this comics event at the Fletcher Free Library in downtown Burlington is popping up in the context of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center's ongoing exhibition of VT cartoonists (yours truly, Frank Miller, Rick Veitch, James Kochalka, and James Sturm) is indicative of a real change in the cultural winds in my home state. More on that next weekend; in the meantime, you can find all the particulars about next weekend's event

here!

The event be at the Fletcher Free Library (235 College Street, Burlington, VT 05401), and for more info you can call 802-865-7211 or FAX 802-865-7227, but here's all I know:

This event was brainstormed by Barbara A. Shatara, Outreach & Reference Librarian at the Fletcher Free Library, and my good pal John Rovnak, who used to own and manage Comics Route in Manchester, VT and hosted one of Vermont's first expansive comics-related events in the mid-1990s, the ACE/Independent Comics Exposition (also in Manchester, VT, at the historic Equinox). The Burlington Literary Festival is a city-wide event, celebrating all facets of writing and creativity in Vermont, but this is the first year I'm aware of that the event has expanded its parameters to embrace comics, graphic novels, and cartoonists.

The comics-related portion of the Literary Festival programming kicks off in the Fletcher Free Library's Main Reading Room next Saturday at 1:00 PM with an illustrated lecture by the great James Sturm, who is presently amid the opening week flurry of activity at the newly opened Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction (much more about that tonight!). James is founder and director of the CCS, and needless to say he's best known for his comics and graphic novels (all of which have been translated into several languages and have won numerous awards, including "Best Graphic Novel of 2001" by Time Magazine).

You know, I might as well give you the whole scoop (and nothing but the scoop) on James, since he'll hereafter be a constant presence in my life and on this blog.

Let's see, where's the official bio? Ah, here 'tis:

In 1991 James received a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, moved to Seattle and co-founded the alternative weekly, The Stranger. That same year Fantagraphics began publishing his Eisner-nominated comic book series The Cereal Killings. During the next five years James was the art director of The Stranger, collaborated with syndicated columnist (and talking head) Dan Savage producing two issues of the comic book Savage Love. In 1996 James received a Xeric grant for his comic The Revival. From 1997-2001 James lived in Savannah, Georgia and taught at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the sequential art department. In 1998 Drawn and Quarterly published the story Hundreds of Feet Below Daylight, the second in a trilogy of American historical fiction pieces. Three years later came the last installment of the trilogy, the best-selling and award-winning graphic novel The Golem's Mighty Swing. The book has been translated into several languages and was named "Best Comic 2001" by Time Magazine. An avid collector of Marvel Comics in his youth James wrote and designed the 2004 Eisner award winning Unstable Molecules, a four issue series and trade paperback featuring the characters based on the Fantastic Four, and published by Marvel Comics. James' writings and illustrations have appeared in scores of national and regional publications including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Onion, The New York Times, and on the cover of The New Yorker. James is also the founder and active member of The National Association of Comics Art Educators; an organization committed to helping facilitate the teaching of comics in higher education.

Now you know all you need to know about James, though I'll be sure to post embarrassing and intimate details about any compelling or particularly vile personal habits he might have in the coming weeks, months, and years.

OK, enough on James. Back to the Burlington Literary Festival. So James gives his lecture at 1 PM, then a new group convenes in the same area -- Fletcher Free Library's Main Reading Room -- at 3:00 PM for a panel I am moderating, which has a silly title I won't repeat here (Why do they saddle us with these risible panel titles? Thankfully, "Pow! Whap!" is not part of the title, so I suppose we'll count that as a blessing). It will basically cover how we work, how we got into the business, and how we eke out livings therein. Who's "we"? I'm so glad you asked. I'll be sitting alongside James Kochalka, Tom Devlin, and Gregory Giordano, a fine group of fellows, two of whom I'll be teaching with at CCS starting this week.

Some background on everyone: Greg Giordano managed the first-ever Vermont comics convention I ever attended (and perhaps the first-ever VT comics con, period), which was at the Sheraton Inn in Burlington. Greg is a Burlington comic book artist, and his website is

here.

Greg's a fine fellow and key to the ongoing Burlington comics scene.

James Kochalka is known to most of you, but again, since he'll now be an ongoing part of my life at CCS and hence a frequent persona in this blog hereafter, as will Tom Devlin, who is likewise teaching at CCS, I'll post their official Burlington Literary Festival bios here, just by way of introduction for those of who aren't familiar with them or their work:

James Kochalka's comics have been published internationally by almost every alternative comics publisher; he's recorded several music CDs under the name James Kochalka Superstar (making him a favorite at college radio stations across the country); and he's developed animated cartoons for Nickelodeon. Best known for his graphic novel, Monkey vs Robot, and his critically acclaimed Sketchbook Diaries, Kochalka currently lives in Burlington, Vermont.

Tom Devlin is the publisher and visionary behind the art-comics publishing house Highwater Books. Specializing in comics that don't fit into the publishing profiles of other companies, Highwater has carved out a niche in the comics publishing world as an idiosyncratic, art-first/artists first comics publisher. Devlin also draws an infrequent strip on the Highwater Web site. In the past, Devlin has guest-edited The Comics Journal, managed a Diamond Comics Distribution warehouse, designed covers and content for nearly all the other independent comics publishers as well Harvard University Press, sat on the Steering Commitee of the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, lectured at Universities in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Montreal, had artwork displayed in galleries in Boston and Portugal, and managed a comic store.

OK, we'll be informative and entertaining and engaging as hell, and we'll also be signing our work after, which will be available and on sale right then and there, shameless hucksters that we all are.

After they clear our mangy hides out of the seats and we scatter like sheep to go have dinner, the Burlington Literary Festival will reconvene in the Fletcher Free Library's Main Reading Room for that evening's event at 7:30 PM: the Cartoonists Panel with Alison Bechdel, Harry Bliss, and LJ Kopf. Alison will be the moderator, and if here's the skinny on everyone at the evening panel:

Alison Bechdel's comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For reproduces the texture of 21st century life, queer and otherwise, in exactingly high resolution. From foreign policy to domestic routine, breastfeeding to chemotherapy, postmodern theory to parenting practice, the finely-drawn characters of Dykes To Watch Out For fuse high and low culture in a serial graphic narrative suitable for humanists of all persuasions. The Comics Journal says, "Bechdel's art distills the pleasures of Friends and The Nation; we recognize our world in it, with its sorrows and ironies." Bechdel grew up in rural Pennsylvania. After graduating from Oberlin College, she moved to New York City, where she began drawing Dykes to Watch Out For as a feature in the feminist monthly Womanews in 1983. Ten book-length DTWOF collections have since appeared, nine of them -- including Spawn of Dykes To Watch Out For and Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For -- published by the pioneering feminist press, Firebrand Books. The most recent volume, Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For, was released by Alyson Books in the fall of 2003. Her bi-weekly strip is syndicated in over 50 periodicals. Bechdel's work has become a countercultural institution. "Hers are thinkers' comics," writes Harvey Pekar, "full of the stuff that classics like Gasoline Alley and Doonesbury are made of." Bechdel's work appeared recently alongside Aaron McGruder's Boondocks and David Rees' Get Your War On in Attitude 2: The New Subversive Alternative Cartoonists (NBM, 2004). Four of her books have won Lambda Literary Awards for Humor, and The Indelible Alison Bechdel won a Lambda Literary Award in the biography/autobiography category. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as "one of the greatest hits of the Twentieth Century." In addition to her comic strip, Bechdel has also done exclusive work for a slew of publications including Ms., Slate, The Village Voice, The Advocate, Out, and many other newspapers, web sites, comic books, and 'zines. Her work has been widely anthologized and translated.

Harry Bliss was born in upstate New York and studied painting at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Illustration at The University of the Arts (BFA) and Syracuse University (MA). Bliss was illustrating for Gentleman's Quarterly, McCall's, Business Week and other national magazines in his final year at The University of the Arts. In 1997 he was asked by the art editor of The New Yorker to submit cover sketches. His first cover for The New Yorker appeared on January 5, 1998. Shortly thereafter, his black and white cartoons began appearing in The New Yorker; to date Bliss has published fifteen covers and numerous cartoons and illustrations with the magazine.
In addition to his work for The New Yorker, he has contributed cartoons to Playboy, Nickelodeon, Archaeology, and illustrated book covers for writers such as Lawrence Block, Dorothy Uhnak, Bob Dole, Ben Yagoda, and Fiona Buckley. He has received awards of excellence from Print, Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, National Society of News Design, Inc., and Art Directors Club of New York. His first children's book, A Fine, Fine School by Newbery award winning author Sharon Creech, was a New York Times Bestseller. Other books for children Bliss has illustrated include Which Would You Rather Be? by William Steig, Caldecott winning author and creator of Shrek, Countdown To Kindergarten by Alison McGhee and Diary of a Worm, a New York Times Bestseller by Caldecott winner Doreen Cronin. Bliss's next book, Don't Forget To Come Back Candlewick Press), is due out in February 2004.

L. J. Kopf had his brief bid for local fame when his Edge cartoon appeared in every issue of the twelve year (1978-1990) run of the Vanguard Press, a Burlington news and arts weekly that laid the groundwork for Seven Days. A collection of the best of those Edge cartoons, entitled Into Every Life a Little Edge Must Fall, was published by Fantagraphics Books and is still available. Mr. Kopf continues to draw cartoons. By day, he works as the Children's Librarian at the Richmond Free Library in Richmond, VT.

OK, that's the lineup. I'm looking forward to being there -- hope you'll join us!

A proper, non-huckster blog posting will follow this evening, after I return home from this afternoon's CCS Grand Opening event. Hope to see some of you there; in any case, see you Constant Readers here later.

A few announcements today:

* The grand opening of the Center for Cartoon Studies is Saturday Sept. 10 from 2-4pm. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony, students and faculty will be doing sketches for the public; there will also be a table selling graphic novels, comics, and books (the Vermont cartoonist table). This is the big day for Director and founder James Sturm and everyone at The Center for Cartoon Studies!
C'mon up, down, or over to White River Junction, VT; for more info, phone 802-295-3319, fax 802-295-3399, or pop on over to

the CCS site.

* My daughter Maia Rose has an exhibition of her photography at Mocha Joe's in downtown Brattleboro, VT. No web link I can post, sorry, but if you're in the area, stop in for a cup of java and a look at Maia's latest body of creative work. Lovely, evocative stuff, if I may say so myself!

* Speaking of Vermont artists with works on display, check out VT cartoonist Ethan Slayton's work, now up and waiting for eyeballs in Burlington, VT. Some of Ethan's current comic work is hanging at Speeder and Earls Coffee house on Church Street in Burlington for the month of September. The Burlington Art Hop is happening this coming weekend, September 9th and 10th, which only sweetens the view. If you won't be anywhere near Burlington this month, well, hop on over to

Ethan's site.

* Looking for info and interviews on horror comics? Check out Richard Arndt's expansive and ever-growing site on horror and independent comics. Richard has posted exhaustive bibliographies and related in-depth interviews (including a couple with yours truly) for "The Early Independents," Warren's seminal genre mags (Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella,, etc.), Marvel's competing 1970s explosion of horror black-and-white zines, as well as Mike Friedrich's Star*Reach, the ribald Skywald horrors, SpiderBaby Grafix's Taboo, the influential UK anthology Warrior (from which sprang V for Vendetta, Marvelman aka Miracleman, The Bojeffries Saga, and more), the short-lived Web of Horror, and more. It's just a click away --

Horror Comics!

* Is Katrina one shock too many for the US economy? I'll spare you the details here, but highly recommend you give Reuters' Economics correspondent Mike Dolan's Sept. 1 article a read at

this site.

In short, the Administration whose best advice to all of us after 9/11 was to keep on shopping is ill-prepared, to say the least: As Dolan succinctly puts it, "U.S. economic health is so dependent on keeping its increasingly indebted households shopping that another drain on their already-stretched budgets could batter the economy." This Labor Day weekend in southern VT saw a plunge in the usual traffic and business, as gas prices inflated to record levels hereabouts ($3.25 a gallon and much higher). Locals are dreading the heating costs for the coming winter; coming on the heels of sky-rocketing property tax bills and fuel costs, many are already wondering what essentials they'll go without to make it to spring. As I said late last week, this is only the beginning...

OK, here's the scoop:

From Noon to Noon, Saturday August 27 to Sunday August 28, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center in downtown Brattleboro, Vermont hosted the 24-Hour Comics Challenge. By my current count, 49 adventurous individuals actively participated; all completed comics (though not all needed the full 24 hours, or made it to the ideal of 24 pages completed -- though most did); I will verify that count later today, after I touch base again with the good folks at the Museum (hello, Margeret!).

The participants were women and men of all ages, from all walks of life. It was an amazing, electic mix of people, from avid comics and manga readers age 16 and up to non-cartoonists their 50s -- artists, writers, poets, students, teachers, musicians, radio djs, reporters, etc. -- and the energy was unlike anything I've ever experienced. They came from the Brattleboro community and beyond: some drove up from Connecticut, Massachusetts, or in from New Hampshire (including a die-hard group from Keene who had already done their own 24-Hour Comics earlier in the summer), or came in-state from as far north as Milton and St. Johnsbury (and those are up thar). Some took the bus, some drove, some sauntered in.

There was a writer who'd never really drawn who had almost talked himself out of coming, but was glad he was there. One women told me she hadn't drawn since her 6th Grade art class (and was quite satisfied that she "still drew the way I did then!", showing me her beguiling completed pages), another was one of my son Dan's high school science teachers (hello, Mike!) who was taking the Challenge as a window of opportunity to finally put down on paper a character he'd had in his head for years. Others were clearly experienced hands, including at least three hackers using laptops to produce pages using technology that simply didn't exist when Scott McCloud invented the form -- the challenge -- fifteen years ago.

That's where I come in: I wasn't participating in the challenge, really, but I was there with the opening remarks a little before noon on Saturday and for the closing remarks at noon on Sunday. See, I had a hand in the 24-hour comic's invention: it was the gauntlet thrown down by my good friend Scott McCloud back in the summer of 1990. Scott (who was then best-known for his series ZOT and the one-shot DESTROY!; UNDERSTANDING COMICS was still a gleam in his eye and notes in his sketchbooks).

Scott and I both had bad reps for being s-l-o-w cartoonists, challenged by even the most expansive of deadlines. But Scott had seen me doing sketches, and recognized that the furious energy of my freehand sketches was somehow disconnected from the laborious glacial movement of pages across my drawing board.

So Scott, being a bit of an inventor like his father, invented the 24 Hour Comic as a challenge for he and I, a way of breaking logjams and freeing constrained energy by completing, sans preparation, an entire 24-page comic in a mere 24 hours, start to finish. Whatever we did during that 24 hour stretch -- including distractions like eating, using the bathroom, napping, walking, whatever (in my case, it included making my two kids lunch and picking them up from school) -- the clock was still ticking. We had ONE DAY, 24 consecutive hours, in which to do the deed.

Now, Scott issued the challenge as one we would both complete that August (1990). Scott also knew I wouldn't do it if HE didn't do it, so he had to go first. We were also both procrastinators by nature. Thus, Scott completed his -- the first 24-Hour comic in history -- on the last day of August 1990, between 6 AM and 11:30 PM. Unlike Scott, I had kids, so my session took a bit more strategic family planning: I sat down at 10 AM on (ahem) August 36th and worked through to 1:30 AM the next day, completing "A Life in Black and White." My own ground rules were: I would complete pages in their narrative order, only moving forward; no looking back; no corrections, no insert pages.

Scott and I were pretty pleased with the results, and happily mailed photocopies of our bastard offspring to friends and peers near and far. By the time I published Scott's "A Day's Work" in TABOO ESPECIAL and my sordid tale in TABOO 7 (both 1991, though I hasten to add Dave Sim published a preview of my story in CEREBUS), the bug had already bitten others. If memory serves, the first to jump into the breach was Dave Sim (with his fifteen-hour opus "Bigger Blacker Kiss" (October 26-27, 1990, 11:30 AM to 2:45 AM), with Rick Veitch immediately introducing a fresh permutation (drawing 24 dream comics -- transcribing his dreams from the night before -- in timed one-hour sessions, 24 days in a row), which soon spawned his RAREBIT FIENDS comics series and graphic novels. Neil Gaiman soon offered another approach, a non-artist laboring over a 24-hour period (FAXing pages to Scott and I as they were completed) to produce his marvelous 13-page "Being an Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolus." As Scott McCloud later wrote, "Neil was unable to finish the full 24 pages, but created as much as possible within a full 24 hour session... Having gone the distance, at least where time and physical endurance were concerned, we christened it Noble Failure Variant #1 -- The Gaiman Variation."

Before long, Scott was hearing from many, many creators who had taken the challenge. It's amazing how quickly it spun into other hands, other venues, other media: The 24-Hour Play emerged by 1995; in theater circles, Tina Fallon (co-founder of Crux Productions of NYC) is credited with creating the theatrical form, and by 1997 the event had expanded into the New York Fringe Festival's mind-boggling "240 hours of plays" -- 10 days of successive 24-hour-play challenges (creating a performance from scratch to performance in a 24-hour stretch, including performance). My daughter Maia Rose participated in one of the 24-Hour Play events when that whirlwind blew into Brattleboro (April 14-15 of 2000), at the Brattleboro Flat Street Boys & Girls Club, produced by Adrienne DeGuevara as a fund-raiser for the club (anyone interested, see The Brattleboro Reformer A&E section for Thursday, April 13, 2000, page 22). By that time, Scott told me of a 48-Hour Movie challenge that was zipping through digital filmmaking/video circles. When I taught/tutored an alternative home schooled group of Vermont and Massachusetts teenagers (2003-2004) in storytelling and cinema, I had a single assigment for them at the end of our studies: the students had to create something in one 24-hour period, a single sitting, either separately or together (they each had their own skills and expertise: writing, music, drawing, etc.). They rose to the challenge and surprised me during our final week with a completed short film, which they conceived, scripted/improvised, filmed, edited, and scored in one 24-hour session.

Scott had created something amazing and ever-adaptable.

I cannot tell you how blown away I was Saturday morning when I walked into the Brattleboro Museum to see almost fifty people spread on every table, in every corner of the galleries, eager and ready to take on the challenge... just about ten miles from where I'd drawn my 24-hour comic, in the lone little 1940s trailer-studio I had parked behind my garage at our rented Lower Dover Road home in the late summer of 1990. I was even more blown away when my wife Marjory and I bopped into the Museum 11:30 PM on Saturday evening to see the beehive still buzzing: people savoring the hospitable warm summer night working outside, with improvised lighting and drawing spaces; people inside busy at every table, in every nook and cranny, while others stretched, walked the galleries, drank inspiration from the art hanging from the walls, or took a break for a chat or a smoke outside. Come Sunday morning at 11:30 AM, I knew the twelve hours since my last visit was going to have taken a toll, but I was overjoyed to see almost the entire group still there. A few had completed their comics and gone elsewhere to eat or crash, but only a few -- at least forty folks were hanging in for the 'end gong' and final celebration. They'd DONE it! There were a couple of "Neil Gaiman Variants," but only a couple.

I can't wait to sit down and read the comics themselves -- a few eager participants made sure I left the Museum Sunday with a photocopy of their accomplishments in my hot little hands.

I'll post the names of the participants here once I confirm the final lineup with Margaret, Konstantin, and the Museum later today or early tomorrow. In the meantime --

There's an online story from the Brattleboro Reformer (it made the front page of the print edition this morning!); please note one immediately evident error, I did NOT draw the FIRST 24-Hour comic (that was Scott McCloud, natch) -- anyhoot, it's waiting for you

here!

For those interested, the Museum's website on the 24-Hour Challenge is at:

24-Hour Comic Challenge!

Konstantin von Krusenstiern is the director of the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center; Gabriel Greenberg curated the Green Mountain Cartooning exhibition (which is up through February -- check it out!) and worked with the Museum to coordinate the 24-Hour Comics event (while participating as a creator, and completing his comic in the timeframe WHILE handling much of the 'host' chores). I also worked with Teta Hilsdon, who is the Museum Office Manager, along with Margaret Shipman (who is the smiling face most often greeting visitors at the front desk) and summer intern Eliza Thomson. Also involved, one way or another, with the exhibit, sponsorship, and/or the 24-Hour Comics event were Lynn Barrett, Susan Calabria, LaVonne Betts, and Roger Wilken.

The museum's website is

here!

For info on the current exhibit "Comic Art in the Green Mountains," featuring work by yours truly (SWAMP THING and TYRANT original art), Rick Veitch, Frank Miller, James Kochalka, and James Sturm, go to

Green Mt Cartoonists

For more info on this event and 24 Hour Comics in general:

The 24 Hour Comic blog is at

24 Hour Comics

For more info and another perspective on the Brat Museum event, check out Alan David Doane's article on his visit to the Brattleboro Museum on Saturday, as the event launched -- it's at

Alan David Doane tells it as he saw it!

Nat Gertler of About Comics has become the publisher/archivist of the 24-Hour Comics scene, with the full participation of 24-Hour Comic inventor/founder Scott McCloud.

If you're interested, the main book to pick up is 24 HOUR COMICS, edited by Scott McCloud, which features my "A Life in Black and White" story, Neil Gaiman's (still among the best reads of 'em all), and seven others for a mere $11.95.

About Comics also has 24 HOUR COMICS ALL-STARS (with Scott McCloud's first-ever-24-Hour-Comics-in-history, plus 24 Hour comics by Paul Smith, Sean McKeever, Tone Rodriguez, and five others; $12.95) and 24 HOUR COMICS DAY HIGHLIGHTS 2004 (24 stories including Josh Howard and Christian Gossett, about 500 pages, $24.95). There's a new volume coming out in October: 24 HOUR COMICS DAY HIGHLIGHTS 2005 (same format and price as 2004).

Go to

About Comics

Of course, you can still purchase my own 24-hour comic in its original publication in TABOO #7, or its initial reprint in SPIDERBABY COMIX #2, from my standing website:

SR Bissette Comicon site

(Check the menu bar on the left of that site's homepage, and you'll find 'em there.) It's old, creaky, and sorely in need of a revamp -- which will be up SOON!

More later!