Coming Your Way Soon...



The makers of The Last Broadcast, The Ghosts of Edendale & Head Trauma beckon for YOU! I'll be posting lots of info, links, insights and art in the next week here about Stefan Avalos (left) and Lance Weiler (right) and their films, and what's coming up at the end of September from both of 'em.

Lance just got back from a successful Los Angeles debut of his new feature Head Trauma, and brought back lots of news -- and I'm at last able to post some of the art my son Dan and I did for the movie! More this week!
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Rob Walton's graphic novel Ragmop is coming, too, and I can hardly wait. At last complete in a single volume, completely expanded and revised (in part to incorporate our new political reality, including caricatures of our current US President and his sociopathic Administration), Ragmap was among my all-time favorite comics series of the 1990s -- sadly, the market implosion of '96-97 brought it to a premature end before Rob had completed the series, but that's been rectified in spades and it's coming our way later this year.

Now, stick with me, this is a bit complex. It all begins in Gondwana, 248 million years ago, with a raucous chat betwixt three wiseass dinosaurs, Darwin, Huxley & Einstein before the expected arrival of a colliding asteroid (by one of 'em, at least, espousing the asteroid theory as prophecy) and unexpected arrival of Baron Von Ruud and his spaceship. The saurian stooge trio spacenap the vessel and thus arrive in our own era -- just in time to almost collide anew with the same damned asteroid 248 million years later, and rescue heroine Alice Hawkings (aka "Thrill Kitten") from her own near-collision with a heavenly body (aboard a space vehicle identical to that Cavor launched in First Men "In" the Moon -- am I losing you yet?).

In the interim, though, before her rescue, Alice has survived a botched Tarantinoesque heist, an encounter with the lobotomizing-on-the-spot misogynist psycho-atrist Dr. Lifton Freedman, the lethal Cardinal Assassini (Walton's pre-Da Vinci Code papal hired killer), the Bush Administration and The Man in the Chair, The Brinkley Boy, and -- oh, Christ, lots more. Ragmop is a truly cosmic comedy epic (featuring Tetragrammaton -- God himself! -- so how more cosmic can you get?) with the mysterious 'O'Ring at its mind-blowing core, and it's about time this unsung classic was completed in style and showcased in one fat volume!

I'll be keeping you posted here, but don't forget to keep tabs on

Rob's site.

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And--

* Top Shelf publisher Chris Staros writes to note, "Actually holding in my hand today the very first copy of Lost Girls. May just be the most beautiful comics package ever."

Don't miss this one -- the first-the-first-time complete Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie erotic graphic novel that began as a serialized feature in Taboo -- which you can find out more about

here,

and order pronto from

here, at PaneltoPanel.net.

It's gratifying to see another "loose end" (and what an end!) from the Taboo years reach fruition, and I can't wait to hold a copy in my own hot little hands.

At the time of it's debut in Taboo 5, Lost Girls was an extraordinary experiment and quite a risk -- not for its erotic content per se (though it was almost always sexual imagery, not violence or mayhem, that landed Taboo in censorship and censure hell), but for its full-color production, which had to be completed in the UK so Melinda's delicate, quite fragile art wouldn't suffer in the shipment, or be seized by US customs (which was highly likely). Still, copublisher Tundra was up for the gamble, and we went for it. As with everything that came out of the Taboo experience, I was blown away with all that Alan and Melinda accomplished, and was sorry to see Lost Girls suffer setbacks and delays over the past 15 years. At last, Chris Staros has seen the process through as publisher, and we'll all reap the benefits as readers.

Be sure to pick this one up -- Top Shelf has taken an enormous gamble themselves with this state-of-the-art package and project, and they deserve your support!

* The one and only comics-teaching whirlwind Marek Bennett is zipping into nearby Brattleboro, VT on Monday night for a one-stop comics workshop! Here's the scoop:

Free Workshop -- Comics: The Basics

A free two-hour workshop on creating comic strip action and dialogue will be facilitated by Marek Bennett on Monday, July 10 beginning at 7p.m. at The Commons office, 139 Main Street, 2nd floor, Brattleboro. Marek runs "Comics Camps" and workshops that are geared to be fun, participatory and experimental. No prior drawing experience is necessary. Materials will be provided. Participants are encouraged to bring their imaginations! For ages 8-88. No reservations necessary.

The workshop is part of an ongoing series sponsored by the Media Mentoring Project, which seeks to assist area residents in improving their journalism and media literacy skills. No previous participation is required. The Media Mentoring Project is a program of the non-profit Vermont Independent Media, Inc. Carpooling and childcare arrangements can be made by calling in advance. To arrange a workshop in your town or neighborhood or for further information please contact (802) 348-7701 or email Marek at marek@sover.net, or bip over to his website

here!

* My old Johnson State College pal Dave Booz has turned up some Bissette arcana: I used to draw color movie posters for the 16mm movies I booked for theatrical showing at JSC, and Dave has turned up a few of them! As soon as the color copies Dave shot arrive in the mail, I'll do my best to scan and doctor 'em for posting here -- blasts from the past, indeed, circa 1974-76, just before my first published comic work (in our self-published one-shot Abyss, which Dave is in, too, along with our compadres Mark "Sparky" Whitcomb, Jack Venooker, Steve Perry, and others). More archival eye-candy to come...
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Have a great weekend!
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Ragmop quote of for the weekend (fifth in the series):

"Do not burden me with your pathetic concepts of time and space, you who have reduced time to the period in which a pizza can be delivered hot or you don't pay."

[- Fallen angel seeking Kakabel, to two hapless astronomers]