Neil Gaiman, Here I Come...

Prepping and packing this morning for tomorrow night's trip, which will eventually deposit me on Friday morning on Neil Gaiman's doorstep (with Hank Wagner, co-author with Chris Golden of the St. Martin's Press book on Neil and his work). It's still kind of amazing how all this fell together, but I'm really looking forward to seeing Neil again after so long.

Alas, I cannot bring Neil a Coffee Zombee mug, because -- he cannot drink coffee! My last visit to Neil's US home, ostensibly to do an interview with him forThe Comics Journal (which was deep-sixed by TCJ despite our successful attempt to find a sponsor to get us together -- a long story for another time), was plagued by Neil suffering a major pain-in-the-neck, and I don't mean me. Turned out he suffered from a negative reaction to caffeine! Ah, the '90s...

It's been about ten years since we were face-to-face -- he was working on the whole Princess Mononoke English-language dubbing script at that time, and we roomed together at Necon. We've stayed in touch, but I miss the lad.

I'm sure he's a crispy critter from all his travel and constant workload, but shit, I've seen Neil in crispier condition. Another story, another time.

Soooooooooooooo -- winding down the blog for the week -- I'll be back on Tuesday AM, unless I'm able to steal computer time at Neil's -- let me touch on a few things.

* As of this AM, Tim "Doc Ersatz" Viereck and I have rebooted the interview I began with Doc back in the late winter/early spring here on the blog. We're winding down on our Johnson State College 'daze' (where my first-ever comic, Abyss, was funded by Doc) and then we'll be getting into his fascinating years at Dino DeLaurentiis Studios in North Carolina (where he worked behind the scenes on David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive, and King Kong Lives, among other films), Douglas Trumbull's complex in Massachusetts (working on the historic Universal Back to the Future ride), and much, much more. I reckon we'll have more to post, with pix, by December, so prepare for a trip down someone else's memory lane around the time the snow might be flying.

Johnson State College campus memories and oh so much more, coming soon...

* Speaking of other people's memory lanes,

Center for Cartoon Studies pioneer class alumni Adam Staffaroni is posting photos and narrative of his summer 2007 trip to the great Northwest over on I Know Joe Kimpel

(which is still your one-stop shopping site for all things CCS-related in terms of comics, etc.). Check it out! I'll be having breakfast with Adam this morning -- we're working on a project -- so I'll find out more, but keep an eye on the Joe Kimpel blog for Adam's Saga!

* Today, my Drawing Workshop class at CCS begins a three-session workshop on character design and model sheet design with

the amazing Kaori Hamura, who lives here in Vermont

and is now into her second year of working with CCS, sharing her animation industry insider knowledge of creating characters and getting down the essentials.

Here's a little more one-stop info about Kaori and her career; enjoy visiting the links and seeing her work online.

* Speaking of workshops, CCS is still basking in the glow of Lynda Barry's visit last week.

More personal responses to Lynda Barry's CCS workshop -- with photos! -- awaits you here,

and we're all working on something special following her visit. More on that another time.

* Well, the fall sales season at the Antiques Mall in nearby Quechee, VT's famed

Quechee Gorge Village

is winding down. I've been restocking the booth big-time the past week or so, including original art (Cayetano 'Cat' Garza art, original art packaged with Colleen Frakes Xeric-Award winning comic, etc.), more CCS comics (all signed!), collectible comics from the '40s to the '90s, DVDs of all genres with a lot of rare and recently-released cult titles (almost all factory-sealed and brand new) including the Alejandro Jodorowsky classics El Topo and The Holy Mountain, books, a ton of Bissette collectibles (all signed) and much, much more.

Going...going...gone! This one-of-a-kind Bissette Coffee Zombee mug is now in some happy coffee-drinking collector's home, available exclusively at Dealer booth #653 in the Quechee Gorge Village Antique Mall!

I've now racked over 800 items in that rather wee booth since April of this year, with strong sales throughout the summer and fall. All earnings from the CCS artist community's work goes to the artists, save for the $1 markup to help cover a portion of the monthly booth rental fee. Marge and I had a pleasant Saturday painting new ceramic pieces at the White River Junction

Tip Top Pottery studio,

so I'm placing some new Bissette one-of-a-kind original works in the booth next week -- including the first in a series of dinosaur pottery pieces to accompany the Coffee Zombee mugs I've been doing. I'll post photos of the new work here next week.

So, if you're in the area before Christmas, visit the booth -- dealer #653 -- in the Antiques Mall in Quechee Gorge Village. You won't be disappointed, and be sure to pick up lots of CCS goodies!

* There's a fat batch of new trailers with commentary over at my fave online entertainment Trailers from Hell!

If you haven't been there since my last post of the link, give yourself an hour or more today to visit 'em and catch up -- if you're at the office, wait till the weekend, Bunkie. No need to lose your job over From Hell It Came or Suspiria previews!


* And in the big bad world:

Followup on the current estimated cost of the wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), essential context for spend-and-borrow-to-wage-war President Bush's ongoing vetoes and verbal abuse of Democrats in recent weeks.

"The $1.6 trillion figure, for the period from 2002 to 2008, translates into a cost of $20,900 for a family of four, the report said...," to also followup on that rather expansive span I cited yesterday. Again, I'm not sure where some come up with the $43,000 per household pricetag, but I'm sure you'll agree the estimated $20,900 is daunting enough. We're all like Br'er Rabbit: "Oh, please, puh-leez don't throw us to those bloated-budget Democrats, Br'er Bush!"

We also have news this morning about the Blackwater investigations: "A Blackwater Worldwide spokeswoman says the company supports "stringent accountability" for any wrongdoing in the wake of a New York Times report that federal investors have found that the shooting deaths of at least 14 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in Baghdad nearly two months ago violated rules of deadly force..."

Aaaaaaaand, the Associated Press reports: "The Justice Department has reopened a long-dormant inquiry into the government's warrantless wiretapping program, a major policy shift only days into the tenure of Attorney General Michael Mukasey." Good news, that.

Now if only our elected officials wouldn't let AT&T and Verizon et al off the hook for selling us all down the river in this illegal spying program.

Have a great Wednesday, one and all...

A Day of CCS/MoCCA interviews:
First Up, Adam Staffaroni

Well, tomorrow's the day -- MoCCA begins tomorrow morning.

Since the hits shit the fans tomorrow, here's the active link for the convention site one more time, for those interested and able to go, and to reaffirm that MoCCA stands for The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art.

This year's festival runs tomorrow and Sunday, June 23-24 at the Puck Building (293 Lafayette at Houston) in New York City from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm.

I've a few more interviews to post, including an expansive one with CCS senior and Sundays co-editor Joe Lambert. I'll be posting throughout the coming three days, at odd hours (as my parents are visiting us this weekend), so keep an eye out here throughout the weekend.

The Sundays crew was working their asses off yesterday, lovingly hand-binding copies of the oversize Sundays anthology. I popped in three times during the day and evening to sign and add a sketch to every copy that was ready for the trimming machine, so they'll have some copies on hand with signature and sketches from yours truly for sale.

I also bopped back to CCS around 10:30 to drop off some non-alcohol beverages for the troops; the basement production studio was also brimming with activity. Robyn Chapman, Gabby Schulz, Adam Staffaroni, Emily Wieja and more were hard at work on their respective MoCCA comics and mini-comics -- copying, silkscreening, folding, stapling, binding, creasing -- and every book and print looked extraordinary. What a rich harvest of comics!

Back to Sundays: get to their MoCCA table early, though, as their Herculean efforts still mean there are limited quantities of Sundays to peddle, and this one's a keeper. I took my copy home and spent some time with it last night: the book is a beaut, and I'm really glad I've got a page in there.

Here's a peek at one of the panels from my own Sundays contribution, "Mighty Tyrant in Slumberland," the first published Tyrant in a decade. As you can see, this installment is not scientifically accurate!

I also went home with a batch of new comics, all marvelous stuff. JP Coovert's latest (literally!) is Adrift, and it's a gem, one of JP's best -- as is Alex Joon Kim and Jessica Abston's accordion-fold poetic wonder Medusa a new high-water mark for Alex (and Jess, this is my first taste of your poetry; it's excellent!). I coaxed signatures out of everyone, and shared the booty with Marge when I got home. Bryan Stone (whose interview will be up later today) handed me a copy of his Ominum Gatherum 1, a tasty and tidy sampler of Bryan's year one CCS highlights. A box from Sam Gaskin had arrived at CCS with my name cited on the exterior ("Make sure Steve gets one of these!"), which is all Jess and Betsey (manning the CCS office) needed to convince me to open the box, and lo and behold, there was a generous sample pack of Sam Gaskin's newsprint edition of his Xeric Award-winning Pizza Wizard, along with Pizza Wizard pins -- more bountiful harvest for MoCCA! Congrats, Sam! It looks tremendous, and I love it.

It's going to be quite a MoCCA show, folks, with the CCS 'Wave' alone to consider. No doubt, there's much more awaiting everyone who attends -- have a great show, one and all.

Again, I won't be there -- my convention days are over, folks -- but my work will be. As noted this past weekend here, if you're looking for my comics work, there's a good sampler of work old (at Rick Veitch's King Hell Press table, in the brand-new Shiny Beasts collection) and new (a two-pager in the Trees & Hills anthology, aliens and trippy alien encounters in "Area Stoned" in Sean Morgan's Capsules anthology at the CCS tables, and the new Tyrant one-pager in Sundays -- ask for one of the signed copies, if supplies last!). Please note: the box of Accent UK's anthology Zombies arrived stateside today, so that book will be available at MoCCA at the CCS table. Plenty of new Bissette comics for you at the show!

Here's the first interview of the day. It's short and sweet, but don't judge the man or the cartoonist from the brevity of this particular exchange.

Adam Staffaroni is among CCS's pioneer graduating class, and he's been a real anchor for the CCS experience thus far. He's teaching comics (even as you read this, at one of the many New England summer comics camps), too, and I had the pleasure of working with Adam in that capacity this past winter.

Adam's website has been showcasing his weekly comics strip Roosevelt Park for over a year now, with a new strip just about every Monday -- and with a full archive of every strip (50+) completed and posted to date.

He's CCS's first comic strip creator, and he's just getting up his head of steam. Quite a legacy right there!

Adam's presence will be felt long after graduation, too, as Adam is keystone and co-founder of

the I Know Joe Kimpel online venue for CCS and CCS community comics, where you'll be able to purchase almost every comic and mini-comic mentioned here over the past two weeks.

___________________________

Adam Staffaroni:
Staff #1

SB: Where do you herald from, Adam, and what got you into the comics medium as a lad?

ADAM STAFFARONI: I grew up in Connecticut, went to undergrad at Dartmouth and then floundered a couple years before coming to CCS. I always loved the comic strips in the daily newspaper, they were really the only part of the paper I cared about reading every single day. I didn't get into comic books, though, until I was older, and my second or third comic was Spider-Man 2099 #5, and the art in that got me hooked on comic books.

Rich Tommaso and Andrew Arnold, mercilessly mocking an ever-stoic Adam (all photos: Emily Wieja)

SB: When did you start making your own comics?

ADAM: I always enjoyed drawing, and had been drawing comics/superhero type cartoons ever since I was 4 or 5, playing with chalk in the driveway when one of our neighbors came over and drew a superhero on the driveway. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

My first real comic was a project for my senior year Spanish class (1999). It was about two teens dog sitting, and the dog stops a bank robbery by beating up a dozen armed gunmen. I really didn't make any comics after that until my CCS application.

SB: So, you were at Dartmouth -- and then -- well, what brought you to CCS, just across the river?

ADAM: I was considering getting my Masters in English studying comic books, and found the NACAE [The National Association of Comics Art Educators] website when I was researching trying to find schools that offered such a program. Through the NACAE I got in touch with James Sturm, and started paying attention to news about a comics school he was starting because I recognized the name.

Here's a sample of Adam's ongoing Roosevelt Park, with a new strip every Monday and an archive online at this link.

SB: What are you bringing to MoCCA? It’s the debut issue of your CCS thesis project, Staff --

ADAM: Staff #1 is my personal anthology. It starts with Chapter 1 of a fantastic adventure story involving a lumberjack named Askem Paka. It also includes my work on my Roosevelt Park weekly comic strip, and "I Know Joe Kimpel: the Beginning." I plan for this to be an ongoing series featuring whatever comics work I'm producing at any stage in my life. "Askem" will be a continuing story, and issue 2 (due in the fall) will start my most abitious project to date, "Running in Place."

SB: Good luck at MoCCA, Adam, and I can’t wait to see Staff #1!

________________________

More later today and all day tomorrow and Sunday...

Wugga-wugga and the CCS Sites!

Art: Alexis Frederick-Frost, from his glorious site, link below!

Continuing the CCS student site roster, with a little window-dressing.

Once again, in no particular order, the secret windows to those you don't-yet-know, but will one day be beholden to, those who will upset all applecarts and elect far better Presidents than you sorry suckers did:

BUBBLE!

... with delight,
blurbling like some half-frozen brook
all over your own stupid self,
as you allow your retina to dance
and your optic nerve to tangle
and your brain soup to flow
like radiant water over the

the Stone-Dead Stylings of Bryan Stone!

BURBLE!

... and coo like some moronic all-parakeet movie,
dropping your flip-flops and
burning your Birkenstocks
while groping for your credit cards
as you let your wallet flop out
and your pocketbook pop open,
eager to spend that which cannot be spent
and divine the most delicious salad
from the salad days of all mankind amid

the Stripy Green Tomato Veggie-Stand of the Particular Penina Gal (rhymes with 'all')!

GURGLE!

... as you peddle
that last mile
up that final Alp,
rock uselessly in your chair
like an autistic child
as the roller-coaster climbs, climbs, climbs
to the top of the arc
seconds before the plunge,
long for yeasty Parisian loafs of bread
and pine for times that never were
and never will be again,
evocative though they may seem
when rendered by the man
with the brush whose
serving stroke cuts through the air
like a Bruce Lee move,
dropping faint men in their tracks,
if, that is, they haven't already succumbed
to the bedazzlement that marks the

Eye-Popping Peculiarities of Ping-Pong Champ Alexis Frederick-Frost!

STUBBLE!

Hey, YOU!

You think YOU know everything, DON'T YOU?
You think YOU know how to
listen to music, surf the web, eat a taco??
You're soooooooooo fucking WRONG!
You don't know shit! Or how to shit!
You, you need guidance, love,
and the firm, stern hand of
a real man who knows how
to sling the ink,
plink the plink,
and lock the clink
to be your designated turnkey for LIFE!
You need to open your eyes,
stretch your ears
and break down the tight-ass gates of your fetid mind via

the Melodic Musings and Shamanistic Shamblings of Gasping Sam Gaskin!

STUMBLE!

...into the felt-green pleasures of Roosevelt Park,
as rendered and realized
by the Man with the Plan,
the Joe in the Know,
the Mike with his finger in the Dyke,
the Tom with the tom-tom toes,
the Henry all hanker for,
the Elmer Fudd of Spud,
the Dartmouth Grad unafraid to be a Dad
to any in need who can bleed and be freed,
so humble thyself and embrace

the Staff of Life itself, Adam Staffaroni,

and his amazing online CCS mini-comic shop, "I Know Joe Kimpel"! (who the hell is Joe Kimpel?)

C'mon, spend a little dough on some CCS comics, you slackers!

More later, gators, and have a great weekend!