Buy Center for Cartoon Studies Art & Comics Today:
CCS Auction Ends Today!
Joe Kimpel In Your Sox!
Links, Looks, and More...

The auction is here, and still has a few hours to run -- it ends today! Bid fast, bid often -- it's for a good cause, and offers unique goodies!

This holiday season auction offers four unique Center for Cartoon Studies posters, meaning if you win, you've got enough for your wall and amazing art to give away to loved ones as Christmas gifts.

The two posters were silkscreened images, and hence limited run and unique; the printed Seth art is unique in that its an untrimmed and signed (by Seth!) sheet, and there's only one other way to score the Ivan Brunetti designed diploma -- two years of hard work at CCS!

This auction is sponsored by the I Know Joe Kimpel minicomics distribution collective; as with everything from IKJK, the proceeds will go to help CCS students and alumni with collective needs: i.e., CCS group travel, convention costs, etc. This is a worthy way of supporting and sustaining the CCS community, while landing some excellent art items for yourself and/or others.

This auction lot contains four items:

* Signed by Seth, an uncut sheet from the 1st CCS brochure. Seth designed and drew this large 2-sided sheet, and we have it uncut, straight from the printers. It's 2-sided, full color, and has the original CCS brochure along with various postcards, bookmarks, etc, all included. It's big, 25 x 38, but this is an item that's hard to get a hold of and certainly would make any Seth fan a very happy person during the holidays.

* Blank Center for Cartoon Studies Diploma: This Ivan Brunetti design graced the diplomas handed out to the first-ever graduating class from the Center for Cartoon Studies. This copy is minus all the official "you graduated" writing, of course. This multi-color 11 x 17 screen-print is simple yet bold in design and exclusive to CCS. Writing your own name in at the bottom is not allowed.

* Holiday Sale Poster: A Ken Dahl (Monsters) original winter poster that he screen-printed for 2006's CCS holiday extravaganza. Shades of blue make this an elegant winter wonderland, infused with Ken Dahl's own unique perspective on life. 22 x 15. [Note: This honey of a poster is on my CCS office wall, folks!]

* Sammy/Anders/Kevin Poster: Sammy Harkham, Anders Nilsen, and Kevin Huizenga made CCS their 2nd stop on their joint book tour in February of '06. White and red screened onto green paper creates this visually stunning poster, and includes artwork from all three of this group of amazing young cartoonists. Stands out at a uniquely sized 11.25 x 23.25. [Note: This sweet graphic is displayed in my basement studio library! It's a great poster.]

Here's the link to the auction -- one more time! -- but you'll have to act fast!

And another Christmas and seasonal gift source you best remember is the I Know Joe Kimpel site itself, where you can order many of the amazing comics, minicomics and graphic novels created by the CCS alumni, students and artists -- why not do some shopping with Joe?

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I'm still slithering in self-produced slime, but slept like a drugged monkey last night, so maybe I'm on the mend. Wait a minute, I took night-time cold tablets last night: I was a drugged monkey. Maybe I'm dying, but no, I think I'm on the mend -- doesn't matter, I gotta teach today, regardless.

Sniff -- anyhoot, have a titanic Tuesday, and stay well...

MoCCA Morning!

Day One of MoCCA begins -- and here's a quick update on some of the other CCSer comics available there today (and soon online; links to follow, post-MoCCA), before today's interview marathon...

See last night's post -- below -- for a quick eleventh-hour update on Zombies (this handsome, horrible Accent UK anthology will be for sale at the CCS table!) and Sean Morgan's Capsule: The First Dose, with the Morgan/Bissette jam alien abduction story.

Though I won't be at MoCCA, much new (and old) work by yours truly is there -- and I made sure to sign and do a sketch in every copy of Capsule, sign all the Zombies covers, and sign and do a sketch in many copies of Sundays before they were packed up and spirited away to MoCCA for this morning's setup! Look for 'em, ask for 'em, buy 'em!

But enough on that, here's a quick wake-up call to some of the CCSers we didn't have time to interview (or post interviews for) who are at MoCCA this weekend with new work:

Penina Gal has two new comics at MoCCA:

THE is "a collection of short comics about how people react to snow, how trees react to people, scientists exploring dreams, and the race between a turtle and rabbit. Two books in one -- the mini's got a mini-mini! Screen-printed covers..."

Penina is also offering a second comic, Through the City -- "A short story (eight single-panel pages) about a man reminiscing while trying to make his way out of a city. Full color, written, drawn, and painted by me, with backgrounds photographed by

the insanely talented JP Rosa..."

These two Penina Gal creations are at MoCCA this weekend,

and available from I Know Joe Kimpel afterwards.

Ditto on Matt Young's The Good Catholic, his nifty solo anthology of stories and art, which is now on sale at MoCCA.

We've also got an interview with Matt ready to run, but I'm saving it for Sunday AM!

Here's the front cover of Sundays, photographed (by Joe Lambert) drying on the silk screen rack this past weekend.

Remember, the oversized anthology Sundays is at MoCCA -- if you're at MoCCA, rush to the Sundays table and snag a copy while they last. These will be a coveted treasure in the near future, lots of great reading and art!

Here's another shot from my Sundays page, "Mighty Tyrant in Slumberland" (and he is, too).

The full wraparound cover to Sean Ford's Only Skin #1, now on sale at MoCCA!

Sean's Only Skin cover is a reminder that we've already covered a lot of ground with these Myrant interviews, and I want to remind folks of the great books that are at the CCS, Sundays and other tables today.

They'll all be on sale via online venues, too, after this weekend, and I'll post that info as well as it's available.

As time permits this weekend, I'll also post links to all the CCS/MoCCA interviews I've posted for easier one-stop reference. It's been a heady couple of weeks, and it's all about today -- I'll get a new interview (three more to go!) up ASAP!

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Here's the first:

First interview of the weekend: Bryan Stone generously provided an interview about the Sundays anthology, but I coaxed a solo interview from Bryan about his work. He and his wife Amanda Ann have made this year a really special one, and it's a pleasure to share Bryan's vision and voice with you via this venue.
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Bryan Stone:
Frogherder

SB: What's your background -- where you are from, Bryan?

BRYAN STONE: I actually grew up right on the dividing line of two towns in central Alabama, Munford and Coldwater. The area was, and is, pretty typical of the south.

I went to elementary and high school in Munford. After that I went on to a community college in the closest town and from there to a college called Jacksonville State University about an hour from where I grew up. The whole college thing was a slow and terrible process. Most of the time I was working and taking classes.

Photo: Amanda Ann's leg, Bryan Stone, beer, beer. What more does a man need?

SB: When did you first get into comics?

BRYAN: I first got into comics when I was really young, probably 5 or 6. There was a drug store close to the grocery store that we shopped at that carried some Marvel stuff. The first book that I can remember buying was a G.I. Joe comic with Stormshadow on the cover... I think it took place on an aircraft carrier. After that point I would grab any comics that I could get my hands on because stuff just wasn't available.

SB: How about making your own comics -- ?

BRYAN: I remember drawing comics type stuff off and on for most of my life. The first thing that I did that saw print was a one page story called "Mr. Smiley" which was about this guy who was some kind of super hero with something like a big smiley face for a head. I think he was half alien. That got printed by a local guy, Derrick Samuels, who was putting together a comics anthology called Sin. That was in 1996.

SB: You just completed your first year at CCS, and will be into your senior year in the fall. White River Junction is a long haul from Alabama; what brought you to CCS? How did you find out about the Center?

BRYAN: When I was in my final year at JSU I read about CCS in a design magazine -- How, I think. I had just gotten married and my wife, Amanda Ann, and my drawing professor and good friend Gary Gee were both incredibly supportive about the idea so we worked for a year to save as much money as possible and moved to Vermont.

Frogherder Stories

SB: We talked about Sundays earlier this week. What’s your latest solo work debuting at MoCCA?

BRYAN: My new comic is called Frogherder Stories. I'm hugely influenced by the stuff like the Fraggles [Fraggle Rock], anything of Jim Henson's for that matter, and Peyo's Smurfs. On the other hand I've always been a really big fan of science fiction story telling, hard sci-fi or space opera. I guess Frogherder is a result of those obsessions.

The Frogherder story is set on a planet called Noria which was discovered by a handful of humans after fleeing a dying Earth. On the planet exist several different races which were all categorized by the humans. Nor'landers are the race that Frogherder Stories focuses on, more specifically a single Nor'lander family with the surname Frogherder.

Frogherder Stories

The family name Frogherder, as with all Nor'landers, is the name of their profession. The Frogherder family members that I focus on in this book are Timo, who has discovered that he has the ability to affect the world around him, especially plants, and Timo's brother Doogan and his family which consists of his wife Sira and his two children Skip and Sparrow.

SB: Bryan, you’ve been working on this concept for a number of years -- let’s get into this a bit. Where did Frogherder come to you, and when did you initiate writing and drawing his adventures?

BRYAN: I was in college at JSU in Alabama when I started working on Frogherder so it was probably around 2002. Initially the story focused on the entire Frogherder family but Timo's character had to be on his own I guess. A while after that I got involved in a webcomics contest called The Daily Grind which is a competition between cartoonists to see who can keep up a Monday through Friday comics posting schedule. I finished about three hundred and seventy strips. I guess I'd still be going if I hadn't moved to go to CCS.

SB: Hmmm, we've got to get you Alabama cartoonists together for Frogherder Meets Montgomery Wart -- y'hear, Mark Martin? OK, now, you've also completed another solo book for MoCCA -- what is it?

BRYAN: The new book is called Ominum Gatherum. I think it's really an attempt at defining myself for myself more than anything. I had also, for a long time, wanted a venue for publishing different types of stories under one title. I'll probably do two of these per year, or maybe more, depending on how much material I generate.

SB: You've had a very active first year at CCS. What are the highlights in terms of the work you've done, solo and collaborative?

BRYAN: Yeah, it's been a busy year. I think I'm happiest, or maybe just surprised by, the quicker one and two page stories that I've done at CCS like the 'Mountain and Me' comics that we did for your class and some of the shorter stuff that we generated for James [Sturm]. It's always amazing when you are able to take something as time consuming as comics and condense the process into just a few hours. I'm also very proud of my Frogherder work from this semester which is in the Frogherder Stories book. I felt like those stories were a big step for me.

I've worked on a few collaborative projects. The ones that come to mind as highlights are the Taking Care anthology from the first semester which is no longer available and the Sundays book that we're wrapping up now. Both have been invaluable experiences.

Jurassic Park, Beating Around the Bush-style, by Corey McDaniel & Bryan Stone

SB: What else, outside of CCS, have you done in the way of comics, online comics and minicomics?

BRYAN: The Frogherder webcomic was a pretty big deal for me. When I started it I had been doing a weekly comic called Beating Around The Bush for a year or two with a good friend named Corey McDaniel.

One of Corey McDaniel's solo Beating Around the Bush strips

Before that I had several projects that I tried to get off the ground including a story for a ten issue comics series called 749 Pace St. that I wrote with a couple friends, Lee Jiles, Nick Phillips and Corey again. We actually got pretty far with that one. We put together a mini with all the character info and story previews and such and took it to a Wizard con in Chicago. After that life got in the way for all of us and nothing else ever happened with the story. Even further back I was involved with a guy named Derrick Samuels who, I'm told, is the 'creator' of one of the biggest video game console debacles in the history of the industry. The 'EVO Console', that's a long story.

Bryan thinks this photo is hilarious: Derrick Samuels and the EVO Console --
do not ask Bryan or I anything about this! We know nothing!

Before all that he was determined to publish comics and he did a few books over the years to which I contributed several strips and pages along with my good friend Donald Beck. Derrick actually published the book with my very first comics story, "Mr. Smiley."

Right: Donald Beck art, "Wolf"

SB: What are your future plans for Frogherder?

BRYAN: I'd thought about pursuing a monthly series but I think I'm leaning toward a couple seventy or eighty page books but honestly I'm just trying to let it do what it needs to do. I've still got a ton of story to tell and I'm working very hard on getting my writing up to snuff so I can do it service.

SB: Do you have any other continuous characters and/or concepts in the works?

BRYAN: There are several stories that take place on the same planet, called Noria, that the Frogherder stories do. They mostly deal with the fate of post-Earth humans that find their way there. There's another story about a robot named Issac that also takes place there as well. Other than that I've got a couple stories that I'm pretty far into. One of my favorites at the moment is called Onion Head which is about this amateur astronomer who has an onion for a head. I guess it's kind of a messed up relationship story. There's a science fiction story that I've been working on that's about plant people which was inspired by an Astro Boy story. I'm actually very excited about that one. There are several others, there's just not enough time to draw everything!

SB: If there were no hurdles -- no time, money or income constraints, venue in place -- what would your dream project be?

BRYAN: I'd probably work on a few of the Frogherder books. For a while I felt like I was trapped by the Frogherder stuff because I was working on it so much but now I've realized that I really love it. After doing a couple of those I'd probably move on to another story so I could come back to it later with a fresh perspective.

SB: Thanks, Bryan, and good luck this weekend!

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For more of Bryan and his work, visit Bryan's website

and his blog, always offering something lively.

If you missed MoCCA, Bryan's work will be available at I Know Joe Kimpel, too.

Next up: Joe Lambert's mighty, mighty interview and mighty, mighty art and comics!

Get thee to MoCCA, though, and meet all these folks -- and their work -- face to face!

Have a great Saturday --

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.

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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!

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

Morning Amid MoCCA Mania...

Jon-Mikel Gates's cover art for the I Know Joe Kimpel catalogue, debuting at MoCCA on Saturday. BTW, that's a spot-on rendition of CCS's Colodny classroom, and all the Joe Kimpel crew!

The MoCCA mania continues, with the first wave of CCSers heading south to NYC today while others scramble on their respective projects. It's a heady couple of days ahead, all cresting when MoCCA opens its doors on June 23.


Among the drama is some unfortunate trauma: Sean Morgan, whose anthology Capsule debuts at MoCCA (featuring the story "Area Stoned" with uncanny alien art by Sean and yours truly), broke his left hand Monday night! Man, talk about crap timing!

Still, Sean shoulders on -- fortunately, he's right-handed (actually, he says, ambidexterous), and he's wrapping up work on Capsule today and getting it to the printer in the nick of time. If all goes well, Sean will be at MoCCA with comic, cooler (his cast has an attachment to a cooler to circulate cold water through the cast to keep swelling down) and his usual cool, and be kind to him when you see him, folks. Oh, and buy a copy of Capsule, natch.

The first Tyrant page in a decade, awaiting scanning last Friday night -- debuting in Sundays on, uh, Saturday. Don't miss it!

OK, interview to follow later today -- just wanted to be sure to get this quick update online this AM as early as possible.
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En route to his pending veto of yet another stem-research bill, President Bush says it's "immoral" to use tax funding to "destroy human life..." What the fuck is the Iraq War??