Making Good in the Badlands
(& Other Vistas)

More CCS This & That for Friday AM...

The Center for Cartoon Studies has some big doings coming up, primary among them Garry Trudeau visiting on Monday, Oct. 22nd -- more on this public event next week, as I get final details.

But let's take a look at what the first-ever CCS alumni have been up to...

This summer, CCS alumni Elizabeth Chasalow and Jacob Jarvela took the big plunge across the Atlantic and explored Jacob's home country of Sweden and other Scandanavian vistas (Finland, Denmark).

Here's Jacob and Elizabeth's core saga blog, packed with photos and more --

-- with even more travel-blog material here,

and Elizabeth's summer profile here.

They returned safe and sound last month, and are presently nestled into the hills of New Hampshire, where I hope to catch up with them face-to-face soon.

CCS alumni Ross Wood Studlar has been roughing it in faraway Oregon's Crater Lake National Park since June, and posted these photos this week.

Ross notes his gig at the Park has included "...guided boat tours... presentations on geologic, biologic, and cultural aspects of Crater Lake; staff[ing] the visitor center and been asked innumerable times whether the lake freezes in winter; be[ing] a first responder for several medical emergencies... some trail work," and notes that throughout the summer he has "received weird looks from visitors when they learned where I went to school." A proud CCS alumni tradition, established!

Fellow CCS alumni Adam Staffaroni has been on a cross-country roadtrip (including a visit to Ross in Oregon!) and posted some of his pix, with blog narration, over at the I Know Joe Kimpel blog --

-- also note the latest news on Colleen Frake's excellent comics series Tragic Relief, which you should be ordering ASAP.

Great to see the pix of everyone on the road, and how the CCS alumni are making it in the big wide world... others are on the move now, and I do mean now. Anyhoot, more info, links and pix soon.

_____________

In the meantime, the new community of CCS seniors have been mucho busy. With SPX approaching, I'll have more info, news and art to bring to your attention in October.

I'll kick off that effort this morning with

CCS senior Morgan Pielli's new comic blog, now featuring Pilgrim O'Neal!

Morgan is co-editing the western comics anthology Dead Man's Hand, for which I'm completing a new story, "Tenderfoot," about which I'll say more closer to SPX (yep, it'll be debuting there, pardner).

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Among the Class of 2008 who didn't return to CCS for a senior year is the talented and beloved-at-CCS Jaci June, who sent this communique last month about her summer trip down the Mississippi and splinter detours and adventures, which thankfully included a return visit to White River Junction and CCS in August. We miss you, Jaci, but you're on your own great adventure -- happy trails! Posted here (with Jaci's permission) is her most recent update:

So the Miss Rockaway Flotilla is in Voltron formation and stranded in Alton at a fancy yuppie marina that reminds me of good ol' California. Recently I ran away to St. Louis with my sister and friend Mendon to escape the weiner that sometimes possesses people to act carelessly and treat others like shit. I call this the deep dark weiner in all of us. Sometimes it is more potent than others and at the time too overwhelming for my tastes so I booked it.

Two days in St. Louis hanging at a collective anarchist house and visiting the anarchist bakery and farm, I bump into my friends Bochay and Jenny. They say "New York Wedding?" And I say "I do." Twenty hours later sans sleep I am in upstate New York in a forest ringing bells at a bride in a blood red dress and a groom in a sultan costume, at night we skinny dip in a pond and take breaks from the sauna to watch the lightning turn the black and white night into full color. The next morning I hitch a ride with some wedding guests who live in Montpelier and ask them to drop me off at White River Junction, Vermont. I went swimming in a postcard picture slough with giant conifers and pines, nursed a baby mouse to death, danced professionally with Josie for my stoner friends, and got a lot of drawing done. My stay in Vermont wasn't all smiles, quite a few gut wrenching frowns accompanied by hot stinging tears were also had. But I guess that was fun too.

Afterwords I took a 30 hour bus ride back to St. Louis. Surprisingly, I drew a shit load on the bus, read a book on Civil Disobedience, talked to some traveling crusty kids, a couple of old guys who where crude, earnest, and hilarious, and I figured out my life plan for the next couple of decades! So Greyhound didn't treat me too badly, although by the end of it I had technically not slept for 3 days.

I arrive in St. Louis, MO at 3 in the morning and I am tired and without a place to sleep (the collective house is a good few miles aways). Then I remember the St. Louis City Museum's owner is a friend of the Rockaway project and has given us unlimited access to the property. I call my sister for the code to get inside. I walk a few blocks and eventually find it. If you haven't seen this place there is really no justice to describing it but I will try.

The museum is a junk playground. It is a huge metal, rebar, concrete, big toy that goes a hundred or more feet into the air. There are airplanes in the sky with long spiral staircases leading up to them. There is a school bus hanging off top corner of the museum. The place is a twisted child's dream.

So the code doesn't work. And everything I've described is easily accessible and outside of the actual museum. I jump a 2 foot fence. Climb into the wire arches into the heavens climb the spiral staircase to the tallest airplane and lay down to rest. As sleep creeps up so do scritch-scratching sounds of clawed feet. I'm convinced it's rats and so I get into my sleeping bag and cover my face with my straw hat to keep the varmits from clawing my eyes out of my head. The next morning I hear a dozen baby birds chirping and I realize that pigeons are sharing my sleeping quarters. I wake up with a killer view of St. Louis from a fucking broken airplane in the sky. I love my life.

Call my friends, they pick me up. Jacki and Harrison swing by in a van I tell them everything. I'm so happy to see my sister again. We visit the boats, not feeling it. My friends I was supposed to room with in San Francisco are seeing other people and are no longer close. Someone from CAMP (the collective house) Eric, suggests me moving in with them.

So now I'm going to be living in St. Louis, working on comics, doing an after school cartooning program, and helping scavenge for the rafts. I'll be visiting California soon to visit my Mom and pick up my things...

Love,
Jaci

P.S. A panda walks into a restaurant and shoots the waiter. The cops rush into the crime scene, arrest him and then ask why he killed the waiter. Someone answers "look panda bear up in the dictionary. They eat, shoots and leaves."

_____________________

Oops, missed this: yesterday afternoon a telephone interview with Leah Moore & John Reppion was broadcast on London and Web radio station Resonance FM. Alex Fitch and Duncan Nott interviewed Leah Moore (daughter of Alan) and her zombie (and Leah) lovin' husband/writing partner John Reppion about their comic writing; here's the link, hopefully the interview is still online -- check it out.

________________

More later, have a great Friday, folks.

Saturday Note on Sundays!

I'll be posting an interview this weekend, but at an odd time, more than likely, as I've got a full plate this weekend. This 12:50 post will stand as my Saturday post, given the running around I'm doing later today (like, after I wake up), but hopefully it's welcome news.

I've just returned home from CCS, where I delivered my self-standing one-page story for the Sundays anthology (which Sam Gaskin referred to this week in his interview; you'll be reading more about in this weekend's interview with CCS senior Alex Joon Kim). Alex, Joe Lambert and Chuck Forsman were there to receive it, and all seemed very pleased with it --
-- my first new Tyrant page for publication in over ten years!

That's all I'll say for now.

It's done, it's in, and it'll be featured in the Sundays anthology debuting at MoCCA on June 23rd.

Now all that's left on my board with the clock ticking is a story CCS pioneer class graduate Sean Morgan invited me to jam on with him, "Area Stoned." I'm drawing the aliens and their spacecraft for Sean's tale, and we're having some fun with it. Sean's interview -- here, later this week -- will discuss this new anthology he's debuted at MoCCA, the comic that will feature this extraterrestrial extravaganza (along with the zombie story he completed for the Accent UK Zombies -- but proved too controversial for that collection!), so I'll leave it for Sean to tell you all about it.

So, that's three books I'll have new work in that you can peruse and purchase at MoCCA, folks -- Sean's anthology, the oversize Sundays anthology, and the new Trees & Hills anthology comic.

And, speaking of Zombies -- if the package on the slow boat from the UK arrives in time, you may also have a shot at picking up a copy of Accent UK's Zombies anthology there, too! As already shamelessly ballyhooed here all this year, that features a new cover and a four-pager by my son Daniel and I (along with some terrific stories by a clutch of CCS talent and Accent UK's lineup of their native contributors, including Leah Moore and John Reppion). Here's hoping the package shows up this week.

There will also be some vintage Bissette for sale at MoCCA, at the King Hell Press table -- and it's primo vintage Bissette & Veitch stuff, at that.

Rick Veitch will be at MoCCA and he'll have copies of Shiny Beasts there for sale, featuring our full-color "Monkey See" story -- unseen since its first (and until now only) appearance in 1980 in Epic #2.

Dig a little deeper between those covers and you'll also find my rendition of the ravages of cosmic VD in Rick's and Alan Moore's long-lost Epic collaboration "Love Doesn't Last Forever"... along with a plethora of mind-bending, eye-popping solo Veitch delights, making Shiny Beasts one of the must-have acquisitions at MoCCA for those who care.

So, there ya go. Three, hopefully four new titles with all-new Bissette comics creations, and one corker of a reprint collection sporting one of my sweetest pre-Swamp Thing collaborations, and one of my few painted full-color efforts at that.

My retirement from the comics industry stands, but there's plenty to make you happy in reach as of this week! I fully expect all these comics to sell out, then, right? There's nothing in it for me -- though you'll sure make a crew of CCSers happy! -- but plenty in it for you.

All of these are or will be for sale online, too; once the CCS titles debut at MoCCA, we'll post the sales venue links here. So, if you're craving a fresh Bissette comics fix, thanks to my son Dan, the CCSers, Accent UK (and Leah and John) and the Trees & Hills folks, you can feast for the first time in years.

OK, signing off. It's after 1 AM, and I'm off to bed.

Have a splendid Saturday...

More Uncle Sam Zombies...

Now that I've opened this can of worms, everything's coming up maggots!

I posted an announcement about

Leah Moore and John Reppion's Raise the Dead comic series earlier this week,

including a peek at the cover art -- and now there's Uncle Sam zombies crawling out of the woodwork.

As already noted, I first "saw" the image in a screenplay Tim Lucas wrote and shared with me 20 years ago; at that time, Tim had come up with something original and unique. Alas, the script was never filmed, so that specific image never reached the public eye -- but here it is again, the unsung pop image of 2006.

Clearly, "its" time has come. Though no one "owes" a debt to Tim, per se, it's still worth noting for the record that his script is the first eruption of that image I personally encountered. Now, Undead Uncle Sam is everywhere.

Berni Wrightson's ad art for the high-def horror channel Monsters HD includes a fun riff on the old Jack Kamen Creepshow poster art, featuring the nervous young lad with a remote in his hand, Alex Gordon/Edward Kahn's The She Creature playing on TV, and Berni's take on the She Creature malingering outside the boy's bedroom window, peeking in. But relevant to this topic at hand is Wrightson's "Eye Want You!" parody of the famous Flagg Uncle Sam recruitment poster, looking a little worse for the wear

(here's the link to the site's liveliest use of Berni's Uncle Sam zombie painting!).

(For those of you with long memories, this recalls Wrightson's stylishly done Howard the Duck for President poster, which I still have somewhere in my collection.)

Well, OK, with Wrightson doing his take on zombie Uncle Sam, you'd think that would be enough. Nope, the new wave of zombie comics has embraced the image like a long lost patriarch come home at last.

Not counting the Captain America zombie Art Suydam painted for the Marvel Zombies series (itself satirizing the iconic Jack Kirby 'Cap is Back' cover from the '60s), along with the stirring Uncle Sam alternative Raise the Dead cover for Leah and John's series (likewise painted by Art Suydam), it turns out there's a "Cover B" alternative cover to

Mark Kidwell & Nat Jones's Image Comics one-shot '68, their undead-in-Vietnam opus (alternative cover pictured as this post's lead; here's a review of their comic by Don MacPherson at Eye on Comics).

Even better, to my mind, is Art Suydam's mock Norman Rockwell zombie cover for Raise the Dead #2, which you can get to

here, just click on the entry to the Raise the Dead preview link below the double-cover preview image.

I would have posted it here, but I wanted to be sure to give you a reason to revisit and spend a little time at Leah and John's site this weekend, which was all I was really trying to do earlier this week anyway.

And that's enough on that subject, don't you think?

___________________

So, I now have a retail venue in our new home area here in Vermont...

If you're touring Vermont this spring or summer or fall, and you find yourself on Route 4 in Quechee, VT -- a real easy, short (less than two miles) drive off Interstate 89 -- pop on over to

the Quechee Gorge Village

and enter

the Vermont Antique Mall --

-- and visit my collectibles sales booth!

Hey, my stuff's now in one of those booths crammed with insane, gotta-have-it, gotta-buy-it stuff!

I'm dealer #653, and the booth is now up and running -- comics, including signed copies of my own publications, are waiting for you there, along with a plethora of collectible books, DVDs, videos, toys, and odds (very odd) and ends.

They're open seven days a week (July 4th-Labor Day, from 9:30am-5:30pm; Labor Day-July 4th from 10:00am-5:00pm), they're awful nice folks, and this seemed an ideal means of at last giving folks access to my and the Center for Cartoon Studies' work, creations and collectible curios. No, we're not there, but our stuff is -- priced to sell! -- and I'll be refreshing and restocking the booth biweekly, so there will always be something of interest waiting for you there.

This space prominently feature work from the CCS students, too, with all sales income from their work going to them -- providing a one-stop shopping venue for those of you interested in picking up the students's comics, mini-comics, art, pottery, etc., all signed by the creators. I'll post pics once the booth is closer to its intended status (gotta start somewhere, and right now it's in its infancy) -- but this is likely to remain my (and CCS's) sole retail venue, so make a point of visiting our booth in the Vermont Antique Mall this year!

Of course, those of you wanting to sample the CCS student comics, graphic novels and minicomics now for sale online can immediately go to

the "I Know Joe Kimpel" site and support the next generation of cartoonists with your hard-earned dollars and interest.

____________________

The Bava Book is Coming -- SOON!

Have a great weekend...

Tim Lucas Wants You --

-- To Know He Was Here First!

Lest anyone think Tim Lucas's comments on yesterday's blog post are in any way sour grapes or offbase, Tim indeed proposed using the very Uncle Sam zombie recruitment imagery

Leah Moore and John Reppion are using in their lively new comics series Raise the Dead

in his stellar screenplay The Gore Corps almost (or exactly) two decades ago. I know, because way back then Tim graced me with a copy of his screenplay in (I believe) its second draft.

Now, this is not a matter of plagiarism, to my mind. I can likewise vouch for the fact that Leah and John have never, ever read Tim's script , nor ever heard of it. Hence, Leah and John are blameless -- nor is Tim saying they copped it from him. He's just saying, "Hey, I came up with that 20 years ago!", and he did. It's one of those images/ideas whose time has come -- in fact, one could argue current American foreign policy, and domestic military policies (e.g., abuse of its own volunteer Army and National Guard) in particular, have made it more timely than ever, and dead-on target at that.

I read and loved Tim's screenplay before Taboo was taking shape -- a project John Totleben and I began work on in earnest in 1986, based on Dave Sim's proposition to publish anything John and I wished to do -- meaning I read Tim's script at least 20 years ago. In fact, it was reading Tim's screenplay that led to Tim and I discussing his writing something for Taboo, which survived the inauspicious first script proposal "Your Darling Pet Monkey!" -- a 'cute' idea for a decidedly 'uncute' anthology (no dis on Tim, mind you; Alan Moore's first Taboo script submission was likewise rejected for being too funny, built as it was around an agonizing slide show of a family vacation -- a very funny script, decidedly not what we were looking for given Taboo's manifesto). Tim came back with "Throat Sprockets," and the rest is history.

Alas, Tim's screenplays remain unknown quantities to the world, though thankfully Tim has shared them with me over the years. More thankfully, his most recent one seems to be attracting some welcome attention -- keep an eye on

Tim's blog for info, updates and announcements.

His sensitivity to the matter is understandable, given the number of ideas he's cooked up that have somehow made their way into produced films (it was Tim, in a proposal for a sequel to David Cronenberg's The Fly, who came up with 'The Freak Pit,' which made its way into The Fly II sans anything for Tim; there are other examples I could but won't cite, as I've probably mortified Tim enough with this post as it is). As it stands, no lesser stellar exploitation cinema talents than Larry Cohen and William Lustig graced the world with their collaborative effort Uncle Sam on July 4, 1997, thus acing Tim's unproduced script imagery a decade past my reading of The Gore Corps -- and trumping the above Raise the Dead covers by a decade, too.

Criswell Predicts: When you've got an idea that seems like a natural, by any means possible, get it out there! If you don't, someone else will.

Mind you, Tim tried like hell to get his script filmed -- it just didn't happen. Sometimes, it doesn't reach fruition, or ever get seen by the public. It's the nature of the beast, and I do mean beast.

Still, there is the sometimes inflated nature of our (completely understandable) proprietary feelings for our ideas -- published or unpublished, seen or unseen -- that can distort things, or turn the all-devouring, 'you snooze you lose' nature of the pop culture machine into a real irritant for those who find themselves personally facing these issues.

I recall a phone conversation with Frank Miller in February 1995, when his and Geof Darrow's vivid bullet-cavity-through-the-skull-framing-the-gunslinging-hero cover for their Dark Horse comics series Hardboiled had seemingly been 'borrowed' for one of the splashy deaths in Sam Raimi's then-in-theaters The Quick and the Dead. Frank wasn't amused -- but he sure didn't want to hear from me that that very gory 'gag' image had already been featured prominently in Antonio Margheriti's Apocalypse Domani (1980, released in the US theatrically in 1982, aka Cannibals in the Streets, Invasion of the Fleshhunters), and in fact was the centerpiece of the film's Japanese ad campaign.

But that was a bullet-hole-through-a-torso, not a bullet-through-a-head -- well, OK, fair enough.

Still, the bullet-hole-through-a-torso-framing-the-shooter gag had already, pre-cannibal movie setpiece, been seen worldwide in John Huston's very popular Paul Newman vehicle The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), when Newman's Judge Roy Bean blasted a bucket-sized hole clear through Stacy Keach's villainous the Original Bad Bob the Albino -- and Huston and screenplay author John Milius had arguably 'borrowed' that punchline from the identical throwaway visual gag in Ernie Kovacs's brilliant black-and-white TV series, The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952; don't take my word for it, the sketch is on the first disc in

The Best of Ernie Kovacs DVD set from White Star).

One could justifiably argue, coming full circle back to comics, that Al Capp's "Fearless Fosdick" comic strip parody -- in L'il Abner -- of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy predated Kovacs -- and Mad's -- popularization of such cartoon holes-through-human-bodies iconography, and I've no doubt something, somewhere predates that.

Still, Frank was unhappy, and might have been right -- after all, Geof Darrow's eye-popping Hardboiled cover had been one of that comic season's most iconographic images, visible in every comic shop (usually on a top shelf or visible behind the counter, with a 'mature readers only!' warning self-imposed by retailers), and that may indeed have been where Raimi 'borrowed' the image from.

Who could say? Who can say?

These unwelcome 'there goes that idea, though I had it years ago' speed bumps and indignities are part and parcel of being a writer -- and artist, for that matter. Things can be and often are worse --

Rick Veitch's sky whale imagery was unique when he started writing and drawing Abrasax and the Earthman for serialization in Epic magazine in the very early '80s --

-- but the very month his first episode saw print, two other adult-oriented newsstand comic zines featured their own 'sky whale' stories (and, after all, Astro the killer space whale in the 1965 American/Belgian animated feature Pinocchio in Outer Space/Pinocchio Dans le Space predated them all). Ditto Steve Perry, among whose unsold scripts (which I had hoped to draw) was a 1980 opus entitled "Tiny Dinosaurs," which quite directly anticipated Gremlins as much as Charlie Band's popular 1990s direct-to-video series PreHysteria. Mark Martin had a great li'l strip about a boy and his robot dog published in Nickelodeon that seemed awfully close to a certain Nickelodeon movie and TV series -- but apparently it wasn't a case of plagiarism, either, but it was a bitter pill to swallow when it all went down.

So it goes. I could go on and on -- I've got my own sob stories, sisters. But then again, a major part of my own career wouldn't exist without such a conundrum having borne fruit. I mean, Swamp Thing/Man Thing. Huh. Who thunk of it first, Gerry Conway or Len Wein? Does it matter, with Theodore Sturgeon's "It" and Airboy's The Heap predating both 1970s "things"? Sometimes, it's just the Jungian reality: when that kind of iconographic image surfaces in the collective unconsciousness, it's there for any creator to pluck and use -- and many often do, either at the same time or over a span of time.

But one doesn't need these peculiar sets of circumstances to suffer the slings and arrows too many writers endure over the course of a career. I can hear Mike Dobbs now: "Get off the cross! We need the wood!"

Then again, Mike has his own stories of this nature to share--

-- as a book author

and as a journalist --

-- so he's got his own share of wood to go around. Most of us do. James Robert Smith is a frequent reader (and poster) here, and man oh man, has he got stories, again going back two decades or more. One of the most prolific, published novelists I know (who shall remain here nameless, so as not to cause embarrassment) continues to write with amazing skill and speed, but has been hammered by editors and publishers and treated abominably -- business as usual.

Anyhoot, all of this is to say "Tim's right, folks," and I'm a witness to that, and to thereby and roundabout-ly call your attention to Bennington-based writer John Goodrich, who has just launched

a new blog, Flawed Diamonds, intended for writers, and it's well worth keeping attuned to.

John says, "I am writing about the publication process. In truth, it's partially to ameliorate the sting of
rejections, but some of you may be interested in the wonderful, free gravy train that all writers experience as they push toward publication."

Some of you may recall the multi-chapter blog essay I posted here over a year ago on my own misadventures with trying to write again for the newsstand horror zine market, and what a delicious little ego-stroke, ego-mash clusterfuck that debacle was; whatever measure of celebrity I may enjoy after three decades in comics and writing, it still doesn't shield one from savoring the same abuse up-and-coming writers endure.

And whenever a writer draws your attention to a writer's blog with such a blustery lead-in, abusing wholly invented words like "roundabout-ly," you best pay attention.

On to merrier matters...

Could It Be -- The First Dino Comics?

In accord with the above rant, I always tell my students to be immediately suspect when anyone calls anything 'the first' -- usually, some earlier precursor turns up in due course, or is already known. It could be known, sort of, but under the wraps of obscurity -- usually meaning some more potent historical 'authority' hasn't recognized the precursor as such, or preferred to 'promote' the more popular precursor.

In the realm of the understandably marginalized genre of dinosaur comics -- a most rarified breed comics historians are happy to ignore, unless your name is Don Glut -- these kinds of "firsts" are tough calls. But I think Seth may have steered me to what must be, might be, indeed the first dinosaur comics series!

More on this amazing body of work tomorrow!

No Criswell again today.

Sorry. I have no idea where, in a matter of seven hours or so, I put that book.

So, here's Ernie Kovacs again, just 'cuz.

Have a great Wednesday, one and all --

Tuesday
Morning
This
and
That --

Hmmm, what's this? I'll tell you tomorrow!

But for today --

A big hello to my daughter Maia Rose, and news from two other daughters of comics folks whose work you may know and love, and who are now out there making their own marks in the world -- on paper and via music -- and who both have a Northampton connection, amazingly enough, though those respective Northamptons are divided by the vast Atlantic Ocean and some acreage.

First, ladies and gentlemen, Leah Moore and her zombie-lovin' hubby John Reppion. I first met Leah back when she was a wee lass during my visits to her pop's house in Northampton, England. She and her sis giggled and bounced balloons of the heads of me and my first wife Marlene while we were sleeping. Ah, life.

This just in from Leah and John, Marge's and my friends in the UK who so brightened our trip to Denmark about this time last spring, and who brought me (and CCS) into the Accent UK stable:

Over the last couple of weeks no less than three new Moore & Reppion penned series have hit the shelves and since we wouldn't want you to miss out we thought we'd let you know a little about them.

WITCHBLADE - SHADES IF GRAY #1 arrived in stores on the 28th of March. This Top Cow/Dynamite Entertainment crossover is set back in the 1990's and features the mysterious Dorian Gray.

RAISE THE DEAD #1 came out on the 4th of April. This is our brand new kick arse zombie series for Dynamite.


SAVAGE TALES #1 featuring part one of our micro mini BATTLE FOR ATLANTIS also hit the stands on the 4th. This is our stab at doing a classic adventure/sword and sorcery strip ably assisted by the legendary Pablo
Marcos.

You can see previews of all three series

on our comicspace page

and don't forget to visit

our own site

as well as the message board to keep up with all the latest news and reviews and let others know what you think of the new stuff.

Cheers,

John & Leah

Cheers, indeed! Congrats, Leah and John, and I look forward to the fun reading.

And this just in from red-headed, high-octane Zara Bode, whose group The Sweetback Sisters have some major news for later this month. Who are The Sweetback Sisters? Well, here ya go:

The Sweetback Sisters
"Honky-tonk for the modern-day cowboy and girl!"

Zara Bode-- vocals, guitar
Emily Miller-- vocals,fiddle
Jesse Milnes-- fiddle, fingerstyle guitar
Ross Bellenoit-- electric guitar, lap steel
Joseph "joebass" Dejarnette- upright bass
Stefan Amidon-- drums

Zara I've known since her childhood, when amazing cartoonist pop Mark and amazing mom Molly moved to Northampton, MA amid the vast Tundra experiment (aka 'clusterfuck'), which had the immediate benefit of bringing lots of creative folks together who might not have known one another otherwise.

As I've mentioned before, Stefan Amidon is also a local hero. Stefan heralds from Brattleboro, VT, and is already a fave of our family after years of seeing/hearing he (and his family) perform in the area; I've particularly fond memories of 'Stef & Jef' and their amazing percussion work during Stefan's BUHS high school years.

But enough on that, here's the big news Zara is eager to share:

Hello Everyone!

A truly amazing beam of good fortune has hit upon my band The Sweetback Sisters!!! A month or so ago on a whim Emily and I entered a few of our recordings to a contest entitled "Talented Twenty-Somethings" held by NPR and the Prairie Home Companion gang. We figured it couldn't hurt to start spreading the word, but boy did we never expect to make the cut! Just this afternoon Emmy got the call, and they're flying us out and putting us up for the show/competition two weekends from now (April 20-21) They have yet to tell us what's at stake, but we're keeping our fingers crossed at something to get us rolling on a full-length album!

For those of you who do not know of Prarie Home Companion, it's an extremely well known radio program now in it's 33rd year I believe. A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show is broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Each show features a storytelling monologue from Keillor – a report from his fictitious hometown of Lake Wobegon – and the best in American folk music: country, bluegrass, blues, and gospel, and sometimes, and all sorts of guest performers. This is a totally outrageous surprise, and an incredible opportunity for a band as new to the scene as us.

So here's the glorious catch: we still need your help & participation! As you know in this American Idol generation everything is a competition, so we'll be running against a few other groups for the title (I don't know who yet!,) but we'll most likely need your call-in support the day of the radio broadcast April 21st.

Thank you already for taking the time to read this announcement, and for all your support. When I have any more information I will surely pass it along to all of you, and of course I'll send out another email when the BIG date approaches!

So so so much love,

Zara
and those wild-ones The Sweetback Sisters

So, there ya go. Maia Rose has heard 'em live, and she says Zara, Stefan and their band are "awesome," and I'm eager to hear them on A Prairie Home Companion myself (I've been tuning in to that show since my first Vermont drawing studio, way back in Grafton, VT in the summer of 1979). Be ready to call in your support, or at least tune in to hear Zara and her Sweetback Sisters serenade you!

But don't be reactive, be proactive, however passively you're proactive via online resources:

If you're out in Minnesota, here's the details for the live show itself:

WHAT: A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor presents this season's talent contest—for performers in their 20s

WHEN: Saturday, April 21, 2007

WHERE: The Fitzgerald Theater, 10 E. Exchange Street, Saint Paul, MN 55101. 651.290.1221

TICKETS: Go to

The Prairie Home Companion website

-- for more information, check that site or contact David O'Neill at davido@prairiehome.us

While you're at it, check out the Sweetback Sisters's own website

and their space on myspace.com, where you can hear a bunch of their tunes!

Good luck, Zara, Stefan, Jesse, Ross and 'Joebass,' hope you win it!

Damn, I still can't find Criswell!
Later, gators -- Have a Great Tuesday!

Zombies!,
Digging Out,
& Citro Speaks!

Hey, folks, Bissette horror comics are back!

Well, sort of.

Here's my cover art for the upcoming Accent UK anthology Zombies, just in from editors Dave West and Colin Mathieson. Their designer Andy Bloor took my black-and-white original (after Dave and Colin chose their favorite of the three potential cover images I submitted) and dressed it up with this straightforward bullseye-to-the-cornea use of color, which works beautifully.

Kudos to you, Andy! I love it.

Colin writes to say, "the issue will be released in the UK in May at the Comic Expo event in Bristol 12th/13th May, (with final line up and cover price shortly to be fixed) but we are also looking at possible distribution through Diamond so the book can be widely available to our colonial cousins! More to come on all that later..."

Of the Accent UK contributors from their side of the Atlantic, it's worth noting again that this whole project emerged from a conversation with John Reppion, Leah Moore and Colin and Dave in Denmark, the seed for which was planted in front of the Accent UK booth at the Copenhagen convention Komiks.DK 2006 we all attended in March/April. If I may quote a May 31st email from Colin, he recalls, "It's actually John's fault that we changed the theme on hearing of his zombie fixation and Leah's banter with him about it ("Oh you and your zombies!"), which made us realize that Zombies had that immediacy and fun element which could be interpreted in lots of different ways for an anthology, and would also prove an interesting rematch for the Moore, Reppion and Hitchcock team, so a quick editorial meeting on our return to the UK and we were away!"

So, leading the pack will be a new collaboration from the Leah Moore, John Reppion and Dave Hitchcock team. Colin and Dave first sent out the invitation to contribute to their Accent UK circle (and yours truly) on October 1st, 2006, and the project soon swelled beyond the parameters of their previous anthology Monsters to become Accent UK's first book-format, squarebound anthology. Once Dave and Colin responded positively to my suggestion that I work with Dan and Maia on stories, and extend the invitation to CCS students, I was fully committed and did my best to give Accent UK something memorable from the US. Proud to be part of it!

The other UK contributors include Dave West and Colin Mathieson themselves, cover designer Andy Bloor (solo and working with writer Kieron Gillen); Kieren Brown & Tom Jileson, Jason Cobley & Paul Harrison-Davies, Bridgeen Gillespie, Taboo vets Shane Oakley and Gary Crutchley (solo stories, not collaborating this time around), Laura Howell, David Baillie, Andrew Cheverton (solo and a collaboration with Tim Keable), Garry Brown, Owen Johnson, James Gray, Darren Ellis & Roland Bird, Graeme Neil Reid, Paul Cartwright, Jon Ayre & One Neck, Phil Rigby & Manoel Magalhães, Benjamin Dickson, Tony Hitchman & Leonie O'Moore, Indio, Chris Dingsdale & Dan Denholt, Matt Boyce, Andy Winter & Natalie Sandells, Matt Timson, Chris Doherty and others I don't know about as yet.

Want to see more? Well, Dave will be updating

the Accent UK site this weekend to include all this and more,

so keep that website tabbed on your computer for updates. I'll keep mum about my son Dan's and my own contributions to the anthology until we get closer to publication date. I will, however, offer snapshots of the horrific stories and art contributions from the Center for Cartoon Studies artists/writers: Morgan Pielli, Jeremiah Piersol, B.C. Sterrett, Sean Morgan, Matt Young, Chuck Forsman, Bob Oxman, Denis St. John and Jaci June -- including links to their respective sites -- in the coming weeks.

___________________

That said, in reply to emails I've been receiving since the weekend announcement of this project: No, I'm not out of retirement. My retirement from the US comics industry stands.

I've drawn comics for myself all along, in my sketchbooks and such, and happily open up when it involves CCS, my son Dan, daughter Maia or friends; with Dan's Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits zine, the Trees & Hills anthology of last fall, and this upcoming Zombies collection (for a UK publisher), I'm indeed visible in print again, enjoying playing in the medium again, and glad some of what I'm up to will reach those of you who care. But this doesn't mean you'll be seeing me in the DC, Marvel, Dark Horse or Image plantations again -- far from it (& them). So quell any such anticipation, folks. If I do pursue inroads to future publication, it won't be in the US comics industry proper, such as it remains.

But if you do care, you'll read about whatever the heck it may be, and see samples of the art and/or creative effort, here first. To quote you-know-who, "'Nuff said!"

________________

Just shoveled out before starting this post -- as of 5 AM, we ended up with 20+ inches here in Windsor. I got out early to shovel because once the sun hits this snow, it's gonna get heavy to shovel; no doubt, there's lots of black ice under this snow cover on the roads, too. Luckily, we've got no wind here on Taylor Drive, quite unlike our old Marlboro home, which was always buffeted with winds in these kinds of storms. My stepson Mike told Marge last night that over in Claremont, NH (about a half hour from our Windsor digs) they were getting heavy wind last night, creating massive snowdrifts. We've none of that here, the snow lays where and as it fell.

Shoveled out our front steps and walk, over to the propane fill 'cap' further into the front yard, then stomped on down to the foot of the driveway to see if our morning paper was there. Viola! There it was, atop the snow, just tossed -- had I waited till the plows were out, we would have found it in the spring.

The storm is truly over: the sky is crystal clear, the stars (and a sprinkle of the Milky Way) visible horizon to horizon. I took a little walk around the neighborhood, until my glasses fogged so I could no longer see... by then my beard was crusted with frost and ice, too, so back home I went, scraped out in front of the garage doors, and came back in to hear the phone ring. Marge's school is delayed two hours, so she's able to sleep in again, lucky woman. I can hear her snoozing downstairs.

I've got the TV on: Burlington's WCAX (Channel 3) is reporting 40 inches in Jefferson, NH; here in VT, I caught reports for Bolton Valley, 40 inches; Stowe, 29 inches; 24+ in Burlington (now in top ten biggest snowstorms in that area in recorded history), etc. We're all digging out now, eh?

____________

One of my best friends is Joe Citro, writer/novelist/folklorist extraordinaire, and Joe has

long had a website, graced with his grinning mug and tons of info about the man, his work and his obsessions.

Well, those he cares to share with the public, that is.



But now, Joe's taken his maiden voyage

into the blogosphere, posting all-new research, stories and photos!

Joe has launched the blog with a complete story about the mysterious Bristol "treasure mines," complete with some truly evocative photos Joe snapped himself during a summer visit to this most treacherous of all VT locales -- it's tough to keep your footing amid the rocky debris from a century past, and Joe risked neck and limb (and ankles) to explore this terrain first-hand.

It's quite a story, one that still scars the landscape of the Bristol woods and hillsides...

"Shafts caved in, filled with stifling gas, or flooded with water. As much effort went into reclaiming holes as digging them. But no treasure came to light. After more than twelve years and thousands of dollars, Uncle Sim gave up.

But unlike the rock face of South Mountain, Uncle Sim’s faith was never shattered. About a decade later he returned alone. He had met a new conjurer who assured him that by moving just a few stones he could open a passage leading directly to the treasure...."

This is just the beginning of what will no doubt be an entertaining and at times astounding blog resource, particularly to those of you who are already Citro readers/fans/acolytes and/or folklore and stories "that might not be fiction," as Joe prefers to call 'em. And he always calls 'em as he sees 'em.

Joe and I have dabbled with a number of pet projects over the years. Some have yielded results you can still purchase on Joe's site --


Prominent among our dabblings remains the still-in-print & selling nicely, thank you, paperback book The Vermont Ghost Guide, which sports a full-color cover painting (of Emily on her famed Stowe, VT bridge) by yours truly and a plethora of black-and-white Bissette illustrations inside. This was among the most rewarding of all our ventures (just got a royalty check last week), and it's an ideal guide for driving around VT and seeking out the state's weirdest haunts: the book is designed around the VT map on the back cover, number-coding the locations, town by town, village by village, of the alphabetically-arranged spectral stories inside.

Joe and I also "cooked the book" a bit: there's one, and I do mean one, VT ghost story in the book that we completely made up! It does feature one of my coolest b&w illos, and we milk it for all it's worth. See if you can figure out which ghost is the phoney, folks -- but you'll have to buy a copy to play the game.


I also did the cover art for the University Press of New England paperback edition of Joe's 'stories that might not be fiction' tome Green Mountains, Dark Tales -- which is still available from Joe's site, and well worth picking up.

I also have one color full-page illustration (of the Pig-man) and a photo of my car -- with Marge and I waving from the top window -- poised at Greenfield, MA's 'zero gravity' zone in Joe's most recent book, Weird New England.

We also collaborated on a great full-color cartoon map of our native state marking (and illustrating) many more of our favorite Vermont's Haunts. Alas, that beautiful poster-size map is long out-of-print, and no longer available. Maybe someday we'll find a way to get it back into print... but for now, that's the scoop.

Have a great Thursday -- time to go shovel some more...