PaneltoPanel Relaunch;
Amanda Ann's 'Stone'work;
Dinner with Gojira!

One of my buttons for the new PaneltoPanel.net -- now servicing libraries and librarians, too!

* First off, an announcement:

The brand-new PaneltoPanel.net site is now up and running -- check it out, and take advantage of the exclusives for your last-minute Christmas shopping!

PaneltoPanel mogul John Rovnak has been hard at work on the new site for months now, with considerable help from many (including amigo Mark Martin), and you can instantly see the graphic input of a circle of cartoonists -- Mark, Eric Talbot, Rick Veitch, James Kochalka, Cayetano 'Cat' Garza and yours truly -- on the homepage alone. Go on, have a look and press them shiny new art-buttons!

As I say, pay special attention to the exclusives catalog, as there's some unique gifts there... or self-gifts, if you're so inclined.

Here's the link to exclusives, for your comfort and ease -- lots of goodies here!

Congrats, John, on the new venue, and we all look forward to shopping with you in 2008 and beyond!

* The CCS creative community involves a lot more than just comics and cartooning (just?? What am I saying?), and it has since day one. We've enjoyed a stellar synthesis of musicians, photographers, performers and -- as of last summer -- potters among our number.

The amazing Amanda Ann Stone lives hereabouts her hubby (and Center for Cartoon Studies senior) Bryan Stone, and folks, Amanda makes pottery. Amazing pottery.

While her work is appearing in more and more regional venues hereabouts, Amanda has at last launched her own blog to post info, photos and insights about her work, process, and -- er -- their dog.

If you're interested in special ordering Amanda's beautiful, functional pottery, email her at amandaannceramics@yahoo.com, but take a look at her new blog first.

Amanda Ann's blog awaits you here -- check it out! It's just started this past week, so keep an eye out for future work, photos and posts.

* Alas, I no longer live in the Brattleboro area, but I'm pleased to bring to your attention a special seasonal event for daikaiju eiga fans in the area and New England Godzilla lovers.

Really, how often do you get a special dinner invite, with monsters? And dig the cultural context of this event, Tohophiles:

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LOCAL & ASIAN DINNER WITH GODZILLA & FRIENDS

Celebrate local businesses and agriculture of Southern Vermont

A fundraiser for the Asian Cultural Center of Vermont

A buffet with time to network and socialize.

Then view a presentation by Harvey Nystrom on 'Godzilla and Friends.'

Thursday, December 20th, 5:30 pm - 7 pm

*Suggested* donation: $40 per person for this dinner event. (More welcome!)

Location: America's Best Inn, 959 Putney Road. (Wheelchair accessible)

Directions: 2 miles north of Main & High in Brattleboro, 1/4 mile south of the I-91 Exit 3 roundabout, near the junction with Black Mountain Road.

Food includes: Delicious soup and dishes made with local winter vegetables and locally prepared cooks; chicken; ribs; fish stew; rice pilau; curry; spring rolls; sushi; desserts; coffee; cider; and more!

Asian Cultural Center of Vermont's fundraising has two goals:

1. Match funds from the State Tourism/Marketing Department for out-of-state marketing and promotion of southern Vermont, especially around the upcoming Vermont Samurai Kaiju Film Festival in September. Also, related to this goal: Help raise funds to underwrite the cost of screening the Samurai and Kaiju films to lower the cost to the movie goer. Kaiju (Japanese for 'mysterious beast') is the genre that has brought Gozilla-type movies. Samurai are traditional warriors.

2. The Cultural Center is taking its Bhutan Textiles exhibition overseas to Thailand and will be co-sponsoring an April exhibition in Chiang Mai! Help us bring Brattleboro and Vermont to Thailand!

Tell others to consider supporting these efforts. Partial or full underwriting of any of the following would help a lot: $250 will... cover the cost of one screening of a samurai or Godzilla-type film; ... cover the cost of space rental and staffing for an festival evening; ...provide access to promote the Festival at an out-of-state conference or convention; amounts needed for the Thailand exhibition are more.

Other upcoming events ---

Tuesday Dec. 18 & Saturday Dec. 22 at 6 pm: Kazakh film, The Land of the Fathers, at the C.X. Silver Gallery, 814 Western Avenue in West Brattleboro, 2 miles straight up High St. from MAin St. in Brattleboro, one mile west of I-91 Exit 2, on the right.

through December: don´t miss the marvelous show of Tibetan painted scrolls - more than 50 of these thangkas on display at the Gallery.

Tuesday afternoon, January 1, 1-4 pm: Shogatsu, Japanese New Year Festival. at the River Garden, 157 Main St in downtown Brattleboro.

For further information, contact Adam Silver, (802) 257-7898 ext. 1 or 2, (802) 579-9088 (cell) or e-mail to: acc.vt@ verizon.net --- or --- cxsilvergallery@verizon.net.

Brought to you by local farms, restaurants, and others:

Tina Vaidya of America's Best Inn; Amy of Amy's Bakery; Anon of Anon's Thai Cuisine; Sheetal of Austrian Haus Lodge; Brattleboro Food Co-op; Cai of C.X.Silver Gallery; Todd Darrah of Chelsea Royal Diner, Amy Frost of Circle Mountain Farm; Wendy of Dutton's Farm Stand; Jay & Janet Bailey of Fairwinds Farm; Lori Schreier of Fertile Fields Farm; Mary Ellen of the Franklin Farm; Jean Garrecht; Debbie Posson of Gillies Seafood Restaurant; Wendy Brewer of Grafton Cheese Company; Green Mountain Coffee; Andrea Darrow of Green Mountain Orchards; Hannaford Supermarket, Dee of Harlow Farm; Dan & Shiela of Harlow's Sugar House; Chander Kanta of India House Restaurant; Amanda & Ross Thurber of Lilac Ridge Farm; Jill Johnson and Dierdre of The Marina; Gini Milkey, our legislator; Dwight Miller Orchards; Mountain Mowings Farm; Pete Kerber of New England House; Harvey Nystrom; Heather Chou of Panasian Chinese & Japanese Cuisine; Joan Peters of Flying Color Studio; Jenny & Bruce Wooster of Piccadilly Farm, Price Chopper; Rebecca Rueter of Reiki Healing Arts; Tristan Toleno of Riverview Cafe; Helen of the Robb Family Farm; Bob of Sunny's Deli & Bakery; Hiroko Varela; Bill, Judy and Tracy of Vermont Country Deli, Norma Willingham.

Thank you for contributing locally grown materials, cooking, and baking!

Also, don´t miss this rare and special event:
Sunday, Dec. 16, 8 pm at The Stone Church on Main Street:

The Friends of Mevlana will hold a Sema, the ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes, at the Stone Church on Main St. in Brattleboro . The Sema is held this time each year to commemorate the passing of Jallaludin Rumi. 2007 was named the year of Rumi by UNESCO, celebrating the world renowned poet’s 800th anniversary. Although Rumi is one of the most read poets in America , few people know that he was also the founder of the Mevlevis, the order of the Whirling Dervishes. In the dance of the Sema, the dervishes participate in the simultaneous whirling for all of creation, from the movement of sub atomic particles to the revolution of planets and galaxies. As Rumi’s words reveal: “A secret turning in us makes the universe turn.”

Here's the link to the Asian Cultural Center site, hosts of these stellar events -- check it (and the events) out!

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* OK, more tomorrow, and have a thumpin' Thursday.

Major snow hitting our area today, they say -- we'll see!

Shiny Beasts is Here!

Alan Moore Fans, Take Heed --

Well, we did it -- Rick Veitch, Alan Moore and I signed the same pieces of paper for the first time since 1999.

The earth did not shift, the sky did not fall, all went well.

But fair warning and high-alert to Alan Moore fans: this is likely to be your one and only chance, ever, to get all three signatures in one book, in one place.

You snooze, you lose. Jump on this opportunity.

To celebrate the release of Rick Veitch's latest trade paperback collection Shiny Beasts, Panel to Panel.net offers a once-in-a-lifetime, exclusive tipped-in bookplate signed by Rick Veitch, along with collaborators Alan Moore and Stephen R. Bissette.

As I've already boasted on this very blog, this new King Hell collection of primo past Rick Veitch treasures features one of Rick's and my key collaborative efforts, "Monkey See," from Epic #2. It's a story I'm still extremely proud of, and hope you'll enjoy. Shiny Beasts also features the one-and-only Epic story Alan Moore ever scripted, "Love Doesn't Last Forever," which also sports a graphic interstellar VD diseased panel ghosted by yours truly (making it yet another Moore/Veitch/Bissette collaborative effort from our personal 'golden age').

Like "Monkey See," "Love Doesn't Last Forever" has been out of print and hence out of reach for most avid Moore fans for almost a quarter-century, and it's well worth picking up the entire collection for this single jewel alone.

But Moore fans will want to jump on this singular signed bookplate most of all. It's no secret that (a) Alan has ceased attending any comics conventions or any US event whatsoever since the late 1980s, and (b) Alan chooses not to have any relations with yours truly, making a joint signing venture ever again in this lifetime highly unlikely (the last publicly-available signing was for Tim Underwood's hardcover limited edition of Stanley Wiater's and my own Comic Book Rebels, almost 15 years ago -- long out of print and out of circulation; FYI, the last co-signing of the three of us was for the contract necessary to the somber 1999 division of the '1963' characters and concepts as a legally-shared property).

Thus, PaneltoPanel is offering something exquisitely singular and rare here -- and quantities are extremely limited (there's only about 80 signature plates), so really, don't wait a moment to order. This may be your only window of opportunity.

Of course, all of this is gravy, really. Shiny Beasts is a collection well worth owning in any case, offering a one-stop overview of all of Rick Veitch's color comics work prior to his leap into the graphic novel form with the serialized Epic sf-adventure epic Abraxas and the Earthman (also recently collected by King Hell in a single volume, and essential reading). Actually, the Shiny Beasts body of work is sandwiched between Rick's first two graphic novels -- our collaborative effort on the Heavy Metal/Simon & Schuster movie adaptation graphic novel 1941: The Illustrated Story (1979) and Rick's Abraxas and the Earthman -- Rick really is one of the unsung pioneers of the graphic novel form, plunging into the expansive format a mere year or two after Will Eisner codified it with the pioneer A Contract With God (1977/78).

But what the hell, hardsell internet commerce sometimes requires further sweetening of the proverbial pot. All right, potheads, if you need any further coaxing --

order now, and receive free shipping on any other trade paperback collection from Rick Veitch's King Hell Press (here's the list, via this link).

So c'mon, what are you waiting for?

Don't forget to check out PaneltoPanel's other great exclusive bookplates, here; there's some great cartoonists, graphic novels, and rare signatures and bookplates to be found here!

Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, Rob Walton's Ragmop (among my favorite graphic novels of all time, pictured at left -- and one of the precious few graphic novels that's also hilarious), Michael Zulli's TMNT: Soul's Winter, Mark Martin's Runaway Comics (and the ultra-rare Runaway Comics 2.1), Bob Fingerman's delightful kids'n'zombies opus Recess Pieces, Gene Colan (!!!) signed bookplate for the Doctor Strange vs. Dracula collection, two volumes of Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more Rick Veitch -- Abraxas and the Earthman and Rick's masterpiece Can't Get No -- are among the choice books and bookplates still available (others are sold out -- so don't miss out on your personal fave while it's in reach).

Now, I get nothing from all this; PaneltoPanel proprietor John Rovnak is indeed an old friend, and former owner of the late, great defunct comic shop Comics Route (the best comic shop Vermont ever had). But I love the fact that John is so engaged with promoting such quality work, and ceaselessly promoting the artists and creators whose work he loves. That's something worth supporting across the board. If we can't get more John Rovnaks in this world, let's all support the John Rovnak we've got -- and if this signature event is what initiates your making PaneltoPanel a primary online source for your comics, so be it.

But most of all, this fine Monday morning, it's important to alert those of you who are mutual fans of Alan, Rick and I to this singular opportunity to snag Shiny Beasts with this rare signed bookplate -- an artifact of happier times, for some comics fans and readers -- and to do so now.

Have a great Monday morning, one and all -- it's a beaut of a morning here in Windsor, VT, and I'm eager to get on with my day.

Odds But No Ends: Shameless Hucksterism, Part One

I'm scrambling this morning to pull together a wide variety of crumbling archival comics and comics material for today's CCS class, so today will be a quickie. But I do want to alert those of you interested in corraling some vintage Bissette and Gaiman collectibles that my amigo James Rochefort is placing on the auction block; check 'em out, please.

The Bissette items are direct from the SpiderBaby archives, and these are fully authorized auctions of these signed items. While I will be setting up my own site to handle some sales (specifically the rarest Taboo back issues and other rarities), for the time being James is my online dealer of choice, so if it's Bissette items you're looking for, read on. (In the coming weeks, I will also be making special arrangements with my friend and veteran Comics Route proprietor John Rovnak to offer other Bissette and SpiderBaby comics and comix items online; more info on that once all our ducks are in a row. I am not, however, selling original art as yet.)

Note, however, that the Neil Gaiman collectibles are being handled by James to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. When the CBLDF made the momentous move this summer from their long-standing Northampton, MA base of operations to their new digs in Manhattan, CBLDF director Charles Brownstein contacted me, asking if I knew anyone interested in handling some of the CBLDF stock, if only to minimize the scope and cost of their move. Charles and James worked out the necessary details; 50% of every Gaiman/CBLDF related sale from James will be going to the CBLDF, so don't be shy about your support.

James is currently active and listing items on Ioffer.com, Amazon.com, Bookavenue.com and Ebay.com -- check 'em out, and often!

On all these sites, you can access James's auction items by checking his user id, which is gimlisloot. The rotation of stock and rarities will be frequent, so you might want to reference James's efforts on a regular basis.

James is up and running, and there's some primo packages and items already within your reach. Here's some of the Ebay listings:

S.R. Bissette’s TYRANT: THE PRIMO PALEO PACK

Primo Paleo Pack

THE BISSETTE-SET, one-of-a-kind collection (Signed)

Biss-Set

XL vintage SR Bissette Chiller Theatre Expo T-shirt, Spring '95

ChillerCon T

ALAN MOORE ‘1963’ T-SHIRT

’63 T

S.R. Bissette and G. Michael Dobbs' THE YEAR IN FEAR CALENDER (1992) Signed

YEAR in FEAR

Neil Gaiman Comic & More Collection

Gaiman Goodies

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OK, off to finish prep for today's CCS session.

Hmmm, all these historic discrepancies about when exactly The Yellow Kid first saw print... I have to sort this out. Anyhow, I've some real treats in store for the CCS folks. It should be a real hoot; will tell you more tomorrow!