Dreams & Nightmares:

McCay, Bava Book Updates;
Jaci's Journey;
Pumpie's Putdown;
and Trailers From Hell!

For those of you who tuned in early yesterday,

I've added extensive illustrations and page samples to my exclusive interview with Dr. Ulrich Merkl and overview of his magnificent Dream of the Rarebit Fiend book; check the post out again, please, for some delicious eye candy...

...and more reasons to purchase a copy of this book, while you can! Yesterday's post is the best shot I can offer to encourage you to check out this exceptional book, while it's available, and showcase Ulrich's unique undertaking and accomplishment. Enjoy!

Two of Winsor McCay's post-Dream of the Rarebit Fiend strips, It Was Only a Dream, circa 1911; another page sample from Ulrich Merkl's definitive Dream of the Rarebit Fiend volume (pg. 454)
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In the realm of must-have books of 2007, you all know I rate the upcoming Tim Lucas biography Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark highest of all, right alongside Ulrich Merkl's Rarebit Fiend collection.

Tim and Donna's work on this astounding book has at last yielded fruit, and the book ships next month.

Due to the higher cost of production and publication, Tim and Donna have repriced the book to $250 (plus $10 US postage or $40 postage outside the US) -- after the August 21st delivery date from the printer. Until then, though, the standing pre-publication price of $120 still applies; so order your copy now (here's the link to the announcement, and all info on the book)!

Tim writes, "Effective upon our receipt of the shipment, the cost of the Bava book on all new orders will be increased to $250 (plus $10 US postage or $40 postage outside the US). Suffice to say, the book developed into something far more ambitious than we realized when we began accepting pre-orders for it over six years ago. However, not wishing to take anyone by surprise, we will continue to observe the pre-publication price of $120 until the expected delivery date of August 21. This is the perfect opportunity to acquire the book (for yourself, or as a gift) at less than half its publication price, or to obtain that second reading/preserving copy for yourself at a combined total of $240 -- $10 less than the publication cost of a single copy! And remember: all pre-ordered copies will be signed by the author."

So be sure to place your order soon, if you haven't already.

Tim and Donna are also placing ten signed copies for sale on eBay in early August -- again, click the link provided above for the particulars at the Bava book website -- which provides another opportunity to secure a copy of this exquisite book.

Given the remarkable access via DVD to almost every single film Bava directed -- most of these in their original Italian versions, subtitled, letterboxed and restored -- there has literally never been a better time to take the plunge into the cinematic universe of Mario Bava -- and never a better Dante to guide you into that delicious inferno than Tim Lucas.

As with Dr. Merkl's magnificent Dream of the Rarebit Fiend tome, Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark is a one-of-a-kind volume, self-published and hand-crafted to fulfill all the author's goals and specs. These are the kinds of dream books publishers simply do not publish, offering definitive retrospectives of artists too long overlooked (and relegated to lesser showcases).

(Note: as with Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, I have made sure both the Center for Cartoon Studies Schulz Library and the Bissette Special Collection in Henderson State University's HUIE Library will have their own copies of Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark, ensuring future generations of cartoonists, comics scholars and historians access to both incredible volumes.)
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This just in from Jaci June, former Center for Cartoon Studies freshman (2006-7) now on the Mississippi River and still alive to tell tales. She's having real summer adventures, the kind you read about. Like, you're about to, natch.
This is posted with Jaci's permission, so enjoy without guilt:

"I am happy to report that I am still alive (somehow!)! For those of you who are unsure of my whereabouts: I am currently living aboard a half pipe skate ramp river raft called the Baditude Snake Gang Girraft. I am floating down the Mississippi River to New Orleans with a radical artist collective known as the Miss Rockaway Armada (a fleet of equally garish garbage rafts touring the midwest and the south).

Oh boy so much has happened. My sister Jacki came to live with us for two weeks. We went to our friends farm in Coal Valley, hitched to Chicago and back... and then broke into an abandoned school and was hunted down by police dogs and 'copters on megaphones! Woo! After she went home I turned 19 and our fleet of rafts hit the river (finally). My friend Charles got bit by a dog named Skippy and fish hooked in the armpit and on our first day we got stuck in a stump field. We reached Muscatine, Iowa did a parade, workshops, play and bike jousting performance.... we sailed across the river and stayed at Mosquito Beach where two electrical storms raged and made my tent do cartwheels while I was still in it. Garden Of Bling raft had its crew doing nose dives naked in the river while the lightning bolted. The next day my entire body had a hundred welts (no exaggeration here) because I was having allergic reactions to the mother fucking skeeto bites! My butt being the most popular target!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We sailed again stopped in New Boston where the locals greeted us... They warned us of a huge storm coming and said we may be able to beat it if we skeet it south. So we tried to race the storm and whilst in the middle of playing 'Our God Is An Awesome God' repeatedly on my rusty trumpet the black clouds rolled overhead and shitstormed right down on us. Our skate ramp raft bolted for the shore but there was nowhere to tie up so we tied to some dead trees and logs stickin' out the river. The lightning lit our tarp up every two seconds it was so stormy. We watched a giant barge cross and the bats fly through the fog while the sky lit up in the background. The next day we set sail again. I ran the raft into a buoy and Charles yelled at me while Babalouie laughed. Reached Burlington, went to a motel and took two hot showers. Now I'm in the library writing this ridiculous email...

So as you can see the Mississippi is trying to kill me and I've decided it's about high time I go visit mom... I miss you CCSers and maybe I'll be out east sometime in the future. Or maybe you'll come see the freakshow along the Mississippi, eh?

-- Jay "SeaHag" June

P.S. What do you call it when two clouds have anal sex?
A: A Shitstorm!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Good luck, Jaci, and keep your head above water at all times!
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Jeez, Mark, you sure know how to hurt a guy.

If you can somehow scroll past the newborn pandas that looks like one mewling newborn with two heads, the cigar of King Kirby's brain, the Miracle Fruit Bush, and scroll down into the "From Behind the Curtain" post of 7/23,

Mark became unfunny by saying "Bissette is also too convinced that he has The Answer." When I have I ever said I had "The Answer"?? Answer me that, Mr. Answer-Man! I just seem to have questions you don't appreciate. Mark then arrives at some beatific bliss about

the Jay Stephens situation,

which you can read for yourself. So, peachy -- it's OK that the US treats fellow cartoonists like terrorist suspects. No wonder Bush is still President.

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My current fave new-found website is Joe Dante, Jr. and friends's entertaining as hell Trailers from Hell site, which you can access immediately from this link!

Tim Lucas turned me on to this last week, and I've enjoyed 'em all. This week, they've added two: the featured trailer for Joseph Sargent's xlnt 1969 sf gem Colossus: The Forbin Project (commentary by John Landis), and this week's added attraction, the preview for Hammer Film's stylish first go-round adapting J. Sheridan LeFanu's "Carmilla" as The Vampire Lovers (also 1970, commentary track from Mick Garris). Enjoy!
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Have a terrific Tuesday, one and all.

I've done my best to lend it something you wouldn't otherwise have... a headache!

Monday Memorial Day Honkers, Hogzillas, Links & Ketchup

(Photo copyright monsterpig.com, posted to promote their site! See links, below.)

Odds and Ends from Hither & Yon, Thither & Yawn

I was hoping to post Part 2 of my "War That I Never Forgot!" post today, on Memorial Day, commemorating all soldiers who fought dinosaurs in comic books, everywhere, but alas, it's still in the works. So, later. Instead, I'll counter my Memorial Day depression over how completely loathsome and hypocritical it is of our President (our Commander in Chief, who is not to be questioned in military rank-and-file tradition) or Vice President to even dare to open their lying fucking mouths today -- well, I won't go there. No, I'll counter my depression with some pleasant nonsense and links to happier sites and diversions.

Fellow Turok devotees, Unite!

Note my baby honker, roaring, even in tot-dom! It must have been a real bitch to change my diapers with that honker snapping atcha. I'll have to ask Mom about that. Anyhoot, a boy and his honker. Such was the transformative power of Turok, Son of Stone, the pre-pubescent viagra of my youth!

My amigo Mark Martin customized my baby photo (posted earlier this week as the opener to my "The War I Never Forgot! Part 1" opening volley on beloved dino comics of my childhood) and posted it on

his always entertaining Jabberous blog; scroll down to his 5/25/07 post to reveal the secret source of the glasses photoshopped onto my baby-face! (Original MM image post is also in the May thread, scroll on down to 5/23/07). Thanks, Mark! My baby-honker honks atcha!

Then Pete Von Sholly sent me this Turok memory of his own childhood, circa 1962, emailed from far-away VonShollywood, which you can of course visit here (always linked via my list of fave sites, on the right menu), but I reckoned I should remind you of this AM anyhoot. Thanks, Pete!

I will not comment on the larger size of my honker even as a toddler, though you were in your pic my elder, Pete, age-wise. I'm sure it grew to proper honkerdom later in life.

But enough on Honkers. Now, about that Hogzilla --

I warn't kidding y'all. Now, one of my all-time favorite unsung monster movies is Russell Mulcahy's Razorback, the best movie Mulcahy ever made (sorry, Highlander 2 fans). It's all about a giant pig on the loose in the Outback of Australia, and it's a corker, with a great and gory finale. Seems a real Razorback was nailed in Alabama of late, and a Monster Hawg it was, too.

This week, on the CCS discussion board, CCS freshman-now-a-senior Bryan Stone (from Alabama, natch) posted this, commenting "So if you've ever wondered what the Stone clan back in Alabama are up to -- haw!,"

and this, which has prompted much delight and outrage amongst the local CCS yokels.

Then, completely by coincidence and without knowing of Bryan or that CCS board, fellow Alabamaian-transplanted-North Mark Martin sent me this link (via yesterday's comments to this blog)

and this one, its companion piece, which demonstrates this fine Memorial Day how completely un-united and fucked-up the good ol' U. S. of A. really is in the Year of Our Lord 2007 A.D., and that's all there is too it.

Those links Mark sent, BTW, are off the original site Bryan posted; credit where credit is due, but I had to note the complete coincidence of the two Alabama cartoonists I love best sending this my way within days of one another, without knowing the other. Small world.

Mark, of course, is not the NASCAR driver. Bryan, natch, is the fellow Mount Ascutney climber whose cartoon incarnation ('created' by JP Coovert) won the CCS 'Fight' Comic, which I posted the final two pages of here just a couple of weeks ago.

Anyhoot, "Sausage is all gone." But we can forever savor the Peccary Pix!

Promising to you ongoing links for the Center for Cartoon Studies students and artists, I deliver regularly. Here's some fresh groceries.

For instance, there's a few veteran CCSers -- once lowly freshmen, now elevated to the senior stature that is theirs and theirs alone from the upcoming fall 2007 to their own fateful spring 2008 graduation day -- who had yet to offer links, sites or blogs for your edification.

Prominent among them is Denis St. John, who has at last launched his own blog, already graced with some sketches inspired by a midnight movie showing of John Carpenter's beloved, screwy They Live (at left)! Keep an eye on Denis's blog, the best is yet to come!

OK, now on to the honest-to-God freshmen coming in the door in a couple-of-few months. Minnows, soon to be trout; piglets, soon to be Razorbacks. Welcome them, one and all!

Already, though we are barely a week (a week and one day, my friends) away from the momentous first-ever graduating class from our sturdy institution, we at CCS are preparing for the new incoming class. And you might as well, too. I've asked incoming freshmen willing to share their site, blogs, MySpace pages and whatever with you, and some have already heeded the call. Please, be generous with your comments, they can use the encouragement and feedback!

Incoming CCS freshman Sam Carbaugh offers some of his sketches, doodles, thoughts and art here, but has a new site under construction (and soon to be up; I'll post that link once Sam lets me know it's ready).

We've also got some artists who are also musicians coming in the door, too, which carries on another now-venerable CCS tradition (pioneered by Sam Gaskin of Pizza Wizard soon-to-be-fame). Many is the evening the CCS basement has been enlivened by marvelous live music, and the creative space is the better for it. I have particularly fond memories of Blair Sterrett serenading the winter CCS auction with the mournful tune of his saw.

Good to know that tradition is only going to grow! For instance,

24-year-old Brooklyn-dweller Steve Seck is on his way to CCS this late summer/fall, too, and he has his MySpace art, posters, photos and so on posted here,

and lots of music, videos, pics and pix from his band Creaky Boards posted here. Check it all out, and be sure to let him know I sent you!

In another bit of cartooning coincidence of the geographic variety, both Sam C and Steve S originally herald from Michigan -- either side of the 'hand,' it seems -- so there ya go. Forging bonds and they're not even here yet.

Next with the cajones to just open up his online life and work to y'all, taking the leap off that virtual diving board into what he hopes might be water, is none other than Pekin (that's it, Pekin), who has already captured my heart by noting his love for Charles Mingus and Bruce Campbell, which is all I need to know just now. Welcome aboard, Pekin, looking forward to meeting you!

BTW, Pekin's portrait, posted here, is of himself, "in thirty years."

But that ain't all, folks. We've already got some ambitious internet cartooning on display from the upcoming freshmen class, which is a great sign of things to come.

First to post a sizable body of work is Jeff Mumm. He has the most online comics to share at this juncture, with his latest Ninja Pig project "A Little Larceny" in progress and updating from now till the end of summer -- check it out --

-- and Jeff's earlier menagerie of "Obscured by Species" online comics and characters are archived here. Worth a look and enjoy!

There. Hogzilla and Ninja Pig, all in the same post. Beat that!

That's just the tip of a new iceberg, folks, and with the way the ice caps are melting, we should welcome every iceberg we can find.

That's it for today, hope this livens up your Memorial Day.

Tomorrow, it's back to that bad boy Gabby Schulz, for Part Three of the "Gabbin' with Gabby" marathon interview. See you here!

Have a great Memorial Day, one and all --

Sunday Morning Review of Books...

...and comics.

Well, at least an overview of some recent and upcoming publications that may be of interest to some of you.

An opening morning thought (compliments of HomeyM, thanks, Homey!):

"The creative process is a process of waiting, trusting, acting, it has a deep wisdom, if we will surrender to it. The power of the unconscious rises to the page. It can be frightening. It is difficult. But it is in the vitality of this struggle between the writer and the word that we can create transformative work. Each book I have written has transformed me in the process. I write myself to the other side of my question..."

- Terry Tempest Williams

This past Friday, Charlito and Mister Phil

of the popular podcast venue Indie Spinner Rack

visited the Center for Cartoon Studies and interviewed yours truly at great length; that'll be online soon. As CCS fellow faculty member Robyn Chapman points out, Indie Spinner Rack has been a great supporter of CCS -- "they are donating half of the profits from their upcoming anthology to CCS," Robyn says -- and they are excellent promoters. Charlito is also a fellow XQB (Kubert School graduate), and it so happens we first met and he was a student there when I visited the school and presented an early version of the ever-expanding Journeys Into Fear: A History of Horror Comics slide show lecture.

Anyhoot, among the many things Charlito and Mister Phil grilled me about was "Why isn't there any new Bissette comics?," a question touched upon ad infinitum here from time to time. Which leads me to this morning's subject:

My work appears in a number of new comics and books! Here's a quick review of those goodies, now out and/or about to hit the shelves:

* Rick Veitch's King Hell Press is just releasing Rick's new anthology Shiny Beasts; for more relevant info, memories and details, and a peek at the story and artwork I had a hand in that appears in this anthology, check out

this previous blog posting,

and this one,

and then there's this, too! All worth visiting or revisiting.

Best of all, though, is Rick's own preview section he's posted online, here!

* The latest issue of Bob McLeod's magazine Rough Stuff #4 features an illustrated overview of some of my Swamp Thing pencils, with insights by yours truly, and best of all a lengthy illustrated interview with my venerable amigo and fellow Swamp Thing vet John Totleben. Pick it up, and pronto -- it's on the shelves now, or you can order your copy immediately

at the TwoMorrows publisher website.

I wrote about this issue on the blog

here

and here, including art, links, etc. of interest and delivering some immediate gratification and eye-candy delights.

* So much for vintage Bissette -- there's new stuff, too. here's the upcoming (shipping in May!) Accent UK Zombies anthology, for which I drew a cover, some interior spot illustrations, and completed a brand-new four-page Edward-Gorey like humor piece working with my son Daniel Bissette,

which I first announced here,

discussed at some length here,

blathered more about with this post,

and provided bios for the anthology's fellow contributors here.

That Zombies also features some stories and art by Center for Cartoon Studies students is a plus in my book, too!

I'm not sure if this anthology is going to make it over to the US, so best you check out

the Accent UK site and see about ordering your copy online, just in case.

I'll be posting more info, links, and tidbits on Zombies -- and the planned US followup, featuring much all-new work (including new material by yours truly!) -- later this coming month and spring. Keep your eye on this blog!

* In stores right now is the third (and, alas, final) issue of Mark Martin's most recent anthology Runaway Comics

which prints the complete version of "Blog Opera," the amazing story featuring me, Steve Bissette, trying to rescue my friend Mike Dobbs's severed head, which I previewed here

(lifting the images from Mark Martin's marvelous blog "Jabberous," which is forever linked on the menu at your immediate right), and which places me at last in the Brain That Wouldn't Die pantheon I secretly forever longed to belong to.

Thanks, Mark! Do I give head as well as I take head? You'll have to buy Runaway Comics #3 to find out!

I also have a teeny, tiny li'l drawing that's part of Mark's eye-popping back cover painting,

and you can find out the secrets of this back cover painting here, including my part in it -- scroll down the menu at the left Mark has created, and click on the contribution by everyone Mark invited to "come draw with me!" (which is also covered -- pun intended -- in the pages of Runaway Comics #3)!

So, don't hesitate, run right out today and pick up your copy of Runaway Comics #3! While you're at it, get Runaway Comics #1 and 2, too -- all great, fun reading -- and all available

here, where you can also preview every issue as well, right now.

Check 'em out, and tell Mark I sent you.

* I've also written the introductions for two new graphic novel collections -- one a partial reprint extensively revised and expanded into a whole new graphic novel, the other reprinting for the first time a seminal body of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle work by Michael Zulli. Both, though, are well worth picking up, and pronto!

If you scroll down a bit, you'll find my writeup of Michael Zulli's excellent TMNT: Soul's Winter here,

and you can order a copy here (with Michael's exquisite & exclusive signed bookplate as a bonus)!

* The amazing new graphic novel I proudly scribed an intro for is Rob Walton's masterpiece Ragmop, which doesn't "just" collect the existing pair of Ragmop series from the mid-1990s -- don't believe those know-it-all online putzes and pundits who claim otherwise.
Ragmop, the book, is not a reprint edition -- Rob completely revised, revamped, redrew, rewrote, and expanded the whole into a complete, self-standing and mighty hilarious satiric epic that is hands-down one of my favorite graphic novels of all time!

Here's Rob's blog and site, always worth a visit (on a regular basis),

and here's where you must immediately go and purchase a copy of Ragmop with the limited edition signed color bookplate -- no, right now. No excuses.

You think I refer to something as "my favorite graphic novel of all time" lightly?

So, there. Some new Bissette, some old Bissette -- all in print now, and in comics shops and bookstores now.

Now, I personally know how many of you did (and most of all how many didn't) order my son Dan's zine Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits last year, with my first-ever all-new comic story of the Millennium. A vast yawn greeted Dan and I with that little wonder. There's a stack of 'em signed sitting here in the SpiderBaby backstock; Dan was so discouraged with the cosmic indifference to his first effort he damn near killed himself -- good thing I talked him down out of that tree. That's right -- and it would have been your fault!

You don't really care whether I draw comics again, you just like to gripe about it, and expect me to post whatever I do online so you can dig it for free. Well, I'm on to your little game. I can just glance over at the huge stack remaining of Hot Chicks Take Huge Shits and I know what's what.

So get out there, or just click your fucking mouses, and buy the books and comics above. They're all great! I'll know if you did or didn't, bunky. Quit whining about my not doing anything and go buy 'em all, or leave me alone!

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On another matter all together, which Ragmop creator Rob Walton and I talked about during his visit here, and which Clan Apis and The Sandwalk Adventure creator (and biologist) Jay Hosler had a lot to say about during his visit to CCS, check out the comments on yesterday's blog posting for a lengthy comeback from Luke Przybylski about

this Easter blog posting, which I still stand by (your writing still played to the prejudices I noted, Luke).

I've replied in kind in the same comment thread, so check that out, too, and feel free to weigh in

(and feel free to read the local article in this recent post, too -- scroll down past the Grindhouse writeup -- as followup; that goes for you, too, Luke!).

Happy to talk about it, if anyone wishes to.

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And this just in, Naomi Wolf's sobering Guardian story about how we're currently perceived overseas, and justifiably so.

Thanks to Tim Lucas for the link -- and y'all have a good Sunday, now, y'here?

Back From the Grave...

You can't keep a Blog Zombie down!

Well, not for long.

Yep, thanks to the collaborative exchange of info/media/scans between my respective computer gurus Jane Wilde (of Absolute Computing Solutions in Marlboro, VT) and web cartoonist extraordinaire and early founding member of the extended & growing White River Junction/Center for Cartoon Studies cartooning community

Cayetano Garza aka 'Cat,'

thanks to whom my long-under-construction and long-overdue-for-revamping website will at last be up (gulp) this week!

Cat is now my computer guru, and you have him to thank for today's blog being up and running at last. We've got a lot planned, and will be posting info, links, and opening up the long-overdue Bissette website -- keep your eye out here, and all praise Cat! He's been making web comics since 1996, and he's a demigod in this old-timer's book.

That's a lot of back from the grave, eh?

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For those of you starving for Bissette comics work, there's a batch of stuff coming up and out -- but for now, suffice to note that Rick Veitch just sent me the first comp copy of his new King Hell anthology Shiny Beasts, which I previewed for ya

here

and here.

The book is gorgeous, and our collaborative Epic effort "Monkey See" never looked better (26 years out of print!), and there's also Rick and Alan Moore's long out-0f-print Epic collaboration to savor, too (including it's revelatory Bissette cosmic-VD panel) and Rick's afterword with vintage photos of his old hippy self (and Totleben and Bissette, in their younger years). A terrific package, if I may say so myself!

Rick dropped by the house last weekend to pick up the oldest Veitch & Bissette "Creative Burnouts" art in my flat files -- including our first ever collaboration, drawn up on our Kubert School drawing boards in September 1976! -- and Rick is planning an upcoming anthology featuring all our collaborative work. But that's later, folks -- Shiny Beasts is out now.

Shiny Beasts is shipping to comic shops pronto, and I'll post more on this blog once I know it's in stores and online. You might want to hold out, though, for buying the book via PaneltoPanel.net, as Rick, Alan Moore and I are currently signing signature sheets for PaneltoPanel's special promo of Shiny Beasts -- more info on that (and sales link) soon!

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This-here blog has been down the entire week of the White River Indie Film festival, which is too bad -- I had scribed and was planning to post a day-by-day diary of the event, and promote the hell out of it.

Alas, bandwidth issues decided otherwise, and WRIF ends this very weekend -- today and tomorrow. My panels and such ended last night (more on that later this week, as time permits).

Still, if you're in the area, as in today and tomorrow,

WRIF's current weekend lineup boasts some of the festival's best films (scroll down to the listings and info for April 28 and 29),

including a zinger Iraq War double-feature of The War Tapes and

Iraq in Fragments (which I wrote up here),

followed by panel discussion; the gender-issue one-two punches of Freeheld and Georgie Girl, likewise followed with lively panel discussion;

Adrian Grenier's Shot in the Dark and his short film Euthanasia (which I blogged about here),

(and the lingering possibility that Grenier himself may show up, live and in person); and more.

Best of tonight's offerings, to my mind, is the African film Bamako, which I reviewed

on this very blog during our screening process (scroll down a bit to that writeup),

though I've no doubt the two most popular films of the fest may prove to be tonight's showings of Brick (reviewed in the same post as Bamako; see link, above) and The Devil and Daniel Johnston, which is one of my son Dan's favorite films.

Sunday's program offers an intense lineup of "First Person" documentaries, including a panel on the genre. There's a lot of intensive scrutiny of abuses of power in these films, too: The Forest for the Trees,

the excellent Strange Culture (which I reviewed here),

the riveting Hand of God, and the 5:15 PM show of Sacrificial Lambs, which I will be introducing, followed by a panel with filmmaker Ed Dooley, Norwich Selectwoman and farmer Suzanne Lupien, the Faillace family, and farmer Doug Flack. Now, that should be a lively session! Tomorrow's program also includes

51 Birch Street

and the evening begins with the marvelous

Absolute Wilson (Bissette review here)

and concludes with the amazing documentary Jesus Camp (my review, and some blistering fundamentalist comments, here; scroll down to the goodies).

Sorry I didn't have this venue available to promote all this past week's wonderful films and events, but c'est la vie. If you can come this weekend, see you there!

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My ol' pal Mark Martin has been posting some great vintage Mark Martin comics, art and stories on

his blog "Jabberous,"

and that's a perpetual treat.

His latest excavation has yielded a complete MM parody of Harvey Comics's venerable bowler-derbied spook Spooky,

Dooky, who's short-but-sweet adventure begins here. Then click on over to

Dooky's page the second,

Dooky's penultimate panic, and

Dooky's ass-blasting last hurrah (and more)!

Now, tell me that ain't funny. Kudos to you, Mark, and here's hoping for a complete Harvey Comics parody comic from you one day!

Everyone in comics knows about Dan Clowes's Harvey parody in Eightball, but this has been a rich vein of comics satire for ages, and it would be a corker of a book if someone would brave the legal hurdles and put them all together into one fat tome. My old XQB pal and vet Taboo contributor Tom Foxmarnick had cooked up a hilarious satire of Hot Stuff a loooong time ago, which I still fondly remember. Rick Veitch and I once roughed out a Harvey parody of our own (back in 1979) intended for Dr. Wirtham's Comix and Stories which we entitled "Li'l MicroDot," in which our version of Harvey's beloved dot-obsessed li'l girl character was tripping her brains out and finally, in desperation, grabs the phone to call for help, only to space out on -- the little holes in the receiver! As she is mesmerized by this miniature landscape of uniform holes, a clutch of tiny Art Linkletters pop out of them all, screaming "Don't jump, MicroDot! Don't jump out the window!"

Well, it was funny to us in 1979. We never drew it, though, so it remains a layout in one of my sketchbooks, which ain't funny.

____________________

What really ain't funny, and has prompted me at last to turn off the fucking news by yesterday AM, is

the utterly spineless news coverage of President Bush's latest pathological projection of blame -- it's just too infuriating for words -- isn't anyone going to call this latest GOP shell game for what it is?

Bush and Cheney and their corrupt cabal have manipulated their budgets year after year by keeping the genuine cost of the war(s) off the table, and out of their annual budget -- it's at last caught up with them. Is anyone really falling for Bush's bullshit? Cheney, per usual, is even more reprehensible in his rhetoric; I have never, ever so loathed a public figure in my life. The man is evil incarnate; typical of our times, he was keynote speaker at the Brigham Young University graduation recently. Now, there's religious values for you.

I am so aching for any coverage of this current "showdown" to confront the core issue -- the President and Vice President's false budgeting of this war, by persistently not budgeting for these war, by absolutely refusing to budget for these wars -- for what it truly is: the consequences of this President's ongoing strategic shell game.

These two bastards don't give a flying fuck for our troops -- they created this horrorshow, they have abused the military and military families every step of the way (note this week's Pentagon hearings), they created this current standoff by refusing to responsibly budget for and truly wage the war they claim our very lives depend upon, and they are the lowest slime to ever hold the highest office in our country in US history.

Have a great weekend, one and all --

So, This Arrived in the Ol' Email...

...and I held off saying anything for a few days, if only to

milk the prankster till his little tittie bled.

(BTW, nice to be back, and thanks for all the kind birthday wishes.)

What Mark Martin Wants,
Mark Martin Gets

(except for Condi)

You want an explanation for this image,

visit Mark Martin's glorious website and go exploring.

I'm just realizing what was apparently his fondest wish one morning -- January 14th, 2007, to be exact. Sorry it took so long, Mark, but I really had to get that Pan's Labyrinth review done first!

But -- What About My Head?

And, a recap (redecap?) of Mark Martin's glorious Blog Opera, which was serialized

at Mark's magnificent blog, "Jabberous," late last year.

All this sturm und drang, then -- nada.

My head, abandoned, in midair, like Tyrant's sibling on Eggsucker's tongue. Forever dangling, dangling.

I am crestfallen (pun intended).

Here's the sequence, in total, depicting my vain effort to save my dear amigo G. Michael Dobbs (aka Mike Dobbs aka Mayo Blot) -- well, his head, anyway. My greatest disappointment: no Brain That Wouldn't Die in-jokes. Read it and weep.

Panel the First

Panel the Second

Panel the Third

Panel the Fourth

...and t-t-t-that's all, folks!

PS: Note Mark's and Mike's ongoing revulsion at

my papers and collections at Henderson State University and the HUIE Library Special Collections.

It's a constant dig (in more ways than one!), but one I know that comes from profound and malingering envy. Mark's papers were to be stored at the Clinton Library in nearby Little Rock, Arkansas, but that fell through -- and with President Bush reclassifying declassified materials, it's likely Mark's highly-sensitive papers will be forever buried, perhaps with him.

Anyhoot, since I've linked to all Mark's online universe, it's only appropo

I do the same for Mike, kicking off with his venerable "Out of the Inkwell" blog,

bopping over to his "That's Thirty" journalism site,

and winding up at his ongoing Fleischer Brothers book-in-progress blog, "Made of Pen and Ink."

Mike's papers are -- well, out weekly. In Massachusetts. Five of 'em. That he edits. Weeklies. Got it?

I'm outta here -- more later!

A Revised Pan's Labyrinth review for Mark, Per His Comment...

Pan's Labyrinth:
Me like.
You wrong.

Oh, and Rush is a complete dink.

Running on Fumes

...but hey, the sun is out a bit, and that's a relief!

So, let's see: in reply to Mike Dobbs comment on yesterday's post: Mike, don't fret. I think there's a McDonald's on the Barre-Montpelier road, within five miles or so tops of the Capital dome. "You want we supersize your maple-tree suck?"

Note to my steadfast ink-slinging amigo Mark Martin: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

And you know I will.

Now, send that nickel to the ACLU, like you said you would.
___

Rick Veitch alerted me to the new issue of Mother Jones, which has an article by Eleanor Cooney on "The Politics of Horror," primarily discussing Joe Dante and Sam Hamm's Masters of Horror installment "Homecoming" as an election-year hour of television worthy of note. Having already steered this blog's readers to Tim Lucas's Video Watchblog post on the episode when it originally aired, and discussed "Homecoming" and its precursor J'Accuse at some length here before, I'll just say check out Cooney's article and be sure to pick up "Homecoming" when it's released on DVD this summer, if you haven't seen it already. An audacious and eventful landmark in TV horror, and loooooong overdue use of airtime to address the shit we've got ourselves into as a country.