Sunday Spinnings

Yesterday morning I finished reading my friend Mike Dobb's new book Escape! How Animation Went Mainstream in the 1990s -- this morning, I finished reading my friend Tim Lucas's truly massive, moving Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. Today, I'll be continuing work on a book project as a writer, The Neil Gaiman Companion, which coauthors Chris Golden and Henry Wagner brought me into in the eleventh hour. Mike and Tim's books are an inspiration, to say the least, and I'll blog about both books later this week -- but today, I've got to keep the clock ticking on the Gaiman book.

Lorraine a' Malena, again. Again.

More of Lorraine a' Malena's music is spinning in my head this morning, and now on my player as I work on the book project. One tune in particular strangely fits the process Chris, Hank and I currently are steeped in -- reading, re-reading, and autopsying Neil's body of work:

"I've been dissecting all the letters that you sent me,
Slicing through them looking for the real you,
Cutting through the fat and gristle
Of each tortuous epistle
Trying to work out what to do..."

- from Postmortem on Our Love (lyrics by Neil Gaiman, music by Lorraine Garland)

That said, though, it's a tune that I still associate with Van Morrison that I hit 'replay' on a couple few too many times:

"I'll tell me ma
When I get home,
The boys won't leave
The girls alone
They pull my hair,
They steal my comb,
But that's all right,
Till I get home..."

Lorraine a' Malena's website is where you can purchase their new CD Mirror Mirror -- Gaiman fans, take note.

You need this CD.

Thanks again, Lorraine, for gracing the week with the copy you gave me!

Today and tomorrow I'll be working through Hank's weekend torrent of chapters, amid transcribing the five hours of interview tapes I came home with; we'll be at this till it's done in the next couple of weeks. Wish us luck!

At last, a photo of the CCS/Bissette booth in the Antique Mall in Quechee, VT; photo by Mark & Kathy Masztal

A few things I didn't get to this week, as yet:

* My old cartooning amigo Mark Masztal and his wife Kathy were in the area this past weekend, and Marge and I managed to join them for breakfast on Tuesday morning at our favorite Windsor eatery Stub & Laura's.

Mark and Kathy were on their second honeymoon, and whilst in the area visited the CCS/Bissette booth at the Quechee Gorge Village Antique Mall -- here's Mark's account of their trip and his plunder.

* I'll use this opportunity to shamelessly plug once again The Center for Cartoon Studies/Bissette booth -- Dealer #653 -- in

said Quechee Gorge Village Antique Mall,

and note this is a perfect shopping spot for Christmas, folks.

The booth is literally jam-packed with one-of-a-kind signed CCS and Bissette collectibles, including signed copies of Sarah Stewart Taylor's mystery novels (sold two more of them yesterday!), James Sturm's graphic novels, Peter Money's poetry tomes, Cayetano 'Cat' Garza original art, Bissette-illustrated ceramics (see Mark's blog, linked above, for a shot of him with his Bissette Quechee Coffee Zombee mug!), lots of CCS student comics/mini-comics/comics packs, and tons of outstanding and curious vintage comics, factory-sealed DVDs, outsider LPs, and much, much more.

Colleen Frakes's Xeric-Award-winning series Tragic Relief is there, complete -- including copies with Colleen's original art packaged with the comics! -- along with almost everything listed here from the CCS Class of 2007! If you can't shop in Quechee, though, click on this link and shop here --

--and here's the online venue for comics and minis from the class of 2008, almost all of which is in the Quechee booth, too, signed and waiting for you.

* While I don't play favorites at CCS, I do want to note among my readings this past week was a most enjoyable re-reading of the first two issues out thus far of Sean Ford's excellent Only Skin: New Tales of the Slow Apocalypse, which is likewise on sale at the booth.

But don't take my word for it -- here's one of the most expansive online reviews of Sean's first issue, check it out.

Then quit dawdling and buy both issues -- while you're at it, get two sets: it'll make a great Christmas gift for some unwary comics-loving soul.

Have a great Sunday...

Neil Gaiman, Here I Come...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Speaking of other people's memory lanes,

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

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

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

the amazing Kaori Hamura, who lives here in Vermont

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quechee Gorge Village

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

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

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

Tip Top Pottery studio,

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

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

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

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


* And in the big bad world:

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great Wednesday, one and all...

FALL FOLIAGE SEASON is Coming --
Center for Cartoon Studies and Bissette Goodies Await You at the Quechee Gorge Village Antique Mall!

For some of you, this is known stuff, for some this is new -- in any case, read on:
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FACT: I've paid out $438.98 to CCSers since May 1st from sales of their work and/or items in the Quechee Gorge Village Antique Mall on Route 4 in Quechee, VT.

So, while the individual check(s) every 2 weeks cut to the students, faculty and community members may seem modest, this retail experiment has begun well for the CCS community, sans any real promotion outside of my modest blog efforts.

CCS student and alumni comics and minis -- like Sean Morgan's Capsule -- are always on sale at the booth!

Now, this isn't about me. I'm still in a loss (though close to moving into profit this month at last), paying the booth rental fee out of my pocket. My goal is to build a vital retail venue for CCSers -- students, instructors and the community -- in the mall, which has much livelier foot traffic than any White River Junction location at this time.

This is where the CCS student, instructor and community's work is made available to the public in a one-stop venue from 10 AM to 5 PM every day. It's working: CCS creations now sell every week now, from individual student minicomics to novels (mystery novelist and CCS writing instructor Sarah Stewart Taylor's novels are always available there, signed, and three sold in a single transaction last week!) to original art (Cayetano Garza's paintings are usually showcased, and we sold one of Cat's originals last week). All the minicomics, comics, graphic novels and books are signed by their creators.

We're also racking a lot of collectibles from our private collections: vintage comics (priced well below Guide, bagged and boarded, or in bargain-priced 'bricks' with a dozen to 50 comics per 'brick'), rare books, paper, records (lots of unusual and outsider music LPs from CCS senior Blair Sterrett's collection), DVDs (most new & factory sealed, including DVDs with our work featured, like Lance Weiler's Head Trauma), videos, curios and oddities... priced from 50 cents and one dollar to dearer prices (though nothing is more than $40 or so).

As of this writing, over 700 items have been racked at the booth since mid-April -- that's a lot of retail traffic in one small booth space! There is always an abundance of unique, sometimes one-of-a-kind collectibles, comics, artwork, oddities and curios at the booth, at your fingertips.

Here's the scoop, folks:
________

Looking for comics, books, art and collectibles by/from The Center for Cartoon Studies students, artists, instructors?

Visit Steve Bissette’s booth at the ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES MALL in QUECHEE GORGE VILLAGE!

It’s just 5 miles from White River Junction -- take ROUTE 4 WEST, from WRJ -- or off Interstate 89, Exit 1, just 2 1/2 miles on ROUTE 4 WEST --
QUECHEE GORGE VILLAGE is on the right, just before the Quechee Gorge -- open every day, 10 AM to 5 PM!


ASK TO SEE DEALER BOOTH #653

For more information, go to http://www.quecheegorge.com/antiques.html
or call 802-295-1550, extension 106.
Email is also an option: quechee@quecheegorge.com
Or write to: Quechee Gorge Village / U.S. Route 4, PO Box 730 / Quechee, VT 05059
__________

One of the booth's exclusives: Bissette Coffee Zombee mugs, each hand-painted and glazed, each one of a kind, and only available at the booth!

For CCS and yours truly, this is a dream venue. Furthermore, the QGV Antique Mall folks only take a percentage two months out of the year -- they take 6% from September and October sales -- so your purchases go directly to the students and CCSers directly, helping them make ends meet and supporting their creative lives.

If you're in the area and you haven't been to the booth as yet, make the trip. The Antique Mall itself is a pretty amazing local resource, well worth a visit.

If you're going to be touring the state this or next month, enjoying the fall colors, plan to stop by the Antique Mall and pay us a visit.

Here's the link, make the trip.

Enjoy!

Have a great Tuesday, one and all...

New Generation Rising
and Shameless Hucksterism 101

Having now completed the five-part interview with Gabby Schulz aka 'Ken Dahl' (final installment was posted late yesterday, see below), I'm going to take a wee blog breather -- noting, however, a plethora of interviews coming up this month.

The CCSers are descending on the upcoming New York City comic con MoCCA in three weeks with their new work. I'll be whetting appetites, introducing these artists and their work, and previewing it all here (with online links, too, for those of you who, like me, won't be attending MoCCA).

Ah, the new harvest of comics and mini-comics from
the Center for Cartoon Studies no-longer-freshmen class!
Photo by Joe Lambert.

In the meantime, allow me to note that there's now over 300 collectibles, curios, comics and items of interest displayed and for sale in my booth (Dealer #653) at the

The Vermont Antique Mall at Quechee Gorge Village on Route 4, just a fifteen minute drive (tops) from the Center for Cartoon Studies.

Many of the CCS artists and students have their current work for sale in the booth, too, along with rare issues of my own work (Swamp Thing, Taboo, Tyrant, comics, zines, etc.), mystery novelist and CCS instructor Sarah Stewart Taylor's complete trio of books, and more -- all signed by the creators.

There's also original art for sale, including some stunning paintings by Cayetano Garza aka Cat, creator of the venerable online comic The Magic Inkwell, and clever packaging of work by folks like Colleen Frakes (whose copies of her new comics series Tragic Relief are for sale with an original ink panel from the comic packaged with every signed copy!).

Some of these are selling well, including gems like Alex Kim's unique silkscreen rock posters, which are real beauties!

I've also begun painting one-of-a-kind zombie coffee mugs -- a bit pricey ($35-40), but they are each original Bissette zombies, in color and preserved in ever-lasting ceramic glory, for your morning java fix, each unlike any other, so it's still a bargain.

These are the kind of items and original collectibles folks will be kicking themselves over not having nabbed them -- and at these kinds of prices! -- years from now, when folks like Colleen and Alex and their CCS peers are big-time cartoonists and Cat's paintings are high-ticket items in international galleries.

And your coffee would taste so much better, right here and now, being sipped from a Bissette Coffee Zombee (TM) mug!

Along with these one-of-a-kind items, I've also jam-packed the booth with all manner of knick-knacks, tallywhacks, dogbones and oddball wonders, priced from just 25 cents to -- well, nothing's more than $35-40, which is pretty much a threshold I intend to maintain. I've also racked a ton of great DVDs, most of them brand-new factory-wrapped classics and curios, with the more adult material (Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles, Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, giallo, spaghetti westerns, Euro-Trash horrors, etc.) locked in the glass cabinet with the signed issues of Taboo, SpiderBaby Comix, and so on.

There's tons of comics from the collections of CCS students, too, and some of Blair Sterrett's amazing LP oddities (including LPs from Mexico, Canada, Germany and elsewhere), and that money goes directly to the students. Again, save for the really precious collectibles, these have all been priced to sell, including huge bricks (and I do mean bricks -- 25 to 60 comics bagged together, in VG+ to mint condition!) of runs, mini-series and title selections from the '80s and '90s, including popular characters & titles from Marvel, DC, Image, Disney, etc.

So, something for everyone, really.

Marge and I will be snapping photos to post here in the coming week -- including shots of those "Zombee Coffee" (TM ) mugs.

So, if you're planning any part of your summer around visiting mid-state Vermont, or the Center for Cartoon Studies, make sure to set aside some time to shop our booth at The Vermont Antique Mall at Quechee Gorge Village -- it's the only ongoing non-internet retail venue for my work and the new community of CCS artists!

Have a great weekend, see you here tomorrow...

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...