Trailers, Taboo, Grimes

More great trailers are up on Trailers From Hell!

Let's see, there's juicy vintage previews to John Frankenheimer's 1966 sf gem Seconds, Peter Brooks's brilliant Lord of the Flies (1963), Albert Zugsmith's definitive '50s paranoia epic Invasion USA, Don Siegel's stunning fusion of Ambrose Bierce and sexual Southern Gothic The Beguiled (1971), the body-count creative-killing subgenre wellspring Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and the long-forgotten but still grand Spanish classic La Residencia/The House That Screamed (1970). The latter is among my personal favorites and came to mind yesterday when I finally got to see The Orphanage (2007) on the big screen, a film that carries the aesthetic of La Residencia into the 21st Century with style.

Taboo 5 cover by Jeff Jones

Taboo Backstock Waning... Don't Wait!

Here's your 2008 wake-up call that my back issue stock of Taboo is dwindling -- click on my site, and go to 'Store' for listings and current prices.

Taboo 6 (with the only published chapter in any venue of Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli's Sweeney Todd) has been out of print and sold out since late 2006, and other issues will be gone for good in 2008, so don't dawdle if you're at all interested.

Cat and I will be finally installing PayPal ordering facilities to the site by April; for now, a peek at the site for choice and pricing, an email to me via msbissette@yahoo.com and a little back-and-forth to complete your order is the procedure, but that'll be streamlined and push-button easy on the site itself soon.

This weekend, Taboo and Rick Grimes fan Ryan Heslin contacted me about Grimes's work in Taboo;

here's one of Ryan's fan sites (for musician Tymon Dogg), and he's intent upon doing the same for Rick Grimes's comics.

Will keep you posted, and overjoyed that Grimes will at last earn the long-deserved attention he and his unique comics creations deserve.

Have a manic Monday...

Beyond the Valley of the Trailers From Hell:
Trailers From Hell Break 100; Panter Book Pending

Gotta dash -- I'm giving six graphic novel lectures in a row at Mascoma High in New Hampshire today! -- but gotta share:

Trailers from Hell, my fave online distraction/attraction, broke 100 trailers this past week! The centennial cherry was near bursting with this gem, appropriately enough:

Russ Meyer's classic 20th Century Fox extravaganza, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls!

The 100th trailer was, in fact, this gem for Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1961).

Better yet is 101:

Nicolas Roeg's immortal 1973 masterpiece Don't Look Now is today's posting,

with more jewels to follow this week: Peter Brook's Lord of the Flies (1963) on Wednesday, John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966) on Friday.

For the whole lineup of delightful previews, here's the place you wanna be.

And for you Gary Panter fans, here's the boss gorilla coming from Picture Box:

GARY PANTER

Two volumes, 688 pages, full color.

The first volume is a comprehensive monograph featuring over 1000 images of paintings, sculptures, posters, comics and drawings complemented by texts from Byron Coley, Richard Gehr, Doug Harvey, Karrie Jacobs, Mike Kelley, Richard Klein, Edwin Pouncey, and Robert Storr, as well as the longest interview to date with the artist. The second volume is a selection from Panter’s voluminous sketchbooks, where the artist’s ideas have long incubated and the site of some of his finest work. Very little of the work contained in these volumes has been published in any form. Check back for previews and more info soon.

Edited by Dan Nadel and designed by Helene Silverman.

Have a Manic Monday -- I will!

Goin' South, Comin' North, The Brain That Wouldn't Die Won't Die -- Again -- and What's Up With My TCJ Sub? Again?

Oh, That Brain: Virginia Leith in her greatest role as Jan, in the pan, and Jason (credited as Herb) Evers as arrogant Dr. Bill Cortner -- what a couple. What a lab. What a movie.

Marge and I had a great trip last week to warmer American climates, visiting family during Marge's only winter break at her job. We were in Austin, Texas for a almost three days, and had a grand time with Marge's oldest son Bill (now Dovid), his wife Rivka and our two grandchildren, now 3 and 5 years old. I also caught up with my older brother; we hadn't seen each other in 22 years, and we managed to get together twice during this excursion. It was great, and we'll not let such a lapse happen again.

In my last couple of hours in Austin, I decided to check out Half-Price Books & Magazines on Lamar, and my search for a copy of Jack Jackson's last published work New Texas History Movies led me to the rare books room -- and Richard Klaw, who I hadn't spoken to or seen almost 15 years. That was a pleasant surprise, too, and a grace note from Texas in what was by far my most rewarding visit to the Lone Star state in this lifetime.

We were then off to Florida to visit my parents, now well into their 80s and still in good health. As with our time in Austin, we were blessed with great weather: lots of sunshine and moderate temperatures. By our second day in Florida, Marge relaxed -- really relaxed -- and savored the vacation time, and we had a grand time with my folks. We were able to watch the total eclipse of the moon until it was fully in Earth's shadow: then the clouds obscured the next phase, and we were off to bed.

The sweet weather held out to the end; flying home on Saturday, we missed the air travel upsets of Friday completely, and were sitting by our gate before the torrential rains hammered Tampa. Our flights went without a hitch, and unlike our Detroit airport experience going south the previous Saturday, we had ample time and an easy jaunt from gate-to-gate en route home. We arrived in Manchester NH on time and drove dry roads home Saturday night.

Ah, sweet home -- we were ready to be here, marvelous though the trip was.

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I can't be the only The Comics Journal subscriber finding it increasingly difficult to assess when my subscription ends, given the new system TCJ apparently adopted a couple of years ago.

First, know I've been a steady subscriber since about 1981; I paid through the period most of my working pro peers in the industry coasted on complimentary subs, and I kept my paid sub going long after my peers gave up on TCJ, refusing to pay for subs once their comps concluded. Regardless, you'd think Fantagraphics would consider a 25+ year customer of some value, especially given the state of the industry, and at least make it easy for me to continue subscribing.

Secondly, the subcription copy envelopes themselves used to give some kind of clue: the penultimate issue in my subscription would alert me to the sub ending next issue, providing the necessary order form and pricing to promptly extend the lapsing subscription. That was a great system, giving me the needed reminder and time to re-up in time to not miss an issue.

Instead, I haven't a clue: for the second time since our move to Windsor in December 2006 -- just over a year -- I am only aware of my TCJ sub apparently ending due to a few months passing without TCJ's arrival.

Whatever the purpose or mysterious meaning of the coding now typed above my printed address on the TCJ subscription envelopes the magazine arrives in, it doesn't seem to have anything to due with the issue number ending my subscription. While doing my taxes for 2007, I note the last issue I received was TCJ #286, the November 2007 issue. I pulled it off my shelves and checked the issue and the envelope, which I'd folded and tucked into the issue as a bookmark. It only says:

193 *********************ORIGIN MIXED ADC 044 S5 P4
USPS (J&J)881 APPROVED POLY
1ST CLASS

-- and then my address. No reference to issue number or month: no 286 or 1107 (November 2007), not a clue my sub just ended.

Thankfully, my TCJ sub didn't lapse before this sweet sweet sweet Roger Langridge cover graced TCJ #284. Sigh. Fin. Fang. Foom.

Like last time, I'll call Fantagraphics today, invest a bit of money beyond the cost of subscription and the necessary time to go through the folderol of ordering the now-missed "back issues" and re-up my sub, but I'm telling ya, Fantagraphics, this is the last time.

I love TCJ, it's a great magazine and it's only improved over the past few years. You're the last standing tie to the comics industry I was once part of -- I let the rest of it go. It would be easy to let this last tie go, but I'd like to stay aboard. As a writer and a teacher, I use TCJ in my work and as a constant reference, and I've been a loyal and paying subscriber for over a quarter century. But in a rather tidy microcosm of what happened with the entire comics industry, it's become an increasingly expensive and high-maintenance process to remain a reader.

It shouldn't be this much work to subscribe. Absence of arrival shouldn't be the only clue you give me that my sub is up. I subscribe to a number of publications, from self-published fanzines to newsstand standbys, and not one of them makes it tough to keep up my sub. You only make it easier each time to forget the subscription altogether, and the more it costs in time and money to re-up and catch-up, the easier it gets to arrive at 'fuck it.'

Please, Fantagraphics, change your subscription labeling system, and restore the 'reminders' of the old system that made it so simple to just write and mail that check.

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For reasons I won't go into here, thinking of Fantagraphics always makes me think of The Brain That Wouldn't Die, which brings me to today's tastiest tidbit.

One of my all-time favorite 1960s horrors is featured today

at my fave internet diversion, Trailers From Hell.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die remains an icon of its era and genre, and my ongoing work on a the definitive overview of the film and its impact got a nifty boost from this surprise Monday morning treat.

Greatest death scene in '60s cinema?: Leslie Daniels as the ill-fated, wither-armed lab ass't Kurt, who never won his Oscar despite his glorious gory demise. Wouldn't you know it, he loses his good arm.

Note, however, the usually well-informed comments of Joe Dante and his site cronies doesn't jive with my experience. The intro note to the Brain trailer says, "...numerous censor cuts for reasons of 'good taste' (as if!) have been since restored and the whole sordid farrago is now available pretty much everywhere in its full, fuzzy public domain gory, er, glory."

I was too young to see The Brain That Wouldn't Die on the big screen (I was 7 when American-International Pictures released the film), but from the moment I first saw it one Saturday afternoon on the now-long-defunct Burlington VT Channel 22 broadcast at the age of 11 or 12, Brain was uncut, its shockingly bloody final act telecast without edits.

Monster in the Closet: real-life giant Eddie Carmel immortalized in Brain's outrageous, amazing, abrupt climax. Some versions of this classic trim shots of Carmel biting a chunk out of Dr. Cortner's throat, pulling the bitten bit out of his mouth to hold it aloft and ponder the trembling shred of flesh, and (best of all) a closeup of the bloody tatter of meat hitting the lab floor -- making Brain the first American splatter movie. Take that, Herschell Gordon Lewis!

I saw the film countless times thereafter, viewed alone on late-night broadcasts and with friends on afternoon telecasts, and it was rarely cut. The original big-box Warner Bros. vhs release in the early '80s offered the most censored version I've ever seen: was this AIP's theatrical release version? So, for this diehard BTWD devotee of 40 years, the cut versions were always the exceptions, not the rule.

The Brain Will Never Die!

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...

Monday Musings: The New MST3000?,Trailers From Hell, Bava Book, More!

I've been meaning to post this link all weekend, but I was too pissed off at our President: my amigo G. Michael Dobbs (Animato!) has this exclusive interview with Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo of MST3000) about the new Murphy/Mike Nelson/Bill Corbett DVD line The Film Crew -- great reading!

Mike loaned me The Film Crew's first two DVDs, and Marge and I greatly enjoyed both. Check Mike's interview with Kevin out, check out The Film Crew!

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Bigger cheaper fun every week awaits you horror/fantasy/sf film fans at Joe Dante and his compadre's Trailers from Hell site, a great way to kick off the week.

Today launches the first trailer with commentary by the director of the film itself: iconoclast Larry Cohen talks about his audacious masterwork God Told Me To aka Demon, the religious film with a difference (or two). No need to wait for the Second Coming:

Larry and his E.T. Jesus await you here & now!

Quite an amazing lineup of trailers and commentators they've amassed at Trailers from Hell, and this far along in their first year of online operation the diversity of material already covered is inspiring. While Joe and his generation of filmmakers are touchstones for me, younger Myrant reaaders note please that Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright has joined the lineup, with some juicy commentary for gems like the Amicus portmanteau classic Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1964) and others -- yours to enjoy with a click of the mouse.

The 'coming soon' lineup is tantalizing: I'm most eagerly anticipating Edgar Wright's take on Gary Sherman's recently recovered (for US audiences, via MGM's Midnite Movies release on DVD) masterpiece Raw Meat, originally released in the UK as Death Line. The film is one of my favorite 1970s horror flicks and among the seminal cannibal movies of all time.

Anyhoot, check out Trailers from Hell, and do so regularly!
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I just received the Fed X notice that my big box of Mario Bava: All The Colors of the Dark books is shipping from my dear friends -- and the book's author, editors and publishers -- Tim and Donna Lucas today. Man, I have been enviously eying

the photos of those who have already received their copies, aching to spend time with this book before the CCS school year (our third year of operation begins today with the first day of classes for the fall 2007 semester) begins.

Understandably, those of us scoring "special inscriptions" waited until last, so I've been patient, though I've been anticipating this book longer than anyone on Planet Earth other than Tim and Donna! Tim and I first made contact back in the early 1980s, upon my reading his article on Bava in Fangoria. I had written my Johnson State College independent study thesis on Bava's films (back in '75-'76), and I immediately mailed Tim my meager Mario clippings, notes, etc. in case they might be of use to him. As I recall, the Boston newspaper clippings of Hallmark Releasing's test marketing of Antefatto/Bay of Blood as Mario Bava's Carnage -- yes, the possessive directorial attribution was on the ad -- "The 2nd Film Rated 'V' for Violence!," was all that was really new to Tim and of use. Still, over the years I've continued to send him this and that (Montreal newspaper microfiche shots of the Quebec theatrical run of Four Times That Night -- a two day run!). I'm still wondering if any if that material made it into the book, but regardless, my humble efforts placed me among Tim's support group over two decades. Ah, memories.

More on the book later this week, I hope... from firsthand exposure.

To sweeten the pot, a new mega-collection of Mario Bava films is forthcoming on DVD from Anchor Bay/Starz; keep an orb out for that, too, and on Tim's Video Watchblog for updates on that impending release.

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Ideological delusions outlast retirement: former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, key to our current disastrous foreign policies and head architect of the even more disastrous wars we're mired in, thinks Afghanistan "a success" and doesn't miss his Commander in Chief.

Just thought you might like to know.

Have a great Monday...

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!