Table assignements are up for SPX!  I’ll be at table W28, premiering the new Ninth Art Press anthology, The Shirley Jackson Project, edited by Rob Kirby.
Seventeen acclaimed alternative cartoonists explore and celebrate the work of the legendary mid-20th century author Shirley Jackson (“The Lottery,” The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle), including Colleen Frakes, Katie Fricas, Annie Murphy, Josh Simmons, and Maggie Umber. Edited by Ignatz Award-winner Robert Kirby and published by Dan Mazur’s Ninth Art Press.
I published this book (in my Ninth Art Press costume), and I’m also a contributor (gee, they accepted my story!). Â Here’s the first page of my piece:
Sharing the table with me will be my amiable and talented friends, Jesse Lonergan (who will bring his newsprint epic Hedra)….
…and Whit Taylor!  Whit will have a top-secret new project on the table.  No preview available yet, but here’s a peek at her recent piece for the Nib, Finding Your Roots.
I’ll be at the Ninth Art Press/Dan Mazur table (because, y’;know, I am Ninth Art Press) at Boston Comic Con this weekend: August 12-14, table D724. Sharing with me will be the great Jesse Lonergan, who’ll have a selection of prints, along with the magnificent HEDRA. And we’re right next to the Boston Comics Roundtable table (D723), with its world premiere of BOUNDLESS (which I have a story in). Here’s what’ll be on my table:
Lots of great comic art in this show at the MICE space at Lesley. Including the originals for the first three pages of my Sagittarius story from What’s Your Sign, Girl?:
Jon Juniman and Levon Gyulkhasian in the first episode of “The Drawing Board”
Starting this evening  (Sunday at 5:30, then again on Tuesday night at 10), the first episode of “The Drawing Board” will air on Cambridge Community Television. Â
The Drawing Board is a new cable television show featuring independent cartoonists playing drawing games, and being interviewed about their work.  Episode one features Levon Ghulkaysian, Cathy Leamy, Jon Juniman, Dan Mazur, who is also the host of the show.  Susan Chasen is the producer.
Of course, only in Cambridge can you see this show on cable TV, but fear not: the show can be seen on Vimeo as well.
An additional segment from the show, with Heide Solbrig added, will soon be available as a separate bonus game on Vimeo. Youtube soon as well.
In upcoming episodes you can see more cartoonists, like Joel Gill, Mehitabel Glenhaber, EJ Barnes, Zach Giallongo, Roho, Olivia Li, L. J-Baptiste, Cara Bean, Caroline Hu and Donna Martinez.
My new comic, “The Jernegan Solution” will make its debut at MECAF, the Maine Comic Arts Fest, in Portland, on May 17. Based on an historical incident that took place in Maine in the late 1890s, it will be 24 pages, black-and-white, and printed at about 8.5 x 11.  I originally began the project back in 2012, intending it for the Greatest of All Time Comics Anthology, but other work interfered, and I returned to work on it late last year.  Here’s the title/logo I’m working on:
A great comics-themed weekend in Philly, starting with a signing of Comics: a Global History at Penn Book Center. A small crowd, but very interested, asked a lot of questions.
At Locust Moon Comics, Josh O’Neill, Andrew Carl and others were busy hanging the original art from their monumental Little Nemo tribute anthology. A fantastic exhibition it is! And a world-class comics shop.
Saturday, the festival itself. The show had a great vibe, very friendly and jam-packed with great talent (kinda reminded me of MICE). Â And at a beautiful venue, the Rotunda, a down-on-its-heels architectural aristocrat. That’s an enormous pipe organ dominating the rear wall.
I tabled next to Jo Jo Sherrow. The first issue of her mini-comic series Captcha I had bought a few MoCCAs ago, and this was an opportunity to catch up with the next 4 issues. Good stuff, really crazy, about a former mer-cat captured by aliens and living on earth with a bunch of very strange friends, and… words cannot do it justice (at least my words), see for yourself.
On the other side was James Comey, who I’d never met, but whose story follows mine in Colonial Comics… his art is my favorite discovery so far in that book. I was across from Whit Taylor, as well as Mia Schwartz, and one table over past JoJo was Emi Gennis, whose work I’ve also long admired, such as her anthology, Unknown Origins and Untimely Ends. just my cup of tea. Emi specializes in non-fiction, especially true crime, and I bought her mini, the grisly true story, “The Unusual Death of Gregory Biggs.”
Thanks to Jason Rodriguez for letting me tag along to a dinner with some new friends: Bill Campbell, Micheline Hess, John Kim, Eric Battle and Mike Cowgill.Â
I hate to pick a highlight, but at the after-party, a drawing competition took place, the challenge was to draw the store’s black cat. It started with a head-to-head between Paul Pope and Bill Sinkiewicz, a breathtaking display of graphic facility and imagination. When Pope looked up from his drawing and saw what Sienkiewicz was up to, he said, “whoa… a Jimi Hendrix solo!”
Sienkiewicz vs. Pope, as Haspiel, Benton and others look on. (photo stolen from Jason Rodriguez)Sienkiewicz vs Pope. “A Jimi Hendrix solo!” Photo “borrowed” from Jason Rodriguez
And it didn’t end there, as Dean Haspiel, Gregory Benton, Ron Wimberly and some other talented people whose names I didn’t catch followed with their own tours-de-force.
Some of the drawings from the impromptu competition. From right: Benton’s, Haspiel’s, Pope’s… I’m not sure whose drawing in this shot, but the drawing to his left is by Ron Wimberly. That’s all I can id.
I have a story in each of three anthologies making their debut at MICE this year (well one is making its New England debut, the other two are totally legit).
In SubCultures, you will find Esperantists, a non-fiction piece about Esperanto speakers (especially native Esperanto speakers). Â For this story I interviewd 5 Esperanto speakers and intercut their stories, along with a little history, and some Esperanto Fun Facts.
Last but not least, in Hellbound V: the End, I have A History of the Hollywood Musical.  It’s a horror anthology, and my story is certainly off-kilter with the genre. I guess it’s a sort of a Twlight Zone-ish story.  Kind of.  Except with a dog.  I already posted page one, so here’s page two:I’ll be at table D11 at MICE, by the way: that’s table 11 in Doucet Hall, named for guess who?  And look at this wonderful map by Shelli Paroline!Â
The MICE festivities kick off with an art show reception this Friday!  Come join us… snacks and wine and some great original comic art by Boston-area (mostly) cartoonists and  MICE exhibitors.  Click here for a list of all the artists.
As a publisher (of Ninth Art Press), I’m very excited about this project: the SubCultures Anthology.
The cover of the book – by Box Brown
It was conceived and edited by Whit Taylor, and she has put together an outstanding collection of stories, by 36 different creators, about various subcultures.  I’m not only the publisher, I’m a contributor, with a story about Esperanto speakers (focusing on native Esperanto speakers); I’ll  post some more about my contribution soon. Meantime, to se lots of previews and to pre-order the book (it will be physically available in early September), go here.
“in Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present, [Mazur and Danner] do an admirable job with a nearly impossible task: providing an encyclopedic overview of important comics throughout the world during that era – popular comics and alternative comics, comics from Japan, Europe and the United States, comics from different schools of thought and design, comics using diverse styles, comics presented sometimes in dramatically diverse ways – and Mazur and Danner do so with a smart focus.”
