This is gonna be good!

The 2007 MoCCA Arts Festival kicks of this Friday night (June 22nd) with a Paul Hornschemeier Art Show Opening and official MoCCA Kickoff Party at Rocketship in Brooklyn. Then, the Festival opens Saturday morning at 11AM and we have a full slate of author signings all weekend. We have more space than ever at MoCCA this year to make room for all of our latest releases. Stop by and say hi to Comicdom’s beloved Gary Groth as well as our esteemed web guru Mike Baehr (working his first comic convention, so be sure to ask him as many arcane back issue questions as possible). And don’t forget to get your books signed! We’ll have a bunch of great new stuff like our Fletcher Hanks collection, I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS, the latest MOME, Drew Friedman’s THE FUN NEVER STOPS!, Hornschemeier’s aforementioned THREE PARODOXES, Zak Sally’s SAMMY THE MOUSE, Edward Sorel’s JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THINGS COULDN’T GET WORSE, and much more.

Here’s our signing schedule:

SATURDAY:

11:00 Paul Karasik & Glenn Head
12:00 Tom Kaczynski & Kurt Wolfgang & Jonathan Bennett
1:00 Drew Friedman & David Heatley
2:00 Zak Sally & Michael Kupperman
3:00 Miss Lasko-Gross & Paul Hornschemeier
4:00 Ben Catmull & David Sandlin
5:00 R. Kikuo Johnson & John Cuneo

SUNDAY:

11:00 Jonathan Bennett & Tom Kaczynski
12:00 Paul Hornschemeier & Miss Lasko-Gross
1:00 Paul Hornschemeier & John Cuneo
2:00 Paul Karasik & Zak Sally
3:00 Kim Deitch & Michael Kupperman
4:00 Ben Catmull & Kurt Wolfgang
5:00 Glenn Head

We’re quite anxious to read SAMMY THE MOUSE, the new Ignatz title by Zak Sally; if we don’t find a copy in our mailbox this week, we’ll just have to buy one at MoCCA! Sally’s THE RECIDIVIST was one of our favorite indie comics of the last couple of years, and we’re anxious to see how he follows it up with what he says is a funny animal comic. We love funny animals! Why don’t they do more of them these days?

Anyway, in the meantime, Blake Bell has a long interview with Sally about myriad issues:

Blake: Instead of your own printing press, like with your Recidivist books, why go with Fantagraphics/Coconino? How did you make that connection?

Zak: Well, when i finished Recidivist, i’d planned to begin Sammy, but considering that i’d been “planning” Sammy for the previous 6-7 years, actually hunkering down and STARTING it was a pretty daunting idea. I’d been batting around different ideas of format and what have you, figuring i’d just eventually do it on my printing press and release it through La Mano (certainly no one was banging down my door to publish it), but at the same time sort of dreading it.

Putting out your own work is a very liberating and awesome thing to do, but the flip side to that is that it’s a lot more effort and work (and expense) that doesn’t involve the actual writing and drawing of the thing. I was finding it difficult to come up with the energy to…do the whole thing: i just wanted to worry about DOING the WORK.

Here you go! Bare bones! No time for snappy patter! We’ve got things to DO.

HORNSCHEMEIER EAST COAST/MIDWEST TOUR DATES:
WHEN: June 15 - June 17
WHERE: Heroes Con 2007
Charlotte Convention Center
501 S. College St. (& Stonewall Ave.)
Charlotte, NC
704-339-6000
http://www.heroesonline.com/con-update.htm

WHEN: Tuesday, June 19, 3:00PM - 6:00PM
WHERE: Velocity Comics
904 W. Broad St.
Richmond, VA
804-225-7323
http://www.velocitycomics.com/

WHEN: Thursday, June 21, 7:00 - 9:00PM
WHERE: Atomic POP (w/Tao Lin)
3620 Falls Rd.
Baltimore, MD
410-366-1004
http://atomicpop.blogspot.com/

WHEN: Friday, June 22, 8:00PM
WHERE: Rocketship
208 Smith St.
Brooklyn, NY
718-797-1348
http://rocketshipstore.blogspot.com/

WHEN: June 23 - June 24
WHERE: MoCCA Art Festival 2007
Puck Building
293 Lafayette (at Houston)
New York City, NY
http://www.moccany.org/artfest-main.html

WHEN: Wednesday, June 27, 7:30pm
WHERE: Stop Smiling Storefront
1371 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL

Shelf Life Valium

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Now that she’s pregnant. Very pregnant.

We’re spending a little time chilling by the pool*, and sifting through all the pr that’s come through over the last week or so. Still working on a few more essays but that will be when we are a bit more mentally recovered.

* ALERT! METAPHORICAL USE ONLY! NO actual pool lounging meant or implied. In reality we are just sitting here staring at a computer screen.

Cover image via Bully’s Mane Event cover collection and Jacob Covey’s confession that he is a Animal-Fight-Furry:

I can’t really say WHY I’m so drawn to unlikely animal fights portrayed in comics/teen adventure book covers but, man, I really do. My dream is to do a book of animal conflict (ala Beasts!) but I can’t justify it to myself. ANYway, Mike Baehr pointed me to this site which slakes my thirst for Horse Fights. This is the fourth image I’ve found of “Bears Vs. Horses,” the theoretical title to my nonexistent book.

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