To Our Friends Across the Sea

Chris Sparks has agreed to act as our International Sales Representative. Meaning those of you who wished to buy a copy of Richard's Poor Almanac but were stymied by accidents of geography from ordering from One More Page Books should email Chris at jeditrue@gmail.com (I told you he was a fanboy) and give him your particulars. For only $20 plus shipping Chris will send you a rare, desirable, unfoxed first edition* of RPA, in the original untranslated English! As a bonus your package will be postmarked from Asheville, North Carolina, America's premier destination for fun!

*Ha! Like there was a second!

Hey! Mr. or Ms. Comics Professional!

Do you see this man? It's Chris Sparks, my friend and inspiration, the perfect audience, tireless supporter and fanboy miracle worker non-pariel. His good work as a fund-raiser, comics enthusiast, social director, brace and stalker add up to a debt I can never hope to repay. But I can do this: today's the final day of voting for the Eisner Awards. GO RIGHT NOW THIS SITE and vote a straight Chris Sparks/Team Cul de Sac ticket. If you do then Chris's trip to San Diego Comicon 2013, site of the Eisner Awards Ceremony, will have the happy outcome he deserves. And he won't return home to his daughter, the adorable Emily, empty-handed.

Heroescon 2013

I know some of you will be attending Heroescon in Charlotte, NC this weekend. I wish I was! And not just for a plateful of Mert's shrimp and grits! If I was in Charlotte this Friday evening I'd be at the 3rd Annual Drink and Draw, where miracle worker Chris Sparks has assembled an eye-popping collection of books and art to be auctioned off for Team Cul de Sac (haven't we beat Parkinson's yet?). Among the fabulous swag Chris has pulled out of his sleeve: a copy of Maus, signed by & sketched in by the legendary Art Spiegelman; the paperback complete Calvin & Hobbes, signed by the so-legendary-he-may-be-imaginary Bill Watterson; and original art by cartoonists Patrick McDonnell, Mark Tatulli, Terri Libenson, Dan Piraro, John Hambrock, Jim Borgman, Ron Ferdinand, Bill Holbrook, Brian Bassett and Mo Willems.

Wow! What an array of fabulous swag! Of course, since it's Drink & Draw, the place will be crammed with artists, amateur and professional, doing just that! And the results of their labors will also be auctioned, the proceeds going to Team Cul de Sac! While you're out wandering the convention floor be sure to look for Chris's table at the address below. He'll have all kinds of stuff, including about 40 copies of Richard's Poor Almanac! Please say Hi to Chris for me, and find out if he's figured out a way to fedex plates of shrimp & grits directly from Mert's.

Twittering Machine

Anything you need to ask in 140 characters or less, well, now's your chance! Please, no answers requiring words of 9 or more characters or the letters Q, Z, M, Ø or Ç.

BUGS!

I'm happy to hear that Cicadas, these from Brood II, are popping up in the area, because this blog deals mostly in repeats and I've got some old Poor Almanacs just full of Cicadas! They all date from 2004, when the most recent infestation of the 17-year variety erupted in the East.

 And here's an early CdS with a cicada theme. it was redrawn for syndication and reused.  Who knew cicadas were such comedy goldmines? I hope they come back more often!

Who Wants a Copy of Richard's Poor Almanac?

The statistics above are provided by Amazon.com, where they used to appear on the page for the paperback collection of Richard's Poor Almanac. I'm not really sure what they mean, but boy, whatever they're describing sounds great, and it's probably a bargain, too. Or it would be if you could find it for less than $82.49.

Well now you can! As I've mentioned before, our fine local independent bookstore One More Page Books, under exclusive contract*, is the sole vendor of all those copies of Richard's Poor Almanac I bought cheap when the publisher went under. I mention this because my wife just dropped off a whole box of the wretched things because we're moving and space is tight. SIGNED COPIES are going for the original cover price of $15 (that's in 2004 dollars!) and they'll ship your book right to your door for just $4. Run on over to 2200 N. Westmoreland Street, Suite 101 Arlington, VA,  22213 or call 703-300-9746 or email info@onemorepagebooks.com. Mention that you saw this offer on my blog and you'll get a blank stare!

Foreword, Ho!

You may recall my post of about two months ago announcing the complete Cul de Sac, coming this November but available for pre-order from Amazon at a price that fluctuates mysteriously but currently holds at $43.22. If you think that's a bargain, get a load of this.

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Mr. Chris Sparks the foreword to this mammoth undertaking is being written by the renowned artist, editor, graphical polymath and all-around comix passionalist Art Spiegelman! Art joins a short line of other comics notables, like Pat Oliphant,  Bill Watterson, Mo Willems and Lincoln Peirce, who've attested to my overall lack of objectionable qualities. I've been very fortunate in the people who've written forewords for my books.

Except for Peter (Petey) Otterloop, Jr.. In his rather ungenerous foreword to the third CdS book, Shapes & Colors he wrote,

Cul de Sac is not my favorite comic strip. It's OK, but it's not my favorite (comic strip) and I didn't finish reading this book. All I got to was page 32 and I figured it wouldn't get better. There's too much talking and running and small kids and yelling and the colors are too bright. My favorite comic strip is Little Neuro. I like it because there's a lot less talking and running and the colors are not so bright. Little Neuro jokes are better than Cul de Sac jokes too. Cul de Sac has things like jokes but without the funny part at the end.

Also the back of my head doesn't look like that, so Cul de Sac is not an accurate comic strip.

 I'm confident Art Spiegelman will write something a bit more professional. Especially as, to the best of my knowledge, the back of his head has never appeared in the strip.

FCBD; Lo, It Approacheths Ever Nearer, A Lazy Repost

As everyone on Earth knows, Saturday is Free Comic Book Day. Here, again, are Poor Almanacs  that celebrated this fine national holiday. Mangaloid Wars X: Giant Spazzoid Zombie Robots Invade (third below) is the best thing I've ever written, I think. I should've had Petey read that comic.

Two of these are in the collection of Mr.Mike Rhode and the other two are in the collection of Mr.Paul Karasik.