If you plan to attend this coming Saturday’s Nicaragua / Shelter release party at Hub Comics in Somerville MA, you should also plan to attend the release party for the Boston Comics Rountable’s history-themed Inbound #4 anthology at Atomic Bean Cafe in Cambridge beforehand. New England Comics Power!

On Sunday December 13 Trees & Hills has a table at the Stars & Skulls Craft Fair in Hadley, MA. Anne Thalheimer will have her own table with her comics and monster hats; come on out and see us!

In addition to this coming Wednesday’s Nicaragua / Shelter release party at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction VT, we’ll be having one December 5 at Hub Comics in Somerville MA!

New England group tackles housing issues with new comic anthology

Trees & Hills comic group releases SHELTER this week at major comic festival

MONTPELIER, Vt. – The Trees & Hills comic group believes everyone needs a home.

And this week the New England comic organization releases “Shelter,” a new comic anthology featuring more than a dozen cartoonists from Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts writing and drawing about why we need homes and what happens when you don’t have one.

Topics of the comics include alternative living structures and how one of the most basic needs of a society may be moving further out of reach for many people. Twenty-five percent of all sales for the $4 comic will be donated to organizations that work to get people into homes.

“We wanted to take the next step beyond just making comics about an issue that is important to us to actually trying to help,” said Colin Tedford, one of the co-founders of Trees & Hills. “Both methods of social change can be equally effective.”

Trees & Hills formed in 2006 after Tedford, a New Hampshire cartoonist, met Daniel Barlow, a Vermont writer, at a 24-Hour comic event, a unique challenge that has participants create a 24-page comic in 24 consecutive hours. More than 50 comic creators turned out for the event, held at a museum in Brattleboro, Vt.

“Turns out there were a lot of people right in my own backyard making comics,” said Barlow. “Colin and I both realized that we could all benefit from working together.

SHELTER is a follow-up to 2008’s comic anthology, SEEDS, which tackled the topic of food – including social issues, such as eating local and healthy (but also how yummy it can be too). The comic was an instant success and is nearly sold out of its second printing.

SHELTER debuts at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland on Sept. 25-26. Following the show, the 52-page comic will be available for sale at the organization’s Web site, www.treesandhills.org.

The comic features a cover by Matthew Young, a graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vt. and contributions from Ignatz Award nominees Colleen Frakes and Cayetano Garza Jr.

Other creators in the comic are Marek Bennett, Anne Thalheimer, Jesse DuRona, Tom Pappalardo, Sam Leveillee, Madsahara, Blake Parker and Matt Levin. Tedford, Barlow and Thalheimer served as editors.

This Saturday September 12, Trees & Hills will set up tables at two different events:

White River Junction, VT 9am-5pm
Center For Cartoon Studies Open House and Book Sale at the Glory Days Festival
The Glory Days Festival is a family-oriented, fun-filled, day-long celebration of railroading - past, present and future. During the event The Center for Cartoon Studies will open its classroom and gallery to all visitors, book-lovers and comics enthusiasts. Hundreds of new and used graphic novels will be on sale at discount prices. CCS students and alumni will be on hand to sell their own comic book creations. Special guest Steve Bissette will be signing the new Vermont Monster Guide and selling sketches. Buy BRAND new CCS products (Special CCS Ed Emberley T-shirts, New Schulz Library book bags, and special limited edition pencil packs!). Stop by and get a free comics grab bag!

Winchester, NH 10am-4pm
Winchester Pickle Festival
Winchester’s annual Pickle Festival is an old-fashioned town fair, fun for all. Downtown Winchester becomes the fairgrounds, with Main Street (Route 10) the parade route in the morning. Kids march along with the parade, which features local pickle-themed floats, plenty of pickle costumes and marching bands. Along the route are craftsmen (many demonstrating), food booths, and a lively competition among local cooks for the best jar of pickles. There are free pickles for everyone! Live music goes on all day, with everything from blues and country-western to a barbershop quartet and violin ensemble.

Visit either (or both!) of these events to say hi, pick up some local comics, and experience railroad- or pickle-themed fun!

EDIT (Fri. 9/11): As tomorrow’s weather outlook is getting grimmer by the hour, the unprotected-by-a-canopy T&H table will almost certainly not be set up at the Winchester Pickle Festival. This makes us sad.

“Around the Neighborhood” is an exhibit of original cartoon art for the editorial page of the (Greenfield, MA) Recorder by occasional local political cartoonist E. J. Barnes, up through 31 July 2009 at Green Fields Market in Greenfield, MA.

Since 2005, E. J. Barnes has produced approximately-monthly political cartoons for the Recorder on topics relevant to Greenfield, Franklin County, and Massachusetts at large.  Her most recent exhibition of Recorder art focuses on her work from 2007 to the present.  The Recorder is the daily newspaper of Greenfield, Franklin County, and the North Quabbin region.

In addition, there are cartoons that have appeared in The Commons, a Brattleboro, VT newsmonthly, and an illustration to accompany a Recorder “Life & Times” article by Chip Ainsworth in 2008.

The art is on display in the store’s two sit-down eating areas, at the front facing Main Street near the deli, and on the mezzanine near the rear of the store.  There will be an opening reception with refreshments on Sunday, 5 July, 2–5pm on the mezzanine.

Green Fields Market is the food co-op of Greenfield, MA, located at 144 Main Street (Route 2A) in downtown Greenfield.  There is free parking at the back of the store accessible from Wells Street.  Bicycle parking is at the back entrance.  The neighborhood is also accessible via Franklin Regional Tranportation Authority buses (see http://www.frta.org).

“Five Valley Cartoonists:  Gags, Politics, Fantasy” is an exhibit of artwork by four cartoon and comics artists from Massachusetts, and one from Connecticut, showing at the Amherst (MA) Area Chamber of Commerce in July 2009.

The show will include illustrated posters by Gonzo Comix and Tours principal Rebecca Migdal, collages on Blacks in comics by Looking For a Face Like Mine author William H. Foster III, humorous reverse paintings on glass by Gallery A3 member Helena Dooley, original comics pages by Pop Cultures’ Kids creator Mark Stacy, and watercolor cartoons by (Greenfield, MA) Recorder editorial cartoonist E. J. Barnes.

The show will be open to the public Monday through Friday, 9am–4:30pm, from Tuesday, 30 June to Friday, 31 July.  There will be an opening reception with refreshements on Thursday, 2 July, 5–8pm as part of the monthly Amherst ArtWalk.

The Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce is at 28 Amity Street in downtown Amherst, at the front of the Amherst Cinema building and right next to Amherst Coffee.  There is a small, metered parking lot directly next to the building, as well as metered parking on the street and nearby on the Amherst Common, as well as ticket-machine parking a few blocks away in the Boltwood Parking Garage between Main Street and Kellogg Avenue.  Several Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus routes stop a block or so away (see http://www.pvta.com).  Bicycle parking can be found along the left side of the Amherst Cinema building.

If you missed Tales of the Ling Master artist E. J. Barnes’s table at MoCCA ArtFest earlier this month, E. J. will be returning to Wizard World Philadelphia during Father’s Day weekend, 19–21 June, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia.  You can find her in Artists’ Alley all three days, starting midafternoon Friday (the show starts at 12 but due to transportation connections, E. J. will almost certainly not be there before 2pm.)

E. J. has two new Ling Master publications, collecting a total of 6 “Blaster” Al Ackerman stories, including reprints of 3 stories originally printed as one-shots, now with updated art.  The new, 28-page digest-sized minis, Blaster Al Ackerman’s Tales of the Ling Master #1 and Blaster Al Ackerman’s Tales of the Ling Master #2, which premièred at the 2009 MoCCA ArtFest, will be just a few of the items that are new since E. J.’s last visit to Wizard World Philly in 2007.

If you miss E. J. at the show, these comics and other goodies are now available on E. J.’s website at www.ejbarnes.com.  You can purchase them online using PayPal, or visit any of the fine comic and book shops that currently carry E. J.’s comics, which are distributed by Trees & Hills in New England, and Tony Shenton elsewhere in the USA.

TREES & HILLS COMIC GROUP RELEASES FIRST BOOK
“First Harvest” debuts this week at major indie show in New York City

MONTPELIER, Vt. – Trees & Hills comic group releases its first book collection of comics this week at the MoCCA Arts Festival in New York City.

“First Harvest: Trees & Hills comics volume one” features more than 150 pages of cartoons from two dozen creators in Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts.

The book contains reader favorites from Trees & Hills’ first four mini-comic anthologies, published between Fall 2006 and Summer 2008, along with new work by creators in the New England region. Contributors include industry legends such as Stephen R. Bissette and Mark Martin and up-and-coming talent like Colleen Frakes and Marek Bennett.

“There’s some amazing work in here and we’re proud to put it in book form where it will remain in print,” said Dan Barlow, a Vermont writer and the co-founder of Trees & Hills. “These are the roots of the Trees & Hills comic group and they are strong.”

“First Harvest” will be available on June 6 & 7 at the Trees & Hills table at the MoCCA Arts Festival. The book features a color cover by Vermont artist Megan Baehr and will sell for $10. The book will also be available to purchase from the Trees & Hills Web site one week after the show.

Trees & Hills comic group formed in 2006 with the mission of developing a strong community among cartoonists and other comic creators in Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts.

Last year, the group published the successful “Seeds: An Anthology of Comics About Food” mini-comic, featuring comics about nutrition, eating organic and local and alternative food lifestyles. “Seeds” sold out just months after the debut and is now in its second printing.

Copies of “Seeds” will also be available at MoCCA this week. The $5 comic comes with a recipe booklet and a packet of organic seeds from a Vermont farm.

New Hampshire cartoonist and Trees & Hills co-founder Colin Tedford said the publication of “Seeds” last year has inspired the group to a new focus on socially-progressive comic anthologies. “First Harvest” closes the door on the first chapter of the group, he explained.

“Each new anthology we produced marked a progression, but Seeds was a real turning point for us - we realized, ‘This is what we need to do,’” Tedford said. “First Harvest is a record of where we’ve been. It feels good to have that, where a few years ago there was no such thing.”

Fall 2009 sees the release of “Shelter,” a new Trees & Hills mini-comic anthology focusing on issues of housing and homes. The comic will debut at the Small Press Expo in Maryland on Sept. 26.

“First Harvest” contributors include Megan Baehr, Matt Levin, Chris Grotke, Matthew Reidsma, Anne Thalheimer, Mark Martin, Bryan Stone, Colleen Frakes, Morgan Pielli, Stephen R. Bissette, Daniel Bissette, Meagan Frappiea, Colin Tedford, Keith Moriarty, Blake Parker, Benjamin Kalish, Miles Cota, Ray Prado, M.R. Wilson, Bill Couture, Marek Bennett, Jade Harmon, Mark Gonyea, Jennifer Omand, Matthew Young, Tim Hulsizer, Cayetano Garza Jr. and Gregory Giordano.

For more information, visit www.treesandhills.org