Burlington artist Gregory Giordano – who did that fantastic NEW STARS cover for us – landed the cover of Seven Days this week, Vermont’s large alternative weekly, with a Halloween-themed cover. Giordano went the extra mile to get a mention of the Sputnik-theme anthology comic and the Trees & Hills comics group in his bio that the paper published! These are just a few of the reasons we love him.

Congratulations to CCS grad Colleen Frakes , who returned to Vermont from SPX last week to discover that she has been awarded an Xeric Grant. Frakes plans to use the grant to publish a collection of her awesome mini-comic TRAGIC RELIEF for MoCCA 2008.

In case you didn’t hear: Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau came to the Center for Cartoon Studies! Here’s the Associated Press story about him speaking to the students there and here’s my story for the Rutland Herald and the Times Argus on his lecture he gave that evening to a sold-out crowd of 250.

Keene, N.H. Cartoonist Tim Hulsizer, the fine artist of the first issue of $ELL OUTS, first issue out in March 2008, has posted rare strips that Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson did for his college newspaper. His find has been linked by Heidi MacDonald’s The Beat, BoingBoing and others. But we all know Tim is really just upping the ante for me to post the Frank Miller high school newspaper strips that I have.

There’s a few Trees & Hills members that also appear in the new DEAD MAN’S HAND anthology ,published by Tree Fort Press, a new publishing group that has formed in the CCS community in the White River Junction, Vt. area. The square-bound book looks great and is shock full of western comics, including a new story by Stephen R. Bissette. Other notable contributors include Morgan Pielli, Cat Garza, Bryan Stone, Colleen Frakes, Megan Baehr and a story written by myself and drawn by Bill Couture!

Trees & Hills latest anthology NEW STARS is now available for online purchase at Trees & Hills Comix Distro! The anthology debuted at SPX in October 2007, and since that month also marked the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, we took that as our theme. We’re not some kind of fascists, though, so every piece didn’t have to be about Sputnik itself - most of them do relate to space in some way, though. This all-ages anthology by the Trees & Hills Comic Group features an eye-popping full-color cover by Gregory Giordano and comics by Daniel Barlow, Marek Bennett, Miles Cota, Colleen Frakes, Cat Garza, Chris Grotke, Jade Harmon, Tim Hulsizer, Matt Levin, Keith Moriarty, Kathie Mullen, Raymond Prado, Matthew Reidsma, Colin Tedford, and Anne Thalheimer. 5.5″ x 8.5″, 52 pgs. $3.00

I’m pleased to announce that Colin’s Comix Distro has finally grown into the Trees & Hills Comix Distro, an “official” organ of the group, with T&H cofounder Daniel Barlow of VT and cartoonist & columnist Anne Thalheimer of western MA coming on board - you can check it out via the ‘Shop’ link on the site menu. In honor of the changeover, I’m bringing the online stock up to date, starting with these comics by Marek Bennett:

The Making Of…24 Hour Comic, Mimi’s Doughnuts #9 (Fall 2006), and Mimi’s Doughnuts #10 (Winter 2006-7). Read an interview with Marek and a review of Mimi’s Doughnuts #10 in our ‘Articles’ section. Marek will be at the Trees & Hills table (S32, upstairs) at MoCCA June 23-24 in NYC.

Also in the Shop, you can now acquire some comics by Matt Levin:

Matt takes the unique approach of mostly using and manipulating rubber stamp images to make his comics. We have Walking Man Comics Presents Special #34: Myths And Magic, WMCPS #7: New England Patriot, Musicomics #1: Sink Or Swim, Musicomics #7: You Know Who, and Musicomics #13: Saturday Dreams.

There are also more Articles: Stephen Bissette’s interviews with Center For Cartoon Studies Fellow Gabby Schulz (aka “Ken Dahl”) and CCS graduate Colleen Frakes, plus 2 more Fleen columns by Anne Thalheimer.