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!

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.

Sunday May 17: Maine Comics Arts Festival in Portland, ME. T&H-area exhibitors will include: “official” T&H table (staffed by Colin Tedford), Marek Bennett, Center For Cartoon Studies, Colleen Frakes, Hector Rodriguez, Jennifer Omand, Mark Gonyea, Mike Lynch, Robyn Chapman, Stephanie Piro, Matt Tallbot (creator of the snazzy MECAF poster above), and undoubtedly more, not to mention the Maine and Boston comics contingents and those from farther afield. Panels! Special guests! It’s going to be a great time!

The show will run from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM at the Ocean Gateway, and is organized by longtime T&H supporter Casablanca Comics.

The Center for Cartoon Studies Commencement Ceremony & Thesis Exhibition Opening

White River Junction, Vermont – The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) Commencement Ceremony takes place on Saturday, May 16 at 11am at Northern Stage Theater (at the Briggs Opera House) in White River Junction, Vermont. This year’s Commencement speaker is Jeff Smith, critically acclaimed author of the spectacular graphic novel, BONE. TIME Magazine lauds BONE as “the best all-ages graphic novel yet published.” A special opening reception for the CCS Thesis Exhibition, featuring the graduating students’ original artwork, takes place immediately following the ceremony. Exhibition runs Monday-Saturday, 11am-4pm, through Saturday, June 27.

All events are free and open to the public. Please join us in celebrating our 3rd ever graduation ceremony!

For directions and/or questions: cartoonstudies.org, (802) 295-3319.

I had a blast earlier this month at the Boston Comic Con. Trees & Hills comics didn’t have a new book of its own to sell, but we did have popular new releases by Marek Bennett, Cat Garza and Colleen Frakes. SEEDS, our 2008 anthology of comics about food, was also a hit and this show was the official debut of our second printing.

There were also superheroes there!

50 more photographs of the Boston Comic Con 2009 can be found here at my Facebook page.

50 more photos over at my Facebook page.

Cat Garza, Megan Baehr, Colin Tedford and I dashed down to Easthampton, Mass. Saturday morning for the first annual Webcomics Weekend.

Despite some predictions of doom (will they let us in?), everything seemed to work out fine. We saw lots of old friends and met some new ones. Hopefully, by next year this event will blossom into a real Web comics convention and summit … Trees & Hills would have loved to get a table to sell our comics, but only a select handful of creators were allowed to this year. Still, it was great to peak into the western Massachusetts Web comics empire, all hunkered down in a gorgeous and inspiring old industrial building renovated into studio space.