Know this: All kids like drawing comics. Let’s keep ‘em drawing. And Marek Bennett (above) clearly knows how.

More photos from Trees & Hills’ appearance at the Arts Alive! Festival in Dover, NH on Saturday can be found at our new official Flickr page.

This set is from Mr. Bennett. Pay him a visit at www.marekbennett.com

“MIMI’S DOUGHNUTS” WINS XERIC AWARD

Prestigious Self-Publishing Grant Goes to New Hampshire Comic Strip

Henniker, New Hampshire — The weekly comic strip “Mimi’s Doughnuts” has won a coveted Xeric Grant for comic book self-publishing. With this award, creator Marek Bennett will self-publish a trade paperback anthology of the past four years of his comics.

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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

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Colin! Emergency! NEW STARS selling out!

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Huge crowds… milling about… must talk to every customer…

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CCS Alumni holding our right flank… Much mob interest in their work, too… “Dead Man’s Hand” nominated for Outstanding Debut Award…

Boston comics group also here in force… Must get to their table…

Dan going back to hotel room for reserve copies of anthology…

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“Field Guide” anthology also sold out! Marek sold out of ADULT MEDIUM T-shirts!

SEND REINFORCEMENTS BEFORE IT’S TOO LA———

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Yes, folks, it’s official. I’m starting my own blog. I’m tired of watching all of you have all the bloggy fun! You can find me at http://marekbennett.blogspot.com/, where I’ll do my best to keep you posted on all sorts of stuff related to comics and education and comics education. Your comments are appreciated!

On-deck for future posts will be my notes from MoCCA ‘07 (remember that?).

N.H. cartoonist Marek Bennett mans the Trees & Hills / Mimi’s Doughnuts table at the 2007 MoCCA convention in New York City on June 23. Thanks to Matthew Reidsma for the photo.

We met a lot of people who previously had never heard of the Trees & Hills comics group. And we sold and gave away lots of comics, including our new 52-page anthology, Field Guide to Cartoonists of Vermont, New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts.

Trees & Hills members walked away from MoCCA 2007 tired and partly bruised, but with open eyes and excitement for the future. Here are a few thoughts, three days after the end of the show.

1)Location: The Trees & Hills/ Mimi’s Doughnuts table was located on the seventh floor of the Puck Building, six floors up from the three other MoCCA rooms. This meant we got about one-fourth the traffic that the other floors saw, but the incoming natural light and breathing room turned our floor into a nice island away from the bustle of the convention.

Reviews are a bit mixed on this. Marek Bennett (Mimi’s Doughnuts) preferred the location. But he’s a true natural with relating to people and sold what appeared to be a good number of comics and a few shirts. Trees & Hills co-founder Colin Tedford and I felt that the access that the downstairs floor would have given us outweighed the nice, upper floor atmosphere.

2)Comics. We got Trees & Hills comics into a lot of fan’s hands, including an editor at DC Vertigo, several small press publishers, The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald (who later posted a picture of me and listed the anthology title on her blog), Brian Wood (a former Vermonter) and lots of others. This was clearly a success and at least one big indie publisher expressed interest in a graphic novel one of our cartoonists is working on and I was told by a major publisher that I should pitch to them.

3)Vermont Comics. The Green Mountain State was well represented. The Center for Cartoon Studies had two tables at the show and their SUNDAYS anthology sold out on, appropriately, Sunday, and was one of the true buzz books of the show. Rick Veitch (Army @ Love, Rare Bit Fiends) was right around the corner from our table and he had some nice original pages for sale. Alison Bechdel had a huge line for sketches, which nicely occurred directly behind our table.

We did expect to sell more comics. For me, the show did highlight the oddity that – at this level of the comics industry at least – we are almost all operating at a loss. But its the love that keeps us doing it, even if sales are fractions of costs.

Still, the networking and the crackling energy and excitement and the after parties (monsters dancing on stripper poles!) made it all worth every cent. On the second day of the show, I happily put down the $325 to lock in our table for next year.

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.