Center for Cartoon Studies student Bryan Stone wrote in today to let us know that the school WILL BE hosting a 24-Hour Comic event this Saturday, Oct. 20 in White River Junction, Vt.

Start time is noon Saturday and the whole thing will finish by noon Sunday. I’m sitting this one out (still too tired from SPX), but I’m sure several other Trees & Hills regulars will be over there.

This was my first Small Press Expo in Maryland and I gotta say I’m impressed. Smaller and maybe less as quirky as MoCCA, the show still felt like busy, friendly and really, I dunno, happening and hip and other encouraging h words.

Elsewhere on the Internet, you can find all the pictures of gorillas winning Ignatzs and a brief, busy party called the Nerdlinger Awards with a bathtub full of ice and drinks, but these are the images that stick in my head for SPX 2007.

Thursday
Flew out of Manchester, N.H. And into Baltimore with Marek Bennett After a maze of buses and subways, got picked up in D.C. By his friend, Karen, who works over at a famous think tank. After the midnight tour of the city, we called it a night around 1 a.m. That would be the most sleep I get all weekend.

Friday
It was odd at first to be set up by 11 a.m. and then not have people start shuffling in for another three hours (the show, on the first day, began at 2 p.m.). Still, gave me time to say hello to a few people and eat an apple on the grass in the sun.

The Trees & Hills/ Mimi’s Doughnuts table was near the front door, the first table in on one of the center aisles. Pretty great location, especially considering I Know Joe Kimball, the collective of Center for Cartoon Studies students and graduates who debuted the Dead Man’s Hand western anthology (which I and several other Trees & Hills regulars are published in), were right next to us. The Center for Cartoon Studies was nearby too, along with the SUNDAYs collective, another group that has sprung from CCS.

We were debuting NEW STARS, our new mini-comic anthology with comics inspired by the Sputnik launch 50 years ago this month. Marek had a new copy of his Mimi’s Doughnuts Zine, which also featured a story about Sputnik. We did a package deal of the two for $6 and that seemed to seal several sales.

Several times I had people come up to the table because they had heard about NEW STARS and sometime over the weekend Matthew Reidsma
sold out of all but one of his contributor copies because people just saw it at his table and wanted to buy it.

The book sold pretty well, I think, because of the hook of its theme (I’ll forever have the pitch, which I probably repeated 1,000 times, stuck in my head) and because of the gorgeous cover image by Gregory Giordano

Tim Hulsizershowed up Friday afternoon with Meagan Frappiea, finally sealing the wonderful fact that I both had a hotel room there to sleep in and my own bed in that hotel room. Tim got me into a great party over in Sara Bauer’s hotel room, who thankfully had a corkscrew for the two bottles of wine that I wanted to share with people.

One thing I noticed was the the attendees were mostly looking for square-bound collections of comics or graphic novels. We did well with out self-published mini-comic anthology, but even when I did my buying, it was more for the collected books of creators I know than new mini-comics, which I usually try to do at these events.

There just seemed to be so many cartoonists who last year had minis and this year had professional and beautiful collected books. Great for them and an interesting trend, I think, because I suddenly found myself spending money on say, Julia Wertz’s FartParty collection from Atomic Press, than buying an armload of $3 minis from a bunch of great new creators I never heard of.

Saturday
We did great on the second day. Within the first three hours I had surpassed the previous day’s sales. I bumped into The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald and gave her a copy of NEW STARS. She told me she posted my press release a few days ago – it’s right over here. I had no idea because I felt like I hadn’t been on the Internet at that point since 1996.

I drank wine at the Ignatz Awards (Dead Man’s Hand was nominated for the debut comic award!) and met comics writer Matt Rhodesand his wife, Shannon, with whom I would later spend a good part of the evening with chatting about Alan Moore, Amsterdam, tattoos and the nature of the universe. Somehow I ended up in Kevin Dixon’s hotel room talking about Fats Domino and Alf.

Sunday

With a flight scheduled for the early evening, I only sat in on on the day’s first panel on media and comics, which distributed vital info on things like sending your comic to a magazine to be reviewed or how long your press release should be. Already being in that biz, little was knew to me, but I did catch a glimpse of my Internet dream girl Whitney Mattheson, the blogger behind USA Today’s Pop Candy.

SPX felt more social and even communal than MoCCA, mostly because this show is much smaller and is held in a hotel, where most of the exhibitors are staying too. It’s also a really energizing convention; Marek and I chatted on the way home Sunday about future plans, both for our comics and the Trees & Hills comics group.

I know I’m going to forget people, but shout-outs to Dave Kender, the founder of The Boston Comics Roundtable and Bellen’s Box Brown, two people I was hoping to spend more time with.

Next year: camera, blogging during the conventions, more comics for sale and a vow that I will go to bed at a decent time one of the nights.

ZZZZZZZZZTTTT!

Colin! Emergency! NEW STARS selling out!

KKKXXKKK-ZZZZTTT!

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

KKKKKKKKKKTTTT!

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…

ZZZT!

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

SEND REINFORCEMENTS BEFORE IT’S TOO LA———

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZK****

I’ll be at the Trees & Hills table at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland Friday and Saturday. Mimi’s Doughnuts’ Marek Bennett will be there too.

NEW STARS, which is printing right now, will be available at table G1 for only three bucks. We’re near the front doors, so hopefully you can find us!

Cat Garza’s space tale continues! Read the rest of the story - and more than a dozen others - in the NEW STARS anthology from the Trees & Hills comics group. On sale this week at SPX!

Here’s page one of Cat Garza’s contribution to NEW STARS, the Trees & Hills comics group’s new anthology of work by New England creators inspired by the launch of Sputnik 50 years ago this month!

You can read the whole thing in NEW STARS, on sale next week at the Small Press Expo in Maryland. Only $3!

The final page of the NEW STARS anthology story by Dan Barlow, Keith Moriarty and Tim Hulsizer, the team that brings you $ELL OUTS. More than 50 pages of cartoons by New England folks inspired by the launch of Sputnik 50 years ago. On sale next week at SPX!

Just back from camping and I thought I’d post the first page to “The Cosmic Cocktail Conundrum,” the story that will be printed in the new Trees & Hills anthology, NEW STARS, which we’re publishing in time for the Small Press Expo later this month.

NEW STARS is our third anthology book and our first themed one. Full on promotion to begin this week. Tons of comics inspired by the 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite, which kicked off the space race.

Other contributions to the book include Matthew Reidsma, Cat Garza, Marek Bennett and a host of others. 52 pages of comics by people from New England for only $3!

This comic is brought to you by the $ELL OUTS team of myself, Keith Moriarty and Tim Hulsizer. Two more pages to follow later. And for the comic smart people out there, yes, we did do that; letters of apology have been sent to Stan Lee and the family of Jack Kirby.

MONTPELIER, Vt. - On October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union shot an object the size of a basketball into space. And the world was never the same again.

To celebrate the historic launch of the Sputnik satellite, the Trees & Hills comics group of Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts will publish a mini-comics anthology featuring cartoons inspired by the event that kicked off the space race.

The anthology book, the second one published by Trees & Hills this year, will be released in time for the 2007 Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland in early October. The deadline for submissions is Sept. 19th and anyone interested should soon contact the group co-founders, Colin Tedford and Dan Barlow.

We’re also looking for someone to arrange an awesome cover image for the book, which would obviously be eye-catching and cosmic. There is a strong chance that the cover will be screen-printed this time too! Anyone interested in drawing the cover, please let us know.

The size of the mini-comic anthology will be 5.5 x 8.5 inches and it will be black and white. We are mostly looking for work that would appeal to people of all ages, so if there is a question about content or style in your cartoon, please just ask us first.

All contributors will receive one copy of the comic per page of their work we publish and can buy further copies at cost. It will be for sale at conventions, on-line and at various retail outlets in the three states.

Also, please do not send original art! High-quality scans of the cartoons can be e-mailed to either Dan Barlow at barlowdaniel at gmail dot com or Colin Tedford at colintedford at gmail dot com. Snail mail photocopies can be sent to Colin Tedford, PO Box 645, Winchester, NH 03470 or Dan Barlow, 182 Main Street #2, Montpelier, VT 05602.

The Trees & Hills comics group formed at a 24-Hour Comic challenge in Brattleboro, Vt. nearly two years ago. Since then, the group has published two anthologies featuring new work by regional creators such as Stephen R. Bissette, Cat Garza, Marek Bennett and Colleen Frakes.

“Field Guide to Cartoonists,” the latest anthology, was released in June 2007 at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival in New York City. For more information, including the time and location of the group’s next drawing party, please visit www.treesandhills.org