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20th ANNUAL ST LOUIS INT'L FILM FEST POSTER

 

Below is the 2011 St Louis Int'l Film Fest poster

Below is the influence for this year's film fest concepts - both for this past summer's showcase, as well as this fall's Int'l FIlm Fest: A photograph I found of the making of the action scenes to Marlon Brando's "THE WILD ONE".

 

"HOPEVILLE" STORY COVER

 

Below is the cover for the HOPEVILLE story as it ran in the RFT this week.Tom Carlson, the art director at the RFT, scanned one of the original sketches I made of "MOE" in my HOPEVILLE sketchbook, and that's the image that ran. It received "cover of the day" for Sept 23rd on spd.org

Here's the link for spd.org:http://www.spd.org/ http://www.spd.org/2011/09/cover-of-the-day-september-5-2.php

 

"MEAT", SPLASH PAGE

Below is the splash page to a new story for my upcoming book, FOLKTALES. It will also run in the Europe-based anthology STRAPAZIN.

"HOPEVILLE" SPLASH PAGE, etc.

 

Below is the first page of a new "graphic feature story" I've been working on for the St Louis Riverfront Times. The story is about HOPEVILLE, a "tent city" or "tent community" located near the flood walls along the Mississippi River. HOPEVILLE is a kind of modern-day Hooverville - one in a string of three tent communities set up by the homeless near the river. I've spent a good part of the summer working on this story, doing research and getting to know the people who live in HOPEVILLE. The story is scheduled to run late in September.

The story is meant to capture the feel of the sketchbook notes and drawings I made while I was spending time in HOPEVILLE. Below are samples of a couple of those sketchbook pages.

 

RETURN OF THE TEN CENT PLAGUE: HAPPY HOUR IN AMERICA #3

 

HAPPY HOUR IN AMERICA #3 is hot off the press.

In commemoration of the great tradition of Golden Age comics - the era of comics that has most influenced the fundamental concept behind HAPPY HOUR - I've decide to offer the first 10 copies, and the first 10 copies of every issue of HAPPY HOUR that I produce from now on (which you can expect to see about twice a year), for only 10 cents to the first 10 people who request a copy. This offer is only available to individuals (not comic shops, bookstores, etc),and only one copy will be allowed per person. All other copies will be available through SPIT AND A HALF DISTRIBUTION.

HAPPY HOUR IN AMERICA will consist of current work, selected material from three new books in progress, as well as any other experimental work. Each copy will only be available in limited numbers through SPIT AND A HALF. HAPPY HOUR will serve as a springboard for all my adventures in comics, as well as an homage to the great American tradition of comic books.

SORRY: TEN CENT COPIES ARE SOLD OUT. MAYBE NEXT ISSUE, I'LL MAKE IT THE FIRST TWENTY COPIES.

 

ST LOUIS FILMMAKERS SHOWCASE

 

This year's influences are old Harley Davidson advertisements from the late 1930's. The Int'l Film Fest poster will have more of a biker theme, influenced by the myth of The Boozefighters motorcycle club, Marlon Brando & THE WILD ONES, the Hell's Angels and all of those great/terrible biker films from the 1960's. the poster (above) the handbill (above)

 

BELLIGERENT PIANO WEEKLY STRIP, EPISODE #60

The above strip reintroduces a critical character to the BELLIGERENT PIANO story - Vera, the accordion playing entertainer who sings French songs at Ruby Ray'sParisian Cabaret. The truth is (and I might as well confess it here), the entire BELLIGERENT PIANO story is not exclusively my invention, but instead a kind of creative elaboration on a story that a fellow told me about while I was living in San Piablo in the early 1990's. The man, who I met while I was working at a job sand-blasting car engines when I was twenty-two, told me about a triple murder and robbery that had taken place in 1947. The man, who was an old-timer (probably dead now) claimed that the main suspect in the murder, whose name he couldn't remember, had shown up in a variety of pop culture venues, including daily strips by a collection of obscure cartoonists, and some not so obscure. At the time, the idea seemed absurd, but later I discovered that cartoonists of daily strips, most famously Chester Gould, regularly used real-life incidents as material for their stories. Nevertheless, I took the old-timer's story to be merely the fabrication of a fruitful and bored mind, but always remained curious about the tale's authenticity. All of the information this old-timer gave me was very vague, and much of the specifics I've since forgotten, but, thanks to the internet, I've recently stumbled across a few artifacts that give some verification to the old man's tale. I recently stumbled across a whole selection of obscure celebrity photos on Ebay of a girl named Vera. Nothing else is mentioned about her; the Ebay post is simply a general search for 1940's celebrity pictures. Here are a couple of those photos: vera morgan-17 vera morgan-2 vera morgan-11 vera morgan-7

These are just a few which I was able to purchase off a seller in Ohio. But, although I've tried contacting the seller directly to get information about this "Vera's" story, no information has been gained. The seller didn't know anything about her - he'd found the portfolio in the proverbial suitcase in his deceased father's attic under a bundle of old clothes. If anybody out there recognizes the woman in the pictures, please let me know. I'm very anxious to find out about her.