I saw some mention today of Act-I-vate’s sixth anniversary and Comics Beat’s second. This means we’re five. I’m not sure when it started, but at some point it just became easier to use other people’s anniversaries to mark the passage of time. Like clockwork, I received a note from the domain registrar, reminding me to renew, and as ever, I hesitated for a moment. There’s a certain sense of obligation in such a renewal, as though it symbolizes locking oneself in for another year. I keep coming back to my friend Alex’s decision to shutter the doors of his much beloved Brooklyn comic shop, when the idea of another five-year lease simply proved too much to bear.

This is the part where I explain what’s going on. I’m sure I’ve touch upon this briefly in the past – work tends to get in the way of life, and 13 hour days and worked weekends have the tendency to take their toll on interpersonal relationships and labors of love, and this site has always represented a bit of both. In a sense, I never wrote for anyone but myself, so it ought be regarded as some astronomical impossibility that so many other people I know and respect saw fit to put any stock in the words that came out the other side.

And then it slowed down and then it stopped. These things always end with a whimper. But there’s no use here for such finalities. There’s no end here. Let’s call it a hiatus. And certainly me and comics aren’t through. I’ve already got some irons in the fire – for the time being, however, my involvement with comics will likely involve work for others, like the Engadget Comics I’ve been curating for my day job and the Art Spiegelman interview for Publisher’s Weekly – there are a few others as well that I’m not quite ready to yank the curtain from.

But the Cross Hatch never made sense as a one man organization, and thankfully, through the years, I’ve been blessed with a handful of writers willing, like myself, to work for free (or, in my case, a negative sum) for the sheer honor of writing about our era’s most vibrant art form (and, of course, the promise of free comics), most notably Sarah Morean, who served as my partner for the vast majority of the site’s existence.

So this isn’t a goodbye – it’s really just a note to let you know that, despite what you might have read on a CBR message board, I’ve not been kidnapped by Turkish Pirates, so maybe send a jokey birthday card in lieu of flowers – or better yet some comics. The stack’s starting to get low.

–BH

Luggage tags from David King are on my shopping list. A $2 steal!

One of our favorite publishers of fine indie comics has been diagnosed with cancer. Evidently, for a second time. Can I get a “not fair?”

Dylan Williams is a man with enough on his mind. As one of the planners for the Portland Zine Symposium, he just saw the 11th year of that event wrap up, plus he’s the sole person running Sparkplug Comic Books, and now he has to deal with this major health issue (and bills). It’s unfortunate, unfair, and inspires a sense of melancholy from someone living so far away who isn’t sure how to help.

Actually, there is something you can do for Dylan at home.  It would be enormously useful and encouraging if you would go now to the Sparkplug Comic Books website and finally buy the copy of Lemon Styles you’ve been waiting for, or take a chance on another title that’s sure to please you.

Thanks to Rob Clough for getting the ball rolling on this one.

Here is the three-part interview we ran with Dylan back in 2008: 1 | 2 | 3

Here are some links to reviews of books published or distributed by Sparkplug we’ve run here on the Cross Hatch:

• Eschew #1 – 2 by Robert Sergel
• Whirlwind Wonderland by Rina Ayuyang
• Danny Dutch by David King
• Jin & Jam by Hellen Jo
• The Hot Breath of War by Alixopolus
• Reich #1 – 2 by Elijah Brubaker
• Edison Steelhead’s Lost Portfolio: Exploratory Studies of Girls and Rabbits by Renee French
• Asthma by John Hankiewicz
• Tales to Demolish #1 – 3 by Eric Haven
• Bookhunter by Jason Shiga
• Big Plans # 1 – 3 by Aron Nels Steinke
• You Don’t Get There From Here #5 by Carrie McNinch
• My Alaskan Summer by Corinne Mucha
• Neverland by Dave Kiersh
• Nurse Nurse #1-2 by Katie Skelly
• PS Comics by Minty Lewis
• Nine Gallons #1 by Susie Cagle

- Sarah Morean

One of the more exciting/bizarre honors that has bestowed upon me as a direct result of the writing I’ve done for The Onion was the ability to scribble a caption into one of Feature Editor Joe Garden’s The Family Circus collections. Garden has a number of pocket paperback collections of the strip sitting around his desk, the vast majority of which are hilariously defaced thanks to Onion staff and other funny people who swing by the office on a regular basis.

Now Garden is auctioning off one of the books for a cause (not the book with my joke caption in it, of course—that one’s far too valuable). This particular volume has scribbles from an all-star cast of recaptioners, including Janeane Garafolo, Todd Barry, Kristen Schaal, Mike Doughty, Emily Flake, David Rees, and Ward Sutton. Profits from the eBay auction will go to the embattled Wisconsin Democratic Party, so keep that in mind if you love hilarious jokes, but aren’t too keen on unions.

Garden’s been kind enough to share some images from the book with the Hatch. Check those out—and a (mostly complete) list of contributors, after the jump.

–BH

Contributors:

Carol Kolb-Head Writer, Onion News Network
Ward Sutton-Cartoonist
Jamie Kilstein-Comedian/Co-Host, Citizen Radio
Allison Kilkenny-Writer, The Nation/Co-Host, Citizen Radio
Jason Roeder-Writer, The Onion, Co-Author, Our Bodies Our Junk
John Harris-Writer, The Onion/Onion News Network
Andrea Rosen-Comedian, Member Variety SHAC
Kristen Schaal-Comedian/Actor, Bob’s Burgers/Co-Author Sexy Book Of Sexy Sex
Kurt Braunohler-Comedian
Mike Doughty-Musician, ex-Soul Coughing
Chris Karwowski-Writer, The Onion
Will Tracy-Writer, The Onion/Onion News Network
Marianne Ways-Producer/Co-Author, The Secret Lives Of First Ladies
John Krewson-Writer, The Onion
Mike Sacks-Author, And Here’s The Kicker, Your Wildest Dreams, Co-Author, Our Bodies Our Junk
Jane Borden-Writer, I Totally Meant To Do That
Bob Powers-Author, Happy Cruelty Day, You Are A Miserable Excuse For A Hero/Co-author, The Werewolf’s Guide To Life
Sam Anderson-Writer, New York Magazine
Janeane Garofalo-Comedian
Emily Flake-Cartoonist, Lulu Eight Ball
Todd Hanson-Writer, The Onion
Morgan Miller-Film editor/Animator, Vacuum Attraction
Corey Pandolph-Cartoonist, The Elderberries
Sharon Mama Spell-Comedian
Scott Bateman-Cartoonist
Carol Hartsell-Editor, Huffington Post Comedy
Benari Poulten-Comedian
Maria Schneider-Writer, A Book Of Jean’s Own/Cartoonist, Pathetic Geek Stories
Geoff Haggerty-Writer, Onion Sports Dome
Dan Mirk-Writer, Onion News Network
Sam West- Writer, Onion Sports Dome
Jill Marie Morris-Contributing writer, The Onion/Comedian
Erik Tanouye-Writer, Comedian
Todd Barry-Comedian
Daniel Radosh-Writer, The Daily Show/Author, Rapture Ready
David Rees-Artisinal Pencil Sharpener/Cartoonist, Get Your War
Onnita Serwacki-Contributing Writer, The Onion/Co-Author The New Vampire’s Handbook

Hey all. So, as many of you may already know, I’m starting a new job at the tech blog Engadget tomorrow. And while I’m incredibly exciting to get started with my new gig, the job is likely to cut further into my already severely limited free time. The frequency of my posts at the Cross Hatch, sadly, is likely to become a casualty of that move.

As ever, Sarah and I are looking to bring more writers into the fold. Over the years, we’ve seen a number of writers come and go—it’s hard to keep good people on-board for two major reasons: First, there’s not really any money involved in the project. That’s worth saying right off the bat. The Cross Hatch is a not-for-profit site in the strictest sense of the term—in fact, for Sarah and myself, it’s actually been something of a money-losing proposition. This site really is a labor of love.

Unfortunately, we can’t pay anyone in anything but review copies and clips. The nice thing about the latter is that, if you keep it up, people will take notice. We’ve been blessed since the early days of the site to count amongst our regular readers plenty cartoonists and other industry folk.

The other major strike is that we’re picky. This is our baby, so when we bring writers on board, it’s important that we maintain a high caliber of writing, which is why we ask to see clips before welcoming anyone to the staff.

If you’re still on-board, we’d love to see your work. We’re primarily looking for reviews at the moment—people who know webcomics, mini-comics, and assorted small publishers. We’re also always on the lookout for news writers, people who follow the industry, who are capable of writing pithy copy a few times a week.

For more information, please check out our Contribute page. We hope to hear from you soon.

–BH

I’m not sure if it’s common policy among festival organizers of the world, but it’s something that I instated after last year’s MoCCA Fest: A two month moratorium on all discussions of next year’s show. You can talk amongst yourselves, of course, but I ask kindly (for the sake of my own well-being) to please refrain from any discussion of April 2012 until at least June 2012.

There’s a certain physical and mental toll, I think, that comes with helping run even the most successful convention. It certainly applied to the three shows I ran programming for last year—MoCCA Fest, MIX, and King Con in Brooklyn. Three shows that honestly didn’t have all that much in common, save for subject matter and the fact that, after each, I lamented the non-existence of human hibernation.

It’s worth pointing out, I think, that on a personal note, the timing of the show couldn’t have been worse—certainly through no fault of the museum’s. They, after all, had scheduled the event over a year ago. And it was only a little over two weeks go that I officially gave notice at PCMag, making for something of a critical mass of personal and professional stress, as I attempted to close things out at work and put the finishing touches on the weekend’s programming (no amount of pre-preparation on my part has ever made it possible to avoid that last minute crunch), cleaning out my office and sending off goodbye letters to colleagues and coworkers.

I left my office one final time and crossed the street to the 6 train station, heading down the to festival kickoff party, officially slotted to begin an hour later. I was fairly dazed, cursing the subway delays, when I heard my name cut through the rush hour crowd in the station. As far as omens go, one could certainly do worse than running into Drawn & Quarterly’s Peggy Burns on New York City transit the night before MoCCA Fest. She was heading back down to the Strand bookstore for the first “Strandicon,” a Friday event in which D&Q’s roster played heavily.

[More Images]

She was either heading to or coming from dinner, I can’t remember which, with Joe Ollman and Pascal Girard in tow. It was the first time I’d met the two humorists, though I’d slotted both on a panel, and proceed to run into both perhaps more than anyone else at the festival not wearing an official MoCCA Fest volunteer t-shirt.

We moved the official party to Friday this year, so as to not conflict with another MoCCA-sanctioned event on Saturday night. It was rather unfortunate that we were in direct competition with Desert Island’s Peter Bagge/Leslie Stein event and the long announced Drink and Draw Like a Lady, but given this year’s absurdly packed party schedule, Saturday night wasn’t all that more promising.

In all, I don’t think we could have asked for a better way to kick of the weekend. I DJed alongside Dean Haspiel, but not before cartoonist/anti-folk hero Jeffrey Lewis and 60s freak folk legend Peter Stampfel performed one of the most joyful sets of music I’ve ever witnessed, including a tribute to the departed Jeff Buckley, with Lewis singing as he turned the pages on a graphic interpretation of “Mojo Pin.” That was mere prelude to the performance that Lewis would put on at Carousel the next day. The last time I saw Stampfel, meanwhile, was on the festival floor as he leaned over and attempted to close a rolling suitcase jam-packed with all of the books he’d purchased at the show.

I lined myself up for four panels that weekend—which, before the show closed, had turned into five. The first was at 1:30pm—a conversation with legendary humor cartoonist Gahan Wilson. Running programming, however, requires showing up well before the convention opens, attempting to patch up mistakes and omissions and the inevitable but unforeseen glitches. There are a million things that can go wrong with a show this size, and if you’re lucky and things are run particularly well, you’ll only have to deal with 500,000 the morning of.

The most you can hope for, I think, is that any of those gaffs won’t ultimately overshadow the programming itself. The inaugural panel (a conversation between Jerry Robinson and Michael Uslan) began a bit later, but given the sheer number of things that could potentially go wrong from one panel to the next, the act of getting the thing off the ground at all makes a pretty compelling argument for the existence of a greater power. From there the best policy revolves around the questionable belief that traveling at the highest speeds is the best possible way to keep your own wheels from coming off at any one point.

Thanks to some truly terrific volunteers and our own Sarah Morean, who came all the way from Minneapolis for the show.

I’d be lying if I said that a technical glitch with a slide show on my first panel didn’t throw me off my game a bit, but one couldn’t ask for a better co-panelist than Wilson, who happily entertained my questions about fantasy conventions, the cross section of comedy and horror and what, precisely, set Nuts apart from other strips about kids. “Moderating” is perhaps not the proper word in this situation—when talking to Gahan Wilson, it’s more a matter of pointing him in a direction and watching him go.

Three hours later, it was a discussion about the admittedly broad “State of Editorial Cartooning” with Tim Kreider, Ruben Bolling and Ted Rall—three friends with ostensibly similar political leanings, who never really seemed to fully agree on anything. Rall railed against Obama, repeatedly describing him as “worse than Bush”—a wolf in donkey’s clothing, the theory goes. Kreider explained why he was so damned burned out with the whole thing, so much so that he’d largely thrown in the towl on his political cartooning career. And Bolling kept my attempts to make broad generalizations about the aforementioned state of things in check.

Ten minutes later, I was introducing Carousel, describing to the audience how R. Sikoryak and I might possibly be able to out-Carousel last year’s show, which was considered by many to be the most successful event of the festival. By the end, I genuinely think we succeeded—after it was over, Sikoryak smiled and laughed, “Well, I guess we’ve got to outdo ourselves next year.” Michael Kupperman, Lisa Hanawalt, Kate Beaton, Jeffrey Lewis, Ted Stearn, Sikoryak and voices Julie Klausner, Adam Conover and last-minute super special guest, Jackson Publick.

Sarah and I decompressed over dinner then headed to a small party hosted by The Comics Journal/Fantagraphics. There are two kinds of parties at a show like MoCCA Fest: The big blowout variety with cartoonist signing work and shaking hands, and then there’s the sort where one can have a quiet, casual conversation with, say, a Charles Burns. The Comics Journal’s event fell firmly into the latter—a friendly mix of cartoonists and other industry folks assessing the day’s events and reminiscing about shows we survived together like veterans of some foreign war.

But while I’d like to consider myself above the fray of rampant fanboyism, such conversations are a gentle reminder of precisely why I’ve put myself in this position in the first place. And really, there was no better reminder than my first Sunday panel. Somehow, after years of communicating with Peter Bagge through phone calls and e-mails, we’d never actually crossed paths at a convention. And when Fantagraphics publicist Jacq Cohen introduced us 15 minutes before our spotlight discussion was scheduled to begin, I told the cartoonist that I was trying hard not to gush. “That’s all right,” Bagge told me. “You’ve already said enough nice things about me in print.”

We prepped for the panel in a strange makeshift green room underneath a stuffed deer’s head, Bagge standing behind a bar, pretending to pour a drink for CBLDF head Charles Brownstein as he prepped for his Eisner tribute panel with Jules Feiffer, Denis Kitchen and Paul Levitz. The discussion with Bagge was almost certainly the highlight of my weekend, though the next panel, featuring Pizza Island artists Julia Wertz, Kate Beaton, Sarah Glidden, Lisa Hanawalt, Meredith Gran and Domitille Collardey. It was my own fault for attempting to format the discussion too strictly, so I wasn’t all that surprised when the artists suggested that we take a much more freewheeling approach to the panel, opening up the entire thing to audience questions—anything else just wouldn’t have suited the nature of the collective.

At 4pm I finally hit the floor for the first time after spending the vast majority of the show in the basement—a windowless subterranean reminder of the comics shows of my youth. And for the first time, when show-goers asked how I was doing, I could genuinely answer in the affirmative, with the sense that finally, 80 percent of the way through the show, I felt as though I were out of the wood, the stress behind me, ready to actually enjoy the damned thing. I finally shook hands and had conversations with non-panelists and flipped through and bought books.

I picked up a small pile of minis: Pranas T. Naujokaitis’s brilliantly packaged Beard, Kanji for Daily Use by Teylor Smirl, Nomi Kane’s ribbon-bound Sugar Baby, Heaven All Day by John Martz, Fable Funnies by Dakota McFadzean, a stack of Jason Viola comics, and Souful Sunday, a collection of strips based on soul songs—a mini-comic after my own heart. Chris Miskiewicz and Seth Kushner handed off colorful previews of their Act-I-Vate projects, as well. Not as large a haul as I might have hoped, but hell, mostly I was just happy to spend half an hour above ground.

As with last year, we closed the show out with an animation showcase and conversation. This year we featured short films from Bill Plympton, Signe Baumane and animation dabbler R. Sikoryak. The shorts themselves were a treat, but the real highlight, I think, was Baumane’s rather frank admissions about precisely how hard it is to carve out a living as an independent animator—not a particularly cheery note to end a show on, but hopefully the panel helped her move some copies of the DVDs she brought to the show.

After breaking down the show, Sarah and I partook in celebratory Banh Mi (which has become something of a post-MoCCA Fest tradition for me in the past few years), before making our way to the volunteer celebration/work party. There’s no rest for the MoCCA Fest volunteer, but there are certainly arguments to be made for free comics and pizza.

For Sarah and I, the real celebration happened a half hour later, a few blocks away, counting comics and attempting to gauge the success of the previous two-and-a-half days over glasses of whisky. On a personal level, it certainly felt like a successful weekend, a sentiment a number of friends and colleagues have echoed. There’s been plenty said about the fact that, with shows like The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and King Con, MoCCA Fest is no longer the only game in town—but the growth of other shows only seems to have helped MoCCA Fest establish its identity.

And hey, I’m more than glad to discuss next year’s show—just give me a couple of months.

–Brian Heater

It’s been a busy week. It’s going to be an even busier weekend. I’m pretty booked up for the next few days—in the best way possible. As many of you know, MoCCA graciously asked me to curate the festival for the second year in a row. One of the upsides of that gig is the opportunity to play a role in many of the panels themselves.

And like last year, I will also be spinning records at the official MoCCA party. Sarah Morean will also be on hand, helping me run the panels downstairs at the armory, so if she doesn’t look too crazy busy, make sure to say “hello.”

Check out a quick schedule of my goings on at the show, after the jump.

Friday:

MoCCA Fest Kickoff Party: I’ll be DJing the kickoff party at Sutra in the Lower East Side. There will also be live music from Jeffrey Lewis and Peter Stampfel and live art by R. Sikoryak.

Saturday:
1:30PM  Gahan Wilson: Playboy and Beyond We explore the long, storied career of satirist Gahan Wilson.

4:30 The State of Editorial Cartooning Ruben Bolling (Tom the Dancing Bug), Tim Kreider (The Pain — When Will it End), Ted Rall (Year of Loving Dangerously) The trials and tribulations of creating political cartoons in 2011.

Sunday:

1:30 Peter Bagge: A History of Hate A one-on-one conversation with one of alternative comics’ most influential and enduring voices.

2:30 Pizza Island: The Panel Julia Wertz (Drinking at the Movies), Sarah Glidden (How to Understand Israel), Kate Beaton (Hark, a Vagrant), Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), Lisa Hanawalt (I Want You)  Some of today’s brightest young cartoonists share a workspace in Brooklyn. Here is their story.

Hey all, excited to announce that Jeff Newelt and I have organized a kickoff party for this year’s MoCCA Fest. The party is this Friday at Sutra in the East Village. This year we’ve got very special musical guests in the form of anti-folker/cartoonist Jeffrey Lewis and 60s freak folk legend Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders. Myself and cartoonist Dean Haspiel will we DJing, while R. Sikoryak does some live painting.

The event kicks off at 7:00 (Lewis and Stampfel start promptly at 7:30PM). There’s a $5 donation at the door, which will go to help keep MoCCA afloat. Special thanks to sponsors Top Shelf and Zip Comics–and artist Sean Pryor, who created the amazing poster art, which you can see after the jump (Pryor will be selling prints of the work at the show).

For more information, please check out the official Facebook invite.

–BH

Hey Everyone. I’m proud to present the official programming lineup for the 2011 MoCCA Arts Festival. We’ve had a few changes since last year’s show, most notably the addition of a second room (henceforth referred to as Room B), which has given us the opportunity to expand the panel lineup by a fair amount, including more one-on-one conversations (I’m honored to be speaking to both Peter Bagge and Gahan Wilson int his format), and curated panels from folks like the Ink Panthers podcast and New York fixtures, Comic Book Club.

There are a few publication-centric panels this year, as well, with spotlights on Mad Magazine, The New Yorker, and World War 3 Illustrated, the latter of which is celebrated its 30th anniversary, this past year. The legendary Jerry Robison is getting his due, in conversation with author Michael Uslan. The late Will Eisner will also be the subject of a spotlight featuring Jules Feiffer, Paul Levitz, and Denis Kitchen, moderated by Charles Brownstein, coinciding with the museum’s terrific exhibit, “Will Eisner’s New York.”

Carousel, a New York comics institution, will be back this year, featuring an all-star lineup, including Jeffrey Lewis, R. Sikoryak, Kate Beaton, Lisa Hanawalt, Ted Stearn, Julie Klausner, and more. And I’m also excited to be speaking with the fantastic ladies from Brooklyn’s Pizza Island collective.

All of this and lot more after the jump.

-BH

Room A

Sat

Room B

Sat

[Graphic stolen from Lars Martinson]

It’s easy to get desensitized when you live halfway around the round. There’s a constant stream of horrific images and video of earthquakes and after shocks and tsunamis and power plants every time you turn on the TV or open up your laptop. But I’ll add to the chorus of echos: if you haven’t donated yet, do it. Now.

But if you need some added incentive to give (or, perhaps, to give again), a lot talented folks are offering up artwork to help raise money for victims of last week’s 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northern Japan.

We’ve put out the call to artists who are donating their goods and services for this cause. We’ll continue to add to the list as more names come in, so please, either drop us a line at dailycrosshatch [at] gmail.com or leave a comment below, if you or anyone you know is holding a benefit of this nature.

–BH

Big Ugly Robot

For the rest of the month the proceeds of all sales will be donated to disaster relief efforts for those affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Charity: International Red Cross Society

Graham Clark (Stop Podcasting Yourself)

This painting was created by Graham Clark of Stop Podcasting Yourself using his beard.This is a painting of what an Irish Deer might have looked liked before it went extinct.It is brown, white, black and blue acrylic on 7″ by 9″ canvas board.I wasn’t going to sell this painting, as I painted it completely for myself. As I have had success with raising funds in the past with these beard paintings, I thought I could sell this and give all proceeds to GlobalMedic, a wonderful organization that sends volunteer paramedics, firemen/women and police to disasters all over the world. They are currently deploying people to Japan. I plan on donating as much as I can and thought selling this could add to the pot.

Charity: GlobalMedic

Elephant Eater

As we are all aware, there is a crisis in Japan. For the next week, I will be holding an auction for YOUR CHOICE of any page of original art from the yet-to-be-released And Then One Day #9, which you have been reading here for the past several weeks. Heck, you can have your pick of ANY page of original artwork I still own, assuming you are the highest bidder.

Charity: Unicef

Jenny Devil Doll Gonzales

For the rest of the month I’ll forward the sales of any minicomics, paintings or drawings to relief for Japan, probably through the Japan Society. Comix are $2, for prices on original pieces, contact me through the email on the page to make an offer.

Charity: Japan Society

Meg Hunt

We need you to donate whatever you can—art, books, whatever—from your creative endeavors in order to make this a roaring success. All proceeds will go to help the Japanese people dig out from under this pile of calamities, and you’ll get the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from doing something nice for people in a whole mess of trouble.

Charity: AmeriCares

Jason JFish Fischer

To help survivors of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake which devastated Japan, all proceeds from sales of this design will benefit Mercy Corps. In partnership with Peace Winds Japan, donations made to Mercy Corps will directly aid in immediate and long-term rehabilitation and humanitarian needs of earthquake and tsunami victims.Choose from 4 different styles of my Sushi Japan shirt and help those in need!

Charity: Mercy Corps and Peace Winds Japan

Lars Martinson

As an artist of limited means, I don’t really have the money to make a big donation, so I’ve decided to try something else. For the rest of the month of March, 2011, I will donate all profits from sales of Tonoharu: Part One and Tonoharu: Part Two to the Red Cross. (This offer only applies to orders placed through my website, not books bought in bookstores or at Amazon.com; I don’t have any control over those sales).

Charity: The Red Cross

The Mountain Goats

Not comics, but I had to include.

I always try when asked for an auction donation to come up with something special. My donation for Japan is a tape I found in a box today. The tape is dated 5/27/01, and is labeled “FRENETIQUES demos” on the spine, but that plural is deceptive: it has only one song on it. The song’s called “Eugene Sue.” I spent today trying to figure out why it’s called that, but no luck. Quick math tells me that this is the tape I had planned on making the next work-tape before I decided to write Tallahassee instead.

Len Peralta

Order a Flipface [Facebook avata], type “HELP JAPAN” in the special instructions,I’ll draw you an anime av & donate $5 to relief.

The Best Show on WFMU—quite possibly my favorite comedy radio show/podcast of all-time—will, like so many other things in this world, forever in my mind be tied to the world of comic bookery. I first heard the show on a trip to Chicago a few years ago (odd considering that I had to leave the greater New York metropolitan area to be exposed to a Jersey City-based radio show).

A Quimby’s employee was playing the podcast over the store PA, with host Tom Scharpling going off on an upcoming Brian Wilson project called Pleasure Island, which, thankfully, has yet to see the light of day. As fellow Beach Boys nerd, the thing was love at first listen—and I haven’t missed a single episode since.

Upon discovering that Scharpling himself is also something of a comics nerd, we asked if he might be interested in submitting himself to a quick interview for the site. Never shying away from a little self-promotion, he happily obliged.

In the past couple of years, I’ve discovered a massive amount of overlap amongst comics fans and FOTs (Friends of Tom). In retrospect, it’s not a huge surprise, really—good taste is good taste, right? Plenty of artists also include themselves in the FOT ranks—take Michael Kupperman, who has both appeared on the show and designed a Best Show t-shirt for a WFMU “Emergency Marathon.” Really, if you spend spend 12 hours a day alone in front of a drawing board, there’s a lot to be said for a weekly three-hour podcast.

I’ve covered the Best Show pledge drive for the past two years for The New York Press. Sadly, I won’t be at the station this year, so hopefully this post will suffice. And the comics tie-in certainly doesn’t hurt. As ever, Scharpling has put together an amazing giveaway for everyone who pledges above $75.

A seven-inch featuring Ben Gibbard, The Mountain Goats, Fucked Up, Ty Segall, and Ted Leo doing G.G. Allin covers is probably worth the price of admission alone, but toss-in a limited edition Best Show poster designed by Charles Burns (artwork not yet available, sadly–but it’s Charles Burns, so you know it will be great), and you’d be stupid not to pledge. Also, you’re supporting public radio, blah, blah, blah.

Scharpling’s show is tomorrow (Tuesday) 9 to midnight on WFMU. Pledge then for the aforementioned package. In the meantime, I’d love to get some Best Show loving indie comics fans to sound off below.

–Brian Heater