Jonathan Ames & Nick Bertozzi:
Next Door Neighborless: A True Story

Nick Bertozzi grew up in and around Providence, Rhode Island, has lived in Philadelphia and Madrid and currently lives in Queens, NY, with his wife and daughter. He received a Xeric Grant and multiple Harvey Awards and Ignatz Awards for his smart and human cartooning. He is the author of The Salon, a graphic novel about Picasso, the discovery of Cubism, and magical absinthe from St Martin’s Press. He collaborated with Jason Lutes on the graphic novel Houdini: The Handcuff King for Hyperion. He’s hard at work on the cartoon biography of Lenny Bruce for Houghton-Mifflin, written by Harvey Pekar, as well as, drawing Glen (the Colbert Report) Eichler’s Stuffed! for First/Second. You can read his ongoing sci-fi/fantasy cartoon, Persimmon Cup, for free every week at ACT-I-VATE. And for the past several years he has been teaching cartooning at NYC’s School of Visual Arts and has also taught at RISD.

Jonathan Ames is the author of I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, What’s Not to Love?, My Less Than Secret Life, Wake Up, Sir!, and I Love You More Than You Know. His graphic novel, The Alcoholic, with art by Dean Haspiel, will be published by DC Comics in September 2008 and a new collection of essays and fiction, The Double Life is Twice As Good, will come out in 2009. In addition to writing, Mr. Ames has had two amateur boxing matches fighting as “The Herring Wonder” and his record is 1-1. His web site is www.jonathanames.com

Kevin Colden: Sad Song in A-Flat

Kevin Colden is a member of the webcomics collective ACT-I-VATE, where his Xeric-winning comic Fishtown is currently serializing. It will be collected in print from IDW Publishing in November 2008. He is also a founding member of The Chemistry Set webcomics collective. His work has appeared on DC Comics’ ZudaComics.com and is on display in the permanent collection at MoCCA. Kevin lives in New York City with his wife (cartoonist Miss Lasko-Gross) where he works in comics, music, film and video.

John Cebollero: A Print From An Old Negative

John Cebollero was born and raised in New York City. He attended the High School Of Art & Design and School Of Visual Arts in Manhattan. John has been a colorist, inker, and illustrator for DC, Milestone, Black Bull, Marvel, and Event comics. He has also created art for such clients as the Cartoon Network, Eternalcollector.com, Revolver magazine, Forbidden Zone magazine, and the Topps Company.

Joan Reilly: Hank & Barbara

Joan has been creating illustrations and comics for over a decade. She is one of the founding members of Studio Deep Six in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and was a contributing editor for the popular indy comics anthology, Hi-Horse. Her clients have included the award-winning children’s television show, “Between the Lions,” Marilyn vos Savant, the world’s smartest human, and Robert Jarvik, creator of the Jarvik 7 artificial heart. Currently she is working on a six-page story for Harvey Pekar’s upcoming comics adaptation of Studs Terkel’s WORKING (The New Press). http://www.joanreilly.com/

Ed Piskor: My Neighbor, The Dickhead

Ed Piskor resides in Pittsburgh, Pa where he draws comics constantly, all the while avoiding most any other obligations that life may bring. Harvey Pekar wrote some books that Ed got to draw. Ed’s been doing his own comics lately, like the serialized graphic novel, WIZZYWIG. www.edpiskor.com

Miss Lasko-Gross: Halloweens Ago

Miss Lasko-Gross is the author and illustrator of Fantagraphics’ Escape from “Special” and the upcoming A Mess Of Everything. Previously she wrote and illustrated the comic series Aim (Cryptic Press 1993-2001). Her artwork has been exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, CBGB’s gallery, and MoCCA; and featured in House of Twelve, True Porn 2, and Mauled and Street Fables’ Red. Visit her at misslaskogross.com.

Tim Hall & Rami Efal: Dream Train

Tim Hall is the author of two novels, Half Empty and the upcoming Full Of It, and a story collection, Triumph Of The Won’t. He has published an audio book, Nobody Knows How I Suffer, and is hard at work at two more: Shredded Prose and I Love What You’ve Done With Your Template, coming out 2008-2009 on Podiobooks.com. He bounces off the walls of his daily blog, Does This Font Make Me Look Fat? at www.timhallbooks.com/wordpress

Rami Efal was born in Israel, 1978, Studied in Bezalel, Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He exhibited in several galleries in New York and Europe and publishes illustrations, comics and paintings. He teaches drawing and contributes storyboards and production art to films and TV animation on global networks. He is a member of webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE.COM and a board member of The Ink Well, Non-profit organization of artists for children. He operates from New York City. www.ramiefal.com

Harvey Pekar & Rick Veitch: The Next-Door Neighbor I Don’t Know

Harvey Pekar began his writing career as a jazz critic for The Jazz Review in 1959. He began writing comic book stories in 1972, encouraged by his friend Robert Crumb, who has illustrated a number of his pieces. The first collected edition of Pekar’s comic AMERICAN SPLENDOR won the American Book Award in 1987, In 1994, the graphic novel OUR CANCER YEAR (on which he collaborated with his wife Joyce Brabner) won the Harvey Award. A movie version of AMERICAN SPLENDOR was released in 2003 and garnered awards at the Sundance and Cannes film festival. His debut DC/Vertigo graphic novel, The Quitter was illustrated by Next-Door Neigbor editor Dean Haspiel. Pekar is currently writing new American Splendor stories published by DC/Vertigo.

Rick Veitch, thirty-year comics veteran first came to prominence in the early 80s as part of the artistic trio working with Alan Moore on Swamp Thing. In the 00’s Rick Veitch shows no sign of letting up. Vertigo recently released CAN’T GET NO, his groundbreaking literary graphic novel that Publishers Weekly declared one of the “Best Books Of 2006″. He collaborated with Tommy Lee Edwards on THE QUESTION for DC Comics and DAREDEVIL for Marvel Comics. His KING HELL PRESS published new editions of THE ONE, BRAT PACK, THE MAXIMORTAL, ABRAXAS AND THE EARTHMAN and SHINY BEASTS. And he’s been producing science and nature comics for WNET in New York. Right now he’s knee deep in his new series from Vertigo, a subversive and satirical look at the Iraq war set five years in the future, ARMY@LOVE. His third collection of fully painted Marvel/Epic era stories, HEARTBURST AND OTHER PLEASURES was released in May 2008. More at www.rickveitch.com

Sari Wilson & Josh Neufeld: The Beekeeper

Sari Wilson is a New York-based writer and editor. Her fiction has appeared in the literary journals Agni, Third Coast, and New York Stories, and she has received a Wallace Stegner fellowship in fiction at Stanford University. She grew up in Brooklyn in the 1970s and loved writing this comic about it. She is married to cartoonist Josh Neufeld. www.SariWilson.net

Josh Neufeld is currently writing and drawing the serialized graphic novel A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge, a true story about Hurricane Katrina, for SMITH. A.D. is scheduled for publication by Pantheon in summer 2009. Josh’s comics about his travel experiences in Southeast Asia and Central Europe are told in the Xeric Award-winning graphic novel A Few Perfect Hours. He is the creator of the comic book The Vagabonds, and co-creator of both Keyhole and Titans of Finance: True Tales of Money and Business. Josh is a long-time artist for Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor and has contributed to many comics anthologies. www.JoshComix.com

Kat Roberts: Pearl

Kat Roberts is a Brooklyn based cartoonist who contributes regularly to Negative Burn, the comics anthology published by Desperado Publishing, as well as the music magazine Roctober. When she’s not teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Kat paints and makes comics. You can check out moreof Kat’s work and contact her at her regularly updated art blog: sateenduralux.livejournal.com/

Tim Hamilton: Post Traumatic

A founding member member of both webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE and Studio Deep6, Tim Hamilton has been drawing comics since the 80’s when he teamed with Gerard Jones on,”The Trouble with Girls.” Since then he’s produced comics such as Aliens, Comic’s Greatest World, Justice league Europe and Green Lantern.” Clients have included Marvel, DC Comics, BOOM, Darkhorse, Malibu and Defiant comics. He regularly writes and illustrates humorous comics for Nickelodeon Magazine, recently adapted “Treasure Island” into a graphic novel for Puffin and is now busy illustrating a Ray Bradbury GN for Hill & Wang.
hamilton-tim.pair.com/illustration%20main.htm

Simon Fraser: Sekei: Next-Door Neighborhood

Simon Fraser has been drawing comics seriously since 1988. First in the Scottish Small-Press ( The Heaving Cube, Atomic ) then breaking into the mainstream with a short stint on ‘Roy of the Rovers‘, a famous UK Soccer comic. Simon drew the graphic novel ‘Lux & Alby: Sign-On and Save the Universe‘ for Acme/Dark Horse, based on the novels of Martin Millar. He went on to an award winning collaboration with Robbie Morrison on 2000AD, first with ‘Shimura‘ then ‘Nikolai Dante‘ ( Eagle Award: Best Comic Character 2001.) Simon is a regular Artist on ‘Judge Dredd‘ , has drawn an adaption of Richard Matheson’s ‘Hellhouse‘ for IDW , ‘Family‘ for The Judge Dredd Megazine and is currently writing/drawing ‘Lilly Mackenzie and the Mines of Charybdis‘ on ACT-I-VATE.com. Simon has lived in Scotland, Canada, Italy, France, Austria, Tanzania and Kenya. He is currently a resident of Brooklyn NY along with his Wife and Daughter. http://simonfraser.net

Elizabeth Genco & Mike Jasorka: Illusions, Delusions, and the Girl Next Door

Elizabeth Genco is a writer of comics and other fictions based in Brooklyn, New York. Her affiliations include online webcomic collective The Chemistry Set (www.chemsetcomics.com), The Endicott Studio of Mythic Arts (www.endicott-studio.com) and Weird Tales magazine (www.weirdtales.net). For details of her many creative endeavors, visit her online at www.elizabethgenco.com.

Since graduating with a studio art degree in Ilustration from Rowan University, Mike Jasorka became a top 50 creator/writer/artist in Platinum Studio’s Comic Book Challenge of 2007 and continues to self-publish comic books under his own imprint, Bombshell Comics.

Currently he’s the chief editor for an up-and-coming zine celebtrating the creative human spirit titled HELLO WORLD. This October, he’s set to embark on the first ever rollerrink art tour with his pin-up art collection ROLLER DAMES featuring twenty individually hand drawn, digitially colored, limited edition rollergirl prints that will be displayed during public skating sessions within the tri-state area of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware! Visit www.rollerdames.com for details!

John Czop: Billy’s House

Chicago born and bred, I traveled east to work in comics for the fame and fortune! A graduate of the Joe Kubert School of Graphic art and Cinematic Animation, I broke into the comic book industry by doing background inks on early issues of Shade the Changing Man in the very early 90’s, and a short stint inking for Innovation Comics. After graduation I started working at Marvel Comics, drawing the Punisher and branched out penciling many other books early on including a little bit of everything from New Warriors, Spider-Woman limited series, X-Men Unlimited, Marvel Comics Presents, Avengers West Coast, Iron Man etc. After a short stint at Valiant Comics working on a few issues of Ninjak, I also ended up inking many books for Marvel including Generation X, X-Men:Phoenix, X-Force, X-Men Unlimited, and other books with an X in the title. My first independent comic gig was on Marie Javins “Scorched Birth” in 99. But getting to write, draw, and ink “Billy’s House” for this NDN project is one of my favorite jobs to date!

Michel Fiffe: Wyckoff

Michel Fiffe is the creator of “PANORAMA” and “FUT MISO“. His work has appeared the mini-series “BRAWL”, frequent issues of “Negative Burn”, and “Fall of Cthulhu” for Boom! Studios. Aside from finishing “PANORAMA”, he is working on his next Act-i-vate webcomic, “ZEGAS”, as well as the graphic novel, “CUBA“. http://www.act-i-vate.com/creators?id=9

Thomas Baehr: “That’s My Family, Kay, It’s Not Me.”

Thomas Baehr was born and raised in Germany and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and a pet rabbit. He worked in advertising and social management. He is also a published comic artist, illustrator and cartoonist in Europe and the US since 1988. Thomas created the comic strips “Dangling Diaries” and “Pole”. He is currently working on the graphic novel “The End is Here” for ACT-I-VATE (www.act-i-vate.com/58.comic). View his cartoon work at www.toonpool.com/artists/Penguin_guy or visit his web site so-what-the-artroom.tripod.com for his penguins.

Alexis Sottile and Joe Infurnari: Vs.

Alexis Sottile has written for the Village Voice, Time Out NY, and various and sundry publications. She also sat two rows in front of Seth Green in the Hebrew school scene in Woody Allen’s Radio Days, and played a kooky French woman on The Dave Chappelle Show.

Joe Infurnari was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. After completing his Honours BFA at McMaster University, he was seduced south of the border to pursue graduate study at Yale University’s Painting and
Printmaking Program. Now living in Brooklyn, he delights in spitting in the eyes of his professors by pursuing a career in the funny books. His first published work garnered him a slot in Comic Book Idol 2 and in 2005 he won Oni Press’s Talent Search. Since then, he has published with Marvel Comics Online, Oni Press, Ape Entertainment and Tetragrammatron Press. Recently, he has been honored with an Eisner Award nomination for his webcomic, “the Process” and he is a regular contributor to Act-i-vate with his comic, “The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!”

Nicole Kenney: I Heart NY?

Nicole grew up in Atlanta, the capital of the American deep South. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BFA in design and psychology, snarly hair, and a plane ticket to New York City. Nicole then worked in advertising in NYC for a year and a half, which was enough time for her to realize she’s not too crazy about advertising. Fortunately, after having had her fingers crossed for quite some time, Fabrica, The United Colors of Benetton’s young artists’ research center in Italy, selected her to become part their graphics department in March 2005. She spent fourteen months there in the company of immensely talented international artists, creating socially responsible graphics and illustrations with a psychological flair. Nicole is currently living in Brooklyn and creating a combination of art, comics, illustration, graphic design, and web design. In her own work, she strives for unfiltered honesty in making whimsical analyses of herself and her culture. Her claims to fame are that her “Boys in my life thus far” comic was described as “brilliantly conceived” and “wonderful” by Stefan Sagmeister and her “Piece of Meat” work was exhibited in the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She hopes to one day be as unabashed as her cartoonist idol, Robert Crumb, and to ride her bicycle around the world. You can reach her at www.nicolekenney.com.

Anthony Lappé and Tom Forget: Dorm Stalker

Anthony Lappe is creator/writer of the graphic novel SHOOTING WAR and is Executive Editor of GNN.tv, the web site for the Guerrilla News Network.He is the co-author of their book True Lies (Plume) and the producer of their award-winning Showtime documentary about Iraq, BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge. He has written for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, New York, Vice, and Salon, among many others, and has been a producer for MTV News and Fuse. He is a frequent guest on Air America and other radio stations across the country. He currently is a producer on Brink, a weekly science news show on the Science Channel. His blog, The Bunker, can be found here.

Tom Forget is an illustrator/designer/writer/editor/philosopher/scientist/detective/songwriter/anything else you need him to be. Born and raised in magnificent Woonsocket, R.I., he has been residing in Brooklyn since 2000. In addition to his illustration and design work, he has written several non-fiction books for Rosen Publishing on subjects as diverse as David Bowie, Zombie Movies, and Captain America. In his daily working life, he has designed over 100 book covers and interiors. He is also a regular music reviewer for Bust Magazine and contributor to the late Movies.com. He co-founded and edits Mammal Magazine, currently on its second issue and picking up steam, with several talented co-conspirators. http://www.tomforget.com

Dan Goldman: Red Plastic

Dan Goldman is a writer, artist and designer. His critically-acclaimed web-to-print comic SHOOTING WAR was selected as one of 2007’s best graphic novels by The Village Voice and Publisher’s Weekly. A frequent speaker on both digital comic processes and online distribution, he is also a founding member of the celebrated webcomics collective ACT-I-VATE. His newest graphic novel, 08: A GRAPHIC DIARY OF THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL with The New Republic’s Michael Crowley, is a documentary-comic of the 2008 U.S. presidential race published by Three Rivers Press. He lives in New York City.

Jim Dougan & Molly Lawless: Return to Sender

Jim Dougan is a comic writer hailing from the Hudson Valley hamlet of Millbrook, NY, and currently living in Washington, DC. His debut work in comics was the comedy graphic novella CRAZY PAPERS, drawn by Danielle Corsetto. Jim is a founding member of the comics collective The Chemistry Set, and the editor of the first ChemSet anthology collection NO FORMULA, available from Desperado Publishing. SAM & LILAH, his romance-adventure collaboration with Hyeondo Park, was featured in the March 2008 Zuda competition and has continued at ACT-I-VATE since May 2008. http://www.activatecomix.com

Molly Lawless delights and entertains with comics, illustrations and other foolishness. http://tyrnyx.wordpress.com/

K. Thor Jensen: Stalker Pie

K. Thor Jensen was born in the green lands and lives now in the gray ones, keeping family and friends safe from fiends and foes. His graphic novel, “Red Eye, Black Eye,” was deemed one of the best of 2007 by wags and weisenheimers, and he currently toils on the follow-up. http://www.shortandhappy.com

Shawn Kittelsen & Kat Roberts: Indoorsy

Shawn Kittelsen is a humble wordsmith, raised in Saratoga County and a graduate of NYU Dramatic Writing. He has written a septuagenarian rom-com, THEY SAY IT’S WONDERFUL; a queer cult comedy, OVER DA RAINBOW; and a pre-pubescent superhero play, FLOATING STEVE. Thanks to his many brilliant illustrator pals, Shawn’s upcoming comics include CRUMB-CHILD, CRIME DOES PAY, DOGGONE, and others. He is currently at work on a libertarian social drama, BRONXSTEAD, followed by an indie chick flick, JAMIE DAY’S BOY BAND. He lives with his fiancée, the faerie princess Christine, in New York City. http://www.shawnkittelsen.com/

Kat Roberts is a Brooklyn based cartoonist who contributes regularly to Negative Burn, the comics anthology published by Desperado Publishing, as well as the music magazine Roctober. When she’s not teaching at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Kat paints and makes comics. You can check out moreof Kat’s work and contact her at her regularly updated art blog: sateenduralux.livejournal.com/

George O’Connor: Don’t Call Me Ishmael

George O’Connor is the author and illustrator of several picture books for children, including the New York Times bestselling Kapow!, Ker-Splash!, Sally and the Some-Thing and Uncle Bigfoot. In 2006, he adapted the journals of the 17th century explorer/barber/surgeon Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert into the graphic novel Journey into Mohawk Country, published by First Second Books. His second graphic novel, Ball-Peen Hammer, written by novelist and playwright Adam Rapp, is to be released in October 2009. George is a founding member of Studio XOXOs (Hugs and Kisses) in Brooklyn, the borough where he also lives (in a nice, non-infested apartment). He’s currently hard at work on a multi-volume series retelling the Greek myths as graphic novels called Olympians; the first two volumes Zeus: Father of the Gods and Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess are due to be released April 2010.

Dean Haspiel: Bzzt

Dean Haspiel is a native New Yorker who steeps in crime noir, sci-fi, horror, chop-socky, and spaghetti western movies. He listens to funk & soul, jazz, reggae, disco, old school hip-hop, some white people’s music, and electronica. Dean reads comix and pulp fiction and is currently indulging Sterling Hayden’s WANDERER. He enjoys Wo Hops, the Russian-Turkish Bathhouse, Coney Island, Red Hook, and Prospect Park. Dean has drawn many superhero comic books, a few semi-autobio graphic novels, helped pioneer webcomix with the invention of ACT-I-VATE, and his favorite cartoonist is Jack Kirby. Dean created BILLY DOGMA and STREET CODE, and is a member of DEEP6 Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn. He lives in Carroll Gardens with his two cats but misses the Catskill mountains. For sneak-peeks go to: http://man-size.livejournal.com/.

Dean Haspiel: Night of the Black Chrysanthemum

Michele Carlo is a native New Yorker and a graduate of The School of Visual Arts, who says she’s “been a comics fan all my life, from the old MAD magazines in the 1970s to the Silver Surfer, Galactus
and Dr. Doom, old Spiderman, ElfQuest, Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes, Maus, Berlin. One of my most faves ever, is Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo.” She’s also a writer/performer/storyteller who’s performed with The Moth, and been published in Chicken Soup For The Latino Soul and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.

Probably best known as the artist of MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head Comic Book, Rick Parker was also on staff at Marvel Comics for many years and did lettering and production work in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Currently drawing the Introductory pages featuring the Old Witch, The Vault Keeper and the Crypt Keeper for Jim Salicrup’s new release of Tales From The Crypt published by PaperCutz. Rick also teaches comic art in the public and private school systems and has conducted classes in comic strip creation and seminars at the Newark Museum. http://www.rickparkercomics.blogspot.com/