About this issue's contributors...
About this issue’s contributors...
Kurt Beaulieu is a Montreal-based comics artist. He is best known for his strip Sabine, installments of which have appeared in various underground publications, including MensuHell, BingBang and The Morning Dew Review. He is also the author-artist of the comic books Repent Sinners and Glitch Nos. 1 and 2. Semolina, a graphic novel-in-progress concerning the bizarre lives of an all-female industrial band, is his latest ongoing project. Kurt’s pages at Comic Space: http://www.comicspace.com/kurtbeaulieu/.
Henry Chamberlain is a man with certain tastes in comics, pop culture and whatnot. He tends to like offbeat, literary and artful stuff, which he finds in a lot of places—from the latest mini comic to the current superhero title. Chamberlain writes and draws his own comics. He teaches comics. He writes and talks about comics. Some places one can find his writing are Comic Book Bin, Poopsheet, Newsarama, GeekWeek and his own Comics Grinder site. He also created the graphic novel Alice in New York. Currently, he is busy developing a comic strip, a new series of paintings, and a graphic collection entitled A Night at the Sorrento and other Stories. He accepts review copies, so feel free to contact him at comicsgrinder@gmail.com.
Michael French grew up on Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters and Huey Lewis. He has degrees in film and journalism, and spent most of college investigating where George Lucas’s talent went to die. French was closely involved with the development of Star Wars: Revisited and ESB: the Reconstruction. He also served as a staff writer for TheRaider.net and IndyGear.com. Between the discovery that Voltron was actually an ultra-violent Japanese cartoon and his scathing oratory on his dislike of the ThunderCats, French launched RetroBlasting on YouTube. Recently, RetroBlasting has been featured on the Official Voltron Facebook page. It is also showcased regularly on igrewupstarwars.com, and once a month hosts a dedicated podcast on Mike Alonzo’s Clobberin’ Time on BlogTalkRadio. One can visit French and his partner Melinda at RetroBlasting! and youtube.com/retroblasting.
Bill Harvey was one of the students at John Buscema’s original Workshop For Comic Book Art, in NYC. He has published the DangerWorld comic book and publishes THE ODDs comic strip. Michigan born and bred, he lives in the Detroit suburbs, and when not laid off, works as a computer technician. He generally considers himself a penciller/plotter in the arena of comic books. He does inking and lettering out of necessity. His favourite comic book was The Fantastic Four with art by Jack Kirby. At age 56, he would love to be part of a documentary on the life and works of Jack Kirby, mostly centred on his theatrical approach to comic books, his unfettered imagination and glorious artwork. Mr. Harvey's website is www.BeholdComics.com. Copies of DangerWorld can be ordered from there.
Dennis Hyer is the New Jersey artist behind the comic strips Inhuman Relations and Mullein Fields. He doesn’t have a lot to write about himself except that he loves old movies and television shows. He is also an amateur curmudgeon, with no patience for anime, rap music, modern newspaper comics, asphalt driveways, or anything produced by the Disney Channel (in that order). Aside from classic cartoons and comic strips, his other areas of interest include billiards, anthropology, girls, Indians, and agriculture. His two comic strips have been collected in the volumes Inhuman Relations and Greetings from Mullein Fields. Both are available in paperback and ebook editions from his store at Lulu.com. Hyer’s more current comics can be found at his website.
Jessica Tremblay currently lives in Vancouver, BC, where she creates her weekly haiku comic strip Old Pond. As a winner of the Best BC Poem of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational 2008, her poem was sculpted in a stone at the VanDusen botanical garden. More of Jessica’s poetically insightful strips can be found at her Old Pond Comics website.
Stephen Walker was born in the Silver Age, grew up in the Bronze Age and found himself landing in middle age. He’s dedicated as much of his life as possible to squandering his potential but has still managed to get the odd book published—and to inflict various blogs on the world. As the end of the road approaches with ever greater speed, he spends as much time as possible hiding in his spare room and contemplating the mysteries of this and other worlds. Should you wish to do so, you can find his comic book-inspired ramblings at http://stevedoescomics.blogspot.com. His fiction titles are available in electronic editions at Amazon.com.
R. W. Watkins is a Canadian poet, essayist, and longtime appreciator of comics and cartoons. He was the editor and publisher of Contemporary Ghazals, the world’s first English-language journal dedicated to the style of Middle Eastern poetry from which it took its title. His poetry and literary criticism have appeared most notably in Lynx, RAW NerVZ Haiku, Haiku Canada publications, and Agha Shahid Ali’s ghazals anthology Ravishing DisUnities. Also known for his work in Japanese styles of poetry, he has published three chapbooks of haiku, tanka and renga, including New England Country Farmhouse (2005), which has proven fairly popular with fans of an early Jodie Foster film from which it takes inspiration. In recent years, Watkins has shifted much of his attention to internet publishing (‘weblishing’), serving as assistant poetry editor at webzine Red Fez in the process.