In support of the arts

I just learned of a couple of projects that some (very talented) friends of mine are involved with, and I wanted to pass the info along to you folks.

First up is Rick Parker’s graphic Novel Deadboy which is all about a very troubled, misunderstood youth with a very bad attitude and a craving for adventure. Apparently this lad also has a tasty bar of chocolate. According to the promo copy, he and his naive (formerly-dead) friend, accompany a wise-cracking crow (who believes himself to be a raven) as the three of them “circumnavigate a nightmarish, surrealistic landscape inhabited by love-starved, violence-prone zombies and all manner of strange creatures large and small.”

Rick, in his uniquely-sarcastic way is suggesting that the book only be read by mature and well, immature readers.

it is a print-on-demand book, and can be found online here. you can preview the whole book by going here.

Chris Giarrusso is working on a new G-MAN story for a project called Reading with Pictures, which is a is a newly-formed nonprofit organization that is looking to revolutionize the role of comicbooks in education. It is their intention to actually work with academics in order to cultivate groundbreaking research into the proper role of comics in the realm of education. It is their intention to collaborate with cartoonists in order to produce exceptional graphic novel content intended for scholastic use. Most importantly, they are going to partner up with interested educators so as to develop a system of best practices for use of integrating comics into their curriculum.

Seriously, how cool is that? Want to know more? The check them out at their site. for a video that will tell you more, follow this link.

Both of these guys are wicked-talented, and very cool (and both talk to me, so that lets you know that they are also very tolerant). So I highly recommend that you support them and their work.