Crafty Bastards this weekend

The annual Crafty Bastards show is this weekend at Union Market and it will have a couple of comics folks as well as fan-favorite local graphic artists. Baltimore comics creators include Ben Claassen III (Dirtfarm) and Michael Bracco of Spaghetti Kiss (Novo; The Creators; Adam Wreck). Printer Anthony Diehl of Fire Studio (Diehl did the cover of the the free D.C. comics newspaper Magic Bullet #5) and Jeffrey Everett of El Hefe Design (Everett designed the Magic Bullet logo gracing the covers of #6 and #7). TinaSeamonster will be there, too (Tina created the time-traveling squid character in Magic Bullet #7). 

Ben Claassen's Dirtfarm has a Facebook page

And here it is - https://www.facebook.com/dirtfarmcomic

Comics return to the City Paper

The City Paper's redesigned itself and has this to say about comic strips -

Comics Page. Like many of our readers, we were sorry to see the paper's comics go a few years ago. Starting next week, they'll be back, on a single dedicated page that will feature Derf's excellent The City, Shawn Belschwender's Clown Time, David Malki's Wondermark, and Michael Kupperman's Up All Night. You'll still find Dirt Farm in its usual place.

- and we note that Ben Claassen is the cartoonist of Dirt Farm.

Graphic Content panel in pictures

As far as I know, the DC Library hasn't posted a podcast of last weekend's panel yet, but here's my photos. To remind all, this was -

"Graphic Content: A Conversation with Five DC Area Graphic Storytellers."
Shannon "G.I. Joe" Gallant, Matt "Politico" Wuerker, Andrew "Trickster" Cohen, Evan "DC Conspiracy" Keeling and Ben "Dirtfarm" Classen at Northwest One Neighborhood Library, June 26, 2010, Washington DC.


Andrew Cohen, Evan Keeling and then Matt Wuerker in far background. The pages Andrew is showing come from the graphic novel he and Matt Dembicki are doing on DC's Huerich mansion, and look lovely.


Matt Wuerker. Nobody asked him about the hat.


Ben Claassen and Shannon Gallant.


Shannon Gallant signing a 'Black Canary' sketch he gave to me.


Evan Keeling, Ben Claassen and Shannon Gallant comparing pencils.


Andrew Cohen, Evan Keeling and Ben Claassen.