It’s an indie comics convention right here in our own region!

October 20, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Northampton Center for the Arts, 17 New South Street, Northampton, MA

Join Trees & Hills and many local, regional, and other cartoonists at the Paint & Pixel Festival. Celebrating illustration online and in print, Paint & Pixel showcases Western New England’s talented book illustrators, comic artists, and cartoonists in one venue. Trees & Hills will have Trick or Treat Comics on hand for your Halloween needs!

Meet and get to know talented creators and their work ranging from indie comics to award-winning children’s books, prominent webcomics and comic strips–it’s a great opportunity to meet friendly, professional illustrators, learn about the creative process, and purchase signed books, prints, commissioned sketches, and other artwork.

Admission (at the door)
$5 for adults
$2 for children 6-12
Free for children 5 and under

Our second annual set of Trick or Treat Comics is here: seven small (2.75″ x 4.25″) & spooky 8-page minicomics, perfect for handing out to trick-or-treaters or Halloween party-goers – or to keep for your crypt library!

Includes:

• “Candy Corn!” by Madsahara
• “Caramel Apple Challenge” by Anne Thalheimer
• “Midnight Snack” by Colin Tedford
• “Monsters Are Just Like Us!” by Sarah Margaret Frye
• “31 Oktober: All Saints’ Eve in Slovakia” by Marek Bennett
• “What Is Under My Bed?” by Bob Oxman
• “Yesterday Upon the Stair” by Glynnis Fawkes

Buy:

• a single set or
• a multipack of three sets to hand out.

Or download the PDFs and print your own for noncommercial use (there are two PDFs because the comics in them get cut differently):

• Trick or Treat Comics set #2 PDF #1 (10.7 MB)
• Trick or Treat Comics set #2 PDF #2 (1.7 MB)

Assembly instructions
[Read more →]

Do you want to submit a comic to Share but still don’t have a story idea? Here are some sharing- and cooperation-related topics we’d like to include:

• Libraries. Commonly-owned books for everyone to use — what’s not to like? But today they face challenges from restricted funding to publisher caprice regarding e-books.
• The Fletcher Free Library‘s tool-lending program in Burlington, VT (could also be part of a piece on libraries in general).
• Internet sharing culture. Memes, cat photos, blogs, status updates, file swapping, Wikipedia, YouTube – if you think people don’t like to share, perhaps you haven’t visited the Internet. Lots of potential to find wider meaning even in seemingly trivial things here.
• Creative Commons. “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. [...] If you want to give people the right to share, use, and even build upon a work you’ve created, you should consider publishing it under a Creative Commons license. CC gives you flexibility (for example, you can choose to allow only non-commercial uses) and protects the people who use your work, so they don’t have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the conditions you have specified.” Conveniently, the Creative Commons website itself is largely licensed in a way that permits adaptations and commercial use. (Related: you may want to check out the Center for the Study of the Public Domain’s comic Tales From the Public Domain: Bound By Law?)
• Sharing and cooperation among plants, animals, and other life forms. When members of different species interact in a relationship that benefits them both, it’s known in biology as mutualism (when it’s among members of the same species it’s “co-operation”, but someone’s already doing a comic about hermit crab co-operation). Well-known examples include pollination and the bacteria in human digestive tracts. Less widely known: lots of plants depend on relationships with fungi living among their roots!
• Shared transportation. They say the U.S. has a love affair with cars, but it’s a dysfuctional relationship. Roads full of cars (most carrying only one person) are inefficient, dangerous, and environmentally destructive. Ride-sharing, car-sharing, and mass transit can reduce those problems. For a local ride-sharing program see Connecting Commuters (VT), Upper Valley Rideshare (VT & NH), NH Rideshare, MassRides (MA), and MassCommute (MA). For car-sharing, there is at least one Zipcar program in the region, but we’d be more interested in hearing about the Upper Valley Community Car (info available on request – it doesn’t have a website, but some of the Center For Cartoon Studies folk use it).

If you’d like to draw a story written by someone else, we need an artist for a six page piece about open source software that someone is writing and thumbnailing.

If you decide to cover any of these topics, please let us know so we can avoid overlap. If you would like help with research or advice on writing about real-world subjects, drop us a line and we’ll do our best to support you. Either way, you can reach us in comments here or via organize@treesandhills.org.

Still not inspired? We’ll post more story ideas this week and gather them all on our story ideas page, plus we’re having another Share submission workshop in Brattleboro, VT this coming Sunday.

September 8, 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Twighlight Tea Lounge, 41 Main St., Brattleboro, VT

Join the Brattleboro Comix Lab as we work on our submissions to the next Trees & Hills anthology, Share. Need a story idea? Help or guidance with research? Writing advice? Trees & Hills co-editor Colin Tedford will be on hand to help. Bring a computer if you have one and need to do research; you may want headphones if you plan to write or draw while others are talking about their projects.

The Twilight Tea Lounge is downstairs from Knit or Die; you can enter the front door across from the Latchis or the side door down the hill on Arch Street.

We look forward to your submissions!

The deadline for the next Trees & Hills anthology, Share, has been extended from September 6 to September 23. [EDIT: now March 24, 2013] If you need a story idea, help with research, or advice on writing, we encourage you to join us in Brattleboro, VT on September 8 for a free anthology submission workshop.

We look forward to seeing your stories!

Exhibitor applications have opened for the Paint & Pixel Festival in Northampton, MA October 20. Celebrating illustration online and in print, Paint & Pixel showcases Western New England’s talented book illustrators, comic artists, and cartoonists in one venue.

• Applications are due by 11:59 PM EDT, Sunday, July 22.
• Acceptance letters will be e-mailed by August 6.
• Table payments will be due two week of invoice date.

Table costs are $50 for a full, 6′ table with two exhibitor passes, or $25 for a half-table with one exhibitor pass included.

To apply, review the exhibitor policies and complete the online application.

Good luck!

The Union of Concerned Scientists is holding its seventh annual editorial cartoon contest, with entries due July 1. This year’s theme is “Science and Democracy”. Entries may be single- or multi-panel. The winners will be printed in the UCS calendar; the one that goes on the cover receives $1000 and the rest receive $500, but note that this grants UCS ownership of the comics. Visit their site for rules, guidelines, and other information.

June 9, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Peterborough Town House, 1 Grove St., Peterborough, NH

Trees & Hills returns to Broke! Broke is a multidisciplinary arts event with a simple philosophy: art is for everybody. All Broke events are free to the public, and Broke vendors commit to presenting their wares for less than $50.

Broke is just one event during the annual “Thing in the Spring.” Other events during this weekend include:  performances from world-renowned musicians, film screenings, and a local farm breakfast/cartoon cereal party at Harlow’s Pub. Some events are ticketed and some are free.

Tables at this year’s Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) go on sale today at noon. Register soon, because tables will probably sell out quickly [EDIT: They sure did - in about twelve hours!] – it’s a great show, organized by our friends & neighbors the Boston Comics Roundtable. This year’s show happens September 29th in Cambridge, MA.