At last the big ALEC OMNIBUS, now titled "The Years have Pants", has gone off to the printer, and will return in all its glory in time for its September appearance in the stores. That title is a quotation of the title and first line of a poem by William Ernest Moenkhaus, a bright light of the 1920s who died much too young. The book has a striking cover designed by Eric Skillman who has been getting a lot of attention for his work on the Criterion Collection DVDs. Here's a recent interview with him.

Here are brief glimpses of one of the new stories that I've drawn specially:


This particular story is a five- pager and is a sampling of the 45 pages of new or previously unpublished material included in the book. If all you've seen previously are the four books I published myself between 2000 and 2002, then this volume has 90 pages altogether that you won't have seen before.


It's being solicited right now in the Diamond Previews catalogue. Make sure your local outlet knows about it!



*********
In the meantime, I chipped my back tooth this morning on the wife's well-cooked bacon and no dentist is open till Monday. "Worries, worries, pile up in my head. Woe is me i should have stayed in bed," in the words of Problems by F and B Bryant , as sung by the Everly Brothers in 1958 (and heard here in rare demo).