This Sickness no. 8: Spring 2016

THEY DID THIS

Charles Alverson was born in Los Angeles, California in 1935. At the age of 17 he joined the Army and became a paratrooper. After attending four colleges in four years, he moved to New York City and landed a job as assistant editor to Harvey Kurtzman on HELP! Magazine. As HELP! was sinking, he became a hack journalist before taking a Masters degree in journalism at Columbia University. That got him a job on the Wall Street Journal, which he quit in 1969 to move to London as a correspondent for Rolling Stone

Like many journalists, he wanted to write a novel. So when he moved to Wales at the beginning of 1971, he sat down to write one. His novel, a thriller called ‘Fighting Back,’ was published in 1974. He published two more in the seventies then another in 1989. In between, he co-wrote Jabberwocky and Brazil with Terry Gilliam. After he moved in 1994 to Serbia, he wrote five more. All nine are published on Amazon, and he is at work on a tenth.

Alverson currently divides his time between Belgrade and his wife Zivana’s farm in Parage, North Serbia.

In addition to several anthology appearances, CS DeWildt is the author of Candy and Cigarettes, Love You to a Pulp, and the short fiction collection, Dead Animals. His latest book, Kill ‘Em with Kindness will be published by All Due Respect Books in June, 2016. DeWildt lives in Arizona with his wife and sons where he writes, reads, and teaches English composition. He is currently writing a sequel to Love You to a Pulp. You can visit him at csdewildt.com or find him on Twitter: @csdewildt

Duong Thi Phuong Hang and Gianna Ratto are artists living in Oakland. This is the debut in print for both.

Emily Kaplan as an infant, used to stay up all night and tell herself jokes, and then laugh at them quietly to herself. When she was able to hold a crayon, she drew in all her books and all over the walls. When she couldn't think of anything to draw, just drew Xs over everything. Not much has changed, really. When she was in third grade, her teacher told her parents, "Emily is a talented artist, but you shouldn't encourage her; she'll never make any money at it," which her tax accountant will tell you is not technically true. She went on to drop out of one of the finest art schools in the country, and currently resides in Minneapolis. When she isn't busy making poor life choices or doing laundry she paints, animates, and makes weird things that people buy for some misguided reasons known only to themselves. Contrary to popular belief, she only has one cat.

This is the first collection of her paintings in print.

Molly Kiely is an artist and illustrator. She wrote and drew two graphic novels and ten or so comic books in the mid 1990s through the early 2000s, including the Diary of a Dominatrix series and That Kind of Girl.

She lives in a small cottage in the desert outside Tucson with her daughter, and draws when it suits her. Visit with her at mollykiely.com

Chad Parenteau is the current host and organizer of the Stone Soup Poetry series now based in Cambridge MA at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery. His work has been published in Amethyst Arsenic, off The Coast, Incessant Pipe, Poesy and the anthology Working Stiff: The Anthology of Professional Wrestling Literature & Art. His first full-length poetry collection, Patron Emeritus, was published by FootHills Publishing in 2013. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

John Linton Roberson has been an independent cartoonist, writer, and illustrator for over 25 years, and produced this volume, as well as 21 other books as Bottomless Studio since 1998. He is the adapter of Frank Wedekind's Lulu (Book 1 available at Amazon & Comixology), the creator of Martha, Vladrushka, and Suzy Spreadwell, among others, and the co-creator (with John E. Williams) of Uncle Cyrus. In addition he has also been published by Journey Magazine, Fantagraphics Books, Seven Stories Press and Martian Lit. Pages from his Lulu were exhibited in Munich's Deutsches Theatremuseum as part of their 2014 Frank Wedekind retrospective. Occasionally he is heard, usually at length, on Tim Young's Deconstructing Comics podcast.

John lives in northern California with a quartet of cats. In print you can find him at Amazon. Online you can find him at jlroberson.org.