“A Slot Machine for Wooden Nickels” is a set of seven pieces for either keyboard or violin and ‘cello. Each is 49 measures long, divided in different ways; the first is 7 x 7, the second 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10, the third 10 + 10 + […]

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“Scuttles of Petals” was written by assigning letters of the alphabet to the top 26 pitches of the keyboard, and then spelling the names of flowers, yielding pitches that follow linguistic, rather than common-practice, patterns. The names go from 13 to 4 letters, a sequence that is repeated three times. The first set is: chrysanthemum, […]

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Shorten the Classics is now available from Black Scat Books! This book reduces 52 great works of literature to one cartoon page apiece: not by summarizing them, but by cutting them off early. See what happens when Helen rejects Paris, the acorn misses Chicken Little, Adam and Eve eat the serpent, Leopold Bloom sleeps in, […]

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This, I think, will be the first page of my upcoming comic book Shorten the Classics. I may as well start by aborting the Trojan War. Good riddance!

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In another shortened classic, Chicken Little doesn’t think the sky is falling. What a relief!

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I’ve drawn a few pages under the rubric “Shorten the Classics.” Each is four panels, and abbreviates a famous work of literature, usually by nipping it in the bud. Tragedies are averted, murders prevented, adulteries blocked. Derek Pell of Black Scat Books urged me to draw a book of them, so that’s what I’m doing […]

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“Selby Yarrow’s Private Diary” can be found in The Snowman Three Doors Down. Poor Selby Yarrow starts a diary, but runs into difficulty with both his intentions and his materials. He also decides to keep it in code, only to realize that anyone can crack it, since he described it before using it. Here’s how […]

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In this univocalic story from The Snowman Three Doors Down, Ebenezer and Celeste have to decipher a coded message sent by the settlers. This may mean trouble for Fessenden. Here’s how it begins… THE SECRET SENTENCE Ebenezer’s beeper beeped. He pressed the desk beeper; Celeste entered the belvedere.“Yes?” she beseeched. He greeted her, petted the […]

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Sleeping Beauty and Rip Van Winkle had much in common, but never met. In this tale in verse, they switch places on awakening, to general confusion. Here’s how it begins. SLEEPING BEAUTY AND RIP VAN WINKLE Sleeping Beauty, Rip Van Winkle, Slept beneath the wheeling twinkle Of the starry sky on high, Slept as decades […]

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The second volume of Le Scat Noir Encyclopédie is now available! This cornucopia of information, like its predecessor, is edited by Norman Conquest and published by Black Scat Books. I was among over forty contributors; my contributions include articles on Aleatoric Temperament, Boxing Kangaroo Rats, Communion Waffles, Spicy Railroad Stories, Viper Midwives, and other more […]

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