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CALLING ALL COMICS ARTISTS!
Earlier this year, Typecast took initial steps into the realm of comics with its online journal Sawmill. Our first edition presented comic works by Ken Henson, Maureen Fellinger, and Megan Stanton. After publishing the stories of these great artists we hope to find more talented comic creators to present to the online world in our second issue.
Any may submit, from the veteran illustrator to the budding student. We’re looking for inventive stories with interesting art, we enjoy works that explore and challenge the notion of comics, although the tried and true adventure stories with heroes and bad guys are also welcome. So send us your weird, your surreal, your super-powered, or your classics. We just want your best so we can continue our celebration of this fantastic form.
To Submit:
Email a fully finished short-comic no longer than 20 pages in .jpeg or .pdf format at a resolution of 180dpi. Artists wanting specifically to submit for our second issue must be sent in by July 10, 2012 for consideration, otherwise submissions are open year round. All questions and submissions can be emailed to: jake@typecastpublishing.com.
For more information about Sawmill check out these two links:
LONG AFTER HE WAS OUT OF SIGHT: Wildlife
LONG AFTER HE WAS OUT OF SIGHT: Wildlife
by Jonathan Hines
This summer, Typecast is publishing a series of creative non-fiction essays direct from writer Jonathan Hines’s six-month journey along the entirety of the Appalachian Trail. This week, the adventure factor heats up with a bear encounter, and a reflection on what it means to be a modern man encased in the real world — the one where Mother Nature has the first and final say.
The picture above, at a glance, may appear like just another sleepy forest scene, a scene as familiar to Appalachian Trail thru-hikers as the daily commute to work.
Look a bit closer, however. Study the shadows and knots of the trees and one discovers something quite surprising, something easily missed without a bit of analysis.
A young cub is clinging to that tree, calling out to its mother for protection from the two scruffy-looking hikers nearby. Two of its siblings are also clinging to the tree further below making that same surprising wail. A sound one never would have guessed a bear — even a young bear — would make, almost like a baby crying.
I, of course, was one of those scruffy-looking hikers ogling the three cubs with one eye and keeping the other eye on the lookout for angry mother bear. She didn’t happen upon the scene until after I had moved further down the trail from her young cubs, and by her gait I surmised she was rather flustered by my presence.
I don’t blame her annoyance. I fully admit I am trespassing on these grounds and can’t help feel like an intruder wandering through someone’s garden during my daily hikes. I know my presence is no secret, however, and in fact can feel the eyes on me at times.
Wildlife on the Appalachian Trail is unsurprisingly ubiquitous, but it takes a keen eye and a bit of luck to spot the larger variety of species that call these forests home. Had those cubs not squealed and clamored up a tree upon detecting my presence, I probably would have walked right past them.
My knowledge of animal life and behavior in the Appalachian Mountains is pretty much limited to the World Books I read cover-to-cover as a kid and slow-motion snippets of animal documentaries that always seem to draw out the part where one animal devours another.
Still, there’s something about coming across a creature in its natural habitat that no medium can capture.
Somewhere in North Carolina, I disturbed the personal space of a wild turkey, whose red gobbler contrasted starkly with earth tones of the woods. Several days later I came across a black snake — perhaps four feet in length — who idly stretched across the trail, daring hikers to cross the dark line of his body. (With some prodding, we shooed him back into the woods.)
In the month I’ve spent in the woods thus far, I’ve familiarized myself with many of the sounds of the forest — a good portion of the ornithological variety: the rhythmic thump of the grouse’s wings as it calls for a mate, the hollow drill of the woodpecker seeking a late lunch, the eery hoot of the owl as I crawl into my tent for the night.
These sounds seemed alarming and caused me some concern at first. Now, they are as familiar to me as the ring of a cellphone.
Insects are perhaps the most common companions of hikers whether desired or undesired. I’ve already made acquaintance with the invisible chiggers and biting flies unfortunately. These unfortunate introductions have been offset, however, by the numerous caterpillars and butterflies that I happen upon my path.
Watching a caterpillar stretch from blade of grass to blade of grass can teach one about the meaning of a leap of faith, methinks. Perhaps us thru-hikers aren’t as courageous as we’d like to think.
So far, a feeling of shock and annoyance have permeated what few encounters with large wildlife I’ve had. I’m hoping that changes as my hike progresses.
I’d like to rid myself of this feeling of intrusion, walk up to my friends of the forest and introduce myself as a fellow native.
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Read previous entries from this series here and here. And check back once a week or so (as the trail permits) as Jon continues to publish his essays until he reaches the end of the trail in late summer.
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Long After He Was Out of Sight, Dispatch #2
STILL LIFE WITH SUNSET AND TECATE
by Jonathan Hines
As a part of our ongoing creative nonfiction series, we present Live Dispatch #2 from our resident writer-gone-rogue, Jonathan Hines, who is attempting to thru-hike the entirety of the Appalachian Trail. If you missed his first dispatch, you can catch it here. Additionally, you can check in on Jon daily from his blog here.
Gatlinburg, Tenn.
If walking across the Southern Appalachians has revealed anything to me these first three weeks, it’s the vastness of this country. It’s been more than 200 years since Betsy Ross sewed together the first stars and stripes and we still have more space than we know what to do with.
Exhibit A for this phenomenon is Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the tourist’s tourist town nestled just beyond the borders of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
I stopped in Gatlinburg on the 21st day of my thru-hike attempt for three reasons:
1) To be that guy at the Shoney’s buffet sitting by himself and eating for a family of four.
2) To get out of the rain that turned the Smoky Mountains section of the Appalachian Trail into a river walk.
3) To ogle back at the mass of humanity who descend on this trinkety mountain town for Spring Break/Easter weekend.
I successfully fulfilled all three of these objectives and even had time to down a 24-once Tecate from the local Hispanic grocery, a loophole business in omnipresent Gatlinburg’s tourist economy.
Thru-hikers like myself generally find Gatlinburg an unsavory place, avoiding it altogether or stopping in for as little time as possible. When one considers the common thru-hiker quest of “getting away from it all” this isn’t all that surprising–because Gatlinburg is “it all.”
There isn’t one novelty, one cheap form of entertainment that can’t be found in the area. Just walking down the town’s main drag I saw a 3-D movie theater that physically moves during the film, the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers and approximately 90 percent of the world’s old-timey photo shops.
The most amazing/inconsequential thing I saw in town was a giant granite boulder suspended on a thin fountain of water in front of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, a museum I recall touring as a youth. A sign next to the boulder said something to the effect of, “This thing weighs a zillion pounds! Roll it in place on this thin sheet of water! It’s so much fun!”
In the distance, beyond the aquarium and manikin swinging back and forth from the trapeze at the goofy golf shop, a still-life worthy sunset dipped below the Smoky Mountains, peeking out through the mist that often fills the landscape’s gaps.
A day earlier, I was hiking up Clingman’s Dome, attempting to stay dry after getting caught in a rain storm the day before. Clingman’s Dome is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, but most people who summit it do so by car. At the top, a dense fog obscured any chance of a view. That didn’t stop the people from coming, however.
As I stopped for a lunch break, a steady stream of tourists, parents, grandparents, children, walked back and forth between the observation tower and the parking lot. Once at the top of the observation tower, they read the displays and took pictures of what they would be seeing if not for the fog and pollution.
“We’re taking pictures of nothing,” a young boy said as I snapped a shot of what on a clear day would be North Carolina.
As I ate my lunch–tuna, cheese and hot sauce, yum!–a man nearby recognized my backpack, unshaven face and perhaps odorous scent and asked if I was a thru-hiker, one of those mythical characters who attempt to walk from Georgia to Maine.
Instantly, everyone within thirty feet of me stopped and stared. It was uncanny. Like I was an escaped novelty act straight off the streets of G-burg.
After the moment passed, a few people approached me and asked questions. Several high schoolers from Goshen, Indiana, on a Spring Break hiking trip in the Smokies spoke to me as if I were a demigod, a wise man to be feared and consulted for the meaning of life.
I tried to be as down to earth to them as possible in my responses. Thru-hiking, thus far, has been an awesome experience. Take the time to do it. Make it happen.
The man who originally asked if I was a thru-hiker, an older gentleman, said he once had thoughts about attempting the feat.
“That window has passed now,” he said.
I didn’t say anything in response although I’m hiking alongside thru-hikers well into their 60s.
Watching the freshly-waxed cars and butter-faced tourists on the streets of Gatlinburg, I can somewhat see the appeal of all those diversions, the flashing lights, loud noises and sweet flavors. It’s an escape, as easy as reaching into one’s wallet.
As a thru-hiker, I can relate to that, but the escape I’ve chosen is less immediate, more immersive and complete. I know spending six months in the woods isn’t for everyone, but I wonder if those same people would feel more connected, more curious, more alive, if they spent extended time among nature–where most of the stimulation (and all of the movement) is self-generated.
I wonder if they would feel more empowered after a period of existing in the technological stone age with only the wind as the soundtrack.
Like I said, it’s a vast country we live in, and the distance from one person to the next seems to be expanding with time.