This photo of Frank Miller, Larry Marder , Colleen Doran & Jeff at the RASL launch/CBLDF benefit party is from Larry's Beanworld blog.

Hi everybody. Tom and Jeff here. Well, April 16th FINALLY arrived and the Cartoon Books staff boarded a plane and flew to New York City to officially launch our new series RASL, and throw a benefit party for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Dude. Where's my car?

Wait. There it is.

No star treatment here. We make Jeff schlep his own bags. 

Jeff and Steve clowning around in the limo.

Times Square baby! and the location of our hotel. When checking in, we were given warm chocolate chip cookies. No time to take pics, we were hungry and we woofed 'em down. 

Tom caught Jeff in front of Smith's Bar. Vijaya pointed out that the only letters still lit in the word restaurant spelled "rant".

Wednesday night: The makeshift entrance sign to the party was one of the 11"x17" gift bag prints taped to the door of Coolture Spain.

The venue was hip and swanky.

Jeff signing copies of RASL. 

Colleen Doran shows pages of her awesome new project to Charles Brownstein of CBLDF.

Friends Bob and Gina Chapman of Graphitti Designs share a laugh with Elizabeth (with her back to us)  from the CBLDF.

Steve and a huge blow up of the cover to RASL #3.

For more pictures and great write ups of the party, you can visit The Beat, and The Daily Cross Hatch.

The next morning in the hotel, Jeff looks a little rough before heading over to The New Yorker to have lunch with Francoise Mouly. Francoise is the art director of New Yorker Magazine, and co-publisher of the new line of children's graphic novels Toon Books. (We were so amazed at the Conde Nast building, that we forgot to take pictures! Francoise's office looked out over Times Square. The only photo we got was this one of the cafeteria designed by Frank Gehrey!)

Vijaya had mediterranean veggie pot-stickers.

Thursday night: We returned to Coolture Spain for a second night of fund raising for the CBLDF. 

First Paul Levitz (president of DC Comics & CBLDF board member), then Neil Gaiman took turns explaining how important our mission is. Of special concern at the moment is the ongoing battle in Georgia over the Gordon Lee case, where prosecutors are trying to put a comic shop retailer in jail for accidentally giving a minor a comic book that showed Picasso painting in the nude (it was a free comic book day give away that included a snippet from Nick Bertozzi's brilliant book The Salon ). This case is particularly outrageous. You can read me ranting about the Gordon Lee case here.

You can see more pictures and a write up of the evening's events on Heidi MacDonald's The Beat.  

I discussed RASL and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund with the website Comic Related. You can read the interview here.

This photo of Chris Staros, Paul Pope, Judy Hansen and an unidentified woman are from Heidi's blog.

Friday night BONUS: And the greatest news of the weekend, a surprised and happy Neil Gaiman made a stunning announcement: the judge in the Gordan Lee case signed the papers to dismiss all charges. After three years and more than a $100,000 in legal fees, Gordan Lee's nightmare is over.

“And we are so f***ing relieved, it was very, very long and hard and incredibly stressful for Gordon,” Gaiman added before thanking the crowd for their support, noting that it’s a very rare instance when one is able to begin a presentation with such good news.

The full quote and story can be found on Newsarama!

This is good news. Congratulations to Lee! And thank you to Charles Brownstein and everyone on the CBLDF team for staying on top of this case. 

We're all moving at breakneck speed here at Cartoon Books trying to get everything done in time for the official RASL launch party tomorrow night in New York City.  RASL #2 has to go to the printers in a couple of weeks, and I had to finish up writing the last four pages this morning.  The second issue is coming out at the end of May, and starts to shed some light on Rasl and his technology, as well as the nature of the danger he finds himself in.

I can't wait for this to ship. But before that, the whole Cartoon crew: me, Vijaya, Kathleen, Steve, and Tom are flying to New York to party and help raise some funds for the Comic Book Legal Fund.

One of the reasons I'm excited about the party is that a lot of my New York cartoonist pals are coming, and if this is anything like our usual get togethers, we'll be shaking the place up. The venue is a new one for CBLDF parties. It's called Coolture Spain. An intimate hip, swanky place that is usually used by the fashion industry for shows. We've made huge blow-ups of RASL covers and pages to hang on the walls, and Steve Hamaker has colored a special RASL print that be in all the gift bags. You can see the print below (I'll be signing the prints just before the party starts).

Charles tells me most of the VIP tickets are gone, but there are still tickets left. Only $25 bucks - - money for a good cause and you drink for free all night! 

So if you're in the area, or coming into town for the New York Comic-Con (I will NOT be at the comic-con this year), come out and party with us! We're going to have a blast! And I'll blog about it next Monday…

For more details on gift bags and tickets, click here.  

See you all tomorrow night.

Congratulations Steve! This is a great accomplishment. Good Luck, I hope you win. Here are a couple of examples of why he was nominated.

Steve will attending the San Diego Comic-Con where the Eisner Awards will be held on July 25, 2008.

You can see the complete list of nominees here. 

Posted by Tom 

Wizard magazine lists BONE #1 in two of its countdown categories. "The 200 Greatest Comics in Wizard's History" and "Collecting 1991-2008: The 20 most valuable, non-variant comics in Wizard's History. 

BONE #1 ranked as the seventh best comic in Wizard history and third (at $250) in the most valuable category. Congrats Jeff!

You can buy a copy of Wizard 200 at your local comic book shop or click here to buy it direct from Wizard. 

Posted by Tom

The current issue of Entertainment Weekly (April 11th) on newstands now, has a review of RASL #1.

Here's a quote:

"A rollicking sci-fi caper and promising follow-up to Smith's all-ages masterpiece Bone, albeit for older fans. Grade: A"

Read the rest of the article here.