Signing at McNally Jackson! First Second's 5th anniversary!

First Second, publisher of Journey into Mohawk Country, Ball-Peen Hammer, The First Second Nursery Rhyme Book, and the Olympians series is turning 5 years old! Join me in raising a glass to the wonderful people who, for some reason, keep seeing fit to publish me this Tuesday, November 15th at McNally Jackson Bookstore in Soho! I'll be joined by other such First Second luminaries as Dave Roman, Mike Cavallaro, MK Reed, Mark Siegel, Molly Crabapple, Danica Novgorodoff, John Leavitt, Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, Carla Jablonski, Matt Madden, and  Joe Infurnari!

The fun begins at 7 Pm, see you there!

The Sailor Twain/ Journey into Mohawk Country Connection, Part deux; kinda like the Rainbow Connection, but with less singing frogs

Devotees of this blog will recall a post I made about a month ago detailing an unexpected and hitherto unrevealed link between First Second Editorial Grand Poobah Mark Siegel's awesome ongoing webcomic Sailor Twain and my own historical graphic novel Journey into Mohawk Country (follow the link if you missed it).

Well, I'm a little late in reporting this (mainly due to the mother of all flu bugs laying me out cold since late last year) but in the December, 27th installment of Sailor Twain some very familiar faces made an appearance.

That's Harmen van den Bogaert, the author of Journey into Mohawk Country, flanked by his companions Jeronimus de la Croix and Willem Thomassen, as based on the below drawing by yours truly. Now we know what happened to our Dutch heroes after Journey concluded. Who knew Mermaids played a part?

Pretty cool stuff, if I may say so myself. It's really great that Mark has woven these two tales together like this, and I'll bet Harmen van den Bogaert is pretty high atop the list of characters least likely to be featured in two separate graphic novels. If you're not already reading Sailor Twain, I hope this convinces you to start.

The Sailor Twain/ Journey into Mohawk Country Connection; kinda like The French Connection, but with less car chases

Broke out my Mohawk Country tee for the occasion

So are you reading Sailor Twain by Mark Siegel yet? Mark Siegel, in addition to being a ridiculously talented cartoonist and illustrator, is the Editorial Director of First Second, the publishing house that puts out my graphic novels. Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in The Hudson is his online comic being updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Recently Mark held a Sailor Twain Meet-up in the Flatiron building, a wine-tasting party for the new Sailor Twain wine(!).

Here's Mark showing off a model of the steamship Lorelei from Sailor Twain

The booze in question.

Everyone who attended was given a small bottle like the one's pictured below. Once opened, there was a message inside, as befits a bottle.

That's mine, third row, second from the right.

Each of the messages was a "Hudson River Artifact", a tantalizing clue to the mystery of Sailor Twain and, one would presume, the Mermaid of the Hudson River. You can read the messages that people received on the Sailor Twain Facebook Page.

My friend Joe Infurnari got a message in his bottle that was particularly interesting to me. Here's a scan of the text here:

It reads: ‎"To a sympathetic ear,

Harmen van den Bogaert met a sorry end, I've heard from later arrivals. We are both victims of the river, yet his end is still not so sorry as mine. I have been here since 19639 and have no hope of any rescue.

-- Captain Dick van Leeuwen,
(scribed by Ned Blum)"

The Harmen van den Bogaert mentioned above is the gentlemen whose actual real-world journal serves as the text for my graphic novel "Journey into Mohawk Country", published by First Second. The real life Harmen did indeed meet a sorry end, read all about it here.

When worlds collide

Pretty awesome, huh? I'm pretty gosh darned psyched that Mr. van den Bogaert has made an appearance in the world of Sailor Twain (and I hope he makes an actual in-comic cameo at some point as well). I just had to share it with all of you.