Hey, y’all, John here. Thanks to the completely unanticipated huge numbers of you who have been–hopefully–enjoying the current Vladrushka serial in This Sickness at Adult Webcomics. (and remember, the print version is available today from Fantagraphics/Eros)

However, all good things must come to an end. And things like this too. But on Sept. 26, you have a brand new serial to look forward to, original to AWC! Everything up to this point has been previously published in, or had been intended for, print at Eros. This one will be premiered in This Sickness.

And it’s a labor of love that I’ve had in the works a very long while.

It’s titled THE STORY OF OH!, which is somewhat parodic, you may get the feeling. And a chance for me to indulge my love of the great Guido Crepax, whose version of the original O is what started me down this seedy road of adult cartooning. But by far the greatest honor in this, for me, is that it represents my second occasion to work with my special guest writer, the one, the only, Charles Alverson!

In addition to his longtime work in journalism, Charles is known as the editor, under Harvey Kurtzman, of the legendary HELP! Magazine. Even more famously, he has collaborated twice with director Terry Gilliam, having written the screenplay for Jabberwocky(still beats Holy Grail in the Dark Ages Comedy category hands down), and the original draft, called “The Ministry,” of what became Brazil. But he’s one of the world’s great humorists no matter what side of the Atlantic he’s on at the moment. Incidentally, these days, that’d be Serbia. (Check out his website for more fun facts about Charles, and if you don’t believe my horrible self, read this testimonial from Terry Jones.) Charles, via Jabberwocky, is one of my biggest influences, so it’s a huge kick to get to draw his work.

This project grew out of our previous one. Charles contributed two great stories to 2003’s Working for the Man, one illustrated by my friend Sam Henderson, the other, “Rapunzel,” by myself. The Story of OH! was another script he’d sent, but I felt at the time it might be, well, not right for a benefit. But it certainly is now. It had been meant to be, at one time, a short film. But comics is a more deserving medium, don’t you think?

Anyway, be sure to visit This Sickness to see this new and very odd serial, starting a week from today!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 11:22 am and is filed under Adult Webcomics News, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.