Laugh While You Can Tour 2005 with Tom Hart, Jen Sorensen and Tim Kreider. Contact: Tom Hart 718-687-7434 tomhart@newhatstories.com Further info, including cover images and cartoon art: http://www.tomhart.net/laughwhileyoucan/ 2/18/05 For Immediate Release: Award-Winning Political Cartoonists Announce Northeast Slideshow Cartoon Tour Details: Laugh While You Can Tour 2005 "Since the election it's not even funny anymore." Maybe not to amateurs. But three of America's most incisive young political cartoonists have made it their job to find the funny side of the Patriot Act, the War on Terror, and the end of American democracy. In slides, animation, and discussion, Tom Hart (Hutch Owen), Tim Kreider (The Pain-When Will It End?), and Jen Sorensen (Slowpoke), retrace our steps through the absurdist landscape of the last four years and look to the even more hilarious desolation ahead. An evening of outrage, catharsis, and laughter. Where and when: Wednesday March 23, 4 pm RISD, Providence Two College Street (401) 454-6100 Thursday March 24 Million Year Picnic, Boston 99 Mt. Auburn St (617) 492-6763 Friday March 25 Jim Hanley's Universe, NYC 4 West 33rd Street (212) 268-7088 Saturday March 26 4 pm Atticus Books, New Haven 1082 Chapel St. (203) 776-4040 Sunday March 27, 7pm Slideshow, KGB Bar, NYC 85 East 4th St (212) 505-3360 Monday March 28, 7 pm Robin's Book Store, Philadelphia 108 S.13th Street (215) 735-9600 Tuesday March 29, 7 pm Warehouse Theater sponsored by Olssons Book Store, DC 1021 7th Street (202) 783-3933 Some recent quotes on the work: "I have the cartoon 'male anorexia' on my bathroom mirror for sixteen months. I cannot shave, pimple-scan, or floss without it. It is I; He is me. Kreider rules." -David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest "Tim Kreider is the unsung superhero of contemporary cartooning, able to pierce the darkest, most clandestine corners of the American subconscious in a single panel. He is crazy and brilliant and funny enough to proclaim as truths the things the rest of us are too chickenshit to say out loud." -Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season "Smart and sharp" -Get Your War On creator David Rees "All life is a blur of Republicans and meat. Slowpoke roasts them both over the coals... with gusto!" -Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith "Finally, thanks to Jen Sorensen, we have conclusive evidence that it's actually fun to think!" - Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America "Hart's angry nonconformist Hutch Owen is a modern comics icon; a pissed-off homeless man who stands up for idealism and represents the individual against looming corporate hegemony. But the tales in this collection are not angry diatribes. Instead, they mix slapstick and verbal humor to create high-level social satire." -Publisher's Weekly "It's so accurately dead-on that it's scary... an amazing character... his refusal to become another interchangeable part in society's machine is believable, amusing, and intensely applicable at the same time." -Savant Magazine Tim Kreider http://www.thepaincomics.com Tim Kreider was born in Baltimore in 1967, and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars program in 1988. He has been stabbed in the throat in Crete, ridden the Ringling Brothers circus train to Mexico City, attended to a friend's recovery from gender reassignment surgery in Neenah, Wisconsin, and addressed the Forum on Innovative Approaches to Outer Planetary Exploration 2001-2020 at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. He is also the author of groundbreaking critical essays on films such as "Eyes Wide Shut" and "The Straight Story", which originally appeared in Film Quarterly and have subsequently been anthologized. Tim Kreider self-published issue #1 of The Pain--When Will It End? as a mini-comic in 1994. The cartoon began running weekly in the Baltimore City Paper in 1997, and has since been picked up by the Jackson Planet Weekly and The Indy in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Tim Kreider's original artwork has been exhibited in Baltimore, Chicago, and New York. His cartoon "Blowing One's Cool in the Clutch" was included in the Catholic League's 2002 Report on Anti-Catholicism. He is among the artists featured in Attitude 2: The New Subversive Social Commentary Cartoonists, edited by Ted Rall. A collection of his more recent political work, to be titled Why Do They Kill Me?, will be released by Fantagraphics in 2005. He migrates seasonally between an A-frame cabin on the Chesapeake Bay and New York City. Jen Sorensen http://www.slowpokecomics.com Jen Sorensen is the cartoonist behind "Slowpoke," a weekly strip which appears in alternative newspapers around the country, and in such national publications as Ms. Magazine, Funny Times, and Z Magazine. The cartoon can also be seen on Workingforchange.com and Cagle's Cartoon Index on Slate.com, and will soon be featured on CampusProgress.org, part of the Center for American Progress. Slowpoke made its debut as a weekly strip in 1998, and has since won two awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, in 2003 and 2004. The strip is also featured in Attitude: The New Subversive Political Cartoonists, an anthology edited by Ted Rall, and in The Best Political Cartoons of the Year, 2005 Edition. Jen grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, best known for its Amish population and delicacies such as scrapple, chow-chow, and hog maw. She went on to attend the University of Virginia, where she penned a popular daily strip entitled "Lil' Gus" and successfully avoided taking any classes before 11a.m. except one, which happened to be worth getting up for. In 2000, Jen won a Xeric grant to publish Slowpoke:Café Pompous, a collection of the first two years of Slowpoke strips. Her new book, Slowpoke: America Gone Bonkers, was released in late 2004. In addition to Slowpoke, Jen also does freelance illustration for Nickelodeon Magazine and other publications. She lives with her anthropologist husband in Charlottesville,Virginia. Tom Hart http://www.hutchowen.com Tom Hart is the creator of the comic book series Hutch Owen, described as "Peanuts for the Post-Enron Generation." Born in Kingston, NY, Tom lived in numerous American cities including Austin, Seattle, while developing his surly hobo who hassles corporations. Tom Hart has been a popular underground/alternative cartoonist since the early 90s. He published the first Hutch Owen as one of the earliest recipients of the Xeric Foundation grant for self-publishing cartoonists, a foundation created by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle co-creator Peter Laird. He has released numerous books to critical and audience acclaim, and has been nominated for two industry "Ignatz" awards and also for the "Eisner" and "Harvey" awards. He has created a series, Pitch Unger, for a publisher in Japan, has been translated into French and Portuguese, and has had his work shown in show from Seattle, Washington to Porto, Portugal to Lubjiana, Slovenia. Tom Hart teaches cartooning all over the New York City area and has also worked in public relations for 4 years, creating many materials for large-scale advertising and PR campaigns. He recently appeared on Air America Radio's "The Majority Report."