PRESS RELEASE: NH Artist Releases Community-Powered Xeric Book

[Marek Bennett]

 

28 May 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact

: Marek Bennett
Email: ma...@marekbennett.com
URL: www.marekbennett.com
Phone: (603)-428-7049

　

NH ARTIST RELEASES COMMUNITY-POWERED GRAPHIC NOVEL
"Mimi's Doughnuts" Creator Publishes Anthology of Newspaper Strips About Life in New England

New York City, NY – NH cartoonist Marek Bennett will release his second book of the year on June 6 at the MoCCA-NY Art Festival. Entitled "Breakfast at Mimi's," the book collects the first three years' worth of Bennett's "Mimi's Doughnuts" weekly newspaper comic strips.

Bennett has drawn and self-syndicated "Mimi's Doughnuts" for New England newspapers since 2003, when the strip got its start in the Keene Sentinel. This new "Mimi's Doughnuts" anthology has already received a prestigious grant from the Xeric Foundation of Northampton, MA.

"When I started drawing 'Mimi's', I didn't know what was going to happen," says Bennett. "I just follow my characters, and they tend to get into trouble and hopefully learn things from their adventures. It's great fun to read these old strips, and see where all the different stories come together."

"Mimi's Doughnuts" is loosely based on Bennett's wife's childhood in Claremont, NH, where her family ran a small doughnut shop. Current episodes also incorporate stories and topics from rural New England life, such as the ice storm of 2008, town politics, and one community's quest for sustainable energy sources.

"Breakfast at Mimi's" includes past storylines about school bullies, habitats lost to land development, economic woes, lung cancer, halloween hijinks, headlice, roadkill, and other themes Bennett takes from the communities around him. In one storyline, the main character Shayna breaks her glasses, and readers got to vote on which pair she would get to replace them.

"That was an eye-opener," Bennett remembers, "because by a large margin they chose the pair that looked exactly like her old glasses! That tells me my readers want a certain mixture of excitement AND predictability in their comics."

When Bennett isn't drawing, he makes his living teaching comics, music, and Spanish to students all around New Hampshire. "Comics are all about learning," he notes. "In my comics, I'm just taking things I notice in the world, and putting them together my own personal style. Through my characters, I learn new ways to look at the world."

Previously this year, Bennett published HOUR 72!, collecting three 24 hour comics. (Each "24 hour comic" is a 24-page comic drawn within 24 hours.) In August, he plans to release a book-length comics travel journal about his recent trip to draw comics with students in rural schools in Nicaragua. "And who knows," he says, "maybe by this winter, we'll have 'Mimi's Doughnuts Volume Two'!"

The Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) organizes the MoCCA Art Festival every year as a fundraiser. Cartoonists and smallpress publishers from around the country exhibit their artwork in a uniquely arts-centered convention community. Bennett has attended as an exhibitor for the past two years.

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More information and images (for press purposes):

Marek Bennett's website

: http://www.marekbennett.com

Online archives of "Mimi's Doughnuts" Comics

: http://www.marekbennett.com/mimisdoughnuts

Marek's Xeric Project Posts:

http://www.marekbennett.com/blog/category/xeric-grant

Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art:

http://moccany.org/artfest09-main.html