I Still Live

I Still Live: Biography of a Spiritualist is available here! from Sparkplug. Click on "store" on the left, and it'll be the second from the top. Finally!! An online distributor!

Grave Stone

Diane kemble is the Education Coordinator at the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation in Plymouth Notch Vermont. Calvin Coolidge and Achsa Sprague were both born in Plymouth Notch, and both buried in the beautiful old cemetery up there. Last Spring I drew a comic version of Achsa Sprague's life called, I Sill Live: Biography of a Spiritualist. I recently sent Diane a copy of I Still Live, and she sent me this picture of my picture of Achsa's grave set up against actual Achsa'a grave:




It feels special, as if the cycle has come full circle.
Like the World card in the Tarot. Like a dream that ends at just the right moment.

Thanks Diane! This picture really made my day.

Finally! (book release announcement)

Event: Book Release, Art Show, and Book-Signing
for
I Still Live: Biography of a Spiritualist
A Xeric Award-winning graphic novella by
Annie Murphy
Friday, April 10th (the first Friday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox), 2009
7:00pm--10:00pm
1914 S.E. Ankeny
Portland, Oregon


Come celebrate Spring and the spirit of renewal, rebirth, and recovery
with this comic book tribute to poet, activist, and spirit-medium Achsa Sprague, and a show of original artwork from the book.

What the people say:

"I Still Live is a masterful hybrid work.
Part adaptation of the spiritualist Achsa
Sprague's diary, part history book, and
part memoir, it channels the past into the
present in a haunting and vivid way."

--Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home

"Annie Murphy has that rare gift to make
history feel immediate and urgent. I Still Live
is not only well researched but comes alive on
the page. Achsa Sprague has been revived."
--James Sturm, author of The Golem's Mighty Swing

"This was the most self-assured debut of the year by
an artist whose interests include the intersection
between spiritualism and feminism and whose style
occupies the space between quietude and poetic sweep.
As she refines her style, she will be a fascinating talent to watch."
--Rob Clough, of Sequart Research and Literacy Organization.

review at comicrelated.com

news article from Vermont Woman Magazine
#3 on Comics Journal's ten great minicomics of 2008

Thank you to Charles at Eberhardt press for printing this
new and improved, two-color off-set version of the comic,
and thanks so much to the Xeric Foundation for funding it.

I sure hope you can make it.
Sincerely,
Annie Murphy

XERIC MANIA

Holy crap!! I recently found out that I was awarded the Xeric Grant for the graphic novella I Still Live, a biography of 19th Century spiritualist medium Achsa Sprague. I can hardly believe it. Moments like this make me zap back in time to being twelve and reading my brother's Eastman & Laird TMNT comics. Who would have thought that Laird would later give me cash to publish my own comic? Crazyness. Just want to take a moment to give a shout out to my Grampa Ralph who passed away during the making of this comic, and to Scooter, the best cat in the whole world, who passed just after. I love you guys. Oh, and to Steffy Scam's brother Matty, a Xeric winner before me, likely drawing comics in the Otherworld. I didn't know you, but I think I can feel your magical presence. Wish me luck?
(the above pics are from my choose-your-own-adventure comic, Vermont Maple Sugar Mama. Below are a few samples from the soon-to-be-published-all-profesh-like, I Still Live: Biography of a Spiritualist.)