A new anthology debut for SPX, with an intriguing theme. Which reminds us, the other day we got to see a slideshow by Nick Abadzis (who will also be at SPX this weekend) about his book Laika, and it really does seem like the Russians had this thing for sending cute little dogs into space! Weird. Anyway, details on NEW STARS below.

The Russians called it Спутник, or traveling companion.

But we know it as the Sputnik satellite and its October 1957 launch kicked off the space race between the United States and Russia in the second decade of the Cold War.

To Celebrate the 50th anniversary of that launch, the Trees & Hills comics group will release a new mini-comics anthology, NEW STARS, featuring nearly 50 pages of comics by creators from the northern New England area.

Creators in the book include Daniel Barlow, Marek Bennett, Miles Cota, Colleen Frakes, Cayetano “Cat” Garza, Gregory Giordano, Christopher Grotke, Jade Harmon, Tim Hulsizer, Matt Levin, Keith Moriarty, Kathie Mullen, Raymond Prado, Matthew Reidsma, Colin Tedford and Anne Thalheimer.

NEW STARS will debut at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland on Oct. 12 and 13.

The Trees & Hills comics group will be at table G1 and the anthology will cost only three bucks! The book will also be available on-line after SPX at the Trees & Hills Distro, located at www.treesandhills.org/distro/

The Trees & Hills comics group is a collective of comic creators from Vermont, New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts. Since forming at a 24-Hour Comics event in southern Vermont two years ago, the group has published three comics anthologies, appeared at nearly a dozen comic conventions and hosted tons of meet-ups and drawing parties!

For more information on the comics group, and to view samples of the work in the book, please visit www.TreesandHills.org