Lovely, mega-talented cartoonist/artist Sophie Crumb with ever-present cigarette. (required by law in France)

With 40 minutes to go at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, and on the verge of passing out in public for the third time in the past two years, I hear an anonymous shout: "Hey! Did you know Sophie Crumb is signing at the Fantagraphics table?"

I put my arms in low and got my wheelchair over there in a hurry.

I handed Sophie a Lines on Paper coffee mug with her dad's drawings, which didn't seem to impress her much. I handed her a Lines on Paper sign-up package and told her about the Out of Sequence: Fine Art By Sequential Artists show and told her that the self-portrait she had on her website (done for a friend) would be just the sort of thing we had in mind. I told her if she'd do another such piece for the show, she'd get half the dough. I should have told her how much I'd have paid for it! At that time, she took the blank card sign up sheet from the enclosed self-addressed, stamped envelope and asked: "Can I sign it now?" Well, now Sophie Crumb is on Gallery #1 with a firm Crumb commitment for Out of Sequence. She signed her last remaining copy of Belly Button Comix: "For Gary from Sophie Crumb." Be sure to check out Sophie's website listed on our INFO page and order her comics from Fantagraphics. (Of course her parents are welcome to be in the show as well.)

You see, in 1998, after getting R. Crumb to donate a beautiful two page original story from American Splendor. "Pa-Ayper-Reggs!" and the two drawings he did for this site, everyone thought I had a "solid" connection but... here's the reality: Aline Kominsky-Crumb once asked me to do a Big Wimp story for Weirdo, which she later rejected. I used to talk to her on the phone from time to time and I claimed credit when, as a kid, Sophie said she was "vegetarian, except for hot dogs." (I had signed her up for some seditious animal rights kids' newsletter) I spoke with Crumb at length at the Zap 13 pre-show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in 1993 and over the phone when he was at my pal Terry Zwigoff's house when I was producing No Red Ribbons. Art Challenges the AIDS Establishment. Crumb loved it and made the generous donation that had been hanging around Terry's house for years. Esai Morales purchased it at the auction for $3,500. (see Gary Cifra's bio for more info).