This poor schlub has never been the same since he left the Union and moved to LA.

Forget grilled stickies and meat pies — bring a copy of Division 18: The Union of Novelty Costumed Performers #1 to your Thanksgiving pot-luck festivities instead. In fact, make sure you bring enough for everyone!

Christmas is a magical season of wonder and joy… even in River City. But seeing as how our usual Santa isn’t up for parole until 2015 after getting busted for kiddie pr0n and breaking-and-entering, we had to bring in some new talent this year. We found this guy in the alley behind Mother Effer’s. Once we clean the puke out of his beard and find him some pants, he’ll be perfect!

Our second issue is in the December Previews and it’s only a few days away from going to the printer — so we want to celebrate! And nothing makes us happier here at Union Headquarters like beatin’ on scabs… but we need your help tracking the scumbags down and taking the fight to them.

Look at this motley bunch, photographed just seconds after we kicked in their door and used them for batting practice. This is the kind of trash we’re lookin’ to take out. So send us any photos you have of creeps like these, the best ones (ie, the ones that help us get our knuckles bloody) will be posted right here on division18.com! (E-mail your pics to Matt@Division18.com or post them to our group on Facebook.)

Word of warning to all entrants: The only thing that chaps our asses worse than a scab is a rat…

Here at Division 18 Headquarters, we resolve to double our comic output in 2008 (that’s right — TWO issues instead of just one). Also, maybe we should take another crack at getting off the sauce… 

Anyway, 2007 was bumpy… so here’s to kickin’ ass in ‘08! Now go buy some comics!

Your New Year’s Checklist:

• Order lots of back issues of Division 18 #1 here.
• Read the excellent early review of Division 18 #2 here.
• Grow a strike beard.
• Pre-order a whale-sized* number of copies of Division 18 #2 from your local comic retailer (Diamond code: DEC07 3879).

*See how I tied it back to the picture in the end? (Yeah, that’s Pam Anderson humping up against Canucky the Whale. Lucky bastard.)

The Union is unionizing the comic blogosphere! Division 18 co-creator, Matt Bergin has gone and co-created something else — the Comic Blog Elite!

The Comic Blog Elite toplist is a resource for fans, creators, retailers, and publishers to identify the very best comic blogs on the net. As our list of member sites grows, the toplist will connect comic blogs big and small to a network of like-minded bloggers and expose each site to new readers interested in exactly what they have to offer. Get in early for a chance at the coveted top spot.

Check it out and, if you’re a comic blogger, join today!

(…or tomorrow, or in a month, or whenever you have some time. Really, we just want you to join the list. It’s free.)

Deez clowns ain’t even under Division 18 jurisdiction, but we’re still gonna send some mooks over to bust their skulls on principle alone. Needless to say, this particular guy has got a lot of balls fer showin’ his face around here.

[Warning: This post has nothing to do with the apparently almost over WGA strike. But we do still support that cause and look forward to production resuming on Lost.]

So there I was today, literally minding my own business scrolling through the Division18.com web statistics, when I saw a perfect three-way split in our Web Search Criteria Report. 

Anyone with a website knows this is always a fun list to read, between the self-satisfaction you can get from seeing that people are actually looking for you or your work and the unintentional comedy of the handful of quirky search results that occasionally accidentally direct random surfers to the site. But self-satisfaction is always the best part for me. The self-high five can be a wonderful thing and I do love patting myself on the back. So you can imagine my disappointment when it sunk in that this perfectly distributed list of only three search items comprised the following:

1. “D18 Jeremy” – This is certainly not the problem. Jeremy is a workhorse and he deserves far more credit than  do for the comic. And it’s nice to see our hip, branded abbreviation for the comic title, D18, is catching on. Matt’s mood: not disappointed yet.

2. “Division 18″ — This one is a no brainer. I would be shocked if this wasn’t on the search list. Matt’s mood: still doing fine.

3. “Huge Vag!na” — Note the exclamation point in place of the letter i is there now because we’d rather avoid a ton of traffic from sex sites, gynocologists, and itchy women. But this is it. Three of three on this month’s search list. Are you effin’ kidding me, people?! I was happy when you searched for the artist. I was thrilled when you searched for the book itself. But then, instead of googling yours truly JUST ONCE, you all got sidetracked trying to satisfy your sick fetish for super-sized babymakers?! Well hear this perverts — Division 18: The Union of Novelty Costumed Performers is not, has never been, and (unless sales really take a dive) will never be about giant lady parts. 

Hrmph. Matt Bergin < Huge Vag!na? Thanks fer nuthin’, so-called fanbase! Of course, in my defense, the list was evenly distributed… so that means Jeremy Donelson = Huge Vag!na.

Matt’s mood: WTF?!

In a related note, I guess I ought to go bone up on my skills so I can garner more respect. I’ll start by checking out D18 publisher Christian Beranek’s brand new blog — What It Takes To Make It In Comics. 

Always plugging.

This has sure been a busy week for Division 18. First, after weeks of radio silence, Jeremy crawled out of his dungeon studio to show off some of his sweet issue 3 pencils. And now, The Union of Novelty Costumed Performers is embroiled in a scandal that would make even a New York Governor blush!

It looks like President Bush got a resurrection of his own this past weekend — in his pants! A series of lurid photos have surfaced of the Commander in Cheat romancing one of the Union’s own after an Easter event in Washington DC.

We hate to break it to you this way, G.W., but beneath those luscious lashes and sexy purple nightie is a guy named Frank. We’ve seen him without the mask and we can assure you – Frank is something Jesus definitely would not do!