For more than 40 years, maverick stop-motion animator Bruce Bickford has been constructing dreamlike landscapes and bringing them to life, gaining notoriety in the 1970's as the fertile mind behind the Frank Zappa films Baby Snakes and The Amazing Mister Bickford. The subject of an award-winning 2005 documentary, Monster Road, Bickford still works out of his Seattle studio and has just re-released his surreal magnum opus Prometheus' Garden, which screened at the recent SuperTrash Film Festival.

Stage and Studio with Dmae Roberts features Tapestry Theatre's 1943 Christmas from Home with Actor Jodi Eichelberger, Director Judy Straalsund Playwright Pat Kruis Tellinghusen which features Big Band orchestra, the Golden Age of Radio and highlights Japanese American Internment.  And in the latter part of the show David Berkson of Readers Repertory Theatre talks about two comic one-act plays  for  Tiny Tim in Hell.

 Dmae Roberts talks with Gregg Bielemeier and Lyndee Mah about Skinner, Kirk + Bielemeier dance concert Dec. 3-7th at the Portland Opera Studio Theatre presented by Whitebird Dance.  And Robin Lane of Do Jump's "Home for the Holidays" is featured in the second half.  That show runs through January 4th at Echo Theatre.

Words & Pictures travels north to Bellingham, Washington, to visit Canadian comics and animation wizard Michel Gagne, whose work runs the gamut from the abstract jazz-inspired film Sensology to concept design for Disney and Pixar. 

Gagne's bewildering take on the Dark Knight for DC Comics (Batman: Spore) infuriated traditional superhero fans, and his recently unveiled project Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet breaks the mold for computer-based gaming.  Recorded with the kind assistance of KUGS-FM Western Washington University.

Dmae Roberts focuses on the writers studio and talks with Benjamin Parzybok about his debut book, Couch: A Novel published by Small Beer Press.  Benjamin Parzybok is the creator of Gumball Poetry, a (now defunct) journal published through gumball machines, the Psychic Book Project and the Black Magic Insurance Agency, a city-wide mystery/treasure hunt.