Appearing Fri,Sat,Sun
Paul Horn is the creator of Cool Jerk, a long-running, hilarious newspaper comic strip that's too edgy for newspaper syndication. Cool Jerk follows the diverse denizens of Spittle Beach, CA, primarily wiseass hodad Armpit Beachhead and his superior-in-every-way girlfriend Puppy Fizgig as they battle the forces of stupidity, inanity, pop-culture horror and the banality of day-to-day life.
Cool Jerk ran in the Reno Gazette-Journal from 1991-1996. During that time it was distributed via Gannett's wire service where it became a mainstay in several other Gannett newspapers. After a hiatus Cool Jerk found its permanent home online at http://cooljerk.com , where an exhaustive back catalog of archived strips, merchandise and other items of interest can be found free of pesky advertisements. Since 1998, Horn has produced new content weekly (barring vacations or a fractured drawing thumb), making it one of the longest-running regular comics features created exclusively for Internet distribution.
For Reno Pop Culture Con, Horn will be signing copies of his four Cool Jerk trade paperback volumes, along with Doc Splatter Ominous Omnibus Ð an advice column of the supernatural told in comic form. UNR alumnus circa the late 1980s will remember his Sagebrush newspaper strip, Like, For Shore! (the strip that begat Cool Jerk); Horn has remastered all those strips and collected them in a limited-edition, numbered, three-volume set. Horn will have a limited supply of those collections on hand, as well as T-shirts, art canvases, enamel pins, original artwork and mini-comics. Sketches are always free.
Horn is also an award-winning, veteran infographics journalist and illustrator (InsideClimate News), pop-culture aficionado, lizard wrangler, hair gel beta-tester, Faygo enthusiast, sasquatch whisperer and occasional back-up singer. He lives in San Diego with his lovely and charming wife, Darlene. Hobbies include writing bombastic author profiles in the third person.
