FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

NATIONAL AUTISM ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES WEBCOMIC T-SHIRT FUNDRAISER
Shirt Features Popular Online Daily Comic Strip “THE CHELATION KID”

The National Autism Association is selling t-shirts featuring the online daily comic strip, THE CHELATION KID. Written by Robert Tinnell and illustrated by Craig Taillefer, THE CHELATION KID is a free daily online comic strip which chronicles the real-life efforts of Tinnell and his wife to recover their son from autism.

The daily strip is featured on several sites – in both the comic and autism web communities – and has generated acclaim and spirited discussions in many different segments of society. With TCK, Tinnell, an Eisner Award-nominee for previous work, has received a volume of feedback he never before experienced as his regular comic readers are joined by many new viewers from the autism community and the populace as a whole.

The idea to offer a T-Shirt as a fundraiser developed along with the enthusiastic reaction the strip has received.

“The National Autism Association is grateful to Robert Tinnell for the opportunity to offer The Chelation Kid T-shirts in our online store”, said Ann Brasher, Vice President of NAA and founder of the ChelatingKids Yahoo! Listserve for parents. “The Chelation Kid comic strip is a wonderful way of promoting the message that Autism is a treatable disorder and there is hope for the one in 166 children affected in the United States.” Proceeds from the T-Shirt sales will benefit NAA’s research and family care programs. The URL for shirt orders is http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/proddetail.php?prod=ChelationKid

“We weren’t prepared for the passionate reaction TCK generated – attracting thousands of new readers to comics through our outreach to the autism community,” said Tinnell. “To see your characters and story getting this kind of reaction, and to see that reaction put to use for a cause I very much believe in, to me that’s a big deal.”

THE CHELATION KID is updated every weekday and can be seen on a variety of sites including www.sunnyfundays.com, www.webcomicsnation, www.drunkduck.com, and www.thechelationkid.com. The strip is currently re-running the first several episodes, with new strips starting up again on January 22, 2007. THE CHELATION KID is also available, for free, to anyone who would like to carry it on their site through ‘tooncasting. All one must do is simply paste in this code:



The mission of the National Autism Association is to educate and empower families affected by autism and other neurological disorders, while advocating on behalf of those who cannot fight for their own rights. We will educate society that autism is not a lifelong incurable genetic disorder but one that is biomedically definable and treatable. We will raise public and professional awareness of environmental toxins as causative factors in neurological damage that often results in an autism or related diagnosis. We will encourage those in the autism community to never give up in their search to help their loved ones reach their full potential, funding efforts toward this end through appropriate research for finding a cure for the neurological damage from which so many affected by autism suffer.

A working screenwriter, Tinnell is best known to comics fans as a writer of horror graphic novels such as THE BLACK FOREST (co-written with Todd Livingston and drawn by Neil Vokes) and the recently-released SIGHT UNSEEN (with artist Bo Hampton) as well as the Eisner-nominated FEAST OF THE SEVEN FISHES. A visit to www.TheBlackForest.net covers Tinnell’s comic output in greater detail.

Taillefer has branched out from comics to work in TV animation, although he continues to produce his popular WAHOO MORRIS webcomic among other projects. For more information visit www.CraigTaillefer.com

I’ve been working on this for a little while but I’ve been too swamped to post any advance art or write about it. Here is the press release, which I cribbed from Newserama, plus the first days strip. Enjoy!

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ROBERT TINNELL, CRAIG TAILLEFER LAUNCH AUTISM WEBCOMIC
Press Release

Robert Tinnell, writer of the Eisner-nominated graphic album FEAST OF THE SEVEN FISHES, has teamed up with artist Craig Taillefer (WAHOO MORRIS) to launch THE CHELATION KID – a strip which documents the efforts of Tinnell and his wife as they attempt to recover their son from autism. The strip can be seen at www.SunnyFunDays.com and updates every weekday.

“It’s the toughest thing I’ve ever done. My son was a normal kid until he was two years old and then he just – went away. Writing this has forced me to relive this whole nightmare. But we believe he was poisoned by the mercury present in his vaccinations and that people need to be aware of what happened – and what continues to happen. The strip will chronicle our efforts – some successful, some not – to try and get him back.”

Chelation (pronounced “key-lay-shun” refers to the process of attempting to remove heavy metals – such as mercury – from the body. With the tidal wave of autism being likened to an epidemic, and public figures like Don Imus and Robert Kennedy, Jr., fighting to bring the issue to the public’s attention, Tinnell felt the time was right to tell his son’s story – but not in maudlin fashion. “Look, there’s no way we were going to do this and be all whiny and self-pitying. We’re making every effort to create something that, while it’s honest and
thought-provoking and sometimes painful, is also funny and entertaining. And Craig’s art is simply superb.”

THE CHELATION KID is available, for free, to anyone who would like to carry it on their site through ‘tooncasting. All one must do is simply paste in this code:

A working screenwriter, Tinnell is best known to comics fans as a writer of horror graphic novels such as THE BLACK FOREST (co-written with Todd Livingston and drawn by Neil Vokes) and the recently-released SIGHT UNSEEN (with artist Bo Hampton). A visit to www.TheBlackForest.net covers Tinnell’s comic output in greater detail.

Taillefer has branched out from comics to work in TV animation, although he continues to produce his popular WAHOO MORRIS webcomic among other projects. For more information visit www.CraigTaillefer.com