Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix, creators of the critically-acclaimed graphic novel Stagger Lee, are taking their Stagger Lee 101 tour on the road for a series of East Coast dates. Here’s where they’ll be:

1) On Tuesday, March 27, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. EST, they will be appearing on Bill Wax’s Bluesville show on XM Radio. Bill will be playing every version of Stagger Lee he can lay his hands on and Derek and Shepherd will be discussing the history and myth of Stagger Lee.

2) On Wednesday, March 28, 2 p.m.-4 p.m., they will be signing at Big Planet Comics, 4908 Fairmont Avenue, Bethesda, MD.

3) On Thursday, March 29, 11:20 a.m.–12:40 p.m., they will be doing their Stagger Lee slide show for the students of Prof. Bill Foster’s class on Graphic Novels as Literature at Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury, Connecticut. Visitors welcome! 750 Chase Parkway, Ekstrom Hall, Room E440.

4) On Friday, March 30, 7 p.m.– 8 p.m., they will do the slide show again at Barnes & Noble Chelsea, 675 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10010. The Q&A will be moderated by world-renowned diva of comics, Heidi MacDonald.

As always on the Stagger Lee 101 tour: wear a Stetson hat, win a prize!

Stagger Lee has earned raves from publications including Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Miami Herald, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and in February was nominated for six Glyph awards, including Story of the Year, Best Writer, and Best Artist.

I proclaimed it the Best Original Graphic Novel of 2006:

Determining a “best of the year” pick is always tricky because it’s never an apples to apples comparison, and there’s invariably something that came out early in the year, or at the very end, that slips under the radar. Also, 2006 was a particularly good year for original graphic novels, with American Born Chinese, Deogratias, La Perdida, Iron West and The Left Bank Gang among my absolute favorites, but for its outstanding combination of ambition, execution and re-readability, Stagger Lee gets the nod for my Best Original Graphic Novel of 2006.

I’m definitely going to try to make it to the March 30th event, and I may even have to find myself a Stetson hat for the occasion!

For more information on Stagger Lee, check out the book’s Web site and blog.