Welcome to the April 2011 issue of Defenestration!

You could call this the “Five by Five” issue. That’s not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference, but it could be, because back then vampires were cool. No, it refers to the layout for this issue. This time around, we’ve published the work of five short story writers and five poets. If symmetry delights you, then the table of contents alone will be enough to entertain you for hours.

Of course, there’s more to this issue than its table of contents (which is pretty great). We have monkeys and sex and Andy Garcia. We also have a story about a ham sandwich—I daresay it’s the greatest story about a ham sandwich that’s ever been published. And that’s only scratching the surface. This issue features a lot of new faces and a couple of familiar ones. I hope you like it as much as Bigfoot does.

If Ben has one flaw, it’s that he’s always eating stuff Winslow gives to him. You would think that after living with the guy for as long as he has, he would have learned his lesson. But no, here he is once again, tasting something he really shouldn’t be tasting.

Contrary to what some might think, this comic is not belittling the artistic abilities of comic strip artists.

As a husband, father, writer, artist, magazine editor, and general ne’er-do-well, I have a lot of stuff on my plate on a day-to-day basis. I’m always looking for ways to budget my time more effectively. This is what I’ve come up with: a way to spend time with my son AND get a new Ben & Winslow comic drawn up by Friday every week.

This is what happens when Winslow is allowed to be Dungeon Master.

The party here consists of Laura (a valkyrie), Apsara the Attention Whore (a barbarian), Kurt the Cynic (a necromancer), Ben (a warrior with kickass sideburns), and Psychic Rob (who is not, in fact, a psionic and is instead a humble archer).