email: christmuffins@hotmail.com || web: www.topshelfcomix.com

Josh Simmons spent the first 19 years of his life in Connecticut, and the years since living and traveling all over North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. He's worked every menial labor job you can think of, attended University for two years, and performed and traveled with the gypsy/cirkus performance groups "The End of the World Cirkus / Know Nothing Family Zirkus Sideshow." His short comic strips have appeared in SPX 2002, several of the TOP SHELF anthologies, KRAMERS ERGOT 4, TRUE PORN, TYPEWRITER 6, BIG DUMB FUN, Tower's PULSE!, and STUDY GROUP 12 #3. In 2001, Top Shelf published the Small Batch book CIRKUS NEW ORLEANS, a reportage/journal account of time spent with the Cirkus. The best sampling of his work, though, is to be found in the 4 issues of HAPPY, his solo anthology comic. Frighteningly exuberant bunnies, piss-quaffing clowns, and bitter, hilarious ranting all hold court together, along with much more, under HAPPY's umbrella title. Future projects include the graphic novels HOUSE, an 80-page wordless horror story, the SUNSHINE, LOVE AND HAPPINESS book (collecting the hyper-"happy" stories, with much little- seen or un-published work) and soundtrack of all- original music constructed by Simmons and friends, and CIRKUS SHMIRKUS, the full account of the gypsy cirkus phenomenon, with many new insights, anecdotes and horrors for the collected work.