"the final volume of the drippy the newsboy series based on the writings of stephen crane. join drippy, harry, bleeker and zot in the dripping boat, as they battle waves, wind, wits, and wills. following a shipwreck, the four find themselves stranded on a lifeboat, frantically trying to reach an invisible shore. rub a dub dub, four men in a tub...but how many will return? first published in 1897, "the open boat" was based on crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of florida while traveling to cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the ss commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. he and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat. drippy the character emerged in 1999. lawrence had been working as a comics editor at a vancouver weekly publication called terminal city. when the paper folded, lawrence and a couple of other ex-employees rallied to put together their own monthly newspaper, the drippy gazette. the mandate of the monthly publication was to feature artist interviews and events, and keep the vancouver comics scene together. while the newspaper lasted 12 months, the mascot of the paper lived on in lawrence's work."--