We’re back!  After a long hiatus, here’s the most recent Bankruptcy Bill–a holiday cartoon we did for Epiq Bankruptcy Solutions.

If you’re interested in a customized cartoon as well as creative ways to incorporate it into marketing and social media, please get in touch with us at bill [at] bankruptcybill.us.  (For the record, we also do weddings, bar mitzvahs and confirmation hearings.)

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*For help with creative business development including customized cartoons and other original content as well as assistance with social media consulting, contact Steven Horowitz at steven [at] bankruptcybill.us.

*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com or http://www.gideonkendall.com/blog.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets or (coming soon) Dino Pets 2, the wonderfully illustrated children’s books written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by Bankruptcy Bill’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.

Bankruptcy Bill’s Cartoon Punchline Contest

Special thanks to our sponsors:

• Turnaround Underground (www.turnaroundunderground.com): Networking events for midlevel restructuring professionals – and NEVER a membership fee! – Cinco de Mayo Event on May 5, 2010 (http://turnaroundunderground.tix.com)

• Bruce Weiner (Rosenberg Musso & Weiner) – NYBankruptcyNet (Brooklyn, NY)

• Russell A. Demott – Charleston Bankruptcy Blog (Charleston, SC)

• Nancy Rapoport (nancyrapoport.blogspot.com), the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law (UNLV)

• 

  BMC Group - Chapter 11 Claims & Notice/Solicitation/Rights Offerings/Preference Data

  • Oliver Zurbel, Business Development – ozurbel@bmcgroup.com

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To Enter the Punchline Contest:

• Submit a punchline for the last frame in the cartoon below (Bankruptcy Bill #26:  Anxiety Dream) via e-mail to bill@bankruptcybill.us. (Make sure to put “Punchline” in the subject heading of your email, and include your name along with any other relevant info you’d like listed in the final post if you’re a winner or runner-up.)
• Deadline: Friday, April 30 by 4:00 pm EST
• The winner’s punchline (as judged by the creators of Bankruptcy Bill) will be included in the final version of the cartoon, and the winner will receive their choice of one t-shirt from the Bankruptcy Bill Zazzle online store.
• Top runner-up punchlines will be listed with the cartoon in a future post along with the entrants’ names and any other info or hyperlinks that they’d like included.  (It’s ok to submit multiple entries.)

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Bankruptcy Bill #26:  “Anxiety Dream” (unresolved)

E-mail your punchline submissions to bill@bankruptcybill.us.

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*WE DO CUSTOMIZED CARTOONS… Click here for more info.*

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*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com or http://www.gideonkendall.com/blog.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets or (coming soon) Dino Pets 2, the wonderfully illustrated children’s books written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by Bankruptcy Bill’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.

Note:  This site is best viewed using a Mozilla Firefox or Safari browser.  If you are viewing this site using Internet Explorer, you may not be able to view items in the sidebar.  Clicking on any page or post will cause sidebar items to appear.

Time for a plain old regular Bankruptcy Bill cartoon.  (FYI, I had to go back to October 22, 2009 (Fantasy Bankruptcy #2) to find the last time we posted an independent, non-sponsored, non-special edition Bankruptcy Bill cartoon.)

Click here to see Bankruptcy Bill’s attempt at online dating.

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*WE DO CUSTOMIZED CARTOONS… Click here for more info.*

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*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com or http://www.gideonkendall.com/blog.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets or (coming soon) Dino Pets 2, the wonderfully illustrated children’s books written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by Bankruptcy Bill’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.

At long last, we’re ready to announce the winner and runner-up of Bankruptcy Bill’s Bankruptcy Song Contest!

Thanks to everyone who submitted an bankruptcy song, to everyone who voted and shared their comments and to illustrator Gideon Kendall for suggesting the cartoon announcement prize idea.

Also thanks to our sponsors for their support of the first-ever (to our knowledge) Bankruptcy Song Contest and for collectively making a donation to the National Consumer Law Center in the amount of $25 for each song submitted (for which we received a nice thank you note from the NCLC’s Executive Director):

• Bruce Weiner (Rosenberg Musso & Weiner) – NYBankruptcyNet (Brooklyn, NY)
• George Haines & David Krieger (Haines & Krieger) (Las Vegas, NV)
• Russell A. Demott – Charleston Bankruptcy Blog (Charleston, SC)
• Nancy Rapoport (nancyrapoport.blogspot.com), the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law (UNLV)

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2nd Place

Congratulations also to Arlene Robins of Woodbury, NY for her wonderful submission “BANKRUPTCY WIFE’S LAMENT”. Arlene will receive a t-shirt (or other item from our fabulous catalog of BAPCPA Man and Bankruptcy Bill merchandise on Zazzle.  (Note:  Arlene is the wife of good-humored Long Island bankruptcy attorney Craig Robins, who also has an excellent song entry titled “DEBT-FREE GIRL”.)

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The Bankruptcy Song Submissions

Once again, here are the song entries for Bankruptcy Bill’s Bankruptcy Song Contest:

1.  “AMEND IT MY WAY” by Judge Sheri Bluebond (United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California)

2.  CABARET” by Judge Sheri Bluebond (United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California) (Click song title or scroll down the page to see lyrics.)

3.  “DON’T CRY FOR ME HOUSEHOLD FINANCE” by Judge Sheri Bluebond (United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California) 

4.  “DEBTS IN WRONG PLACES” by Judge Alan S. Trust (United States Bankruptcy Judge, Eastern District of New York)

5.  “‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE FILING” by Mark Sippel, Esq. (Sippel & Carroll PLLC (Kingman, AZ))

6.  “PHARAOH OBAMA – LET THE DEBTORS GO” by Mark Sippel, Esq. (Sippel & Carroll PLLC (Kingman, AZ))

7.  “THE BANKRUPTCY ABUSE SONG” by Mark Sippel, Esq. (Sippel & Carroll PLLC (Kingman, AZ))

8.  “DEBT-FREE GIRL” by Craig Robins, Esq. (Woodbury, NY)

9.  “BANKRUPTCY WIFE’S LAMENT” by Arlene Robins (Woodbury, NY)

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BONUS!

And if you just can’t get enough bankruptcy music, CLICK HERE to hear “Bankruptcy Lover“ by Bankruptcy Bill & The Fresh Starts.

Apologies for the wait, but we finally have the first new Bankruptcy Bill cartoon of 2010 out, a customized cartoon courtesy of Neiger LLP.

Bankruptcy Bill #23:  Neiger LLP Preference Action 3000

http://www.neigerllp.com/neiger-llp-preference-action-3000/

(CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO SEE THE FULL CARTOON ON THE NEIGER LLP WEBSITE)

FYI, we love coming up with original, customized cartoons.  If you’d like one yourself, just get in touch with us at bill@bankruptcybill.us.

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We’ll be taking a brief hiatus here at Bankruptcy Bill following creator Steven Horowitz’s induction into parenthood on December 28, 2009.  Below is a photo of Steven, his wife Wynne and their new daughter Helen along with BAPCPA Man,Bankruptcy Bill, Struck Finn and illustrator Gideon Kendall taken just one day after the big event.

Feel free to post comments below or send any well wishes to the family at bill@bankruptcybill.us.

Below are a few other examples of Gideon Kendall’s baby/child-related work:

The Caveman’s Guide to Pregnancy

The Caveman’s Guide to Baby’s First Year

Dino Pets

Howdy all you Bankruptcy Bill fans out there!  I’ve been in Austin, TX attending the 28th Annual Jay Westbrook Bankruptcy Conference presented by the University of Texas Law School at the Four Seasons Hotel, and I thought it’d be nice to share a little of what it’s like down here.

Note:  This site is best viewed using a Mozilla Firefox or Safari browser.  If you are viewing this site using Internet Explorer, you may not be able to view items in the sidebar.  Clicking on any page or post will cause sidebar items to appear.

FYI, this cartoon also appears in the Fall 2009 issue of the newsletter for the Bankruptcy Section of the State Bar of Texas along with a nice profile about the Bankruptcy Bill cartoons written by Eric Van Horn, a bankruptcy lawyer with Dallas firm Rochelle McCullough LLP and the writer of the Chapter 8 humor columns in the ABI Journal.  Also, thanks to Judge Alan S. Trust of the Eastern District of New York for his article in the Summer 2009 issue of the Bankruptcy Section newsletter (“Robes Without Stripes”) which provided helpful cultural background for the cartoon.

Highlights of the conference included:

1. Learning that both Professor Jay Westbrook and Judge Keith Lundin both have extensive collection of bankruptcy-related cartoons, and that both Texas and Tennesse have had bands comprised of musical bankruptcy judges who like to write and play bankruptcy-related songs.
2. Judge Lundin’s monogrammed bowling shirt with “High on BAPCPA” on the back.
3. A spirited discussion between Hugh Ray (McKool Smith) and Bruce Grohsgal (Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones) on the topic of “Who’s Really in Charge Here?  Reorganizations in the Shadow of Chrysler and GM.”
4. Learning that Byrnie Bass’ son Brett is a professional bass player and that he not only has played with Enrique Iglesias but currently plays in a band with former Spin Doctors lead singer–and my high school classmate–Chris Barron.  (Here’s an article about Brett from Lubbockonline.com.)
5. Cartoon brainstorming with Andrew Eckerman (Conway Mackenzie, Inc.), Melissa Hayward (Franklin Skierski Lovall Hayward), Jesse Moore (Hunton & Williams), Ian Roberts (Baker Botts), Tim Million (Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr) and Eric Van Horn (Rochelle McCullough).
6. Jogging around the lake and arriving at the Congress Avenue Bridge just in time to see the largest urban bat colony pour out for its evening activities.
7. Hearing Evelyn Biery (Fulbright & Jaworski) recount her role as Anna Nicole Smith for a previous bankruptcy conference musical send-up.
8. An in depth discussion of organic farming with Joe Martinec and Weldon Ponder.
9. The Third Annual Westbrook Bankruptcy Conference Cocktail Reception at Austin hotspot Lanai, hosted by the Young Lawyers Committee of the Bankruptcy Section of the State Bar of Texas.  (Thanks to Jay Ong (Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr), Layla Milligan (Staff attorney for Chapter 13 Trustee) and Eric Van Horn (Rochelle McCullough) for organizing!)
   

   "Ain't that Texas cookin' good!"

10. Obtaining valuable advice from Brian Abramson (Diamond McCarthy) on the topic of sleep training for infants.
11. Barbecue from Stubbs, Iron Works and (at the airport) Salt Lick.  (Thanks to Guy Clark for the inspiration!)
12. Keeping Austin Weird.
13. Having a chance to meet so many wonderful folks on my first-ever visit to the Great State of Texas.  The conference had an extremely friendly and collegial atmosphere, and everyone from associates to partners to judges were accessible and enjoyable to meet.

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Get your BAPCPA Man and Mortgantua T-shirts, Mugs, Cards and More!

*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets, the wonderfully illustrated children’s book written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by BAPCPA Man’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.

Note:  If you are viewing this site using Internet Explorer, you may not be able to view items in the sidebar.  Clicking on any page or post will cause sidebar items to appear.

*Click here for Bankruptcy Bill #20 – Fantasy Bankruptcy #1, here for all previous Bankruptcy Bill cartoons, and here for a previous post on the connection between structured finance and fantasy football.

Here are bios for the highly respected Delaware bankruptcy lawyer Laura Davis Jones of the law firm Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones and for the Honorable Judge Arthur Gonzalez of the Southern District of New York who has presided over many of the largest bankruptcy cases including Lehman Brothers, Enron, Chrysler and Worldcom.

And for any fans (or fantasy football owners of) of Tony Gonzalez (another great Gonzalez) here’s info on Atlanta Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Atlanta Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Get your BAPCPA Man and Mortgantua T-shirts, Mugs, Cards and More!

*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets, the wonderfully illustrated children’s book written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by BAPCPA Man’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.

LawShucks added its own take on Bankruptcy Bill’s Fantasy Bankruptcy in its Quick Shucks 10.08.09:

Fantasy bankruptcy is brilliant. Harvey Miller is the Adrian Peterson of the draft, but then do you go for the double-down strategy of picking Goldstein, or do you diversify and go with someone from K&E?

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Note:  If you are viewing this site using Internet Explorer, you may not be able to view items in the sidebar.  Clicking on any page or post will cause sidebar items to appear.

*Click here for all previous Bankruptcy Bill cartoons, and here for a previous post on the connection between structured finance and fantasy football.

Here’s more information about Matthew Feldman, the bankruptcy lawyer from Willkie Farr & Gallagher who was appointed to the Auto Task Force, as well as about Marcia Goldstein, chair of the Business Financing & Restructuring group at Weil Gotshal & Manges.  And, for what it’s worth, here’s more information about carpal tunnel syndrome.

Also, if you’re really into stats, go here for more information on the Bankruptcy Means Test, and for the Dallas Cowboy fans out there, here’s more info on Dallas Bankruptcy (Redskins fans need not click).

And lastly, here are some recent bankruptcy-relevant posts on Above The Law:

• Student Loan Bailout: House Hearing on Discharging Student Debts in Bankruptcy
• This Week In Layoffs: 10.04.09
• Morning Docket 09.17.09 – link to item about Jones Day and the Lehman bankruptcy
• Morning Docket 10.06.09 – link to item on foreclosures and apparent lack of lawyers

*To see more of Gideon Kendall’s work go to www.gideonkendall.com and gideonkendall.squarespace.com/journal.  Or order yourself a copy of Dino Pets, the wonderfully illustrated children’s book written by Lynn Plourde and illustrated by BAPCPA Man’s favorite illustrator, Gideon Kendall.