Having posted samples from his con sketchbook over at Flog, Reynolds has collected the whole darn thing into one nice Flickr set.

– The upcoming Image anthology Liquid City gets a website.

– Registration for the 2009 Comic-Con International is now open.

– Amazon is offering monthly comic book subscriptions now. Via.

– Doug Wolk on Blake Bell’s Steve Ditko book.

– Frank Santoro muses about Big Numbers.

– Tom Spurgeon on the modern comic strip.

Compiled by Chris and JK.

Epileptic creator David B. will attend several events in Seattle this weekend, including a discussion with Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring on Sunday. Complete details can be found here.

Although it’s unlikely to ever happen, I thought Eric Reynolds came up with a really good idea involving Bottomless Belly Button creator Dash Shaw and Dr. Strange:

By the way, Fanta has just gone back to press on BBB, which we’re thrilled about. I was thinking this morning that the two artists we’ve published of late with perhaps the most “heat” at the moment are Dash Shaw and Steve Ditko. Which then reminded me of Dash’s unpublished Dr. Strange strip (see below), and inevitably led me to one conclusion: that really, Marvel Comics should give Dr. Strange to Fantagraphics. Marvel doesn’t know what the fuck to do with him. Give him to us and we’ll start an ongoing Dr. Strange anthology with new work by Los Bros, Dash Shaw, Daniel Clowes, Kim Deitch, and other longtime Ditko fans, and include reprints of the classic Ditko Strange as well. Joe Quesada, it is your moral duty to make this happen.

Related: The First Post presents a preview of Bottomless Belly Button.

Tom Spurgeon has a four-page preview of Gilbert Shelton’s latest story, which will be serialized in the pages of Mome.

– Deadpool smooching Bea Arthur is just kind of wrong. (Thanks, Rich!)

– Oh, for heaven’s sake.

– Ooo, I hope Miles Edgeworth puts in an appearance.

– Here’s a virtual symposium on Doug Wolk’s Reading Comics.

– Du9 talks with Dave Cooper.

– Sean Collins did a great interview with the Hernandez brothers for CBR.

– Remember, not every librarian is pro-comics.

– John Byrne shares some starship designs from his IDW Star Trek work.

– The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are celebrating 25 years with a contest.

– Barbie goes to Comic-Con.

– Jamie Coville conducted an in-depth interview with Mark Waid on BOOM! and his Spider-Man work. It’s also available as an MP3.

– The Forbidden Planet blog talks to La Muse creator Adi Tantimedh.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

It must be comics week over at the Onion’s AV Club. First there’s an extensive Jeff Smith interview. Now we’re blessed with one with Explainers author Jules Feiffer:

The A.V. Club: It’s surprising, reading the book, how early the strip’s sensibility was formed. Almost right from the beginning, you deal with the themes that preoccupied you for the next 40 years.

Jules Feiffer: Originally, there were going to be a few weeks of introductory strips before I started serializing Munro. When I went to the Voice, I showed them Munro—and maybe Passionella, although I’m not sure I’d written Passionella by then—and something on the bomb called Boom!—what today would be called graphic novellas. They were just long narrative cartoons. They had political content to the extent that they were strongly anti-government, anti- the prevailing political tides of the time. I though what I’d do was break the longer stuff down into weekly installments, but I thought it might be difficult in the beginning for readers to figure out what I was doing and what the hell was going on, so perhaps I should do five or six or seven weeks of introductory strips to tell them who I was and what I was going to do. The introductory strips were still taking over 40 years later. Once I got into the habit and routine of it, I realized what a good format this was for me, and how much better it was than serializing work I’d already done which wasn’t designed for that format and would never be ideal for it.

Peter Bagge and Alan Moore’s hilarious tribute to the Kool-Aid Man (originally seen in the pages of Hate) is now online at Again With the Comics.

The Daily Cross Hatch has the first of a two-part interview with the legendary Mr. Feiffer up on their site:

How did you make the transition to the political strips in The Voice? Did Eisner play a direct role?

It was the United States Army. I got drafted during the Korean War, and my reaction to being in the service and the sense of mindless authority that any military operation oppresses you with—it hits you, right between the eyes—the use of language is misappropriated to not say what you mean, but to maneuver and manipulate people and disguise meaning. All of the versions of that that I had seen in my civilian life plus all of it being so highlighted by my military experience, I decided within months of my being in the army that I wasn’t going to be a traditional comics strip artist. I decided that I had to comment about the world around me and use my cartoons for the purposes of social and political satire. If I hadn’t been in the army, it would have been a very different career.

Comic Arf, edited by Craig Yoe, Fantagraphics Books, $19.99.

This is the fourth volume in editor and cartoonist Craig Yoe’s ongoing series of anthologies devoted to lost/obscure cartoons and comics, with a decided emphasis on the sketchy line between high and low art. I’ve been an unabashed admirer of these books since the first volume came out, but I think Comic Arf may be the best one in the series yet. (more…)

Fantagraphics is offering a 15-page preview of Where the Demented Wented: The Art and Comix of Rory Hayes, a book I’m really looking forward to. (Note: You have to register to see the preview.)

We’re only a few weeks away from the mammoth San Diego Comic-Con, and this is the first of several round-ups of what’s going on at the con. If you’re a creator, publisher, etc. I want to know about your San Diego plans. Got a new book debuting? Got a booth in Artist Alley? Appearing on a panel? Let me know and I’ll include it in a future edition.

Before jumping in, though, a quick public service announcement: if you’re driving to the con or plan to rent a car, California’s hands-free cell phone law went into effect earlier this week. This means you can get a ticket for talking and driving, unless you’re using a hands free device. The law doesn’t address texting or personal hygiene, as evidenced by the lady I saw brushing her teeth while driving yesterday. So brush your teeth, shave, put on make-up, send a text or read a comic — just don’t talk on the phone. End of PSA.

Artist Cliff Chiang sent me a note about the booth he’s sharing with Jill Thompson and Brian Wood, along with an image of the banners they’ll be displaying (which looks very cool!). Here’s what Cliff said:

For the first time, I’ll have my own table at SDCC, sharing a booth with Jill Thompson and Brian Wood. Located at Booth #1322, you can find us listed as the three-headed beast “Jill Thompson, Brian Wood, Cliff Chiang” in the program book. We’ll have books, prints, original art, and Jill and I will be doing commissioned sketches.

(more…)

The kind folks at Fantagraphics sent me their Winter 2008 book catalog and, kind soul that I am, I thought I’d take the liberty of sharing its contents with all of you dear Blog@ readers. Here’s a quick, tentative run-down of the company’s upcoming publishing plans, starting with … (more…)

The Fantagraphics marketing maestro/Mome editor and his wife, Rhea Patton, welcomed their daughter Clementine Bean into the world this past Saturday, a day before Eric’s own birthday no less! Nice timing!

New York magazine spotlights cartoonist Dash Shaw, and dubs his recently released Bottomless Belly Button “the graphic novel of the year.”

But the magazine’s Vulture blog zeros in on a comment from Shaw about more-commercial work — “If Marvel called and asked if I wanted to do Ghost Rider, I would be like, ‘Hell, yeah.’ ” — and asks how he’d handle the Spirit of Vengeance:

“I think Ghost Rider should really be drawn as if the target audience is people in motorcycle gangs,” Shaw told us. “Totally badass tattoo imagery. Because right now, it just feels like he’s a superhero who rides a motorcycle. So I really see that as having a crazy oddball aesthetic, culled from tattoo art.”

The blog also provides a 20-page excerpt from Bottomless Belly Button.

Fantagraphics is giving away signed bookplates if you order one of more than 50 books over at their website, by folks like Joe Sacco, Jim Woodring, Kim Deitch and many more. Go check it out.

Rich Tommaso reminisces.

Artist Renee French covers The Stranger’s Official Guide to Sasquatch 2008 — a music festival held this past weekend in Washington featuring The Cure, The Flaming Lips, R.E.M. and Modest Mouse, among many others.

Via

Fantagraphics has signed an exclusive distribution deal with Diamond Distribution for the direct market. Canadian retailer Chris Butcher isn’t happy:

We really wish that Fantagraphics had consulted us as their retail partners before they made this move, because we would have said “Good God No, Don’t Do It.”

Much more at the link.

– Tom Spurgeon interviews Tripwire editor Joel Meadows.

– Fantagraphics store manager Larry Reid is profiled.

– Blog@ columnist Neil Kleid is going to be at the People’s Improv Theater for Comic Book Club in New York Tuesday night.

– Gelatometti has video from the Image Seven signing on Free Comic Book Day.

– San Diego Comic Con teasing has begun.

– France needs superheroes.

– American Psycho meets The Dark Knight.

– Roger Ebert talks about the forefathers of blogs — fanzines.

By JK and Chris