Eleanor Davis & Drew Weing have a bunch of new original art, prints & minis for sale in their Little House Comics online shop and it's all pretty dang snazzy. Here's where Drew tells you what's new.

Renee French, Kaz, Tony Millionaire and Steven Weissman are among the many artists participating in the Tiny Too art show at Gallery Meltdown one night only, this Saturday, December 11, 2010. Lineup! Flyer! Previews!

If you happen to find yourself in Seattle this Saturday December 11th then truly find yourself at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery 4th Anniversary Party , to study Justin Green's contribution to the Medieval Thinkers portion of the event. Justin illuminated the piece below especially for the show and having had the opportunity to work with such a titan of ink and ideas is a dream come true for me. If this is your first time encountering Justin's work than I heartily recommend you track down a copy of Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary and Sacred & Profane as both truly rank amongst the rare masterpieces of comic art. 

"The piece was a convergence of many factors, not the least of which was a dream. It was about a new 'green' industry that used many thicknesses of recycled corrugated cardboard to prop up young saplings prior to laying in a foundation."

 -Justin Green on his drawing, "Natura Dominata"

Ben Catmull reads from Monster Parade this Saturday evening at Comic Relief in Berkeley! More info here.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• KEXP's Chris Estey names 3 of our books among the Most Rocking Comix 2010:

"King of the Flies: 2. The Origin of the World... is the second volume in a three-book series on the creepy doings of a Twin Peaks-like small city seriously doped and boozed, thrashed by random violence and impulsive sexuality, the old deforming the desires of the young, and unfulfilled ghosts melt through everyday lives. [...] It is a multi-leveled, wide expanse of delicate things falling apart and souls keeping it together somehow, full of... sexy, damaged, freaky people. That you somehow care deeply for, even if they can’t help but hurt themselves, stalk each other, and screw with the universe itself."

"Illustrative Ibogaine, Woodring’s own cartoon-streamlined use of false world-obliviating imagery makes God’s invention of time seem like a quaint abstraction. [Weathercraft] is as necessary as Genesis by Robert Crumb, the Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, Philip K. Dick’s UBIK, The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and 2001: A Space Odyssey."

"A fantastical study in a Civil War, this exquisite graphic novel [Artichoke Tales] shows how wide-spread political conflict tears at the very fibers of our families and ourselves, the loops of antagonism between loyalties cursing generation after generation. Like the very best indie pop/rock (Bright Eyes, the National), its mastery is in seeming transcendent but revealing immense pain beneath every battle and rejection."

• Review: "It isn’t often that a reference book succeeds at being as entertaining as it is informative, but Destroy All Movies juggles both with masterful ease. The lengths they’ve gone to in order to identify any and all reference to punks or punk rock culture in film is staggering and makes the book the end-all-be-all of its esoteric subject matter. Even if you feel at arms length with the source material, I can assure you there is no shortage of insight and laughter to be gleaned from this glorious time capsule of sociological film knowledge." – Brian Salisbury, Hollywood.com

• Review: "By the time the narrative concludes (sadly in some respects, asking the big questions – ‘why do people leave?’ – thereby combining the lightness and comedy we’ve come to expect with that gradually darkening thoughtfulness that has been apparent even from the days of Sssshh! and Hey, Wait...) all you want to do is flick back to the start and start over again. So you do. [...] All told, Werewolves of Montpellier is easily as good as everything else Jason has produced. [...] You should check out Werewolves of Montpellier. In fact you should hastily work your way through Jason’s back catalogue... Consider it medicine for your soul." – Peter Wild, Bookmunch

• Review: "The suite of stories Gilbert Hernandez contributed to the relaunched, graphic-novel-format Love and Rockets: New Stories might be his most complex work yet. [...] It was only in reading Beto’s stories in all three volumes that the Chinese puzzle-box intricacy of what he’s doing here revealed itself to me. [...] All told, you could wrap these stories up between two covers and come up with a book of absolutely crushing intelligence, emotional heft, and visual power — a book among the best of Gilbert’s career." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Plug: "Seattle-based, world-slobbered, excellent comics and dazzling-arts publisher Fantagraphics is really going all out for their 4th Anniversary Party this Saturday, December 11, 2010. It will be thrown at their awesome store in Georgetown, and promises 'the season’s most festive party featuring amazing music, comix, art, and more!'" – Chris Estey, Three Imaginary Girls

• Plug: "The cartoonist and illustrator Rand Holmes, who died at Lasqueti Island eight years ago, created hippie hero Harold Hedd, one of the more memorable fictional characters of the 1960s. Among the cognoscenti, Mr. Holmes is a peer of R. (Mr. Natural) Crumb and Gilbert (Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers) Shelton. A 328-page retrospective [The Artist Himself] was released this summer by Fantagraphics Books." – Tom Hawthorn, The Globe and Mail

The creators of Rip M.D. have two signing events lined up this month:

On Friday December 10 the whole creative team (writer/artist Mitch Shauer, inker Mike Vosburg, and color/effects crew Justin Yamaguchi & Michael Lessa) will do a demo, raffle giveaway and signing at the House of Secrets comic shop in Burbank, CA. Starts at 5PM and may go as late as 8PM. RSVP on Facebook.

And on Saturday December 18 Mitch Schauer returns to his hometown of Tulsa, OK to sign copies of Rip M.D. at Borders Books & Music on Yale St. If we get any more details on that one we'll pass them along.

Ray Fenwick announceth:

"Next Tuesday Tiny Showcase will release a special edition of my new book Mascots. The first 100 will be signed, but every copy ordered through Tiny will come with a print of the above image. That one was made after the book was off to press so it's not duplicated inside."

He also debuts the new second trailer for the book, "A dramatization of the scene 'Fat Air'":

Grab it!

As you may know, we recently relocated our warehouse and shipping operation to a new facility. Our statuesque and erudite Warehouse Manager Nico Vassilakis has asked me to pass along the following message to you — yes, you — the public:

Here's a fun thing to do. We're looking to beautify our new warehouse. And YOU can help. PLEASE DONATE your comic/artwork to the FANTAGRAPHICS WAREHOUSE. Any size, any style, anything goes. Everything accepted. It all goes up on our walls.

Mail stuff directly to:

FANTAGRAPHICS WAREHOUSE
Attn: Permanent Gallery Museum
79 South Horton
Suite 170 (the gate)
Seattle, WA 98134

Chicago is a city with a rich comics tradition and next month the city's Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates four current innovators in the medium with a can't-miss gallery exhibit titled New Chicago Comics:

"For the month of January, the MCA presents an exhibition of the work of four young, Chicago-based cartoonists and animators: Jeffrey Brown, Lilli Carré, Paul Hornschemeier, and Anders Nilsen. In their own unique styles each of these artists expands and challenges the conventions of a visual art form for which Chicago continues to be renowned: the comic book."

The exhibit runs January 8-30, 2011. See more information at the MCA website.

The latest treasures from our attic (literally) to be listed now on eBay: three incredible prints featuring artwork by master illustrator Frank Kelly Freas. Click each image to go straight to each listing or here to see all of them. These auctions end less than 72 hours from the time of this posting!