Portlanders will have the chance to meet Jim Woodring and his Seattle cartooning compatriots of Friends of the Nib tomorrow night at the opening of a FOTN group show at Floating World Comics. Details and links to more info below:

Floating World Comics
20 NW 5th Ave
Portland, OR

Thursday, Feb. 7th, 6-10PM

Founded by visionary cartoonist Jim Woodring and Bob Rini, "Friends of the Nib" is a modern cartoonist salon. Cartoonists participating include: Jim Woodring, Bob Rini, Kinoko, Dalton Webb, Mark Campos, Matt Tamaru, Sara Spink, Angela Stork, Max Clotfelter, Scott Faulkner, and David Lasky. Schedules permitting, all artists plan to attend the event.

Jim also mentions that his recent works Jesus and the Bear and New Iron Age are included in the group exhibit "A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities" opening at Seattle's Roq La Rue gallery on Friday February 8 from 6 to 9 PM. Sez Jim: "So load that flask, fire up the jalopy and hie ye to Belltown for more animal congress than you can shake a well-gnawed femur at."

Paul Hornschemeier appears on this week's episode of the Inkstuds podcast. From Paul's blog:

This Thursday, February 7th, at 4pm (CST), I'll be doing that verbal ping pong between narcissism and self-deprecation, courtesy the interrogation of the gentlemen at the Inkstuds radio show/podcast. The podcast is available on iTunes or through their site.

Listen intently: see if you can guess the liquid volume of my sweat.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery impresario Larry Reid passes this info along: the Grateful Dead/Blue Cheer poster pictured above, pointed out to us by friend of Fantagraphics Denis Wheary, reveals the probable origin of the "lost" Rick Griffin piece in our "Rebel Visions" exhibition:

Don't forget, the last day to see "Rebel Visions" is tomorrow, February 6, before it comes down to make way for Ellen Forney's LUST exhibit (opening party on Saturday February 9)! 

Presenting the second MOME interview to be presented on Fantagraphics.com in its entirety: Gabrielle Bell, from MOME Vol. 2:

gary groth: Do you remember a time or a period when you made a decision... "This is what I want to do?"

gabrielle bell: Yes. I was traveling at the time. I was in Texas and I was just wandering through a comic book store. There were some instructions on how to become a comic artist. It was very simple — very, very easy. But actually, it was before that I decided to be a cartoonist, maybe a couple of weeks before. It was pretty organic.

Read on!  

Wilfred Santiago just joined the Flickr and is posting previews of 21, his forthcoming Fantagraphics graphic novel about baseball great Roberto Clemente. Check it out!

It's a bit tardy, but his week's installment of Steven Weissman's "Chocolate Cheeks" is now up for your reading pleasure. (Remember, site registration is required. Say, this might be a good time to mention that we just made our sign-up page a little more user-friendly.)

Coincidentally, on the same day that we uploaded our desktop wallpaper based on Ellen Forney's LUST, Ellen herself sent us this doozy:

Available for download in a variety of sizes (ahem) and aspect ratios! 

Now available for download on our Desktop / Mobile Wallpapers page!

It had to be done:

By request:

A couple more recent books:

Those last two are disturbingly similar visually, no? Go get 'em.