We've located the page that was reported missing from Walt Kelly's Our Gang Vol. 2. Click here to download a high quality TIF file of the image (12.8 MB) which you can print out, trim, and insert in your copy of the book. We'll also print the page in Vol. 5.

An underground comics fan and billiards lover with $30K to burn? This is for you. 

Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole (Softcover Ed.)
By Jack Cole; edited by Alex Chun

104-page b&w/color 7.5" x 10.25" softcover • $18.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-284-5

Ships in: March 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

In the rarefied realm of classic cartoon pin-up art, nobody did it better than Jack Cole. With his quirky line drawings and sensual watercolors, Cole, under Hugh Hefner's guiding hand, catapulted to stardom in the 1950s as Playboy's marquee cartoonist, a position he held until his untimely death at the age of 43.

Jack Cole has been justly celebrated as the creator of Plastic Man and an innovative comic book artist of the 1940s (especially in Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd’s Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits). After finishing his 14-year run on Plastic Man, he found himself looking for something new. According to Cole, his savior was the Humorama line of down-market digest magazines. This girls and gags magazine circuit proved to be the perfect training ground to regain his footing and develop his craft at single panel “gag” cartoons. His ability to render the female form was already without peer. Though he signed his cartoons “Jake,” Cole’s exquisite line drawings and masterful use of ink-wash — a skill he carried over to Playboy — betrayed his pseudonym. In comparison to his contemporaries, however, Cole was probably Humorama’s least prolific artist. Though his images were frequently used for covers, Cole’s cartoons were few and far between, with scarcely a single drawing appearing every five issues.

Along with a foreword by editor Alex Chun, this volume (originally released in a now out-of-print hardcover edition that now fetches high prices on the secondhand market) collects the best of these hidden gems, including several shot from Cole’s stunning original art. Most of these drawings have not seen print elsewhere since their original publication.

"Cole's goddesses were estrogen soufflés who mesmerized the ineffectual saps who lusted after them." – Art Spiegelman

"Jack Cole was a masterful comic book artist who helped define the golden age of his art form." – Village Voice

Download an EXCLUSIVE 10-page PDF excerpt (2.4 MB).

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Turns out Steven Weissman did his weekly strip in his mind-blowing sketchbook in the car from Portland to Seattle but couldn't get to a scanner, so I photographed it at his signing at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery tonight. Left turn! (The rest of the photos from the night will follow.)

Updates of two of our three weekly strips this evening:

Whitley Strieber never imagined this in this week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson...

...we celebrate one year of bringing you Johnny Ryan's Blecky Yuckerella with a hearty dose of WTF in this week's strip...

...and Barack Hussein Obama has the week off  since Steven Weissman is on his triumphant Northwest book tour!

Feast your eyes — follow links for larger/complete versions:

• A portrait of Fantagraphics' own Ambassador of Awesomeness, Janice Headley, drawn by Jaime Hernandez at APE 2008 (on the back of Daniel Clowes's name card), finally scanned

• "This is only the first panel. There are literally hundreds more to follow..." Oh Jim Woodring, you had me at "This" (click for full version)

• Ben Catmull has constructed a miniature of a stone hut

• Two from Dash Shaw: the cover of his new zine Sundance, top (hmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with this), and "Volunteer in Closet"

• Comic Book Resources presents a nice, juicy 5-page sample of Adastra in Africa by Barry Windsor-Smith and discusses the origin of the book as part of their series of posts on "Comic Book Legends"

• Look forward to Laura Park's entries to Picture Book Report, where a variety of artists will be posting illustrations inspired by their favorite books — looks like there's going to be a lot of great stuff, gonna bookmark that site

Light Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: Kevin Bramer of Optical Sloth examines a sampling of comics by Ariel Bordeaux, including her work in Raisin Pie #1

• Interview: In an interview with The Beat's Michael Fiffe, artist Mark Badger talks about his participation in Abstract Comics: The Anthology: "It came out of nowhere. It was absolutely stunning."

• Plug: "New from Fantagraphics Books, Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s. At 888 pages this is a substantial collection of the comix art of the New Wave mini-comix movement. Largely inspired by the Underground Comix movement of the 60s & 70s, these artists produced hand-made mini-comix for the pure joy of creating uncensored self-expression without the appeasement and quench of profit motivation." – Skip Williamson

• Plug: "Steven Weissman is awesome." – Paul Constant

• Plug: Robot 6's JK Parkin spotlights Stephen DeStefano's prep artwork for Lucky in Love (previously featured here on Flog)

• Cuteness: The Schulz Museum is offering free admission to little (and big) red-haired girls on Valentine's Day — how adorable is that?

We missed this when we first ran our story about Michael Leavitt's fully-articulated hand-carved sculpture of R. Crumb (on exhibit one day only at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Feb. 13), but Comics Alliance caught it when they picked up our post. (YouTube link)

We recently dumped a bunch of author/artist photos of various vintages from our files onto our Flickr page for the public to peruse. Most of them are at least a couple of years old, so if you're a blogger or member of the press looking for the most current images, please contact our Director of Publicity Jacq Cohen. 

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s
By various artists; edited by Michael Dowers

892-page b&w/color 5" x 6.25" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-313-2
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Newave! is a gigantic collection of the best small press cartoonists to emerge in the 1970s after the first generation of underground cartoonists (such as R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and Art Spiegelman) paved the way. These cartoonists, inspired by the freewheeling creative energy of the underground comix movement, began drawing and printing their own comix. The most popular format was an 8 1/2” x 11” sheet, folded twice, and printed at local, pre-Kinkos print shops on letter-size paper; because of the small size, they were dubbed “mini comix.” As they evolved many different artists, one by one, became interested in this do-it-yourself phenomenon. By the 1980’s they became known as Newave Comix, a term taken from England’s Newave rock ’n’ roll movement. An explosion of do-it-yourself artists emerged. Many talented artists went onto bigger and better things, others have disappeared into the fog never to be heard from again. Inspired by the creative freedom of their underground predecessors and unrestrained by commercial boundaries or editorial edicts, their work was particularly innovative and experimental. Here you will find a group of artists who could not get any attention from the mainstream, who were driven by the inner need to express themselves. This group was a pioneering force that still leaves a wake and an imprint on the alternative comix scene today.

Newave! features over 800 pages of comics (click here to read the full Table of Contents), as well as a historical introduction by editor Michael Dowers (click here to read), and interviews with several of the more prominent artists featured, such as Brad Foster, Artie Romero, Steve Willis, Dennis Worden, Bob X, J.R. Williams, Roger May, Tom Hosier, George Erling, and Bob Vojtko.

“Newave is not about artsploitation. Newave is about ideas. Nothing is taboo. Nothing is censored. No one is told what or what not to draw... Newave is social, political, rebellious, humorous, irreverent, libelous, inane, argumentative, blasé, blatant, belligerent, blasphemous, insane, kinky, ridiculous, absurd, loving, sleazy, and topical. Newave is back talk... Newave is the child of instant printing. Anyone can learn it. Anyone can participate. There are no aristocrats of newave, no comix stars. Newave is communication returned to people. It is out of the control of the mind manipulators...” – Excerpts from Clay Geerdes’ Newave Manifesto, 1983

Download an EXCLUSIVE 36-page PDF excerpt (2 MB) with samples from throughout the book.