The Daily Cross Hatch has word on "Zines of the Cities," a great-looking retrospective of Minneapolis/Saint Paul zines now on display at the Stevens Square Center for the Arts gallery (1905 3rd Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55404), featuring work by Zak Sally and Mr. Mike (no relation) among many others.

And the Star Clipper Blog clues us in to the Mad Magazine Exhibit, currently on display at the St. Louis Artists' Guild in Clayton, MO. It's not stated which artists are included in the exhibit (Kurtzman? Elder?) or even what era, if any, the exhibit focuses on, but admission is free so it won't cost you nothin' to find out.

Johnny Ryan dips his bucket into the archives again and hauls up another load of early Angry Youth Comix.

Anders, as he occasionally does, posts more moleskine pages.

From Jim Woodring comes word that our pals at Strangeco have created an online gallery of Jim's panel-cartoon-of-sorts that used to run in The Stranger a few years back. Oh yes.

Knowing of my own Ninja Turtles sketchbook, Mike Baehr pointed me to this sketchbook with several TMNT interpretations from folks at Heroes Con. Turns out it's the sketchbook of SubSub, aka Joseph Lambert, one of the CCS grads.

Impressed by the accuracy of the Krang illustration I looked into Matt Bernier's website and discovered he's friends with Jon Vermilyea, one of my favorite cartoonists/illustrators, which pointed me to Jon's portrait of Washington on the Vice website. If you're interested they've got five more portraits from people like Laura Park and Bald Eagles. But not by Kaz Strzepek who did the awesome TMNT rubdown sketch. 

Hoppin' times in Georgetown last night with the opening of our "Now Serving Cheesecake" exhibit of classic pin-up cartoon art. Above, Angielena Chamberlain models for artist Augie Pagan's live pin-up drawing demonstration; click here for the rest of the photos!

Wonder Twin powers, ACTIVATE! And yes, they're naked. Unfortunately, I can't find the flickr account I grabbed this from -- if you see this, let me know so I can link to your excellent pool of naked cyclist photos. 

Our ego-surfing results for the week:

• Independent Weekly profiles Robert Pollard, visual artist, as collected in Town of Mirrors (link via Largehearted Boy)

• Speaking of Largehearted Boy, Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button is included in LHB's "Summer Reading Suggestions." More BBB coverage includes a profile of Dash in Canada's National Post, a starred review from Publishers Weekly (scroll to the bottom), a review by The Daily Cross Hatch, the previously-linked mention in the Wall Street Journal, another profile (alongside Jason Lutes and Guy Delisle) in the Christian Science Monitor, and Kevin Church calling the book "easily the best graphic novel of the year so far." Whew!

• Via The Comics Reporter, a passel of links to Daada Books' reviews of Acme Novelty Library #16 by Chris Ware; Mome; Monologues for the Coming Plague by Anders Nilsen; and Outlaws, Rebels, Freethinkers & Pirates by Bob Levin

• Speaking of Levin, Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter says Levin's Most Outrageous is "Maybe The Best Book About Comics Ever." Meanwhile, Levin announces that Most Outrageous is banned in California state prisons (via Journalista)

• More French love for Linda Medley, as the French edition of Castle Waiting is named one of "20 Essential Albums for Summer 2008" by l’Association des Critiques de Bandes Dessinées (Google translation)

• Publishers Weekly gives an industry-focused take on the forthcoming Love and Rockets: New Stories

• Speaking of L&R, here's PrettyFakes on The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime Hernandez

• Icats Nitram, on a roll lately, looks at Richard Sala's Delphine #1

• Comic Book Galaxy's Alan David Doane says Patrick Rosenkranz's Rebel Visions is "one of the greatest historical recountings ever dedicated to the artform"

• Sean T. Collins presents his 2005 Comics Journal review of Marc Bell's (unfortunately out-of-print) Worn Tuff Elbow

• Our hometown alt-weekly, the coincidentally-named Stranger, looks at Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell

• Shuffleboil on the most recent volume of The Complete Peanuts

• Not to be outdone by the WSJ in comics coverage, The Fort Worth Business Press looks at two recent Popeye collections: ours, of E.C. Segar's original comic strips, and Warner's DVD collections of the Fleischer cartoons

• du9 on Thomas Ott's The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8

• Matthew Brady on Billy Hazelnuts by Tony Millionaire

It's time for your weekly installment of Steven Weissman's "Chocolate Cheeks"! In this week's strip: rockin' and rivalry-in'. (Remember, you must be registered and logged in to read.)