Tom Kaczynski reports that "Kevin Huizenga will be in Minneapolis to give a lecture at MCAD. For those who follow comics Kevin needs no introduction. For those of you who don’t know his work he’s easily one of the best and most interesting cartoonists working today. But don’t take my word for it, come see for yourself! Kevin will speak at MCAD during the student mini-comic Expo on Thursday (Mar. 25th) at 1:00 pm." What he said.

Details:
Thursday, March 25th.
1:00 pm
Auditorium 150, Main Building
Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 1 (1933-1935)
by Roy Crane

114-page 10.5" x 14.75" full-color hardcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-161-9

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

Roy Crane is one of America’s greatest cartoonists and Fantagraphics is embarking upon an ambitious reprinting of his best work, beginning with his gorgeous adventure strip — Captain Easy.

Crane created the first American adventure strip — before Hal Foster’s Tarzan and Prince Valiant, before Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, before Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon — and quickly established himself as a master of the comic strip. Begun in 1924 under the eponymous title Wash Tubbs, within four months it moved from a gag-a-day strip about a girl-crazy young grocery store clerk to an adventure strip when Wash Tubbs embarks on a treasure hunt. Captain Easy was introduced in 1929 and began starring in his own Sunday page in 1933, which begins our first volume of Captain Easy.

The first of six volumes contains the earliest Sunday pages from 1933 to 1935. In his first adventure, Captain Easy visits a lost city, battles pirates, dons a deep-sea diving suit to explore a sunken ruin in search of treasure, and everywhere he goes, he finds beautiful women — a lost princess, a pirate queen, a savage woman in need of` “taming.” A romantic adventurer from a less politically correct age, Captain Easy is a Soldier of Fortune whose bravery and daring are exceeded only by his Southern gallantry.

Crane created the template for the adventure strip, combining adventure and humor in a Bigfoot cartooning style that perfectly conveyed the tongue-in-cheek tone and light-hearted thrills that kept readers on the edge of their seats. As comics historian Brian Walker put it, “the artist’s patented visual storytelling technique blended humor, drama, heroics, and pretty girls.” Crane’s Captain Easy influenced virtually every cartoonist who followed him — from Chester Gould (Dick Tracy) to Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) — and even Hollywood’s adventure movies starring the likes of Cary Grant or Errol Flynn adopted Crane’s tone of two-fisted, good-natured derring-do. Citing Crane’s influence on comics, the artist Gil Kane once said, “Superman was Captain Easy; Batman was Captain Easy.” According to comic strip historian Richard Marschall, Crane was “a master not only of storytelling but of the art form, developing expressive techniques and a whole dictionary of conventions and signs for future comic strip artists.”

The first volume of Captain Easy also features a selection of Crane's original color guides, a biographical and critical introduction to Crane and his work by comics scholar Jeet Heer illustrated with rare Crane art, a preface by series editor Rick Norwood, and a foreword written by Charles M. Schulz for the 1974 Luna Press Wash Tubbs collection.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 10-page PDF excerpt (12 MB)!

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

Admittedly, not the best picture, but this was too cool not to share.

Comedian Patton Oswalt posted on his Facebook that a super-fan tattooed a joke of his on his arm, as illustrated by our very own Ivan Brunetti. (You may recall, last year the FLOG reported that Ivan did the artwork on Patton's latest comedy CD My Weakness Is Strong, and Patton did the introduction to Ivan's latest, Ho!)

And with apologies to our resident Star Wars enthusiast, here's the audio to the very joke illustrated above (NSFW):

• Some lucky 5th-grader is getting this in the mail from Steven Weissman

• Richard Sala presents "Strange Question," a story dated 1985/2003, in two parts

• A nautical-themed Jim Flora piece from around 20 years ago

• OMG, Gabrielle Bell draws Stephen Colbert in her new Lucky strip

• Mark Kalesniko presents a roughed-out page from Mail Order Bride

• Woo woo! It's Paul Hornschemeier's latest WSJ illustration

• More Renee French-drawn teeth. Gaaaah. Whew!

• A quarterly alternative comics anthology with a funny-sounding four-letter name? Gee, I wonder where they got that idea? Kidding aside, Robot 6 and The Beat report on pood, a newsprint broadsheet-format comic which debuts at MoCCA this year and features Sara Edward-Corbett (above), Hans Rickheit and many others

• Speaking of Hans Rickheit, here's his Ectopiary page 16 and an album cover commission

• "Pequeño Unicornio Tamale, Detective Privado Sobrenatural" by Derek Van Gieson

• "Meteorite swarm" (above) and "moulded gravity" from Tom Kaczynski

• Two more possibly-related pieces of evidence for the greatness of Johnny Ryan

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell... [is] fantastic! ... It’s part biography, part art book - an amazing recap of Steve Ditko’s entire career in comics, from the early days with Charlton to the present. ... It’s also one of the best designed books I’ve read recently, including lots of rare pencil pages, out-of-print rarities, and full color scans on virtually every page. There’s a lot more to Steve Ditko than just Doctor Strange and Spider-Man." – Marc Sobel, Comic Book Galaxy

• Review: "Vitally, Anderson draws an earthy King, one who likes soul food and soulful women, but who is also capable of inspiring and challenging oratory, theological radicalism and courageous leadership, even when faced with fists, firebombs, and F.B.I. persecution. Anderson reminds one of U.S. poet Walt Whitman: He keeps publishing the same book, in different editions. But what a book!" – George Elliott Clarke, The Halifax Herald

• Review: "This is a very strange comic... You Are There works best as an absurdist critique of society and politics. ... The absurdity of Forest's script is brought to amazing life... It's a tremendous work of art, heightening the weirdness of the narrative very well. ... I would recommend You Are There because it's a thoughtful look at the pressure of conformity and what drives a man mad. ... Tardi is fantastic and makes the book even wackier, which isn't a bad thing." – Greg Burgas, Comic Book Resources

• Review: "It is hard to convey how much of the joy of Unlovable comes not only from the wandering plotline (if there is any in this book) but also from the accompanying visuals. Tammy's attentions, interests and emotions are all scattered. The author's style of drawing lends to the feeling of chaos and scatteredness; the reader senses it in the erratic lines and messy fonts of various sizes. An erratic view of an erratic time of life." – Julia Eussen, AnnArbor.com

• Review: "Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit is something I keep coming back to — and not just because it’s the only comic book I’ve ever seen that can actively liven up a party. It’s a hilarious, visceral and quick read... for really dumb fun, this is pretty much unbeatable. I’ve considered that maybe the fun isn’t as dumb — that maybe Cannibal Fuckface’s journey through the wastes of the prison pit are a Bunyan-style metaphor for, I don’t know, man coming to terms with the restrictions of modern life, but then I remember it’s a comic that features the term 'burnt jizz,' and I stop thinking and laugh." – David Uzumeri, Robot 6

• Review: "I'd ignored Hal Foster's knights-and-adventure strip until Fantagraphics remastered, recolored and repackaged the first two years of [Prince] Valiant (1937-38) into one of the loveliest reprint volumes of 2009. I became a Foster fan immediately, and bought Brian Kane's Definitive Prince Valiant Companion to learn more about Foster and the other talents (John Cullen Murphy, Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz) who'd worked on the comic during its 70+ years." – Craig Fischer, Thought Balloonists; the remainder of Fischer's take on the Companion is mixed-to-unfavorable, but we still recommend checking it out for his insights and some additional commentary he brings to the table

• Review: In this nicely-done video, Ab. Velasco of the Toronto Public Library recommends The Complete Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz

Our Gang Vol. 1-3 Pack
by Walt Kelly

three 96-page 7.25" x 9.5" full-color softcovers • $40.00 postage paid (see below)

Along with the soon-to-be-released Our Gang Vol. 4 we are pleased to offer the first three volumes of Walt Kelly's rollicking adaptation/continuation of the beloved MGM shorts together for one low price including standard shipping within the U.S. (rush and foreign orders extra); see product description for details and more information.

Our Gang Vol. 4 (1946-1947)
by Walt Kelly

112-page 7.25" x 9.5" full-color softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-322-4

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

The Rascals are back in another 100-plus vintage full-color pages of rollicking comedy and high adventure. Created in 1946 and 1947, these stories show Walt Kelly refining the style that would serve him so well for his later masterpiece — Pogo.

Much of this fourth volume is taken up with an extended four-part cycle of stories — almost a graphic novel, really! — in which Froggie and the Gang (including Julip the Goat) ship out with Professor Gravy on his showboat for an engagement downriver, which results (of course) in a series of action-packed adventures involving fisticuffs, gunfire, fireworks, and horse thieves. All this, plus more mundane kid pursuits such as a hotly-contested baseball game.

As always, series editor Steve Thompson is on hand to provide fascinating behind-the-scenes details on these marvelous stories, and beloved cartoonist Jeff Smith (Bone) provides an all-new cover. For anyone who loves those simple, innocent post-war times, the Our Gang stories are as refreshing as a 5-cent glass of home-made lemonade on a hot summer day.

“Kelly continues to take his version of the Gang further away from the typical ‘kid-jinks’ of the movies. He not only involves them in serious adventures but potentially life-threatening situations... For those of us ‘of a certain age,’ summers were filled with days when we were pushed out the door after breakfast and told not to come back until lunchtime, after which we were again sent out to play until supper. Just like the Gang kids, we wandered out of our own neighborhoods, met and interacted with strangers, fought and played with other kids, and so on. The Gang’s activities are more extreme than those of most of us reading the stories, but only in degree.”
— from the introduction by Steve Thompson

Download an EXCLUSIVE 14-page PDF excerpt (9.7 MB) — that's a complete story!

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

Friday night and the feeling is right for your weekly batch of new online strips:

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto in this week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson...

...aw nuts, it's this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan....

...and this week's Barack Hussein Obama strip from Steven Weissman totally reminds me of a Venture Bros. episode.

Daily clips & strips — click for improved viewing at the sources:

• It's Jaime Hernandez's cover for the first issue of the CBGB comic — more info at Robot 6

• Cormorants a-courtin' by Debbie Drechsler

• Still digging these "structure" drawings by Tom Kaczynski

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Awards: Congratulations to Steve Brodner, nominated for a National Cartoonist Society Division Award (a.k.a. the Reubens) for Advertising Illustration (as reported by The Comics Reporter)

• List/Review: Shannon Smith of File Under Other names Michael Kupperman a favorite cartoonist of 2009 and comments briefly on Mome Vol. 13: "Open letter to comics publishers: If you put Josh Simmons in your book I will buy or steal a copy." (Good news Shannon: be on the lookout for Vol. 19. But please don't steal it.)

• Review: "West Coast Blues is a cracking good crime comic, not really noir but definitely a tale of bad people doing bad things to each other. It's also, oddly enough, very wryly humorous, in a way we don't often see in crime comics here in the States. ... Tardi's art is quite stellar, as well. He's amazingly detailed, but he doesn't pull any tricks on the reader — his work is very straight forward. ...Tardi matches Manchette with panels that demand a great deal of attention - this is a visual feast as well as a literary one." – Greg Burgas, Comic Book Resources