Cribbed directly from Dash's blog:

Making The Abyss
Drawings from BodyWorld, Bottomless Belly Button, animations and comic short stories by Dash Shaw.

Shaw's recent works (BodyWorld, The Unclothed Man, and Bottomless Belly Button) connect an interest with the human body, informed by figure drawing, with humorous character-driven narratives. This show displays his original art for these stories, which are often a combination of traditional crowquill and ink work with gouache paints, acetate sheets, animation-style backgrounds, colored marker storyboards, and mixed media collages.

At the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401 (btwn. Houston and Prince) New York, NY 10012

March 12 – May 30, 2010
Artist Talk: Tuesday, May 25, 7pm

Bill Griffith returned my Facebook friend request just in time for me to catch his post with the original to-be-colored cover art for his next Zippy the Pinhead collection coming later this year.

Your daily roundup of art bits from 'round the web:

• Is this a glimpse inside Tales Designed to Thrizzle #6 from Michael Kupperman? (Update: Nope) (Update update: Our own Adam Grano IDs it as a colorized page from Snake 'n' Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret — what's goin' on here?)

• Steven Weissman's remaining Post-Its from the GR2 show are now available on Comic Art Collective — who are you to resist?

• A 5-page Kim Deitch story from 1973, presented by John Glenn Taylor (via The Comics Reporter)

• This 1948 Jim Flora illustration accompanies news about a future Flora publishing project

• Derek Van Gieson keeps previewing that "Janet Planet" story — that's a great sound effect

Today's dose of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: The great John Porcellino names Zak Sally's Like a Dog as one of his favorite comics of 2009 (unsurprising, since he wrote the introduction): "It's impossible for me to be objective about this book, as Zak is one of my closest friends, but this is a really powerful, fascinating collection of comics. Very dark, and even brutal sometimes, but bracing, and highly original."

• Interview: Blogcritics' Michael Jones talks to Femke Hiemstra about her art book Rock Candy: "I do not deliberately strive for a 'childlike' feel or a 'children's book gone wrong' atmosphere in my work. But I'm aware that that's what's in me and therefore in my work, so a vibe like that will of course be a part of it. It's a funny thing, now that I think about it."

• Plug: School Library Journal's "Good Comics for Kids" column recommends some snow-day reading, including The Complete Peanuts ("The volumes from the mid-1960s onward... feature the gang that younger readers know from the numerous TV specials, newspaper strips, and products, and would be a great way to occupy an eight or ten-year-old for a few hours on a snowy day") and Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace ("his penchant for mischief has enduring appeal")

Good grief, all you art bloggers sure stay busy over the weekends...

• Man, remember the awesome comics that Tower Records' Pulse magazine ran back in the 1990s, like this one from Frank Santoro?

• A piece by Richard Sala for an Oz-themed art show at Gallery Meltdown in L.A. which opened on Saturday (Steven Weissman's in it too)

• Speaking of Steven Weissman, here are some ideas he's working on

• Nautical sketches circa 1950s by Jim Flora

• Two from Jim Blanchard, who describes the commissioned drawing at top as "Definitely the high point of my art career so far"; at bottom, a record cover (click through for even more groovy lettering on the back cover)

• A series of mother-with-child sketches by Mark Kalesniko

• God damn, Renee French

• Alain Saint-Ogan fan art and "F" is for Fielder by Kevin Huizenga

• This and two more sketchbook spreads by Anders Nilsen

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary page 13, plus a singing monkey

• The continuation of a New York Lucky story by Gabrielle Bell

• Nate Neal sneaks a guy into this page of Derek Van Gieson's story

• More new Jordan Crane at What Things Do

• Talk about a blockhead (haw haw): I'm Learning to Share! shares a Charles M. Schulz rarity, Two-by-Fours (via Robot 6)

In like a lion with Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Thank God then for Almost Silent, a new collection repackaging some of Fanta’s older Jason books — some of which are no longer in print in their original format — as an anthology the same size, shape and design as Low Moon. ... Buy it to read the stories, keep it to restore order and balance to your bookshelf." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Review: Avoid the Future collects and expands on their first 10 Twitter micro-reviews of Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s: "More than just a collection of mini-comics, the book features interviews and insightful commentary from some of the creators as well as the lovingly-reproduced source material."

• Opinion: Comic Book Galaxy's Marc Sobel makes a case for reading Love and Rockets in the original comic-book format

• Contest: "Beaucoup" Kevin Church is giving away a copy of Joe Sacco's Palestine: The Special Edition to one randomly-selected winner

• Award: Congratulations to Crumb, Ghost World and Art School Confidential director Terry Zwigoff for being awarded the Maverick Spirit Award at Cinequest 20 (why it's reported by an automotive news website I have no idea; via Bleeding Cool)