From Paul's blog, where there's more info:

Tomorrow night: if you're in the Chicago area come out for The Show 'n Tell Show, a rare chance for designers and artists to get together (in front of an audience) and talk about their processes, successes, and failures. I'll be one of those failures, mainly presenting an evolution of the dozens of stages a couple of my books (especially the covers) went through before reaching their final versions.

... Read part one at the Daily Crosshatch.

The Brinkley Girls
Cartoon Art Museum exhibition: May 21 - August 23, 2009

Opening reception/event: Thursday, May 21, 7:00-9:00pm
Free and open to the public 

The Cartoon Art Museum presents The Brinkley Girls, a celebration of one of the most popular cartoonists of the early 20th century, Nell Brinkley. This retrospective, guest-curated by comics herstorian Trina Robbins, showcases over 30 lavishly illustrated newspaper tearsheets, magazine illustrations, original artworks and other highlights from Robbins's personal collection.

Details regarding the opening reception and a special presentation by Trina Robbins will be announced shortly.

About Nell Brinkley:

For over thirty years Nell Brinkley's beautiful girls waltzed, vamped and shimmied their way through the pages of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, captivating the American public with their innocent sexuality.

In 1907, at the tender age of 22, Nell Brinkley came to New York to draw for the Hearst syndicate. Within a year, she had become a household name. Flo Ziegfeld dressed his dancers as "Brinkley Girls" in the Ziegfeld Follies. Three popular songs were written about her. Women, aspiring to the masses of curly hair with which Nell adorned her fetching and idealized creations, could buy Nell Brinkley Hair Curlers for ten cents a card. Young girls cut out and saved her drawings, copied them, colored them, and pasted them in scrapbooks.

Nell Brinkley widened her scope to include pen and ink depictions of working women. Brinkley used her fame to campaign for better working conditions and higher pay for women who had joined in the war effort, and who were suffering economic and social dislocation due to acting on their patriotism. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she drew women of different races and cultures.

Today, except for a small group of avid collectors, she is unjustly forgotten.

But no longer. The Fantagraphics Books publication The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons from 1913-1940 collects Brinkley's exquisitely colored full page art from 1913 to 1940. Here are her earliest silent movie serial-inspired adventure series, "Golden Eyes and Her Hero, Bill;" her almost too romantic series, "Betty and Billy and Their Love Through the Ages;" her snappy flapper comics from the 1920s; her 1937 pulp magazine-inspired "Heroines of Today." Included are photos of Nell, reproductions of her hitherto unpublished paintings, and an informative introduction by the book‚s editor, Trina Robbins.

Retired cartoonist and current comics historian Trina Robbins has been writing graphic novels, comics, and books for over 30 years. Her subjects have ranged from Wonder Woman and the Powerpuff Girls to her own teenage superheroine, GoGirl!, and from women cartoonists and superheroines to women who kill. She lives in a moldering 103 year old house in San Francisco with her cats, shoes, and dust bunnies.

MOME regular and Hall of Best Knowledge creator Ray Fenwick has not one, but two new objets d' art available from Chronicle Books, including this handsomely defiant journal based on one of his MOME pieces:

Here's a few days worth of buzz from Twitter... I don't know if I can make this a habit (and this might be borderline obnoxious), but we'll see:

BeaucoupKevin: Between you, me and the fencepost, if DC or Marvel reprinted their Golden Age material in the Fantagraphics' SUPERMEN! format, I'd not mind.

Triphibian: The Prince Valiant collection from Fantagraphics looks very, very sexy. http://www.fantagraphics.com/princevaliant

Omnivoracious: New Fantagraphics catalog in the mail (candy!). Most enticing: Al Columbia's first book (http://tinyurl.com/oku8ge), Comics Journal 300.

saratea: @valientthorr I'm still on my Little Lulu/Johnny Ryan/lotsa Fantagraphics/Top Shelf releases & I still pull out the occasional Thor #nojoke 

MrGranger: I agree. RT @leaveittokaren: Reading: The Complete Peanuts vol. 11 1971-72 from @fantagraphics The series is fantastic! 

brettwarnock: Wow!... Fantagraphics' Late 09 / Early 2010 schedule is crazy goodness. Hotwire # 3! Newave, prince Valiant, Ditko, Gahan Wilson, Tardi... 

jwoliner: HEY Fantagraphics is releasing a collection of @MKupperman's awesome "Tales Designed To Thrizzle"!! Preorder here: http://tinyurl.com/qjkjwc 

PaulTobin: Score! A friend just sent me the new Blazing Combat hc, and now the studio is absorbing its "full of awesome" flavor. 

michaelthorner: @PaulTobin I was raving about Blazing Combat just a couple of weeks ago. @fantagraphics did a wonderful restoration job. More #AlexToth ! 

And this bit of business:

BRIANMBENDIS: Dark pet avengers just got the greenlight 

JorgenBakken: @BRIANMBENDIS DP Avengers? From Fantagraphics, for sure. 

It's your Online Commentary & Diversions for the day:

• Review: "There is this old-fashioned comic feel that mixes so well with the overall theme and texture of this short. [In] Ganges #2... [Kevin] Huizenga's elegant neo-clear-line style brings a crispness and humor to these low-key slice-of-life stories, and the gray-blue duotone he has picked gives the art a new depth and complexity." - Hero Spy

• Plug: "I’m also trying Blazing Combat, the war comic collection from Fantagraphics. I don’t know much about the series, so this should expand my knowledge of a type of comic I’m not much familiar with." - Johanna Draper Carlson, Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?"

• Profile/Review: If it's Comics Should Be Good's "Comic Book Alphabet of Cool" and it's the letter K, it must be Michael Kupperman! Brian Cronin calls Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5 "one of his best issues yet!"

• Things to see: A nice big new batch of sketchbook comics & drawings from Anders Nilsen

• Things to see: Fan Steve Mandich posts his Tony Millionaire sketch & signature from our Bookstore event a couple of weeks ago (with a link to some photos)

• Things to see (and buy): A new Vice strip and art for sale from Johnny Ryan

• Things to see: 'Round the office

Somewhat belatedly, here are some photos from the Tony Millionaire exhibit opening and book signing at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery lo those 9 days ago. Click here for lots more, including images of all the artwork and a short video.

Uncle Gabby & Drinky Crow join Dan Pussey on the store window:

Outside, Jim Woodring and Ellen Forney have a chat:

The dapper Mr. Millionaire:

View of the exhibit:

Jam-packed with Maakies fans:

Dook dook dook!

Messrs. Bagge & Millionaire:

Whitney Matheson has the scoop on Charlie Brown & Snoopy's role in the legendary Apollo 10 mission, which celebrates it's 40th anniversary today. If you want to read the strips that Charles M. Schulz created during this time, get this volume of The Complete Peanuts.

Although MOME apparently didn't do much for the Eisner judges this year, I'm pleased to report that two of its stories from 2008 have been chosen for the next Best American Nonrequired Reading volume (2009), edited by Dave Eggers and friends. The first is "Hair Types" by Olivier Schrauwen, as featured on the cover of MOME 12: Fall 2008. The second is "Million Year Boom" by Tom Kaczynski, from MOME 11: Summer 2008. I'm extremely proud that these were chosen, as they both rank amongst my all-time favorite MOME pieces.

The selection committee for BANR consists of a handful of high school students who help Eggers edit The Best American Nonrequired Reading series. The collection, published annually by Houghton-Mifflin, compiles the country's best fiction, journalism, essays, comics, and humor every year, and introduces a large readership to dozens of new writers and publications. The students have a blog where they post their notes on the stories considered and accepted, and here's the entry on "Hair Types," which is quite funny. I think panelist Sophia sums it up best when she says, "I think it's not supposed to make that much sense but you can make a lot of sense out of it. Does that make sense?"