Ah, our weekly strip updates are back on Friday evenings where they belong. We'll still call them "Weekend Webcomics" though. And we have another change to announce:

This week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson will be the final installment to appear here — the strip has been picked up to run in our hometown alt-weekly, The Stranger, starting this week (where it's on a rotating schedule with Steven Weissman's Barack Hussein Obama among other new strips)! But don't fear, Derek will be back in this spot in the near future with a brand new feature called Claudette. Stay tuned!

The topic is one of Kim Thompson's favorite TV shows, sort of, in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan...

Daily clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• A Snoopy sketch accompanied by a great Sparky anecdote from Greg Hoffman (via The Comics Reporter via Bob Levin)

• More of Bob Fingerman's kid stuff

• Dash Shaw's storyboards for (presumably) a scene from The Ruined Cast

• Hey, there's another Post-it Show coming up at GRNY next month, and here's one from Steven Weissman

• Also from Steven, more sketchbook

• I'm partial to Debbie Drechsler's birds

• Noah Van Sciver keeps working on his book

• Steve Brodner's take on Sen. James Inhofe (R, Okla.)

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Plug: "Wally Gropius, Tim Hensley’s debut 'graphic novel' (still not comfortable enough with that term to remove the quotes) is my favorite book of the year by a wide margin. What looks like a European reprint of a mid-1960s hybrid of Archie and Richie Rich is upon closer inspection a brilliant, hilarious, deeply complex and wholly original work that rewards a fifteenth reading as much as a first. The story—the adventures of a lovesick teenage millionaire (no relation [I think] to the Bauhaus founder)—is told in language both verbal and visual that feels entirely without precedent, yet the book has a potent, jarring familiarity, as though Hensley has found his way into a profound well of our collective unconscious." – Daniel Clowes at The Daily Beast

• Guide: Robot 6 's Chris Mautner gives an introductory "Comics College" overview to the work of Harvey Kurtzman

The Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack welcomes several exciting new participants to our colorful celebration of challenging contemporary art. The June 12 installment promises to maintain the ingenuity and creative diversity that has characterized the Art Attack since its inception.  

Newly minted enterprises debuting on June 12 include: The grand opening of the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall – a cluster of vintage Airstream trailers housing galleries eateries, and boutiques – beginning with the Frida Folk Art Trailer exhibiting Tim Fowler’s paintings of childhood obsessions, bugs and cars, together with a “Trunk Show” by Georgetown metal workers of Steel Toe Studios; the premiere of Yvette Endrijautzki and Jethaniel Peterka’s studio/gallery the Nautilus, featuring an exhibition in the “Steam Room” by the resident artists; the open air Georgetown Marketplace, which in June begins its weekly Saturday appearance, including farm-fresh food, local and imported crafts, antiques, eats and more from over 40 vendors.  

Among the regular Art Attack participants: Megan Kelso’s “Artichoke Tales” book launch party and art exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery; new paintings by Rafael E. Caraballo and Ed Craggs at Calamity Jane’s; figurative paintings by Amy Pleasant at Georgetown Art & Cultural Center; students of the Georgetown Atelier present their work at the “End of the Year Show”; Mark Tedin, Kyle Abernethy and Julie Baroh at Krab Jab Studio; Full Throttle Bottles hosts a display of the Hazard Factory’s legendary Power Tool Racers, one of the feature attractions at Georgetown’s Artopia arts festival on June 26.  

Via our pal Donna Barr comes word that Roberta Gregory, beloved creator of Bitchy Bitch, has a new website where you can check out her strips, read her blog, get updates on her current projects and find out how to get her new book, Follow Your Art: Roberta's Comic Trips.

Daily clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Wired.com presents a new 2-page Usagi Yojimbo story by Stan Sakai (via The Comics Reporter)

• Ted Stearn drew Tim Hensley some Wally Gropius fan art

• This week's "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman

• Also from Steven, sketchbook pages (including this week's Barack Hussein Obama)

• Frank Santoro presents all the process elements of this finished Cold Heat page

• Scene shift! It's this week's Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane

• It's Paul Hornschemeier's new weekly t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop and it's a classic

• Josh Simmons hits the cute/sinister bullseye again, on his & Wendy Chin's Quackers blog

• Also from Josh, this

• Kevin Huizenga's Rumbling continues at What Things Do

• Also from Kevin, a 4-panel excerpt, or strip, or something

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Interview: In an audio interview originally broadcast on Resonance FM and now archived at Panel Borders for streaming or download, "Alex Fitch talks to Steffen P. Maarup about the collection of Danish comics he’s edited and translated into English: From Wonderland with Love – Danish Comics in the Third Millennium, an anthology that surveys the current comics scene in Denmark and collects creators from outside the world of comics also, including illustrators and fine artists alongside their sequential art peers. Alex and Steffen also talk about the wider world of Danish comics, including Danes who have found work on American titles and the controversy over the dozen cartoon illustrations printed in the Jyllands-Posten (Jutland Post) which led to death threats for the creators." (via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log)

"The Ruined Cast" / Dash Shaw - demo teaser from Howard Gertler on Vimeo.

Via indieWIRE comes this first look at the demo teaser for Dash Shaw's in-development animated feature film The Ruined Cast. Frank Santoro is helping out and I can totally see his drawing in there. indieWIRE has the full scoop on the film (which is still gathering financing and projected to be finished in Fall 2011) from Dash and producer John Cameron Mitchell.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery hosts an art exhibition and book launch party for Seattle-based cartoonist Megan Kelso’s new graphic novel ARTICHOKE TALES on Saturday, June 12 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

A graduate of alternative cartoonist breeding ground The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, Megan Kelso burst onto the comics scene in the early 90s with her provocative self-published zine Girlhero. She has since proved herself a master of the cartoon short story with Queen of the Black Black (1998) and The Squirrel Mother (2006), in addition to the weekly serial “Watergate Sue” published in the New York Times Magazine (2007).

ARTICHOKE TALES is a coming of age story about a young girl whose family is caught between the two warring sides of a civil war. Kelso’s visual storytelling, combining delicate line work with rhythmic page compositions, creates a dramatic tension between intimate character studies and the unflinching depiction of the consequences of war, lending cohesion and resonance to a generational epic. The widespread critical acclaim afforded Kelso’s previous work makes Artichoke Tales one of the most eagerly anticipated graphic novels of 2010.

The reception on Saturday, June 12 coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic industrial arts district. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at Airport Way S. in the heart of Georgetown. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110. Please join us on June 12 to celebrate the work is this remarkable artist.

Listing Information

MEGAN KELSO: ARTICHOKE TALES

Artist reception and Book signing Saturday, June 12, 6:00 to 9:00 PM

Exhibition continues through July 7, 2010 

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.)
Seattle, WA 98108
Phone 206.658.0110

Open Daily 11:30 – 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM

This looks good — a comics reading featuring Ben Catmull & Renee French from the Fantagraphics stable alongside 4 other well-respected indie-comickers: Trevor Alixopulos, Rina Ayuyang, Josh Frankek & Lark Pien. Tomorrow evening, at Pegasus Books in Berkeley. Via Ben's blog.