Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Part theater of cruelty, part joyous liberating revolution, Jim Woodring's freakishly beautiful Weathercraft is at once the most direct and most elliptical of his Frank comics that I can remember reading." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly  

• Plug: Newsarama's J. Caleb Mozzocco calls Dame Darcy's Meat Cake "something to get excited about"

• Links: Love & Maggie rounds up links to recent Love and Rockets-related reviews

It couldn't be a finer time to be a Fantagraphics fan as we have three major book releases scheduled to land in comic shops this week (with scuttlebutt that some shops may have received them last week). Read on for blogospheric descriptions and reaction:

Weathercraft
by Jim Woodring

104-page black & white 7" x 9.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-340-8

"Anecdotal as this is, I’ve heard absolutely nothing but good things about this new Jim Woodring project, a 104-page return to his signature Frank character, although the story itself focuses on damned, slovenly humanoid swine thingy Manhog as he taps into strange cosmic powers. As it was before, expect Woodring’s excellent command of physical comedy (and his story pacing, which always seems to denote improvisation but never dawdles or rambles) to segue from the pliable bodies of cartoon figures into something mythic and transformative about mysteries lurking just behind the atmosphere." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"The all-new Weathercraft is my book of the week and would be my book for most weeks, frankly." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Wally Gropius
by Tim Hensley

64-page full-color 10" x 12.5" hardcover • $18.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-355-2

"...Tim Hensley... mix[es] and sampl[es] elements in a self-evident way for a gleeful result, though this artist takes it so far that individual character poses seem exclusively isolated from long-forgotten humor comics and pressed into the service of a patchwork ideal of a ‘teenage’ comic (teenage-as-a-genre), possibly going down as the most striking of the original MOME serials once the goats are culled from the sheep. Here’s the collected edition, a 10″ x 12.5″ hardcover album, 64 color pages, almost all of them pretty to very funny. Yet it’s oddly difficult to describe Wally Gropius in more specific terms, but know that it’s about a rich boy and a determined girl and their courtship, and how prolix borrowed comic devices can build into something distressing indeed." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"Tim Hensley’s sly satire of silly ‘60s kids comics is an amazingly accomplished, spot-on imitation of the look and feel of those books, but with a sharper edged and heavier weight. One-part Archie Andrews, two-parts Richie Rich, Wally Gropius isn’t the German architect (although he’s often confused for him), but is rather a teen rock star bazillionaire." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

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

"...an anticipated-by-many contemporary reprint project collecting Roy Crane’s influential Sunday spin-off from the comedic daily strip titled Wash Tubbs back when it started in 1924, but had since itself become an adventure-toned showcase for the Captain Easy character. Edited by Rick Norwood, with a vintage (1974) foreword by Charles Schulz and a new introduction by Jeet Heer..." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"The best adventure comic everywhere; Crane's clean, thought-out action scenes are a tonic for all those confused superhero fight scenes out there today." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

As always, complete details and extensive previews of each book can be found at their respective links. Bug your local comic shop to make sure they have them in stock before smashing open your piggy bank.

I was excited to see this photo posted on Twitter by Kristin Hersh yesterday, with Gilbert Hernandez's cover art for her upcoming memoir Rat Girl, to be released by Penguin in the U.S. on August 31. Besides being a phenomenal songwriter and performer with Throwing Muses, 50FOOTWAVE and solo, Kristin is one of the best storytellers and writers in the performing arts biz, no lie, and she has some amazing tales to tell. This book is a must-get.

UPDATE: I just found out it was colored by our own Jacob Covey! It just keeps getting better.

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

• From Scott Eder Gallery, a selection of Jim Woodring's penciled roughs for Weathercraft, plus two paintings

• It's your all-new weekly installment of "Cartoon Boy" from John Kerschbaum

• A new portrait of Johnny Cash and other news from Dame Darcy

• Anders Nilsen reveals where it all went wrong

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Operating in the territory of Rube Goldberg, Wolverton's convoluted plans for achieving his ludicrous goals [in The Culture Corner] rely less on mousetrap-like technical gewgaws than the artist's signature grotesques, which are laugh-out-loud joy. While a must-have for Wolverton completists, even newcomers will find the humor readily accessible." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "Just what is Dash Shaw on? And may I please have some? ...The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. [is] an anything-goes anthology quite attractively packaged by Fantagraphics Books, right down to the transparent, animation-cel-esque jacket. ... Yeah, [the title story] is different. Yeah, it’s awesome. ... Much of Unclothed Man is stunning..." – Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Review: Thanks to our Twitter follower Tim Leng for the following alert: "Awesomely positive review of The Art of Jaime Hernandez (and L&R in general) on BBC 6music this afternoon!" For a limited time the show is streaming here (click on Tuesday)

• Plug: At EarlyWord, Robin Brenner singles out Weathercraft by Jim Woodring as one of "the most artful finds" at TCAF

• Profile: The University of Cincinnati, where C. Tyler teaches, presents a news release about her 2010 Eisner Award nominations for You'll Never Know, Book 1: A Good and Decent Man

• Profile: The Chicago Tribune's Rick Kogan remembers Bill Mauldin after purchasing the Mauldin commemorative first class stamp, and calls Willie & Joe: The WWII Years an "amazing and beautiful collection" (via ¡Journalista!)

• Interview: Greek site Comicdom presents a brief Q&A, in Engish, with Peter Bagge: "Almost all my story ideas are based on people and events from real life. Truth is always stranger than fiction."

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch presents the first of a 4-part talk with Gene Deitch: "It’s really bad to look back on the communist time with nostalgia [laughs]. There was a downside. But the animation studio here was kind of a Shangri-La. First of all, nobody in the communist hierarchy had any idea what we were doing or how, but they knew it was popular and they left us alone."

This coming weekend, May 22-23, 2010, the Silver Lake Jubilee in Los Angeles is hosting "Jubilee Comix," a comics showcase featuring live readings at El Cid both mornings beginning at 10am featuring Tom Neely, Robert Goodin, Jesse Moynihan, Ted Stearn, David King and Malachi Ward. Afterward, all of them, plus Tim Hensley and Olga Volozova, will be signing in the Literary Village. And Esther Pearl Watson is just one of many comics and small-press artists exhibiting in the "We Come in Peace" collaborative "zine fort" installation. Sounds like a can't-miss!

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

• Vice presents personal training, Johnny Ryan style

• Hotwire contributor Onsmith contributes ths wraparound cover and interior illustrations to the second issue of the literary zone The Folio Club

• On Covered,  Aviv Itzcovitz takes on The Complete Peanuts Vol. 1

• A 1946 Jim Flora rendition of Woody Herman in celebration of Herman's birthday yesterday

• Cut-paper art by Lilli Carré

• A new Lucky strip from Gabrielle Bell

• "Jonah in Green," a 1997 portrait by Mark Kalesniko

• Wasp No. 04 by Renee French

• 4 new postcard-sized drawings by Sophie Crumb, plus her wedding invitation

• Midterm election color commentary from Steve Brodner

• Josh Simmons teases his contributions to the new issues of Sleazy Slice and Cinema Sewer

• Some shapes and a warning from Anders Nilsen

• Page 24 of Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Graphic Novel Reporter's "2010 Core Graphic Novels List" includes Ghost World, Safe Area Gorazde, and You'll Never Know; the "Expanded List" includes Abstract Comics, The Complete Peanuts , I Killed Adolf Hitler, It Was the War of the Trenches, Love and Rockets, Pim and Francie, Pogo, The Squirrel Machine, West Coast Blues, and You Are There

• Review: "Many books have been written about World War I, but few can truly worm their way into your head like Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches. … The tales here are devastating and heartbreaking, and often disturbing, but readers will nonetheless have a hard time putting it down." – Holly Scudero, Sacramento Book Review  

• Review: "Perhaps there is something in Charlie Brown, that the longer I read his adventures, the more I become a fatalist. I look at the history of Europe and I know that there are frequent periods of relative peace, such as the past 60 years in Poland. And since they are rare, sooner or later they can suddenly end." – Konrad Hildebrand, Motyw Drogi (translated from Polish)

• Review: "This, then, was my introduction to the idiosyncratic and fantastically imagined worlds of Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez. ... While the stories and art of each Hernandez brother is unique, they shine extra bright by being juxtaposed, one to the other. Altogether: these rambling, lingering tales are bewitching." – Anna Clark, Isak

• Review: "...[In A Mess of Everything, Miss] Lasko-Gross covers the usual Holden Caulfield territory with brevity and an eye for detail. Her cartooning is very expressive and the book is coloured in subdued wash-like tones of brown, grey and blue that enhance the emotional impact of her cringe-worthy struggles for independence and individuality." – Bryan Munn, Sequential

• Plug: "[Roberta] Gregory is the cartoonist responsible for the comic series Naughty Bits, which is one of the best comic series I've ever read. Seriously, Life's a Bitch is one of my favorite comics ever. It's basically a biography of one normal — albeit kinda hateful — woman, and it's insightful, funny, and true." – Paul Constant, The Stranger (previewing an event on Saturday that, alas, we didn't know about in advance)

• Plug: Ragged Claws Network gives you a heads-up about Weathercraft by Jim Woodring

• Contributor notes: Bob Andelman, whose interview with Howard Chaykin about Will Eisner is included in The Best American Comics Criticism, talks about the book

• Reviewer: Laura Warholic author Alexander Theroux looks at a new biography of Jack London for The Wall Street Journal: "Readers can be pardoned for thinking it seems not improbable that London, given the chance, would punch Mr. Haley in the nose."

To celebrate the launch of the new improved Meat Cake collection we've got some free downloadable treats for Dame Darcy fans!

First up, a smashing desktop wallpaper based on the title pages from the book. Just click on the size that matches your monitor resolution and the image will open in a new window; if you're on a PC, right-click the image and select "Set As Background"; if you're on a Mac, control+click and select "Set As Desktop Background." More wallpapers...

800 x 600 | 1024 x 768 | 1152 x 864 | 1280 x 960 | 1280 x 800

Next, download and print out four pages of "Paper Doll Fun" (1.6 MB PDF) to cut, color & assemble without breaking the spine of your book on the photocopier (or, heaven forfend, cutting up your book)!

Meat Cake
by Dame Darcy

240-page black & white/duotone 7" x 10.25" softcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-346-0

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

For a limited time, receive a FREE issue of the Meat Cake comic when you order the collection! Choose from issues 14, 16 or 17 (15 is sold out) when placing your order.

COLLECTING THE BEST STORIES FROM THE FIRST DECADE OF MEAT CAKE COMICS

Dame Darcy is one of the most beguiling presences on the comics scene — musician, actress, cable TV star, fortune teller, dollmaker, and last but not least, cartoonist to the core — and has been bewitching readers for over 15 years with her neo-Victorian horror/humor/romance comic Meat Cake. Alternating between one-off (often cruelly tragic) fairy tales and ongoing romps starring her eclectic cast of characters, including Effluvia the Mermaid, the roguish roué Wax Wolf, Igpay the Pig-Latin pig, Stregapez (a women who speaks by dispensing Pez-like tablets through a bloody hole in her throat), the mischievous Siamese twins Hindrance and Perfidia, Scampi the Selfish Shellfish, the stalwart Friend the Girl, and the blonde bombshell Richard Dirt, all delineated in her inimitable luxurious scrawl, Meat Cake is like a peek into the most creative, deranged dollhouse you ever saw. Meat Cake is an expanded reprint of the out of print hardcover with more stories assembling the very best of Darcy’s work (including “Hungry Is the Heart,” the legendary collaboration with Watchmen’s Alan Moore) from the first 11 issues of the beloved comic.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 20-page PDF excerpt featuring all the highlights of issue 4 (3.5 MB), PLUS a 6-page PDF including the Table of Contents, Foreword by Margaret Cho, Introduction by Dame Darcy, and "An Interview with the Meat Cake Characters" (1.4 MB), PLUS 4 pages of "Paper Doll Fun" (1.6 MB) that you can print, color & cut out without ruining your book!

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

"[Darcy] has created a childlike, otherworldly realm, a land that hovers in the twilight space between the whimsical and the macabre. Ghosts and goblins, foul-tempered stepmothers, lovesick mermaids and charmed forests are all rendered in Darcy's distinctive hand, loose and flowing lines reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey." – Los Angeles Times

"Darcy's comics are aesthetic manifestos… Darcy is a star. Mark my words. Meat Cake will prevail, as luxury takes over America. And the world beyond." — The New York Times

"I think she's exquisite, let's put it that way. I wish I knew her in high school." — Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth)