The Best Show on WFMU host Tom Scharpling welcomed Tales Designed to Thrizzle creator Michael Kupperman as a guest on May 4 (along with Dave Willis and Dana Snyder of Aqua Teen Hunger Force), and the audio is now archived for your listening pleasure here.

Here's a treat for Krazy Kat fans, Dave Alvin fans, and especially people in the Venn diagram overlap: the previously unheard Dave Alvin instrumental "Krazy and Ignatz" is available to stream or download as part of a free Yep Roc Records digital sampler.

Jim Woodring just dropped by the office to drop off the first 36 pages of his in-progress follow-up to Weathercraft, titled Congress of the Animals. We don't have a release date set for it but I'm guessing it will probably be about a year from now. Click the photos for bigger images.

JimFlora.com is launching a quartet of small, low-cost limited edition screen prints of a 1950-51 Jim Flora painting entitled Mardi Gras. Flora, who was living in Mexico at the time, rendered the work in four color patterns, which have been replicated in the print series. 

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

• A fan's Li'l Enid tattoo, spotted by Peggy Burns at TCAF

• Tim Hensley re-posts "NSFW," his story from Kramer's Ergot 7, this time with scans of the original tracts which inspired the strip

• Nut shot aftermath! It's this week's Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane

• Steven Weissman's pieces from the Butter and Blood art show at GR2 are now for sale online

• Frank Santoro sneakily updated his Silver Surfer image, and Spurge makes my day by confirming that it is, indeed, for Marvel's Strange Tales 2

• This is a detail of a piece Andrice Arp will have in Tree Show VI at GRSF opening this coming Saturday — more info

• Your daily "Devil Doll" and "Tales of Abstraction House" previews from Derek Van Gieson

• This week's Truth Serum by Jon Adams

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: The Alita Comics blog praises Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s as a "quasi-encyclopedic compilation of the genre... with thuggish humor in abundance, sex, parody, joints, experimentation, obscenity, violence, aliens, punk, grotesque creatures and several Martians" (translated from Spanish)

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Weathercraft
by Jim Woodring

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

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For over 20 years now, Jim Woodring has delighted, touched, and puzzled readers around the world with his lush, wordless tales of “Frank.”

Weathercraft is Woodring’s first full-length graphic novel set in this world — indeed, Woodring’s first graphic novel, period! — and it features the same hypnotically gorgeous linework and mystical iconography.

As it happens, Frank has only a brief supporting appearance in Weathercraft, which actually stars Manhog, Woodring’s pathetic, brutish everyman (or everyhog), who had previously made several appearances in “Frank” stories (as well as a stunning solo turn in the short story “Gentlemanhog”).

After enduring 32 pages of almost incomprehensible suffering, Manhog embarks upon a transformative journey and attains enlightenment. He wants to go to celestial realms but instead altruistically returns to the unifactor to undo a wrong he has inadvertently brought about: The transformation of the evil politician Whim into a mind-destroying plant-demon who distorts and enslaves Frank and his friends. The new and metaphysically expanded Manhog sets out for a final battle with Whim...

Weathercraft also co-stars Frank’s cast of beloved supporting characters, including Frank’s Faux Pa and the diminutive, mailbox-like Pupshaw and Pushpaw; it is both a fully independent story that is a great introduction to Woodring’s world, and a sublime addition to, and extension of, the Frank stories.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 12-page PDF excerpt (1.4 MB).

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Wally Gropius
by Tim Hensley

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

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Superficially resembling 1960s teenage humor comics, Tim Hensley’s graphic novel Wally Gropius is actually an acute satire of power, celebrityhood, and modern culture that tells the story of the titular character, who bears a closer resemblance to a teenaged Richie Rich or a classmate of Archie Andrews at Riverdale High than he does the famous Bauhaus architect whose name he shares.

Wally is the human Dow Jones, the heir to a vast petrochemical conglomerate. When the elder Thaddeus Gropius confronts Wally with the boilerplate plot ultimatum that he must marry “the saddest girl in the world” or be disinherited, a yarn unravels that is part screwball comedy and part unhinged parable on the lucrativeness of changing your identity.

Hensley’s dialogue is witty, lyrical, sampled, dada, and elliptical — all in the service of a very bizarre mystery. There’s sex, violence, rock and roll, intrigue, and betrayal — all brought home in Hensley’s truly inimitable style. Created during an era when another well-off “W” was stuffing the coffers of the morbidly solvent, Wally Gropius transforms futile daydreams and nightmares into the absurdity of capital.

Originally serialized in Fantagraphics' house anthology Mome, the story is presented here in a larger format with additional, previously unseen material.

“One of my favorite ‘graphic novels’ of all time. Hilarious and utterly unique, Wally Gropius is a work of unassuming genius that rewards on ever-deepening levels with each rereading.” — Daniel Clowes

Download an EXCLUSIVE 6-page PDF excerpt (7 MB).

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

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

Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

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)!

We've reported on T. Edward Bak's previous efforts to raise funds for his Alaska research expedition for his graphic novel Wild Man, currently serialized in Mome; he's now set up an account with Kickstarter to further assist with the project. Check out the video and the awesome pledge gifts and pledge pledge pledge!