I just received this email from Carol Tyler: . "Please spread the word: Justin had a sketchbook stolen - it was about half full, containing rough sketches and writings. He was giving a demonstration at the college where I teach [in Cincinnati] and someone walked off with it. It went missing on October 17. I've notified the authorities. I want those who buy and collect comic art to know about it being stolen property. Keep our eyes on ebay."
If anyone has any information regarding this, please contact
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UPDATE: Carol Tyler tells me that the sketchbook was returned anonymously! Happy ending!
It's Steve Ditko's 80th birthday today, and we'd like to take the opportunity to make the following announcement:
COMING IN JUNE 2008... STRANGE & STRANGER: THE WORLD OF STEVE DITKO
Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the June 2008 release of the first critical retrospective of Steve Ditko, the co-creator and original artist of the Amazing Spider-Man.
In the wake of the astonishing success of Sam Raimi's three Spider-Man movies, Steve Ditko's status as a driving force behind the pop culture icon has been revealed to an audience the world over. But, in the context of Steve Ditko's 50-year career in comics, his creative involvement with Spider-Man is merely the tip of the iceberg.
JIM WOODRING'S IVORY TOWER ART OUTLET is offering a slew of new paintings and drawings for sale at great prices. So great, in fact, that my wife and I just decided to buy this one for each other for Christmas:
The Fog of War (November 2, New York, NY) 8:00-10:00pm, Alex Robinson, Tim Kreider, Mike Dawson, and The House of Twelve signing at Jim Hanley's Universe in New York City. Alex Robinson will be showing off and signing his Lower Regions. Mike Dawson, Chris Radtke, Cheese Hasselberger, Miss Lasko-Gross, Kevin Colden, and K. Thor Jenson will be out to support the troops as the House of Twelve Goes to War, and Tim Kreider will sign collections of his "The Pain" comics. 4 West 33rd St. NY, NY
I have no idea who Luke Maxwell is, and I'd be hard-pressed to say he has any real talent for cartooning, but this comic strip, titled "My Crazy Dad!" is nonetheless one of the best comics I've read in while and I crave more. I've read it at least three times now since my pal Jason Grote first tipped me to it.
Been meaning to write reviews of things I like but just can't seem to stay on top of it, I can't write as fast as I read, and not enough things that I read engage enough to want to sit down and write about them. But Jacob's Cold Heat post inspired me to mention a few things, real quick-like...
Cold Heat Special by Jon Vermilyea - What Jacob said below. This special issue of the Cold Heat series is way better than any of the other issues, which frankly kind of mystify me (and my pal Dan Nadel's unabashed enthusiasm for it only makes me feel like some kind of lame dilletante for not getting it). But this is just a great comic book by Jon Vermilyea, accessible to just about anyone (and not contigent upon having any familiarity with Cold Heat), and the 16" x 23" silkscreened cover is so fucking attractive that I want to frame it. I'm not sure the art on the inside needed to be this big (11 1/2" x 16" or so), but the treatment is worth it for the cover, and the inside tells a genuinely charming story that would work at any size, and reminded me of some of Jaime Hernandez's or Jordan Crane's more fantastical work. I really liked it. If this had been submitted to me for Mome, I would have jumped for joy upon reading it.
We are truly living in a Golden Age of classic comics strip collections, and as such we're collaborating with CHECKER PUBLISHING (Flash Gordon, Little Nemo, Steve Canyon), DRAWN AND QUARTERLY (Moomin, Oh Skin-nay!, Walt and Skeezix), and IDW (Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates) to produce a cool, oversized promotional sampler that comic shops can distribute in November (cover pictured above). This full-color 11" x 17" tabloid showcases some of the very finest Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Steve Canyon, Terry and the Pirates, Dennis the Menace, Flash Gordon, Yellow Kid, Little Orphan Annie, Peanuts and Popeye strips. How can you go wrong?
Designed like an old-time classic newspaper comic strip supplement, Comic Strip Masterpieces will feature superb reproductions, including many stunning full-color Sunday pages! There will also be a "sequel" of sorts to the hugely popular Unseen Peanuts (an annotated spread of Peanuts strips from the upcoming ninth volume of Complete Peanuts that have never been reprinted since their original newspaper release almost 40 years ago), as well as biographical notes on the cartoonists, a checklist of classic comic strip reprints, and more. Reading Comic Strip Masterpieces will be like traveling back in time to an era when comic strips were actually good!
So badger your shop already to stock this! And for those of you unable to get to a comic book store, we're also making a PDF available for download RIGHT HERE. It's a 4.6 MB download, and nowhere near as cool as the actual printed sampler itself, so don't let this electronic version prevent you from getting a physical copy from your favorite retailer. Tell 'em Fantagraphics sent ya!
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