Jonathan D. Howells is putting the finishing touches on a long-simmering documentary about Jim Woodring. In the course of doing this he discovered that he does not have signed releases from two of the people of who are prominently featured, at least for one shot, in the version he has put together. Since he really wants to keep these clips in, he's hoping the two can step forth and identify themselves, and sign the release -- or if you know them, notify them or us! (Contact Jonathan directly at johnadhowells [at] hotmail.com.)

This woman was at a signing held at Confounded Books in Seattle about six and a half years ago (a co-signing with Jim and Charles Burns):

 This man was at LA's Meltdown Comics about six years ago:

(click to enlarge)

Bill Griffith turned in his spectacular cover to the upcoming WELCOME TO DINGBURG Zippy collection, which focuses heavily on Dingburg, the "city inhabited solely by pinheads." (Other than Washington D.C., of course.) The inside cover will feature a full-color fold-out map of Dingburg, and as a result the front cover is also a foldout and our man Bill knocked himself out on both. Enjoy your sneak peek at the original to the cover (we're keeping the map under wraps for now), and look for the book late this year.

Martin Kellerman's "Rocky" is being adapted for the screen — 13 episodes of hanging out, arguing, eating, reading comics (check out Rocky's preferred reading material below), drinking coffee, listening to music, watching DVD's, playing videogames...and even indulging in the occasional bit of carnal knowledge.

No details yet on when and whether there will be an English language version (or at least subtitled episodes), but in the meantime, enjoy these rockin' stills (click them for larger versions) — and watch for Fantagraphics' Rocky Volume II this Fall!

Matthias Lehmann (HWY. 115) is having a Spring Sale of original art. Even if you're too broke to buy any, go check it out because it's awful purty — Matthias is one of the few remaining practitioners of the ancient and crazy-making art of scratchboard, and he ups the ante by handcoloring it on top of that. And if you do want to buy some, don't worry, Matthias speaks and writes excellent English.

One Euro is about a buck and a half these days. Buy them before it's two dollars!

Here are the last of the Krazy Kat strips drawn by seven-to-eleven-year old Italian kids, courtesy of their teacher Alessandro Santi. (See previous FLOG!s for batches one, two and three; see the entire set in a slideshow on Flickr.) Incidentally, Alessandro asked us if we were going to reprint the Eclipse volumes featuring the first nine years of Krazy Kat Sundays, and the answer to that is yes, starting in 2009. But we're going to gang them together into three big KK volumes, each containing three years' worth.

Here are still more Krazy Kat strips drawn by seven-to-eleven-year old Italian kids, courtesy of their teacher Alessandro Santi. (See previous FLOG!s for batches one and two.) Last batch to come tomorrow.

Incidentally, Jeet Heer and Michael Tisserand just turned in their introduction to the final collection of Krazy Kat Sundays, scheduled for release this Fall. It chronicles the last few years of Herriman's life, and it's a terrific (if sad) read.

Here are some more Krazy Kat strips drawn by seven-to-eleven-year old bambini, courtesy of their teacher Alessandro Santi. (See yesterday's FLOG! for the first batch.) More to come tomorrow!

By the way, we just got in the new, second edition of the KRAZY KAT book THE KAT WHO WALKS IN BEAUTY, now with a different colored spine (yes, collectors, this is meant to drive you crazy). If you DON'T have this book yet and were cursing yourself for missing it when it went out of print... well, there you go.

(Click images below for larger sizes on Flickr.)

Krazy Kat aficionado Alessandro Santi teaches comics in Italy, and... well, let him tell it: "I am sending you the comics pages some children, aged 7-11, have done in January-March 2006 during my lessons, financed by the city town council. At that time I showed and read your marvellous Krazy & Ignatz volumes — with the Italian version of the first volume of the series — to twelve children in Prato, my home town, and then they created their own Sunday pages and coloured them with watercolours. They loved Krazy Komics since the first lesson! Hope you enjoy our homage to the Great George Herriman!"

This is me again: I've seen lots of cartoonists try to capture the spirit of Herriman or Krazy Kat in their work, from Bobby London and Chris Ware on down, but these may be some of my favorites. Enjoy them!

Alessandro sent so many we're going to break them up over four days. So come back here tomorrow for another batch!

(Click each page for larger sizes on Flickr.)