Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Whether you love the swords and sorcery genre, high adventure, romance, or any or all of the above, Hal Foster’s early work on Prince Valiant is well worth reading. ... Fantagraphics has done a remarkable job remastering these strips, which, thanks to the use of original proof sheets and advances in printing technology, are even brighter and crisper than when they were first published 70 years ago. This second volume from Fantagaphics is due to ship in June 2010." – James Henry, Mid-Ohio-Con

• Review: "In form, content and effect, [Muzzlers, Guzzlers and Good Yeggs] is a hell of a book. Coleman's intricate line drawings capture phantasmagorical scenes of horror and pathos, mixing nightmares with satire and surreal portraiture. There a strange and powerful sense of vitality at play, and a feeling of obsession mixed with a furious sort of joy." – Oliver Ho, PopMatters

• Plug: New York magazine places Wally Gropius by Tim Hensley well on the "brilliant" side of their Approval Matrix, says reading it "is like taking acid during a time-machine trip to the sixties."

• Plug: Looking for information about It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi on a Portuguese-language site? Top Comics has you covered

• Plug: Thanks to Daniel X. O'Neil for buying some stuff from our bricks-n-mortar store and blogging about it

• Road trip: At Waymarking.com you can find a crowdsourced guide to real-life locations and landmarks featured in Zippy the Pinhead strips — it's pretty remarkable, and a great way to plan your next road trip! Thanks to Patrick Rosenkranz for the tip.

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

• Spanish-language newspaper El País publishes a Joe Sacco cover for their literature supplement

• The cover of Jon Vermilyea's forthcoming turtle-flavored minicomic Pizza Time

• This is a photo John Pham posted on Facebook of a piece he has in the Poketo "Los Angeles I'm Yours" art show at Space 1520 in LA which opened on Saturday and which also features handmade minicomics by Jordan Crane

• Also on Facebook, Bill Griffith posts this one-page story (excerpted above) which was recently published in a new book about Levittown, Second Suburb, edited by Dianne Harris (link goes straight to the image file, since I don't know Bill's Facebook privacy settings, but he posts cool stuff all the time)

• Moose! You're killing me with cuteness, Renee French

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary, page 21

• T. Edward Bak is posting several pages from his current serialized Mome story "Wild Man" — for 50 bucks you can purchase an original page and help fund his impending trip to Alaska for field research for the story, so hit that Paypal link on his blog

• Gabrielle Bell reports from her trip to Stockholm

• The Archer Prewitt-designed Allen Ginsberg figurine from Presspop is coming closer to reality

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

• What Things Do has started excerpting strips from The Pin-Up Art of Dan DeCarlo.

• Johnny Ryan illustrates a short story by Gary Fairfull for Vice

• Bill Griffith recently posted his "Top 40 List on Comics and Their Creation" on Facebook and it's been making the rounds; you can see the whole thing at Cartoon SNAP

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

• Tony Millionaire presents an all-tattoo Maakies this week

• Street sketching with soprano soundtrack, by Frank Santoro

• Sen. Mitch McConnell & pollster Frank Luntz by Steve Brodner, with commentary

• A splash page by Derek Van Gieson

I might have to start posting these art-blog roundups on the weekends too... these Monday updates are outa control...

• Airbrushed Zippy the Pinhead art (artist unknown)! Posting this on Facebook, Bill Griffith says "This is the 2-page spread ad for the 'Zippy Movie' from Variety magazine, 3/29/90. The ad was taken out by the Aspen Film Society (at that time they were the producers of the movie) in hopes of attracting a studio/distributor. Are we in turnaround yet?" More about it (and the likewise never-to-be Zippy TV show series) here

• Check out all the artwork from the Covered art show here on the Secret Headquarters Flickr page — I'm pretty sure I haven't featured this Johnny Ryan piece on Flog before — and organizer/curator Robert Goodin has a report and photos from the opening on his blog

• Michael Kupperman awards the Oscar for best Oscar

• John Hankiewicz does Ditko , plus another sketchbook page

• A 1994 minicomic by Frank Santoro & Jon Good

• Jewelry and accessories "made from 100% genuine doll" by Dame Darcy

• Several new pieces by Richard Sala available at Comic Art Collective or direct via Richard's blog

• Detail of a mid-1990s Jim Flora illustration

• The conclusion of Gabrielle Bell's New York story

• Mark Kalesniko is really channeling Egon Schiele in this one

• Yowie! Sergio Ponchione presents a full-color Grotesque story from the pages of the new issue of Linus

• This one from Renee French is even creepier as the follow-up to this one

• Ectopiary page 14 and a Cochlea and Eustachia one-pager from Hans Rickheit

• More from "Tales of Abstraction House" by Derek Van Gieson

• Three more structures by Tom Kaczynski: "incoherent amalgamation," "basalt garden" and, above, "The Tomb of Jack Kirby"

• More new Jordan Crane at What Things Do

Bill Griffith returned my Facebook friend request just in time for me to catch his post with the original to-be-colored cover art for his next Zippy the Pinhead collection coming later this year.

From ARCADE #4 , winter 1975, edited Al Floogleman & Griffy

"Your violent thrashings stir me.  From where are you people pulling the energy?  It's a great trick, awareness and buoyancy.  Yours is still the art 'that knows not its name,' down and dangerous, some of the only art around still life-impelled beyond its theory (that's decadence).  There's a lot of dada ghosts riding their hopes on you; stay as unregenerate as you are."

 - Ken Jacobs 

Six years ago I believed the above quote was just as relevant in 2003 as it probably was in 1975 to what was once commonly refered to as "Underground Comix" and then later commonly referred to as "Alternative Comics." 

PITTSBURGH -- The ToonSeum, Pittsburgh's museum of cartoon art, presents Zippy's Pittsburgh and More: The Art of Bill Griffith, February 7 through March 31, 2009.

Zippy's Pittsburgh and More is an exhibit of Griffith's original comic art, with several strips featuring Pittsburgh landmarks as settings. "Our location at the Children's Museum has a certain surreal quality that lends itself well to Zippy," said ToonSeum Executive Director, Joe Wos. "Giant inflatable ice cream dinosaurs, twenty-foot cranes made of old gas station signs, and of course a museum of cartoon art, all seem to fit quite well in Zippy's world!" The artist agrees, saying "For me, Zippy is funniest when his craziness bumps up against the ‘real world', which is why I put him in diners and have him talking to Bob's Big Boy. It doesn't get much more real than Pittsburgh, PA - it's Zippy Country!"

Zippy the Pinhead, one of the unlikeliest daily comic strips in the history of newspapers, initially appeared in underground comix in the early 1970s, and was first published as a daily strip in the San Francisco Examiner in 1985. The following year, King Features picked up the strip for worldwide syndication. Zippy's creator Bill Griffith describes the character as the "wise fool," who "knows nothing at all and everything at once." His twisted response to all forms of high and low culture forces us to take a fresh look at words and images that permeate our consciousness daily.

Bill Griffith will appear for a special book signing at Phantom of the Attic Comics in Oakland, on Saturday, February 21, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. The book signing is sponsored by Phantom of the Attic and Copacetic Comics.

The ToonSeum is Pittsburgh's museum of cartoon art, currently housed within the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (10 Children's Way, on the North Side). Entry to the ToonSeum is free with paid admission to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (Adults- $10, Children under 18 and Seniors - $9, Children under 2- Free). Museum hours are Monday-Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sunday 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. For more information, please visit www.toonseum.com or call (412)325-1060

Pittsburgh City Paper is the media sponsor for Zippy's Pittsburgh and More.

• List: Aron Nels Steinke presents his Top Ten of 2008, including Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw and Ganges #2 by Kevin Huizenga

• List: At Robot 6, Chris Mautner declares Bob Levin's Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester one of the "five most criminally ignored books of 2008"

• Review: Rob Clough examines Grotesque #2 by Sergio Ponchione

• Review/Things to see: French cartoonist Olive Booger posts her impressions of Bottomless Belly Button (original French; Google translation) with bonus fan art!

• Blurb: Irregular Orbit devotes 9 perfectly-chosen words to Zippy: Connect the Polka Dots by Bill Griffith

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch concludes their three-parter with Bob Fingerman

• Interview: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon found a video file of Jonathan Lethem interviewing Daniel Clowes at the 2005 MoCCA Festival; he can't remember where it came from but he's posted it anyway

• Things to see: Steven Weissman's HLK

• Oddity: "Chris Ware can show Video Games the path to manhood"

Barely a month after Bill Griffith graced our emerald city with a fantastic exhibition and book release party, less than a week after he published an homage to our quirky town and his visit, the Seattle P-I has returned the favor by unceremoniously dropping Zippy the Pinhead from its daily print edition, effective this morning. This should be considered an affront to Mr. Griffith, to Seattle's own Fantagraphics, and to all remaining conscious and literate readers of the newspaper. With Zippy gone, enjoy your Funky Winkerbean when you're stuck waiting somewhere with nothing to read but that section of the paper.  We would be most grateful if you would consider  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  (NOTE: new, better email link added) and asking them to bring back America's -- and Seattle's -- favorite pinhead. We will post updates as we get them. 

UPDATE: Better email link added above, and I've also been told fans can voice their complaints by telephone by calling the PI's Reader Representative at 206.448.8007.