The great Drew Friedman was recently a guest on the WFMU radio show Fool's Paradise, discussing everything from, "Drew's early career, Tor Johnson sightings, the healing power of Joe E Ross and Drew's latest masterwork, Sideshow Freaks (Blast Books). Zagnut bars will also be referenced."

If you forgot to tune in, you can listen to the archive here!  And toss those guys a few bucks -- it's the WFMU 2011 Marathon through March 13th!

It's a brand new offering from Drew Friedman Fine Art Prints: Drew's Old Jewish Comedians portrait of Joe E. Ross. Even if you're not going to buy the print, it's worth checking out the compellingly louche biographical details provided by Kliph Nesteroff & Irwin Chusid.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List/Review: At Seen, Sam Humphries ranks Special Exits by Joyce Farmer #6 on the Best of 2010: "Sure, Special Exits is sad. But it’s also funny, touching, thought-provoking, and life-affirming. It’s never trite, cheap, or hokey, like, say, Patch Adams. This is the raw, unvarnished truth about the end of life, elegantly put to page by Farmer’s lyrical drawings, a welcome, thoughtful evolution of the raucous underground style of the 60s and 70s. Most of all, Special Exits is powerful. It’s vital; almost essential. [...] It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s one that everyone can benefit from reading. Your future self will thank you."

• List: Fangoria's Michael Koopmans puts two of our classic reprints on their list of the 10 Best Horror Comic Releases of 2010:

"If you asked me to make a list of my all-time favorite comic artists, I’d just hand you [Four Color Fear], because all the greats are present in this terror tome... This is a truly amazing, thick collection of rare treats, as well as a nice reminder that EC wasn’t the only ones churning out the goods back in the 1950’s."

"A companion piece to last year's Strange Suspense (Vol. 1), this volume [Unexplored Worlds] continues to showcase the goods from one of my all-time favorite artists. And by 'goods' I mean the most unique and disturbing horror and sci-fi comics you will ever come across! As is the case with all Fantagraphics releases, the original works are untainted and scanned perfectly."

• List: Andrew Salmond of London's Gosh! Comics names his top 3 Best of the Year at The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log:

"Set to Sea, by Drew Weing, is actually the unqualified top of my list. My absolute favourite of the year, just for the sheer pleasure of it. It’s the deceptively simple life story of a struggling young poet who finds a life for himself at sea, and it’s a proper misty-eyed treat."

"Weathercraft, by Jim Woodring, is my tip to the old hands that brought out work this year. As much as I love the others..., Woodring is for me in a class of his own. Reading an extended work by the man, you find yourself falling into a different state of mind, a world of sickly, queasy imaginings. [...] Few are as adept at drawing you so deeply into worlds which are so utterly alien, yet so incredibly personal."

• Review: "If this is your first encounter with The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, I feel I should warn you about the faint regret you'll feel for not having a chance to read these earlier in your life. These comics feel lost in time; they are reminiscent of Victorian adventure novels but maintain a strong contemporary cultural relevance. [...] Whatever your age, this is escapist reading of the finest sort — readers will get lost in Tardi's breathtaking ornamental artwork and marvel at how captivating an old-fashioned yarn can really be." – Jeff Alford, About.com: Contemporary Literature

• Review: "Action action action. Balls to the wall and guts to the ground action. And sick sick drawings. That's what you will find in this book. [...] Is this an evolution of Johnny Ryan we are witnessing with this series? Is he taking his unique manner of storytelling to another level with Prison Pit? Whatever, but there's obviously more to come with this series and I will be eagerly awaiting the next installment." – P.D. Houston, Renderwrx Productions

• Review: "Seattle-based publisher Fantagraphics' second volume of the collected Prince Valiant by series creator Hal Foster is a sumptuous package bringing together the Sunday strips that were published during 1939-40. ...[T]his restoration of one of the most influential comic strips of all time... [is] an essential purchase for anyone interested in the history of the American comic strip." – James Peaty, Den of Geek

• Review: "Throughout it all, Segar's art is energetic and expressive, the printed-page equivalent of the black-and-white cartoons of the '20s, and his characters are broad and exciting but always identifiable. Popeye in particular has depths that later stories rarely dealt with... Segar's Thimble Theatre stories are great American originals, and they suffered the fate of every other great American original: to be watered down and redone a thousand times by a thousand hacks in search of a quick buck and a sure thing. But the original endures to be rediscovered, as often as necessary, and that's no small thing." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Review: "Coming in at nearly 1,000 pages, [Meanwhile...] was done with the late Caniff’s full cooperation and benefits from the fact that he and Harvey were friends. [...] Any storyteller as influential as Caniff was and is deserves a biography of this caliber." – Tim O'Shea, Robot 6

• Review: "As biographer and historian, Bell excels. He is able to really understand the cartoonist he is documenting and boil it down to the essentials. [...] The production on [Fire & Water] is amazing. Bell is able to reproduce a good amount of original artwork that allows you to see just how skilled a draftsman Everett was." – Robin McConnell (Inkstuds), Robot 6

• Review: At The Panelists, a "One-Panel Review" from Jim Woodring's The Book of Jim by Charles Hatfield: "Something I miss in Jim Woodring‘s current work is a sense of fear being enacted directly through his drawing, through his handiwork—in other words, a sense that the drawings themselves are shivering and smearing and decomposing out of sheer, gut terror."

• Interview: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon talks to Daniel Clowes: "I can't say that I would never do another comic and call it Eightball. I say there's actually a very high probability that I would do that some day. Kind of for old time's sake, or something. Or just to kind of rethink what a comic book means at some point. But right now it sure doesn't feel like the thing to do."

• Interview: And another great interview from Tom at The Comics Reporter, this time with Jaime Hernandez: "Gilbert and me always ask each other, 'So, what do you got in the new issue? What's coming up?' And I go, 'Well, I got this one story about Maggie, blah blah blah...' and I called it 'Maggie in Palomar.' I kind of aimed it that way, where I'm like, 'Oh, boy. A place where nothing happened.' It gives them room to do everything, because there's nothing there."

• Interview: The Los Angeles Times asks Drew Friedman for his thoughts on the Academy Awards: "The Social Network gets my vote for best film. Aside from it being the only film I've seen this year, I always support films with Jewish leading men playing Jews, even if the Jew is Mark Zuckerberg via Jesse Eisenberg. Good for the Jews!"

• Coming Attractions: More reporting and commenting on our Carl Barks news from Matthias Wivel at The Metabunker

Click image to enlarge

Drew Friedman has turned in his cover art for Even More Old Jewish Comedians, the third book in the OJC oeuvre which is currently finding its place in our Fall 2011 schedule, and ooh it's gawjus. Here's what Drew says about it:

"It's comedian Stewie Stone, still alive, but sadly I just learned dying of cancer. He's the quintessential OJC, not well known but a great Old Jewish face, a trooper, and dedicated to his craft."

An historic meeting: Drew Friedman & Joe Franklin 12/8/10, Joe's office.

"So he once sued me for $40 million? Feh. Anything is possible..." says Drew.

Photo below by Drew:

(Jeezum crow, Joe's office makes our notorious clutter-heap offices look positively tidy by comparison.)

Drew Friedman sent along this delightful illustration of Bob Dylan which ran in today's Wall Street Journal.

There's a new Michael Jackson song called "Much Too Soon"? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! (Top image ganked from TMZ; link via Drew.)

Flog exclusive (unless you're Drew's friend on Facebook)! Drew Friedman shared this new portrait of the great Will Elder, commissioned by Elder's son-in-law Gary VandenBergh (quite possibly related to the documentary on Elder he's directing). Click the image to embiggen it slightly.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The second volume of Linda Medley's quirky Eisner-winning modern classic has finally arrived. [...] Castle Waiting is a warm yet bittersweet ramble through the margins of the fairy tale world. [...] Medley's distinctive black and white art is full of life, while her writing is as engaging if leisurely as ever." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "...[O]ne of the best and most under-covered of many under-covered comics of 2010 [is] Fantagraphics’ English-language edition of Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches. [...] Fascinatingly structured as a 20-page overture leading into an illustrated prose account of wartime experiences by the artist’s grandfather, and only then starting the work proper, a non-chronological barrage of soldiers’ experiences told in wide panels, three per page, unwavering, in contrast to the overture’s more dynamic usage of the page – everything in this book’s makeup draws attention to itself as a comic." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

• Review/Profile: "One day, the gods of all ART great and marvelous, finally will decide to roll out their lengthy gilded achievement banner listing cartoonists, illustrators and caricaturists... who have been creatively talented beyond the skills of mere mortal men and women. Without a doubt, near the top of this list of illustrious souls... will be the name... Drew Friedman. [...] With Too Soon? Drew Friedman has not only once again solidifies his stature as one the of the planet's funniest, most observant and skilled artists, I can add the often used, but in this case it's actually true, label of that of a living legend. [...] If I could give this book ten stars I would. If I could give this book whatever letter should come before the letter 'A' because it is better than an 'A' then I would give it not only that mysterious letter, but add around five or six pluses. Buy this book as a gift for yourself, your friends, loved ones, siblings, children, parents and grandparents." – Robert Jaz, Forces of Geek

• Profile: At the CCS Visiting Faulty blog recounts Carol Tyler's visit to the school last week: "When the fun was over, Tyler put on her Lois Lane Reporting Hat to deliver her scoop on herself. She started with a photo of her home, which boasts a bountiful garden out front. 'That isn’t yard work,' she said, 'What you’re looking at are scripts. If I can’t figure out a punchline, I’ll just rip up part of my lawn.'" (See photos on the CCS Flickr page.)

• Interview: It's the final installment of The Daily Cross Hatch's conversation with Jaime Hernandez: "I remember hoping — I remember that, when Gilbert and I were doing fanzine work for small publishers, some guy in his bedroom, he would say, 'we would like people to send their art,' and things like that. We just wanted to be published. We knew it wasn’t the big time, but it was just kind of fun to be out there, even on a small scale. Yet, at the same time, we did have stories to tell, and we were hoping that one day they would be published."

The latest Rat Pack portrait to be offered at Drew Friedman's Fine Art Prints concern is this limited-edition print of groundbreaking entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. Irwin Chusid's loving web of words and all the ordering details can be found here.