No, no, not the Olympics but something just as awesome. Mome Vet Eleanor Davis recently recieved a GOLD Medal from the Society of Illustrators. The Society of Illustrators site gives more informatoin on the art show and medals. "The first of the two-part annual exhibition Illustrators 55 will be held at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators January 4 to January 26, 2013. The exhibit features works by leading contemporary illustrators worldwide, juried by a prestigious jury of professionals.  Sequential/Series work includes multi-image projects for which a sequence of images is necessary to fully convey an idea or story. Examples include work produced for comic books, art journalism or graphic novels. This year's Gold Medal winners include Eleanor Davis for her work titled In Our Eden."

Heidi MacDonald at The Beat states," And in case you haven’t noticed she’s been on a real tear lately." Here, here!

Thursday, December 6th

• Seattle, WA: It's your last chance to see our exhibit for The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! Prints are a ridiculously-cheap $25 each! (more info)  

Friday, December 7th

• Seattle, WA: Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra debuts her latest collection "Let the Devil Wear Black" at Roq La Rue, with Blab #18 cover artist Ryan Heshka! (more info)   

Saturday, December 8th

• Seattle, WA: The Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary Celebration comes to the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery with guests of honor Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez! We'll also have a special musical performance from Geneviève Castrée! (more info)   

 • Los Angeles, CA: Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd present the Eighth Annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, with work from Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, John Cuneo, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Johnny Ryan, Malachi Ward, and Steven Weissman! (more info)   

Write yourself a note so you don't forget! It's time for the Eighth Annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, curated by our own Esther Pearl Watson with her equally-awesome husband Mark Todd!

Each one-of-a-kind Post-It masterpiece is merely $20, and this might possibly be the biggest Post-It Show yet with over 2,000 submissions! And there's over 260 artists involved, including our own Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, John Cuneo, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Johnny Ryan, Malachi Ward, and Steven Weissman!

The Giant Robot Post-It Show 8 runs from December 8th through 16th at GR2 [ 2062 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA ] with an opening reception event on Saturday, December 8th from 6:00 - 10:00 PM. Come prepared to "cash-and-carry"!

Tuesday, February 21st

• Seattle, WA:  Join us at the Elysian Brewing Company for the release of Rapture, the second beer in our 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series featuring labels with the artwork of Charles Burns! Please note the updated time for the survival demo in the graphic above! (more info) 

Thursday, February 23rd

• New York City, NY:  Head over to the Society of Illustrators for a discussion and Q&A with Mome contributor Eleanor Davis, along with fellow artists Jillian Tamaki and Lisa Hanawalt!  (more info)

Join Mome contributor Eleanor Davis for a lecture and Q&A, along with fellow artists Jillian Tamaki and Lisa Hanawalt!

Titled "Work Plus Play," this talented trio will be spotlighted by the Society of Illustrators [ 128 East 63rd Street, New York City ] on Thursday, February 23rd from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.  

Tickets are $15 non-members, $10 members, and $7 students, and are available online here.

Thanks to everyone who came by and bought books at the Fantagraphics tables at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival this past weekend! Here's a look at what events are coming up this week:

Wednesday, December 7th

• Los Angeles, CA: It's your last chance to see the The Art of Problem Solving at Giant Robot, a spotlight on the animated series from Ben Jones, featuring fellow Fantagraphics artists Jon Vermilyea and John Pham on staff. Make a pizza date out of it! (more info)

•  Seattle, WA: It's also your last chance to see the Short Run Art Show at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! Curated by Kelly Froh, the exhibit features original comix art, illustration and book works by Max Clotfelter, Patrick Keck, Martine Workman, Elaine Lin, Jason T. Miles, Chris Cilla, Andrice Arp, Tim Root, Billis Helg, Marc Palm, Eroyn Franklin, Tom Van Deusen, Tim Miller, Tory Franklin, Jesse Reklaw, Sean Christensen, and Erin Tanner. (more info)

Friday, December 9th

• Brooklyn, NY: Get thrizzled with Michael Kupperman at Bergen Street Comics and celebrate the release of Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7! (more info)

Saturday, December 10th 

• Seattle, WA: The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery celebrates the publication of Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Wonder, Volume 1 of the Complete Comic Strips with “Playing Possum: The Pogo Art of Walt Kelly.” This exhibition of original Walt Kelly strips coincides on the occasion of the bookstore’s 5th anniversary gala.  Musical entertainment will be provided by Sawsome, a female saw and banjo duet. (more info)

• Los Angeles, CA: Join Tony Millionaire at the third annual Feral House/Process Media Winter Solstice Celebration at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery. He'll be signing copies of his gorgeous new collection 500 Portraits. (more info)

• Los Angeles, CA: The Giant Robot Post-It Show 7 opens, curated by husband-wife team of Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd, and featuring work from Andrice Arp, T. Edward Bak, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Tim Hensley, Jaime Hernandez, Jesse Moynihan, Anders Nilsen, John Pham, Johnny Ryan, Jeremy Tinder, Jon Vermilyea, Esther Pearl Watson, and Steven Weissman. (more info)

It's that time of year again! The time of year where a flock of Fantagraphics artists participate in the annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, and like last year, it will be curated by the inspirational husband-wife team of Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd. 

Each sticky note masterpiece is priced to move at a mere $20!  YES. You can own a one-of-a-kind piece of art for $20 lousy bucks from artists like our own: Andrice Arp, T. Edward Bak, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Tim Hensley, Jaime Hernandez, Jesse Moynihan, Anders Nilsen, John Pham, Johnny Ryan, Jeremy Tinder, Jon Vermilyea, Esther Pearl Watson, and Steven Weissman. 

The Giant Robot Post-It Show 7 runs from December 10th through 29th at GR2 [ 2062 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA ] with an opening reception event on Saturday, December 10th from 6:30 - 10:00 PM. It's "cash-and-carry," so don't forget your bag-and-board!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Charles Schulz's lovable gang bring hilarity to the Reagan era in the latest volume of The Complete Peanuts 1981-82. Now up to Volume 16, the comic strip shows no signs of getting stale as the years go by and the antics continue.... As usual, the strip reproduction is flawless, each appearing in crisp black and white with 3 daily strips per page and full page Sundays. The handy index to quickly find a favorite character or subject returns as well.... So make sure your trick or treat bag is a big one and fill up on the fun, you’ll enjoy every morsel. It’s almost as if the 'Great Pumpkin' arrived after all!" – Rich Clabaugh, The Christian Science Monitor

• Interview: Comic Book Resources' Alex Dueben talks with Steve Duin, Mike Rosen and Shannon Wheeler about Oil and Water, illustrated by some exclusive looks at Wheeler's sketchbooks from the trip that led to the book. Says Duin: "I approached this project as I usually approach my newspaper column: You have to personalize the tragedies, and celebrations, you're writing about. What's more, I was blown away by the characters we stumbled upon."

• Plug: At O Grito's Jazz Metal, Paolo Floro says No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics "...is set to be the most important work of its kind ever published.... For those who enjoy history, investigating the gay world or simply love comics and the endless possibilities that it can generate, this book is a treasure." (Translated from Portuguese)

• Profile: At Giant Robot, a quick introduction to Eleanor Davis based on her participation in the Robots art show at GR2

• Profile: Auburn University's The War Eagle Reader has a quick catch-up on the career of Noah Van Sciver since he did an illustration for them last year

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Commentary: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon responds to The Comics Journal's Love and Rockets love-fest yesterday with some thoughts of his own: "I agree with Nadel, Santoro, Tomine and many of the comment-makers that Jaime Hernandez's new work represents a phenomenal achievement. I'm maybe not as interested in finding its place in the pantheon right this second. There's plenty of time for that down the road. One thing that's exciting and should never be denied about a creative achievement on the level of what Hernandez seems to have given us here is what that work might say to us in the future that it doesn't say right now."

• Commentary: Robot 6's Sean T. Collins responds, in turn, to Tom Spurgeon's response linked above: "If you’re looking for realistic and well-rendered women characters, or for women creators operating on an equal playing field, or for a serious examination of issues of gender and sexuality in all their glory and misery, then yeah, you can kick against the pricks and hope that someday an issue of Captain Copyright or the Teen Trademarks will deliver these things. Or you can put those comics down, walk a few aisles over or click on a different website, and discover things like Jaime’s 'Browntown'/'The Love Bunglers' suite, which over the course of two issues of Love and Rockets packs in more quality fiction about love, aging, motherhood, fatherhood, marriage, divorce, adultery, sexual assault, queerness, mental illness, adolescence, friendship, and sex than the last half-dozen comics-internet contretemps-causing comics combined."

• Review: "The conventional wisdom surrounding Prince Valiant these days characterizes it as a fussily drawn, belabored relic of the past. Of course, critical judgments of a comic stop mattering once you read it. A few pages into the fourth of Fantagraphics’ beautifully reprinted new editions of Hal Foster’s masterpiece and it’s difficult indeed to remember that this isn’t the greatest comic ever.... And the mastery Foster brings to bear on his every panel may have been equaled both before and since his prime, but it’s never been surpassed." – Matt Seneca, The Comics Journal

• Review: At Ler BD, Pedro Moura writes analytically and at length in Portuguese about Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

• Plug: "I could easily write a whole post about the brilliance of Barks (and probably WILL, at some point down the road!) but for now I will just say that this December Fantagraphics is releasing the first volume of a NEW Carl Barks Library, which is going to finally, finally, FINALLY put Barks's work back into print in America, in an accessible full-color format.... So please, if you have a kid in your life, PLEASE, for ME, buy them this book! And if you have never read any Barks and you don't understand why I'm being so crazy about this, buy one for yourself. I can personally guarantee that you won't regret it!" – Alec Longstreth

• Plug: Eleanor Davis’s work from Mome 22 is featured on MTV’s Liquid Television blog

• Preview: Jan Oplinus of the ECC Cartoonbooks Club shares some good-looking snaps of our 2006 book An Orgy of Playboy's Eldon Dedini

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "It should go without saying by now that any new volume of Love and Rockets is a must for any serious comics fan... [and] New Stories 4 is... one of the major events of the comics year ... [A]nyone who loves brilliant cartooning technique should appreciate the way Jaime draws the casual sag of a post-coital naked body, or the way he illustrates a pre-schooler tugging at his mother, oblivious to any notion of 'personal space.' And anyone who’s alive in the world should be moved by this story’s depiction of life as a series of accidents, miscommunications, and embarrassments, which sometimes work out okay regardless." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

• Love: At The Tearoom of Despair, Bob Temuka offers some spoiler-filled thoughts on Love and Rockets: New Stories #4, saying "this is no review. This is love. The art is as beautiful as always, evocative of time and place, and Jaime still draws the best body language and facial expressions in the medium, telling entire stories in a frown or wink.... While it’s no surprise that Jaime Hernandez is still producing magnificent and beautiful comics, it is also still incredible to see how big his storytelling balls are, man."

• Review: "Though not strictly a comic book, Michael Kupperman’s Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010 is very much of a piece with the cartoonist’s gleefully absurdist Tales Designed To Thrizzle series. ...Kupperman picks up the story of an American icon beginning with what the newspapers reported as Mark Twain’s 'death.' Kupperman’s Twain quickly sets the record straight, then relates what he’s been up to for the past century: fighting in World War I, losing a fortune by investing in chocolate-covered olives, making gangster pictures inspired by The Wizard Of Oz… y’know, the usual. Kupperman’s working method seems to be just to let his mind wander, making stream-of-consciousness associations that fuse into comedy." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

• Review: "Initially published in the ’80s, [The Cabbie] mimics the basic comic strip format — even going as far as aping the way Chester Gould used thick black lines for basically everything with Dick Tracy — but is supremely screwed up. The protagonist, a cab driver is obsessed with money, has a tricked out cab, happens upon bizarre crimes, and even gets tortured by a family living in the slums. It is a really uncomfortable experience from cover to cover, and I am stoked it exists." – Sam Hockley-Smith, The Fader

• Review: "This is a harsh and uncompromising tale of escalating crime and uncaring punishments: blackly cynical, existentially scary and populated with a cast of battered, desolate characters of increasingly degenerate desperation. Even the monsters are victims. But for all that The Cabbie is an incredibly compelling drama with strong allegorical overtones and brutally mesmerizing visuals. Any adult follower of the art form should be conversant with this superb work and with a second volume forthcoming hopefully we soon all will be." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Interview: At The Comics Journal, Jay Ruttenberg sits down for brunch with Drew Friedman to kibbitz about the Old Jewish Comedians books: "Well, I found Jerry [Lewis] to be completely delightful. Just great. He’s very inquisitive about the process about what I do. He asks, 'Drew, how do you do what you do?' So I say, 'Jerry, how do you do what you do?' You gotta butter him up: 'I especially love drawing you, Jerry.' But a lot of them hate each other. It’s very funny. You bring up one comedian to another comedian, and there’s venom. It’s amusing to me. There’s nothing funnier than angry comedians. Nothing better!"

• Interview: Jason Diamond at Jewcy also gets a crack at Drew Friedman: "I kinda bounce around the [nerd] map. I don’t really fit into one category.  I love comedians, comic books, and old movies. Really anything from the past. With these Old Jewish Comedian books, they have nothing really to do with comic books, but everything I’ve done in my career led to these books."

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea has a quick chat with Mome contributor Eleanor Davis about her contribution to that Nursery Rhyme Comics anthology

• Feature: October means features on horror comics, and Casey Burchby's look at the history of the genre at SF Weekly says "A recent collection called Four Color Fear, edited by Greg Sadowski, collects terrific examples of horror comics from non-EC sources, including Eerie, Web of Evil, and Chamber of Chills. The work in this volume is much wider ranging in subject matter and style than Tales from the Crypt, which tended to follow a handful of formulas."

• Commentary: Robot 6's Chris Mautner lobbies us to put out a collection of Mack White's Villa of the Mysteries and other comics, saying "CIA conspiracies. Carny shows. Obscure pagan rituals. Snake handlers. Brainwashed assassins. Nudist nuns. Roman gods. Psychedelic western landscapes. Very short men with very, very large penises. Such are the essential elements found in the comics of Mack White, who, for the past couple of decades, has created some of the most bizarre, paranoid and succulently pulpish comics around. Born and raised in Texas, Mack's comics are infused with the Lone Star state's own unique blend of rugged individualism and suspicion of authority."

• Plug: At Comic Book Resources, Greg Burgas goes "Flippin' Through Previews and finds "Fantagraphics offers Flannery O’Connor: The Cartoons on page 294. Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently O’Connor was quite the cartoonist in the 1940s. This has to be awesome, right?"