A lot of catching up to do with this batch of clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing and possible artist commentary at the sources:

• A couple of things Bill Griffith has recently shared on Facebook: the rejected first draft of the home screen for the Zippy Comix iPhone app, and a "lost" Wacky Packages design that Bill says is "almost sacrilegious"

• Dr. Hermes Retro-Scans presents "The Photo-Finish!", a 4-page Kim Deitch story from Corn Fed, 1972 (via ¡Journalista!)

• At Potrzebie, Bhob Stewart presents Roy Crane's 1920s Mexico sketchbook (via ¡Journalista!)

• Jim Woodring presents "Spectacularly unpleasant goings-on from CONGRESS OF THE ANIMALS, page 60"

• It's Stephen DeStefano's 'Mazing Man redux (and seemingly feminized)

• From Matthias Lehmann, one more work-in-progress photo and, above, the finished product 

• From Jason: promotional "bubblegum cards"; a catalog cover (one of ours? I don't have them handy to check); and a book cover illustration (with a different take on the dog-headed figure)

• From Steven Weissman: a new "I, Anonymous" spot; new stuff on sale at Comic Art Collective; the cutest damn sidewalk chalk drawing ever; "School Spirits" & "Series 3" Stinckers

• From Frank Santoro: more Silver Surfer art; something titled Pompe11; "Postcard from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania" for Internazionale, with translation

• A new batch of crafts & merch from Dame Darcy in her latest blog update

• 19 new illustrations by Eleanor Davis for a local organic farm newsletter and a letterpress print in the new edition of the Cloudy Collection

• A handful of vintage Richard Sala sketchbook pages

• The latest installment of Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano

• Now available, a licensed Jim Flora font complete with "Flornaments" dingbats

• From Debbie Drechsler's nature sketchbook: woodpeckers, turtles, fungi, squirrels

• From Lilli Carré: the cover of the Chicago Reader's Fall Arts Guide; animated loop drawings in progress, completed and projected

• Gabrielle Bell presents part 7 of her "San Diego Comic-Con Comicumentary" and her strip from the San Francisco Panorama

• More AMC Pacer studies for Freeway by Mark Kalesniko, including action/disaster shots

• A Sergio Ponchione illustration for a radio talent show (I think)

• A message from Noah Van Sciver, plus an announcement and other updates, and an excerpt from his Lincoln story at Top Shelf 2.0

• Laura Park documents a day in the life with chronic back pain

• From Josh Simmons: Rickles, swaying Quackers

• From Renee French: Bugatti toy photo, sculpt of slug masked girl, e's, Barry with stick, tongue mask, mitt dude, slug girl sketch, shadowy creature, turds, Otto

• Dash Shaw's Daily Drawings no. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14

• Steve Brodner's latest newsmaker portraits with commentary: Marty Peretz, John Boehner, Christine O'Donnell, Hamid Karzai, Cantor Yosele Rosenblatt, Sarah Palin & Rupert Murdoch

• Anders Nilsen's Great Gatsby cover for Penguin UK, with preliminary studies; a car engine; and a portrait of Richard Brautigan

• A concert poster from Derek Van Gieson's archives

• The latest Maakies from Tony Millionaire 

• Jordan Crane's cover illustration for the latest Cinefamily newsletter

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Publishers Weekly's Calvin Reid and Heidi MacDonald run down some "Graphic Novels as Gifts" suggestions, including Norman Pettingill: Backwoods Humorist ("A wooden cover introduces the amazing outsider art of Pettingill, who crafted detailed postcards of wildlife and rustic humor") and A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio ("Haunting stories of longing, memory, and love from the legendary manga-ka who changed the face of Japanese comics").

• Review: "When experienced animators turn to creating comics or illustrating children’s books, I usually find the results successful and quite satisfying. That’s certainly the case with animator Mitch Schauer (Angry Beavers) and his first graphic novel, RIP M.D. (from Fantagraphics). [...] RIP M.D. would make an amazing 2D animated feature — if Hollywood were still making those. For now, graphic novels such as this are a great outlet for ambitious creators with ample imaginations. Check it out." – Jerry Beck, Cartoon Brew

• Review: "Temperance is a fascinating comic. Malkasian gives us an odd, fairy-tale-esque world where we must accept unreal things so that she can make her points. [...]  Malkasian does a fine job of grounding the tale of Blessedbowl in a real-world concern while still making sure it’s fantastical enough so a sentient wooden doll doesn’t seem too out of place. Malkasian’s art is tremendous, as well. [...] Temperance is a fascinating book to read, and while it’s not difficult to figure out, it does raise some important questions about society and what people do to live in one. Malkasian has a lot on her mind, and it’s impressive that she manages to get her real-world concerns into this fable without becoming preachy. [...]  It’s a very thoughtful comic, and I encourage you to check it out." – Greg Burgas, Comic Book Resources

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks to Jason about Werewolves of Montpellier and other topics: "I’ve done boy meets girl and one of them dies in the end several times, so yes, I was a bit afraid of starting to repeat myself. But I think Werewolves is sufficiently different. It’s a platonic relationship between the two characters for one thing, and none of them dies in the end."

• Interview: At About.com: Manga, Deb Aoki presents a transcription of Moto Hagio's panel appearances at Comic-Con (with translator Matt Thorn) and conducts her own Q&A with the creator of A Drunken Dream and Other Stories: "Well, when I was a child, I used to read manga and cry myself. I had similar reactions watching movies and reading comics. Basically, I'm just expressing my own feelings like that. So it was with my own parents, and for a lot of people of that generation, who said that manga is just for small children, it's very simplistic. But from my point of view, manga is just one medium like movies and novels; it can be just as deep and just as moving."

• Interview: io9's Cyriaque Lamar, who brilliantly sums up Prison Pit: Book 2 as "not unlike Masters of the Universe...if Masters of the Universe was a hentai that starred Gwar," talks to its creator Johnny Ryan: "I wanted to do a book about monster-men beating the shit out of each other. That's my main idea, that's all it's about. There's no real subtext to it. It's about the fighting."

• Interview: Thomas Papadimitropoulos of Comicdom catches up with Bill Griffith on the latest Zippy the Pinhead developments (the intro is in Greek but the interview is presented in English): "I keep trying to surprise myself with the daily Zippy strip. Zippy’s 'discovery' of his hometown, 'Dingburg,' where everyone is a pinhead like him, has taken the strip in a new direction for the last few years. It’s still a lot of fun for me to explore all the different pinhead personalities in Dingburg."

• Interview: At Marvel.com, Sean T. Collins talks to Frank Santoro about his match-made-in-heaven Silver Surfer story for Marvel's Strange Tales II: "I thought of this as my try-out for Marvel. I didn't take this as a chance to do a funny mini comic kinda thing. This was my shot! Was I ever gonna get another one? I'm gonna try to knock it out of the park! That was my thinking."

• Interview: At Pikaland, Melanie Maddison has an extensive chat with Lilli Carré: "My book The Lagoon, which is very mood-driven, took me about 3 years to finish, because I had a lot of starts and stops when working on it. This was partially due to still being in school and working at that time, but also because it was hard to always be in the right mindset to work on such a moody piece and figure out the trajectory of the story."

• Plug: "The inimitable Drew Friedman has a new hardcover book out of his incredible celebrity portraits and caricatures drawn over the last 15 years... Our pals at Fantagraphics published the handsome hardcover, titled Too Soon?: Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010." – David Pescovitz, Boing Boing

• Plug: "A new Love and Rockets is out. It apparently contains one of the best Jaime Hernandez stories ever, which makes me shiver with excitement. In celebration, I photographed and uploaded my current favorite Jamie Hernandez story ever 'Penny Century.'" – Will Hines [Ed. note: Reproducing so much of the story is a little borderline, but what the hey.]

• Analysis: Love & Maggie continue their series of detailed, annotated rundowns of their Top 10 Issues of The Comics Journal with the third part of their examination of issue #71

Periodic clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing and possible artist commentary at the sources:

• Michael Kupperman illustrates a New York Times op-ed piece written by William Gibson

• This video posted by Jim Woodring has a surprise ending

• At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer reminds us of Kevin Huizenga's tribute to Floyd Gottfredson in Or Else #2

• Another stage in Matthias Lehmann's scratchboard work in progress

• An unpublished 1987 Bob Fingerman drawing of young zombies in love

• The cover of the first comic Jason ever made, circa 1979 (it means Tim and Tom On the Go!, not Tim and Tom Are Farting!, you sillyhead)

• This week's "I, Anonymous" plus church sketches and more sketchbookery by Steven Weissman 

• Another page from a comic-in-progress by John Hankiewicz 

• Pegasus progress pics from Frank Santoro 

• An illustration by Marco Corona for Internazionale, with commentary in Italian

• Debbie Drechsler draws the belted kingfisher, with commentary

• From Renee French: fly, fly people

• Steve Brodner draws Abel Meeropol and former Sen. Alan Simpson, with commentary

• Ooh, pretty record cover art for Coil Sea by Archer Prewitt (via Presspop)

• A new animated Underworld cartoon by Kaz & co. (via Ben Schwartz)

• This week's Maakies by Tony Millionaire (still on Facebook for the time being)

• Our own Jacob Covey just posted a bunch of his drawings on vintage postcards to Facebook — I'm not sure what his privacy settings are but some of them are on Flickr too if that link doesn't work

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop — Biggeespeare joins the protagonist of Set to Sea in the ranks of hulking poets

Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• On Facebook Esther Pearl Watson gave this glimpse at her new work-in-progress graphic novel, a "Lady Rambo" style action-adventure!

• A self-portrait circa late-1990s and another uncollected strip by Jason; also, he's blogging about the films of Audrey Hepburn, beginning with Funny Face

• Jim Woodring presents "A matinee from CONGRESS OF THE ANIMALS"

• Drew Friedman recounts an evening at Mickey & Val Rooney's variety show

• Sergio Ponchione did the album cover & interior art for the debut album by Orangeproject

• Noah Van Sciver gives another glimpse at his book-in-progress The Hypo

• Deepest, sincerest condolences to Laura Park on the loss of her beloved and handsome cat Lewis

• Josh Simmons puts a Quacker between two Buns; also, Flexi-Quacker

• From Renee French: thumbnails, guys with mitts, something shadowy with maybe a bunny

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary page 37

• John Kerschbaum's Cartoon Boy wraps up his current adventure — mmm, that's good denouement

• Matthias Lehmann updates his blog with nearly a dozen recent illustrations

• Steven Weissman takes another crack at that "Truman Capote" strip

• Oh Frank Santoro. His latest cut-n-paste job is decidedly NSFW. "Marvel Team-Up" indeed

• Welcome to Dame Darcy's dollhouse — this and more in her latest blog update

• Drew Weing's Set to Sea pages 124 & 125

• Illustrated border and hand-lettering by Richard Sala for a written piece by Nick Tosches, 1996

• An untitled Jim Flora painting from 1964

• A new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip by Kevin Huizenga 

• Send Jim Blanchard your address and he'll happily send you one of these old postcards

• Sexual harrassment and chocolate figure in part 3 of Gabrielle Bell's "Comic-Con Comicumentary"

• Mark Kalesniko's third variation on "Tina in a Polka-Dot Dress"

• Steve Brodner presents a rejected New Yorker illustration

• Our Talented Staff Dept: office manager Stephanie Hayes is now posting flora & fauna sketches at The Gentleman Scientist

Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Bleeding Cool presents this R. Crumb sketch which was printed on the front page of Brazilian newspaper O Globo

• Bob Fingerman depicts "Another Day in Hell"

• Two unpublished Jason pages: a gag strip starring "D.V." and an aborted Poe adaptation

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

• This week's Maakies by Tony Millionaire (still on Facebook while his new website is being built — if that last link doesn't work try this)

• New Mome contributor D.J. Bryant has a strip in this week's issue of The Stranger — it's not online so I took a snap of it

• Looks like maybe a new Cold Heat page from Frank Santoro? Also figures in conflict

• I don't usually editorialize here but Phineas X. Jones's version of Usagi Yojimbo #36 at Covered is awesome

• Drew Weing's Set to Sea pages 122 & 123

• A partial scan (with color checker card) of an unpublished 1954 Jim Flora woodcut print, Sheffield Island

• Debbie Drechsler draws skinks

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop

• Josh Simmons & Wendy Chin bring us Quackers vs. Buzzers, Quackers vs. Pony Cheetah, & Quacker loves Bunny; also from Josh, these scary guys

• Renee French draws a portrait of Tim Kreider; also these sketches and this photo

• Steve Brodner's animated take on Charlie Rangel

• A new Truth Serum strip by Jon Adams

• Ray Fenwick made a t-shirt design for Nike

Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Our pals at Presspop share this, the cover illustration by Archer Prewitt for the novelization of the upcoming film Morio (Toilet)

• Gabrielle Bell kicks off "Season 3" of Lucky with the first part of her San Diego Comic-Con diary; also, her previously-serialized strip "Manifestation" is presented in its entirety at What Things Do

• Dame Darcy's Black Madonna painting and other new stuff in her latest blog update

• Bob Fingerman illustrates "Queen of Mean" Lisa Lampanelli for Royal Flush magazine, plus more quick sketches

• Maggie-through-the-years fan art by Mike Hawthorne at Comic Twart

• Tony Millionaire posted this week's Maakies on Facebook while his new website is being built (if that last link doesn't work try this)

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop

• A couple of teasers from Part 4 of Derek Van Gieson's Mome serial "Devil Doll"

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

• Life drawing studies by John Hankiewicz 

• Collage and some guidelines from Frank Santoro 

• Drew Weing's Set to Sea pages 118 119 & 120

• Richard Sala presents his strip from the July 1994 issue of Pulse magazine

• Tim Lane extends Belligerent Piano into the audio realm with "The Cowboy's Lament"

• A preview of the next Jim Flora art print, available for pre-order

• Debbie Drechsler sketches some lakeshore fauna

• From Lilli Carré: sketchbook pages, illustrations for Kordian, and a story for Chicago Magazine

• A quartet of recent illustrations by Sergio Ponchione, including one for 826 Brooklyn

• Noah Van Sciver vs. Batman

• From Josh Simmons, The Golden Quackers

• From Renee French, a couple of rocks and a peek

• Steve Brodner thinks maybe it's about time for the President to start losing his cool. Also, a grocery store incident as political allegory

• From Kevin Huizenga, a couple of hot panels and a tale of narrowly-averted disaster

• A new Truth Serum strip by Jon Adams 

• Joe Kimball shares several glimpses of a whole bunch of stuff on his Flickr page

• Two recent Ray Fenwick illustrations for Threadless and Cottage Life magazine respectively

Buckle in for two weeks worth of clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Jaime Hernandez, 1977 (from friend/fan Bernie Ramirez on the Love and Rockets Facebook page)

• Anders Nilsen's Dennis Hopper for Cinefamily is magnificent

• How about a little Dennis the Menace/Lost mash-up at Big Shiny Robot?

• Moscow-born San Francisco-residing cartoonist Roman Muradov sends us some pages done in homage/tribute to Jason — they're good, and got a thumbs-up from Jason

• Again with the Comics presents a Scooby-Doo story drawn by... Ivan Brunetti?? (via Steven Thompson)

• Jason's sketch of Jean-Pierre Melville, plus more recent blog entries about Lino Ventura, Alain Delon, and summer reading

• Rosebud Archives presents a super-rare promotional flyer for Charles M. Schulz's Young Pillars

• It's the two latest weekly installments of "Cartoon Boy" from John Kerschbaum

• Gipi describes his new video "Antony" as "a classic film thriller"

• For The Bold Italic, Jon Adams profiles 3 real-life Bay Area Comic Book Guys (via Robot 6); also, two installments of Truth Serum

• From Kevin Huizenga, a new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond

• From Dash Shaw: a new silkscreen print; sketchbook pages; Ruined Cast sketches; The Lion King

• From Steven Weissman: "I, Anonymous" for last week and this week; Lumpy Noodle

• Frank Santoro gives another sneak peek at his Strange Tales Silver Surfer

• Drew Weing presents Set to Sea pages 112, 113, 114 & 115. Also, could someone snag me a set of these buttons? 

• Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano episodes 21 and 22

• A 1950 profile of Jim Flora

• Johnny Ryan has a bunch of new prints for sale. We saw Matt Groening admiring the one above at Comic-Con, our own Kristy Valenti very happily bought the cat one, and the "Nachos" one is just 100% pure genius

• Debbie Drechsler's latest round of nature sketches features squirrels, birds, bugs & spiders

• From Mark Kalesniko, two sets of quick sketches

• Sergio Ponchione posts some pages of his artwork from Cattivi Soggetti, an anthology of noir stories written by Danielle Brolli

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop

• Noah Van Sciver posts an excerpt from Blammo #5

• From Josh Simmons & co: King Quackers, Skeezy Quacker, Quacker dreams, Quokkers, cupcake crimes

• Renee French has too many updates to link all of them individually; just go to her blog and work your way down. This, this, and this are highlights for me

• Steve Brodner's latest segment from PBS's Need to Know, "Obama Where Art Thou?" and his tribute to the late John Callahan

• I think the painting from Josh Simmons's House snuck into Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary

• Tom Kaczynski's sketches from the La Mano 2nd Annual Report and another show

• Something new & untitled from Joe Kimball

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Intentionally or not, Mome #19 is almost a theme issue, with the usual mix of abstraction and autobiography giving way to multiple narrative-driven stories with their roots in genre fiction. ... All-in-all, a solid outing for one of the best (and last) alt-comics anthologies on the market. [Grade] B+" – The A.V. Club

• Review: "Rhymes, lyrics, words used by your grandma (and only if they had emigrated to the U.S.) and situations that have been extinct for many years are the main features of Culture Corner. But when is this so bad? ... So this is a release of great value for fans of Wolverton, but also a great opportunity to learn about one of the most famous and funny in the business." – Thomas Papadimitropoulos, Comicdom (translated from Greek)

• Comic-Con: Eden Miller of Comicsgirl reports on the Moto Hagio spotlight panel at Comic-Con last week

• Interview: Frank Santoro joins Brandon Graham, Michael DeForge, and host Robin McConnell for an Inkstuds roundtable on "fusion in modern comics"

Periodic (and tardy... so busy) clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Lorenzo Mattotti World Cup illustrations posted at the Forbidden Planet International Blog

• Bob Fingerman posts a couple of concept illustrations for his in-progress prose novel The Hell of It

• Dash Shaw posts some storyboards for his in-progress animated film The Ruined Cast

• Last week's "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman; also, if you want to see the scanned version of the current Barack Hussein Obama strip, it's here; also, the greatest Little League team photo ever

• From Frank Santoro: a subway sketch, a color-matching analysis swatch thingy, and a funny collage

• Noah Van Sciver recounts helping John Porcellino move, and at Covered, takes on an Al Feldstein EC classic

• From Kevin Huizenga: psychedelic explorations with Photoshop filters and aspects of McSkulls at Fight or Run; a helpful diagram at New Construction; and Glenn Ganges roughs at his flagship The Balloonist

"When you Orcs are through fighting, you can clean up this tell, it is a pig sty and a disgrace. Do you hear me? Just look at this mess– skulls and guts everywhere. Do you act like this at home?"

• The latest prose burst from Gary Panter

• Drew Weing's Set to Sea pages 108 & 109

• Richard Sala presents 3 original pages from Mad Night (and they're for sale)

• A mystery: is this lettering the work of Jim Flora?

• Jim Blanchard paints Diana Rigg as Emma Peel

• Debbie Drechsler sketches birds and mammals

• A Kevin Nowlan spot illo for The Comics Journal, 1981 (anyone who can identify the issue number, please leave a comment)

• Mark Kalesniko's second take on the Girl in Orange Stripes

• Sergio Ponchione posts part of the "bonus track" strip he did for the book La Legge del Cane by Jake La Furia & Guè Pequeno

• It's Paul Hornschemeier's majestic weekly t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop

• Feel better soon, Laura Park

• From Josh Simmons & co., Quacker Supreme & Tiniest Quacker

• From Renee French: fly, hair rock, doodle, dude, rock

• Sophie Crumb posts a mess of new drawings and teases her upcoming book

• Stephen DeStefano talks about his Popeye art & design work (such as the DVD illustrations above) with Jason Anders of Fulle Circle

• Page 32 of Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary; also, a "forgotten Cochlea & Eustachia drawing " that makes a dandy desktop wallpaper

• Robert Goodin presents an excerpt from "The Spiritual Crisis of Carl Jung," his story in Mome Vol. 19 (out tomorrow!)

• Tom Kaczynski's sketch and report from the Twin Cities Zinefest

• At the Rosebud Archives blog, another vintage Peanuts ad sheet