Jim Blanchard brings his Icon Soup art show to fancy-pants pizza joint Snoose Junction Part Dieu here in Seattle. Jim says "I'll have 18 recent paintings on their walls from September 10 through October 7 — Opening night is Friday, Sept 10 at 7 PM, and it should be a cool scene!" More info at Jim's Info Barn blog.

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

• Bleeding Cool uncovers a lost all-ages Roger Langridge rarity

• Here's an auction page where you can zoom in on and pan around a scan of Jaime Hernandez original art from Love and Rockets #9

• This week's Maakies? Maais oui. Tony Millionaire is still posting them on Facebook for the time being while his website is rebuilt

• Read "Time Traveling" from Ganges #1 at What Things Do; also from Kevin Huizenga, a new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip and a curtain-lifting homage to something I can't identify

• Matthias Lehmann posts photos of a scratchboard work in progress — stage 1, stage 2

• Jason illustrations for a Norgwegian music magazine and a Norwegian comic shop , plus a cartoon from 1984

• This week's "I, Anonymous" spot and these church doodles from Steven Weissman seem to be thematically related, don't they?

• Jon Adams's Covered version of Batman #8 is pretty creepy when you look closely; also, there's a new Truth Serum

• A couple of ex libris plates by Émile Bravo, plus a metal dwarf bear figurine

• Drew Weing presents the final five pages of Set to Sea; the entire story will remain online through September 10

• The first page of "Di Briganti e di Brigantesse" from Marco Corona 

• The new installment of Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano

• Two new paintings by Jim Blanchard: Leonard Cohen and Danger: Diabolik

• Debbie Drechsler gets birdy and buggy

• It's the continuation of Gabrielle Bell's "San Diego Comic-Con Comicumentary"

• Mark Kalesniko is starting to post the preliminary sketches for his upcoming graphic novel Freeway — the man sure can draw a good AMC Pacer

• From Renee French: nervous Hagelbarger, a narwhal, a ledge, a... horse?, and seaweed

• Steve Brodner documents a NYC stabbing of a Muslim cabbie and, in a video drawing for Capitalnewyork.com, a NY State politician

• From Derek Van Gieson: a new "Devil Doll" sneak peek, hot crustacean jazz, and a Moomin parody; he also has original art and more for sale on Etsy

• Here's the color version of that Smoke Signal story panel from Jon Vermilyea 

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 (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

Seattle-based zine distro Profanity Hill (run by our own Jason T. Miles) has updated with a huge number of new acquisitions from local artistes, including some oldies-but-goodies from Peter Bagge and Jim Blanchard — click the images below for ordering info on each item and for goodness sakes browse the site and pick up some other stuff too.

Make plans for Labor Day weekend in Seattle now! The Bumbershoot art and music festival promises to be the best in recent memory. In addition to performances by the likes of Bob Dylan, Neko Case, Hole, the Decemberists, Weezer and countless other bands, the festival includes a large exhibition of contemporary Seattle cartoonists.

Organized by Fantagraphics resident curator Larry Reid, "Counterculture Comix: A 30-Year Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists" begins with Lynda Barry's work circa 1980 and continues through the present. The show reveals Seattle as the ancestral home of the alternative comix genre and examines the role comix played in Seattle's youth movement of the 90s, which penetrated popular culture globally.

Hundreds of original artworks, comix and related ephemera by an impressive roster of influential Seattle artists will be displayed including Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, Jim Woodring, Megan Kelso, Jim Blanchard, Roberta Gregory, David Lasky, Ted Jouflas, Justin Hampton, J. R. Williams, Pat Moriarity, Donna Barr, Mark Zingarelli, Michael Dougan, Jeremy Eaton, Jason T. Miles, and more.

See you in September.

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

• Whoa, how come I didn't know that Kevin Huizenga has a Fight or Run blog? Now I do, thanks to Sean T. Collins. Meanwhile, over on his main blog, a screenshot of a scan of something wild

• Michael Kupperman gives a blurry sneak peek of a work in progress (I took the liberty of bumping up the contrast)

• A new Johnny Ryan comic for Vice; elsewhere, this

• A sketch for The Groovy Age of Horror by Josh Simmons (uh, NSFW) — via Sean T. Collins again; meanwhile, on Josh's own blog, a sketch of Malibu

• Post-It naughtiness by Steven Weissman; elsewhere, sketchbook pages

• Speaking of Post-Its, here's 10 amazing ones from Eleanor Davis

• "White Cats of the Red Sea," an illustration by Marco Corona

• Head to Jim Blanchard's blog for the uncensored versions of his diseased Norwegians (and the story behind the censor bars)

• Girl in Fish Net Stockings by Mark Kalesniko

• If Noah Van Sciver knew my email address he'd probably be asking me to plug the new issue of his self-published comic Blammo — hey Noah, send me a copy and I'll think about it, cough cough

• From Renee French, Rock Hudson (ha ha), some embarrassment, and a dead bug photo

• Page 28 of Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary

• Two introductory pages by Derek Van Gieson — oops, one more

• T. Edward Bak's sea otter linocut print

• It ain't a cartoon but I'd be a fool not to link to this short prose story by Gary Panter

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

• Tim Hensley celebrates the release of Wally Gropius with what seems to be a new and/or previously unseen Wally drawing

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

• "Riverside" is a new lithograph by John Hankiewicz

• Look closely at "Magnolia" (above) and "Oak," two Eleanor Davis pieces for Tree Show VI at GRSF

• Michael Kupperman artwork in the Lady Gaga anthology fanzine Prison for Bitches (which also includes Johnny Ryan)

• "The Tiger & The Princess of Hearts" is Jim Blanchard's piece in the tiger-themed group show Tiger Tiger Burning Bright opening at Roq la Rue gallery in Seattle tomorrow night

• Noah Van Sciver's animated music video for Lust-Cats of the Gutters

• A portrait of "Lexie Super-Dog" by Josh Simmons on his & Wendy Chin's Quackers blog

• It's, like, a rock made out of trussed-up hair, or something, by Renee French

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

• Joost Swarte covers The New Yorker (via The Beat)

• Your daily deluge of Derek Van Gieson: "Abstraction House," a "Devil Doll" outtake, and supervillain record-shopping habits

Daily clips & strips (through yesterday) — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Tim Hensley presents "NSFW," his story from Kramer's Ergot 7 (Update: Tim's taken the post down temporarily and promises to re-post with additional material in the future)

• Three more previews of Steven Weissman's art in the Butter and Blood show at GR2

• Frank Santoro's Silver Surfer — oh man I hope this is a teaser and not just fan art

• Proof that Jim Flora could do cute with the best of them

• Jim Blanchard's newest rock poster, for a show that doubles as the closing reception for his Icon Soup art show

• Noah Van Sciver presents the dramatic intro to a story called "The Hypo"

• Time to catch up on some great Renee French stuff here, here, here and here

• Kevin Huizenga draws a character from Minty Lewis's P.S. Comics

• A couple of moody panels from Derek Van Gieson

Jim Blanchard's got an art show up now at The Boundary Bay Brewery & Bistro in Bellingham WA, with a blowout closing reception/rock show on May 29. Hoo doggie! More info at Jim's blog.