Attention all fans of classic jazz and jazzy artwork: this classic Jim Flora album cover illustration is now available as a limited edition archival print from Jim Flora Fine Art.

"Charles, Mother Has Come to Stay" is a late-1960s painting by Jim Flora (previously seen in our out-of-print second Flora art book The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora), now available as a limited-edition archival quality reproduction from the fine folks at Jim Flora Fine Art Prints.

Make it your New Year's Resolution to go out to more comics events! The Fantagraphics Flog can help!

Thursday, January 5th

• Portland, OR:  Floating World Comics proudly presents an art exhibit and a signing with Tony Millionaire! He'll be autographing his latest collection 500 Portraits, along with his other titles, from 6:00 to 10:00 PM. Heck, we've watched the man sign body parts before, so don't be shy! (more info)

Saturday, January 7th

• Seattle, WA: And it was at Tony's last signing at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery that we watched him sign someone's arm, who then headed down the street to get it permanently tattooed! We hope that person, and all Seattleites, will join us from 6:00 to 9:00 PM for another fun-filled signing, this time for 500 Portraits. We'll be launching an exhibit of work from that collection, plus our Store Curator Larry Reid will debut the short live-action film "Everybody Loves Drinky Crow." (more info)

Sunday, January 8th 

• New York City, NY: This is your last week to check out the Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora exhibit at the Dorian Grey Gallery. The 60-year retrospective, curated by our own Flora archivist Irwin Chusid, closes this Sunday. (more info)

As we reported last month, a retrospective of Jim Flora's curiously sinister art is currently on display at the Dorian Grey Gallery in New York City.

And this Saturday, December 17th, you can satisfy your sinister curiosity with a slideshow presentation and talk with Flora archivist Irwin Chusid!

Irwin will present a talk about the artist's life, accompanied by a digital projection of over 100 spectacular works from the Flora collection. The wine begins pouring at 4:00 pm, with the presentation starting at 5:00 pm sharp. Admission is free, but seating is limited, so arrive early!

untitled tempera, early 1940s

The Dorian Grey Gallery is located at 437 East 9th Street (between 1st and A) in New York City. The exhibit runs through January 8th.

An exhibit of Jim Flora's curiously sinister art opens tomorrow night, Saturday, November 19th, in the curiously sinister city of New York, and you do not want to miss this!

The Dorian Grey Gallery is proud to present the very first posthumous New York exhibit and sale of Jim Flora original art, curated by our own Flora archivist Irwin Chusid, in conjunction with gallery owner Luis Accorsi and director Christopher Pusey.

It's gonna be a doozy: Offerings include temperas on paper; woodcut prints (vintage and new); medium and large acrylics on canvas; pen & ink drawings on paper; fine art and screen prints, and branded Flora paper merchandise. Many of these exhibited works have NOT been previously published in our three Fantagraphics anthologies!

The opening reception is this Saturday night from 6:00 - 9:00 PM, and will include a live music set by the Cracked Latin trio, featuring gallery owner/vocalist Accorsi along with guitarist/vocalist Lane Steinberg and percussionist Charlie Zeleny. Zowie!

The Dorian Grey Gallery is located at 437 East 9th Street (between 1st and A) in New York City.  The exhibit runs through January 8th.

Plan ahead for the future with a blast from the past -- it's the 2012 Jim Flora calendars!

There's the Sheffield Island letterpress calendar, as seen above, based on a 1954 Flora woodcut... 

...And there's the smaller classic design, featuring Flora's illustrations from the 1950s: Swingin' Sax, Boogie-Beat Drummer, and Stardust Moon.

These are all hand-printed by Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress of Knoxville, and as the Jim Flora website promises, they are guaranteed to include your birthday, as well as those of your family and friends!

• Frank "caught in the loving tendrils of the sun" by Jim Woodring; also "Hopelessly outclassed" and "The descent into wealth"

• A Grotesque "family portrait" and Mr. O'Blique postcards that Sergio Ponchione will be giving away to lucky attendees (I think? the autotranslation's a little iffy) at an upcoming festival in Italy

• Ooh, a Jason/Lewis Trondheim exquisite-corpse wraparound cover for a 2004 issue of Belgian comics fanzine Totem; this and film review potpourri at Jason's Cats Without Dogs blog

• Sketches and process peeks at Forlorn Funnies #1 at Paul Hornschemeier's The Daily Forlorn

• Focus book by Kevin Huizenga

• Steve Brodner's portrait of Art Pope for The New Yorker (with process sketches); plus sketches of Lamar Alexander and Chris Christie; all of the above with Steve's commentary

• Speaking of The New Yorker, Paul Karasik got a cartoon in there! Congrats Paul! (via Facebook)

• A whole buncha Stephen DeStefano animation artwork for various projects here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, plus Sea Hag

• Noah Van Sciver presents a spooky story from the latest issue of Blammo

• Movie night Richard Sala-style (year unknown); also some cozy reading and The 7 Deadly Sins

• Tim Lane's poster for the St. Louis International Film Festival (along with its conceptual inspiration)

• Steven Weissman and Jordan Crane are putting together an elementary school haunted house for some LUCKY KIDS and here's Steven's flyer for it with Jordan's logo for the school (from Steven via email); also from Steven, his latest "I, Anonymous" spot and Stincker sketchin'

• A fun Dave Cooper gig poster for his friend's band (via Facebook)

• This comic cover by Chuck Forsman is a fake, but I wish it wasn't

• A buncha silly Star Trek doodles by Tim Kreider

• Jim Varney smiles down from heaven on Johnny Ryan

• Prison Pit fan art by Sergio Zuniga (at Johnny Ryan's blog, along with one previously posted here)

• Prison Pit fan art by Fréderic Fleury via Twitter

• Mark Twain-via-Michael Kupperman fan art by Dyna Moe (via Facebook, where the artist's profile pic was taken in front of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery)

• Speaking of Fantagraphics Bookstore and Facebook, here's a panel from a comic in progress by Csaba Mester featuring the former location posted at the latter location

Plus:

• Another Bob Fingerman character design

• Speaking of Facebook yet again, a Victor Kerlow illustration on the subject

• Jupiter and Saturn by Frank Santoro

• Many recent illustrations by Max at his El Hombre Duerme, el Fantasma No blog

• Recently discovered previously unseen woodblock prints circa 1939 by Jim Flora

• Lilli Carré's new looping animated logo for the Eyeworks animation fest is pretty great (tee hee, the "W" is boobs)

• A portrait by Nick Drnaso

• A whole ton of stuff from Ray Fenwick's website popped up in my RSS reader and I'm not sure how much of it is new but why not go check it all out anyway

• Straw dog on a bed by Renee French

• Computer sketches (that is, sketches done on the computer) by Eleanor Davis

• Trubble Club is always fun even if we can't tell who drew what

• Lettering by Jason for Athos in America; other recent Cats Without Dogs blog posts include Woody Allen movie reviews and an R.E.M. top 5

• From Kevin Huizenga, a couple of images from an upcoming anthology contribution (the originals of which are part of the Dylan Williams benefit auctions)

• Frank in the Museum of Sex, a recently-completed painting by Jim Woodring; also, Frank and the Living Rock, a drawing; Icebreaker, a drawing; and Frank in an unusual place, a photo

• Aqualad action by Steven Weissman at Repaneled; also his weekly "I, Anonymous " spot

• Unused (amazingly) poster design by Jim Blanchard for EMP's Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses exhibit

• Cartoon Utopia drawings by Ron Regé Jr. (still raising cash to aid in the completion of the book)

• Eleanor Davis robot portraits and trial sketches for the GR2 Robots art show; also a band sketch and custom book cover

• Paul Hornschemeier continues posting Forlorn Funnies prep artwork and other drawings on his The Daily Forlorn blog

• Stephen DeStefano gets Trekky in this recent storyboard work

• Versions of Lorenzo Mattotti's cover illustration for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in various states and media

• Caliban from Shakespeare's The Tempest and more by Max

• Prison Pit fan art by Jon Light

Plus:

• Updates on Frank Santoro's Tumblr including new drawings

• New updates on the Jim Flora blog with vintage spot illustrations

• Glow-in-the-dark prints by Lilli Carré

• A Noah Van Sciver "Chicken Strips" story from 2007

• One of Renee French's patented cute-n-creepy guys

• Steve Brodner redesigns the symbol of justice in light of the Troy Davis execution

• More travel sketches by Anders Nilsen

One of Jim Flora's most iconic album cover designs, Inside Sauter-Finegan, is now available as a limited-edition fine art print from Jim Flora Art. Sez Flora doyen Irwin Chusid, "Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan were famous for their orchestral mayhem. While Flora's mischievous cover figures didn't physically resemble Eddie or Bill, his caricatures reflected their inventive approach to redefining big band jazz in the 1950s." Dig it!

Two weeks to catch up on!

• Percy Gloom changed his Facebook profile picture to this portrait I hadn't seen before

• Andrei Molotiu posted a big batch of sketchbook drawings to his blog

• A new image from Ben Catmull's current project

• Matthias Lehmann shares a few pieces from his current art show and some photos of the installation

• Dig Paul Hornschemeier's new logo for the Comedy Bang! Bang! (formerly Comedy Death Ray) podcast/comedy show

• A newly-drawn splash page (along with the original version from 15 years ago) by Tim Lane for the upcoming 3rd issue of Happy Hour in America, along with some musings on craft

• Sergio Ponchione's Professor Hackensack returns to discuss matters scientifical in the new issue of Linus

• Kevin Huizenga's jaw-dropping comic from Kramer's Ergot 7 is now up at the newly-revived What Things Do; Kevin offers some notes and commentary on it at his New Construction blog; also, a possibly new Glenn Ganges glimpse

• A recent drawing by Renee French, who it should be noted seems to have moved her more extemporaneous sketches and photos over to her new Posterous blog

• A sneak peek of something by Josh Simmons

• Anders Nilsen is working on some collaborative paintings with Sonnenzimmer for an upcoming exhibit — more glimpses at Anders's blog, more info here

• Hey, I know those dogs! It's Robert Goodin's Idget & Toaster fending quite well for themselves in the zombie apocalypse in a panel from Rob's story in the banned-in-Canada anthology Black Eye

• Tony Millionaire posts Drinky Crow's first published appearance , from 1993

• Unexplained illustration by Johnny Ryan

• Nate Neal draws Hans Rickheit's Cochlea & Eustachia

• Eleanor Davis draws Aphasia from C.F.'s Powr Mastrs for the Picturebox fan forum — see the amazing hair salon mural she did with David Mack too

And more Things to See from the past week:

• At Jason's Cats Without Dogs blog, sketches, illustrations, movie reviews and a great series of posts on his cartooning heroes, some of which may surprise you

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spots on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• A new print by John Hankiewicz

• Artwork, dolls, prints, and hey, they're on sale in the latest Dame Darcy blog update

• Drew Friedman spotlights recent illustrations and pays tribute to some of his favorite fellow cartoonists at his blog

• Vintage Jim Flora artwork and illustrations at the Jim Flora blog

• Sketches by Mark Kalesniko for his new graphic novel Freeway at his blog

• A recent current-event sketch by Steve Brodner

• A Mome outtake page and lots more drawings by Derek Van Gieson at his These Days I Remain blog

• New sketch, new illustration by Tom Kaczynski

• New Trubble Club!