We managed to get our hands on a small quantity of the recent hardcover reprinting of Jim Woodring's The Frank Book, which was an almost-immediate sellout upon its release just 4 months ago. Find out all about the book and see copious previews here, but don't spend too much time making up your mind because they're sure to go fast!

Check out some of the tasty tributes to Jack Davis you'll find this Saturday at the "Funny Valentines" exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.

Two original drawings by Jim Woodring. Castaway, indeed. 

Original paintings by celebrated Southern California artist SHAG.

A multimedia homage by Seattle artist (and frequent Fantagraphics printmaker) Art Garcia. 

Plus awesome works by graphic design legend Art Chantry, ceramicist Charles Krafft, and cartoonists Tom Neely, Johnny Ryan, Roberta Gregory, Pat Moriarity, Peter Bagge (from the pages of MAD), and a dozen others, including the master himself, Jack Davis. Arrive at 6:30 to experience a virtual visit with Davis via Skype, hosted by Gary Groth.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Interview: At The Believer's blog, part 3 of Ross Simonini's 2008 chat with Jim Woodring: "[Frank]’s an agent representing my interests, my perspective. The world is never a settled matter to him. He’s always trying to discover what is really going on, and when he does find out, he gets a terrible jolt. Sometimes he is driven beyond the limits of sanity. As William Burroughs said: a schizophrenic is a guy who has just discovered what is really going on. That’s a paraphrase."

• Review: "The Peanuts of 1981 was an utterly professional entertainment machine, and still the pure product of Charles Schulz's own pen and mind. But its pleasures in the '80s were like those of watching a late-season baseball game between two teams out of contention: it doesn't mean anything, and won't have any real effect on anything, but it's a quite agreeable way to spend a few hours." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Links: It's your latest round of Love and Rockets-related web-link gathering from Love & Maggie

Wednesday, February 8th

• Seattle, WA: It's your last chance to view the Tony Millionaire Portraits show at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, featuring original artwork from his recent collection, 500 Portraits! (more info)

Friday, February 10th

•Detroit, MI: Joshua White and Gary Panter’s Light Show opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit!  Stay tuned to the FLOG for more details about this fantastical event! It runs through April 29, 2012.

Saturday, February 11th

• Seattle, WA: Join us for a free Comic Book Layout Workshop with artist and TCJ Contributor Frank Santoro, at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery starting at 5:00 PM... (more info)

• Seattle, WA: ...and then at 6:00 PM, it's the opening reception for our group exhibition "Funny Valentines: A Tribute to Jack Davis," featuring original artwork from Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, Johnny Ryan, Jim Woodring, and many, many more! We'll be conducting a video chat with the man himself at 6:30 PM, so do not be late! (more info)

It's still over 8 months away but the Alternative Press Expo folks are wasting no time in announcing their first batch of special guests, including 3 Hernandez Brothers (Gilbert, Jaime & Mario), continuing their Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary U.S. Domination Tour (not the actual name of the tour), and the one and only Jim Woodring, debuting (knock on wood) his new book Problematic: Selected Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2011!

Mark your calendars for October 13-14 at the Concourse in San Francisco, and stay tuned for future news and updates!

Everyone -- er, everything -- will wanna follow you home when you're wearing this snazzy t-shirt designed by our own Jim Woodring!

Jim designed these t-shirts just for our friends at the website Boing Boing! This exclusive design is screened in scarlet ink on a jet black t-shirt, for a "tigers' breath in a cave" effect, as Jim describes it. Follow this link to get one sent to your home!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Interview: The Believer presents part 2 of Ross Simonini's 2008 chat with Jim Woodring: "I depend on a certain little frisson that I get when I hit upon a valid idea, relationship, event, or image. The thing shimmers in my mind, gives me that sense that it is glowing with unseen energy. 'Fluorescing' is the way I think of it. I reject dead ideas and keep live, glowing ones until the story resolves itself and I have a script."

• Review: "Jacques Tardi is a master storyteller, and The Arctic Marauder is a great place to start reading his work. If you’ve ever had an interest in expanding your comics enjoyment to European comics, this may be the book for you. But only if you like beautiful, smart and imaginative stories of high adventure." – Chris Neseman, iFanboy

• Review: "As ever, Jaime’s clear line style is masterfully rendered. The simplicity of his characters is disguised only by their realism, a clash of styles that he’s an accomplished practitioner of. Truly, in my opinion, there isn’t another artist working in comics who can seemingly capture so much from his characters while using so little.... [Perla La Loca] may not be the biggest or most dynamic story that’s come from Jaime’s pen, but if the previous volume’s death of Speedy storyline was the catalyst that brought on Maggie’s adulthood, this volume is the inevitable fallout." – Grovel

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "In addition to undermining the colonialist attitudes of Hergé and classic Disney cartoons with his R. Crumb-ish verve, Swarte also presents a clutch of perfectly packaged riffs on cartoon art. Having a Chris Ware introduction makes sense, given Swarte’s excruciating eye for architectural detail, and could help introduce Swarte to a larger audience, but the book [Is That All There Is?] may not need it — the art doesn’t speak for itself, it shouts." – Publishers Weekly

• Review (Audio): On the latest episode of Boing Boing's "Gweek" podcast, co-host Ruben Bolling discusses Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks: "(Spoiler: it's superb.)"

• Plugs: Library Journal's Martha Cornog lists "25 Graphic Novels for African American History Month" including 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago...

"The Puerto Rican slugger overcame family poverty, racial prejudice, and the language barrier to be voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player for 1966. Puerto Rican-born Santiago (In My Darkest Hour) superbly captures the kinetic excitement of baseball as well as Clemente’s skill and warm humanity on and off the diamond.... Highly recommended; buy several."

...and Black Images in the Comics by Fredrik Strömberg:

"First published by Fantagraphics in 2003 and nominated for an Eisner Award, this history of racial depictions in comics has been updated in both its content and its source list. Over 100 entries, each featuring a representative illustration and an instructive short essay, cover an international range of comics, from Moon Mullins through Tintin, Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Peanuts, Boondocks, and beyond."

• Plug: "The Fantagraphics reprint of the Mickey Mouse comic strip made by Floyd Gottfredson was already a gem in its first edition in two volumes separately, but with this new edition, with two volumes in a box and a lower price, it becomes essential." – CaraB (translated from Spanish)

• Interview (Video/Audio): Get comfy for an hour-long chat with Bill Griffith about Lost and Found: Comics 1969-2003 on Bob Andelman's Mr. Media podcast, presented in video and streaming audio formats: "I’m sure somebody will be offended, which will be nice — to still offend somebody after all these years. People who only know Zippy comics through King Features will probably be surprised to see that Zippy was more adult-oriented."

• Feature: Juxtapoz spotlights the artwork of Angoulême honoree Jim Woodring

• Commentary: In an impressive feat of scannery, Mike Lynch compiles all of the "silent penultimate panels" from Peanuts strips from 1969

Big, exciting news on a Sunday: Congress of the Animals (Frank et le congrès des bêtes) by Jim Woodring has been awarded the Prix Spécial du jury at the Festival international de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême! Congratulations and well deserved Jim!

We're also happy to see that a volume of Carl Barks Donald Duck comics from our colleagues at Glénat received the Prix du Patrimoine. The full list of winners is reported by BoDoï; hat tip to The Comics Reporter.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "This collection of strips [The Frank Book] doesn’t have much of a thread running through it, apart from the characters and their surroundings. Like classic cartoons and newspaper strips, they are there to have situations inflicted upon them. In his afterword, Woodring suggests that each strip is intended to be a mystery but that one concept runs through each one, like a sort of moral or statement. Finding these can, at times, be challenging, but this obscurity and strangeness is a large part of what gives the book it’s charm." – Grovel

• Review: Novi Magazine's Jona gives a spoiler-filled and tipsy run-through of The Left Bank Gang by Jason: "This book is basically the original Midnight in Paris. It features Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce living in France, but as cartoonists (instead of writers) in the mid 1920’s. It’s presented in Jason’s signature 'animal people' style, with consistent 3x3 conventional grids, and an immaculate sense of pacing. In short, the whole thing reeks of Jason, and I love it. I mean, seriously. All literature has been replaced with comics in this universe. What’s not to love?"

• Plug: French-language music magazine Vibrations spotlights Listen, Whitey! The Sights & Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 by Pat Thomas

• Commentary: At Robot 6, J. Caleb Mozzocco examines the racial depictions in Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks: "Because so many of Barks’ stories dealt with the Ducks visiting exotic lands, because the stories in this collection were produced between 1948 and 1949 and because Disney doesn’t exactly have the most sterling reputation when it comes to representing diverse nationalities or ethnicities, I was sort of concerned about what the lily-white ducks would be faced with when they journeyed to South America or Africa. Or, more precisely, how Barks would present what they would be faced with."

• Commentary: At The Webcomic Overlook, Larry Cruz looks at Hal Foster's Prince Valiant for his "Know Thy History" column: " Foster was a fantastic all-around artist. His strip boasted some great looking architecture, meticulously detailed clothing, and epic clashes. He had a keen eye for adding shadows to heighten drama. Hal Foster is said to have put 50 to 60 hours working on a single strip, and it shows." (via Robot 6)

• Interview: At The Secret Sun, Christopher Knowles has a Q&A with Mome contributor Jesse Moynihan