Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation 2011 Poster Trailer from Eyeworks Festival on Vimeo.

There's no sophomore slump for the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation, co-organized by our own Lilli Carré! Although only in its second year, it's got another impressive line-up of experimental animation of all sorts: classic films, new works, and rare masterpieces, including a piece by another Fantagraphics artist, Nicolas Mahler.

Chicagoans can SEE the Eyeworks Festival for themselves this Saturday, November 5th and Sunday November 6th, at the DePaul University [ CDM Theater, 247 S. State Street, lower level ].

• 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

We received the following message from Small Press Expo executive director Warren Bernard, with permission to share it with our readers:

"Yesterday I went up and presented the graphic novels to the Montgomery County Public Library (MCPL) as the final act of the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program. Attached are 2 photos. The first is the Director of the MCPL, Parker Hamilton holding a copy of one of your Love and Rockets books. The second is a picture of the books we donated as well as the people involved. On the far left is your A Mess of Everything and third from the right is your Love and Rockets."

(Also visible in the first picture, a big stack of Escape from "Special"; in the second picture, Wandering Son Vol. 1.)

Left to right:
Mary Louise Daneri, Chief Collection Management MCPL
Parker Hamilton, Director MCPL
"Me!!!!!"
Annette Klaus, Graphic Novel Collections Manager MCPL

Our thanks go out to the MCPL staff for selecting our books and to Warren for asking us to participate — it was our pleasure to contribute.

Each of the donated books comes with this bookplate print drawn by Lilli Carré, which we already posted about but it's so gorgeous I don't think anyone will mind if I include it here again:

As we previously noted, Warren will be putting his Executive Directing duties on hold for a couple of hours to sign his book (with Rick Marschall) Drawing Power at our SPX table this weekend!

There's a fantastic exhibit opening this weekend in Chicago featuring several Fantagraphics artists, including Chris Ware, Lilli Carré, Anders Nilsen, and Jeffrey Brown! 

CartoonInk!: Emerging Comics in Context spotlights the work of students and alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, all curated by SAIC faculty Christa Donner, Surabhi Ghosh, and Mome contributor Jeremy Tinder!

Bump!!!

After a few delays (hence the past date on the poster above, which was gorgeously designed by Marc Bell), CartoonInk! runs this Saturday, September 10th through October 15th at the Betty Rymer Gallery at SAIC. And on Friday, September 9th, there will be an opening reception from 4:30 – 7:00 PM!

Anders reports he'll have a full wall painting there (see pics up on his blog), and Lilli says she'll have some original pages and animation frames on display!

The Betty Rymer Gallery is located at 280 South Columbus Drive, between Jackson Dr & Monroe St. in Chicago.

Lots and lots of images to share, and lots and lots of overflow spilling over into links:

• We linked to this a while back in Daily OCD, but the interview with Lilli Carré at art:21 includes the first glimpse of her sketchbook I've ever seen (along with other art) and daaaang; Lilli also drew Groo the Wanderer for Matthew J. Brady 's theme sketchbook (there's a good one by Jeremy Tinder too) AND did this illustraton for The New York Times AND this amazing letterpress print

• Is Barack Obama losing his indie cred? Drew Friedman shares his illustration for the New York Observer about the President falling out of favor with the hipster demographic, and...

• Aww, Drew Friedman's portrait of his dad Bruce Jay Friedman for Tablet; Drew also presents an awesome gallery of Plop! covers by Basil Wolverton and Wally Wood at his blog

• Some Jaime Hernandez record-cover art I hadn't seen before, for the band The Shame Idols (via Love & Maggie)

• This one makes Janice very happy: Jason draws Robert Smith of The Cure — plus film reviews and various other commentary at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Johnny Ryan draws some of his favorite bullies for Vice and shares some recent commissions on his Flickr page: Gremlin/robot orgy, Star Wars 4-way and fuckball

• Wowee-wow, lookit these vintage Sesame Street illustrations by Jack Davis that were posted by Leif Peng at his Today's Inspiration blog (via Drawn)

• Dig this nifty nutty video that Michael Kupperman made for no particular reason; then when you're done, watch this psychedelic one

• Gary Panter sending this box of dog biscuits to a dog named Gary Panter is probably about the cutest thing you'll read all day

• I think Steven Weissman loses this sketchbook battle with his son Charles — that and his weekly "I, Anonymous" spots and more at his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Writer Dan Sinker shares the evolution of Paul Hornschemeier's cover illustration for The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel — via Paul's blog, where Paul also shares a website header illustration and accompanying interview; also, about umpteen new entries on his daily sketch blog The Daily Forlorn

• Eleanor Davis illustrates for The New York Times and for Rattler magazine

• Richard Sala presents the original, unretouched artwork for his Kramer's Ergot 7 strip, likewise for a Peculia story, plus some words on "Invisible Hands" — plus a whole lot more on his Tumblr blog

• The first page of a feature graphic story Tim Lane is doing for the Riverfront Times, to appear later this month, plus some of Tim's sketches for the story

• Lorenzo Mattotti previews 3 upcoming publishing projects: a graphic adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and a collection of Venice landscapes; and a collaboration with Art Spiegelman for an upcoming September 11-themed collection from Casterman

• Sergio Ponchione teases his Prof. Hackensack strip and illustrations in the new Linus as well as some recent illustrations of classical composers

• Laura Park's strip for this month's issue of The Believer, plus a Picasso-esque sketch (and, if you look around, lots of photos of her adorable new puppy)

• Speaking of Laura Park, Derek Van Gieson did this little jam strip with her on a recent visit to Chicago, where they and others also took part in a little Trubble Club action; more from Derek at his These Days I Remain blog

• Stephen DeStefano illustrated this poster for a new Washington, DC staging of Lithuanian Sweetheart, a play written by his Lucky in Love collaborator George Chieffet; also, an album cover illustration, Popeye playing hockey, Popeye playing soccer

• Louis C.K. fan art on Josh Simmons & Wendy Chin's Quackers blog (I'm not sure who did it — I'm guessing Wendy... and if you don't watch Louie you should) — meanwhile Josh has a couple new doodles on his The Furry Trap blog

• I was going post Renee French's portrait of the Crimson Bolt (Rainn Wilson's character from the movie Super) but I decided to go with this more mysterious, less link-baity piece instead

• Sammy Harkham's 2009 portrait of singer-songwriter Will Oldham for Colors magazine

• From Steve Brodner: Warren Buffett for Harper's (above); the SE; Planet of the Apes for The New Yorker; Rome sketchbook; Keystone XL pipeline protestors; and feral CEOs

• Sketchbook pages and more sketchbook pages by Anders Nilsen

• Glimpses of 11 binders worth of storyboards for Dash Shaw's The Ruined Cast

• Views of some rather astonishing cut-out dioramas made by Hans Rickheit for a recent art show

Additionally:

• Colleen Frakes shares some birthday sketch comics done for her by Mome contributors Joe Lambert and Chuck Forsman

• A drawing by Matthias Lehmann for an upcoming book from Le Dernier Cri

• Recent drawings by Andrei Molotiu

• The latest creations and updates from Dame Darcy at her blog

• Frank Santoro is selling his sketches of "black & white boom" cover art, along with the original comics, to help keep him in cash while he works on his new comic — there's a new mythology piece on his Tumblr too

• A bunch of new sketches by Marco Corona at his Il Canguro Pugilatore blog

• From Jim Blanchard, a rollerderby poster and a painting of Tura Satana

• Bird sketches with field notes by Debbie Drechsler

• A performance poster illustrated by Nate Neal

• An image-packed update on various works in progress from Noah Van Sciver

• Roger Langridge sketches Popeye vs. Bluto

Lilli Carré made this illustration for the bookplate/prints to be affixed in books acquired by the Montgomery County Public Library through a donation from SPX's 2011 Graphic Novel Gift Program — man oh man, that is one lucky library, for the books AND the prints!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Mome Vol. 22 - Fall 2011
by various artists; edited by Eric Reynolds

240-page full-color 7" x 9" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-395-8

See Previews / Order Now

Special double-sized FINAL issue! After 6 years and over 2500 pages of comics, MOME heads into the sunset with an all-star, jam-packed farewell bonanza. Several past MOME favorites return for the swan song, including Kurt Wolfgang, Tom Kaczynski, Joe Kimball, Eleanor Davis, Anders Nilsen, Tim Hensley, Paul Hornschemeier, Gabrielle Bell, and Zak Sally (those covers!). Meanwhile, several newcomers get in just under the wire: Jesse Moynihan, Malachi Ward, James Romberger, Nick Drnaso, Joseph Lambert, Nick Thorburn, Victor Kerlow, and Ignatz Award-winners Jim Rugg and Chuck Forsman! Recent MOME favorites also return, such as Sergio Ponchione, Steven Weissman, Sara Edward-Corbett, Laura Park, Josh Simmons (plus collaborators The Partridge in the Pear Tree and Wendy Chin), Derek Van Gieson (with collaborator Michael Jada), Tim Lane, Nate Neal, Lilli Carré, T. Edward Bak, Dash Shaw, Ted Stearn and Noah Van Sciver. Over 30 artists in all, including a surprise contributor we don't want to give away!

SALE! Today through Friday September 2, 2011, save 30% OFF all single back issues of Mome (or save big with our 5- and 10-issue bundles), PLUS save 30% off an amazing selection of books by Mome contributors!

If I were up on skate lingo I would be spouting the equivalent of "holy crap" here... Penguin has produced a series of limited edition skate decks featuring artwork from their Penguin Classics Deluxe line, including covers by Jason for Kerouac's Dharma Bums, Lilli Carré for Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Thomas Ott for We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. At Lilli's blog you can see a photo of her hoisting hers over her head. There was a Facebook contest where you could win one (which we learned of too late) and USA Today's report on the decks lists some promotional events on college campuses — no word on if/when you'll actually be able to buy these, though.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review/Interview: Vice's Nick Gazin looks at The Complete Peanuts 1981-1982 — "I expected that the quality of the Peanuts comics would be waning by now, but I’m still laughing at the jokes and recognizing the personalities of characters I know in the gang.... It’s a beautifully designed, thick, brickish volume with lots of memorable storylines.... All in all it’s a beautiful two years worth of Charles Schulz’s creative output. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you think." — and talks to Monte Schulz about his dad's work on the strip — "The early 80s were a strange time for us. In 1981, Dad underwent quadruple bypass surgery after feeling in poor health for most of the previous year. The idea of surgery terrified him, but the medications he’d been taking had left him so debilitated that surgery became the option he was forced to consider. So he had the procedure and survived, and found a wealth of material from the experience, which he poured into his strip." — and his own career as a writer

• Review: "Jaques Tardi has already proven with West Coast Blues that he is just the man for the job when it comes to illustrating the particular brand of noir crime Jean-Patrick Manchette so deftly dished out. There’s a palpable feeling of safeness when you open [Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot] — nothing to do with the subject matter, of course, but with such certifiable masters captaining the ship you’re quite willing to... [trust] that it will lead somewhere totally unexpected, which it does.... Remember that feeling you got in your guts just before the end of Kiss Me Deadly? It feels a bit like that. The first page grabs you roughly by the hair and the book happens in those split seconds before the last page punches your lights out." – Hayley Campbell, The Comics Journal

• Review: "Fantagraphics Books has done an excellent job putting the comic strips of Mickey Mouse in this impressive volume.... Also included in this book is a section on 'The Gottfredson Archives: Essays and Archival Features.' Fans of Mickey Mouse or cartoon strips will enjoy the wonderful stories and illustrations of Floyd Gottfredson created approximately 80 years ago and beautifully presented by the publisher." – Glenn Perrett, Simcoe.com

• Interview: At art:21 Thea Liberty Nichols talks to Lilli Carré: "I frequently switch back and forth between working on comics and animation. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to work with pages, where I can really focus on the details and nuances from one panel to the next, and an overall page composition. After I’ve been working on something like that for a while, it feels very freeing to switch to working on an animation, and draw 12 drawings for every second of film. It becomes much looser in terms of each individual drawing, and is more about the overall feel and movement." (Via The Comics Reporter)

• Lore: Kim Deitch's epic memoir-in-music "Mad About Music: My Life in Records" continues at TCJ.com