Throughout his career, Lyonel Feininger had one foot in fine art, as a leading figure of German expressionism and the Bauhaus.  But, as we all know, he had his other foot planted in the world of comics, with his ground-breaking strips in the Chicago Sunday Tribune, The Kin-Der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie's World.

This summer, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City celebrates Feininger with his very first major show in the states in forty-five years! Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World will showcase not only his historic strips, but his paintings, photography, and even a series of miniature hand-carved wooden figures and buildings he created, known as City at the Edge of the World. 

On Wednesday, July 20th, The Whitney spotlights some recent artists who also intersect fine art and comics: Gary Panter, Chris Ware , and Art Spiegelman!  Join them at 7 PM for the panel The Fine Art of Comics, moderated by John Carlin. 

You might even win tickets to the event if you follow The Whitney Museum on Twitter at @whitneymuseum!  At 2 PM ET, they'll tweet a trivia question, and the winner gets tickets to the panel, and a copy of Feininger's complete comics collection The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger!

Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World runs until October 16th at the Whitney Museum of American Art [945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, NYC].

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: At Seen, Sam Humphries ranks It Was the War of the Trenches and The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Vol. 1 by Jaques Tardi together at #4 on his Best of 2010: "Jaques Tardi is a badass. A titan of French comics, he writes and draws his comics with a relentless focus. Thick lines and dark shadows spill from a tide of incessant ink. Under his pen, sticky subjects must bend and yield to his cynical, humanist worldview. [...] Both books are thrilling to experience. [...] Regardless of country, these are amongst comics’ greatest treasures, and it’s intoxicating to have them in our hands."

• List: At The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log, Blank Slate Books publisher Kenny Penman places Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 at the top of his Best of 2010: "I’d started to take L&R for granted... This came up and gently whispered in my ear and I was deeply in love all over again. Comic of the year."

• List: Among London shop Orbital Comics' staff favorites for 2010, Jim Woodring's Weathercraft: "The book is every bit as beautiful, weird and mesmerizing as I expected, and serves both as great introduction to Jim Woodring’s wondrous world and a wonderful treat to those already familiar with it."

• Review: "What’s amazing is that [editor Glenn Head] found the comics anthologies of the days to be wanting in terms of having things he wanted to read and look at, and so he gathered up a huge cast of creators and proved that there was another way to go in assembling such books that had its own creative gestalt. That’s all any reader can ask of an anthology, whether or not its contents interest them in particular. Hotwire should have some stories that any alt-comics reader would find to be top-notch..., and for a certain segment might prove to be the anthology made just for them." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

• Plug: Robot 6's Brigid Alverson discovers the comic strip art of Lyonel Feininger (which we collected in the imaginatively-titled The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger)

Online Commentary & Diversions from Friday to today:

• Review: "In The Sanctuary, Nate Neal traces back the history of manipulation, power battles and betrayal to a single cave, thousands of years ago. The story unfolds entirely in a Paleolithic language Neal created, rendering the action subtle as a tribe careens toward possible chaos amidst the battles contained. [...] In the dynamics that Neal presents, you can see your country, your town, your work place and your family, all rolled into one cautionary tale. In stark black and white, Neal’s art exhibits much sophistication, while still maintaining a required roughness, given the time period and level of civilization he’s portraying. [...] Neal’s book digs deep down to the core of our humanity that almost requires manipulation for movement, but suggests that sometimes there are victories for us even if we do require a shifty style of prodding." – John E. Mitchell, The North Adams Transcript

• Review: "As ever, Jason's characters are universal precisely because they're so specific and odd; dog-faced werewolf Everymen, living their lives of quiet desperation. His art is precise and carefully defined, a collection of moments carefully chosen and arrayed to imply so much more than his characters could ever say. His silences are theatrical — he's the Beckett, or Pinter, of comics. And Werewolves of Montpellier is another masterly performance from one of our modern best." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Reviews: Sean T. Collins continues "Love and Rocktober" at Attentiondeficitdisorderly, delving into Love and Rockets: New Stories with Jaime's "Ti-Girls Adventures" from #1-2 ("If 'Locas' has taught us anything, isn't it that women should be the stars and driving forces behind their own damn comic, even if they're dressing up in one-piece swimsuits and punching each other in the process?") and the "Browntown"/"The Love Bunglers" duology from #3 ("Such power! ...[One] of the most devastating — and I mean so sad it impacted me physically — comics I've ever read. I will never forget reading this book.")

• Review: "...A Drunken Dream and Other Stories... sucked me into its stories and made me want to read a lot more of Hagio’s comics. A mixture of romance, science-fiction, and family drama, this ten story compilation is one of the strongest examples I’ve seen of the depth and breadth that the shôjo genre can contain. [...] Highly recommended." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

• Review: "Now [Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s] is my kind of Americana. A finely curated collection of pre-code horror comics from publishers whose initials are not E.C." – M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Review: "...[Temperance] is an intimidatingly rich work, full of symbolism and moody art... It's all lushly rendered in spooky gray tones, with lively, somewhat pudgy characters always striving forward toward their dubious goals... Malkasian clearly has poured her heart into this story, bringing the characters to life even as they act to make readers think beyond the story itself. It's a beautiful book, and one that will stick in the mind for some time after reading it." – Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues

• Review: "...[T]his fabulous tome highlights the astounding wizardry of one of the most accomplished draughtsmen and yarn-spinners of [comics'] incredibly fertile early period. [...] Evocatively written by biographer Blake Bell, with dozens of first hand accounts from family, friends and contemporaries; the sad, unjust life of this key figure of comics art is lovingly recounted here with hundreds of artistic examples... Fire and Water offers an opportunity to revel in the mastery of a truly unique pillar of America’s sequential Art establishment. [...] Brilliant, captivating, and utterly unmissable, this is the book Bill Everett deserves — and so do you." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Plug: "Wow, punk is now nostalgic. You can’t stop getting older, can you? Well, you can, but it’s not a good alternative. Anyway, Fantagraphics has announced that next month they will release Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, over 400 pages of reference to 'every appearance of a punk (or new waver!) to hit the screen in the 20th Century.'" – Johanna Draper Carlson, DVDs Worth Watching

• Commentary: At Robot 6, Chris Mautner gives you a beginner's guide to Kevin Huizenga in the latest "Comics College" feature: "In the short time he’s been making comics, Huizenga has shown himself to be an author of considerable talent and probing sincerity."

• Interview: Avoid the Future talks to Kevin Huizenga: "I often feel that I’m not really a true artist or a writer, just a fan whose playing make-believe. The inner compulsion I have is to put together something with a kind of complex structure, with some complex arrangement of things that surprises me, or makes me feel like my favorite comics do."

• Commentary: At the Schulz Library Blog, read "Lyonel Feininger: Lost Expressionist Master of the Sunday Comics Page," a comics-history class essay by Andy Warner (CCS, Class of 2012)

• Coming Attractions: Library Journal's Martha Cornog spotlights R.I.P.: Best of 1985-2004 by Thomas Ott and Approximate Continuum Comics by Lewis Trondheim in their Graphic Novel Prepub Alert for January 2011 releases