• 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
• 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
Some recent action on the themed-fan-art blogs. A couple of new ones have cropped up, one just for fun and one for a very good cause:
• Noah Van Sciver takes a pretty great turn at the Covered blog — between that and this Archie Noah drew I'm starting to think he might be pretty well suited to draw kids' comics
• Jon Morris penciled and noted Plastic Man aficionado Stephen DeStefano inked this cover for the new "DC reboot covers we'd like to see" blog DC Fifty-TOO!
• As part of their jokey "Indie Comics Reboot" series, Comics Alliance presents Love and Rockets reimagined by artist Kevin Mellon as though it "went through the mainstream reboot machine"
Apologies for the long delay since the last roundup. I enjoy bringing you these posts but lately it's been hard to squeeze them in. I may need to figure out a new approach or something. Anyway, on with the show:
• Hey, a new comic from Jonathan Bennett! Spin commissioned a 2-page strip from Jonathan as part of their commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind and posted it on Facebook (Via Spurge)
Let's all thank whoever it was who convinced Stephen DeStefano to get on Tumblr! (Above, from Stephen's inaugural post: designs for a statuette of Cole Oyl, Olive Oyl's poppa.) Also, let's all send best wishes to Stephen for a speedy recovery from a kidney stone procedure he underwent today.
As you may already know, our award-nominated Lucky In Love artist Stephen DeStefano also has quite the background in animation, working on such favorites as The Ren & Stimpy Show, Earthworm Jim, and The Venture Brothers (a personal obsession for me and Mike). There is a reason he is regarded in the industry as "The Guru of Storyboarding"!
And New Yorkers are in luck, as his popular MoCCA class "How to Do Storyboards for Animation" is back and expanded to four sessions, happening every Monday this month from 6:30 to 9:00 pm! While the class will focus on storyboarding for TV animation, you can bet DeStefano will touch upon other formats as well. I mean, clearly, he is a master at both!
• Review: "Stephen DeStefano is nominated for the 2011 Eisner Awards for his artwork on this book [Lucky in Love Book 1] and understandably so. [...] His style on this book works so well, the feel and mood of the 1940's is dutifully established. The exaggeration in his cartoony style on this book especially with the characters is both hilarious and beautiful. From the linework, to the panel and page design, DeStefano just did an amazing job. Simply beautiful work here. The kind of work that leaves you lingering over every little line or design." – P.D. Houston, Renderwrx Productions
• Plug: "After I read and loved Footnotes in Gaza, I had to get [Safe Area Gorazde: The Special Edition], right? It looks pretty flippin’ awesome, plus for this edition, there’s a lot of frontmatter by Sacco in which he discusses the circumstances in Bosnia in the early 1990s." – Greg Burgas, Comic Book Resources
• Plugs: "It’s an embarrassment of riches from the fine folks at Fantagraphics as they deliver not one, but two fantastic comic collections for aficionados to dive into. Not only do we get the 15th volume of The Complete Peanuts covering the years 1979-1980 and featuring an intro from Al Roker, but we also get the 5th volume of EC Segar’s Popeye, Wha’s A Jeep, which introduces us to the magical Jeep. Both volumes? Brilliant." – Ken Plume, FRED Entertainment
As previously noted, Ernie Bushmiller and Jack Jackson have been inducted via judges' choice into the Eisner Hall of Fame. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Friday, July 22, 2011 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Browse and order all of our 2011 nominated titles here, and see here for links to past years' award honorees. Congratulations to all the nominees!
We're thrilled to present the Fantagraphics guide to the 2011 MoCCA Fest, happening this weekend Saturday, April 9th and Sunday, April 10th at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City! Print this out and use it as your shopping checklist and your weekend schedule!
First off, take a look at all the amazing new releases that we will be debuting at the show! Many of these books won't be in stores for several more months, and copies are limited, so make our table your first stop, or risk missing out!
Secondly, check out our jam-packed schedule of awesome authors who will be signing at the Fantagraphics table over the weekend. Not only will they be signing our books, but several of them will be bringing previews of works-in-progress!
update: George Chieffet will be unable to join us on Sunday, but John Kerschbaum has been added to the 1:30 pm slot that day!
another update: Tim Kreider will be joining us on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 pm before his panel at 4:30 pm!
All this and more awaits you at the Fantagraphics booth, located at #J1, J2, K1, K2.
And finally, get a gander at all these great panels! If you haven't already heard from The Daily Cross Hatch, they've added a second room this year, and they'll be doing more one-on-one conversations like the ones with Gahan Wilson and Peter Bagge listed below! You won't want to miss it!
Saturday, April 9th
11:30 am // Teaching Comics:Jessica Abel joins fellow panelists Bill Kartalopoulos and Tom Hart in a discussion from reading for content/visuals, to teaching how to “read” their visual rhetoric, to thinking about how to tell a story visually, what makes comics worth teaching? (Room A)
1:30 pm // Building a Book, From Start to Finish: Mark Newgarden moderates a panel with Stephen DeStefano (as well as Ben Katchor and Lauren Redniss), with an exploration of the blood, sweat, and tears that go into making a book. (Room A)
1:30 pm // Gahan Wilson: Playboy and Beyond: We explore the long, storied career of satirist Gahan Wilson. (Room B)
2:30 pm // Volunteer of the Year: Peter Kuper will present Al Jaffee with the Klein Award! (Room A)
2:30 pm // Dash Shaw and Brecht Evens in Conversation: Dash Shaw and Brecht Evens are among the most prodigious and prolific young artists working in comics today. Both began publishing ambitious work while still in school, and both have since gained notice for their lush, inventive, and thoughtful comics. (Room B)
4:30 pm // The State of Editorial Cartooning: Brian Heater presents a panel with Tim Kreider (along with Ruben Bolling and Ted Rall) on the trials and tribulations of creating political cartoons in 2011. (Room A)
5:30 pm // MoCCA Presents the Cross Hatch Carousel: Cartoonists and voice actors perform live comics readings, featuring our own Michael Kupperman and Ted Stearn, as well as Jeffrey Lewis, R. Sikoryak, Kate Beaton, Lisa Hanawalt, Julie Klausner, and more. (Room A)
Sunday, April 10th
12:30 pm // Almost True: Calvin Reid leads a discussion on where autobiography and fiction collide with Gabrielle Bell and Leslie Stein (and Joe Ollmann and Pascal Girard). (Room A)
1:30 pm // Peter Bagge: A History of Hate: Brian Heater spotlights Peter Bagge, in a one-on-one conversation with one of alternative comics’ most influential and enduring voices. (Room B)
1:30 pm // The Enterprising Will Eisner: Charles Brownstein leads a panel with Jules Feiffer, as well as Denis Kitchen and Paul Levitz. Come learn about who Will Eisner was as an entrepreneuring artist in a time when New York was the center of the commercial art universe, and how his art was shaped by that environment. (Room A)
3:30 pm // Ink Panthers Live: The popular podcast live, with special guests, like John Kerschbaum. (Room B)
Thanks to Flog commenter Alberto Garcia for pointing this out — it's an old Stephen DeStefano illustration of Popeye repurposed for the cover of last month's issue of the research journal Cell Metabolism, in a scan posted at Nas Capas. (Forearm mitochondria and spinach can label added after the fact. Dig the "Swiss" typography.)
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