It's been even more extra-heartbreaking to write this FLOG post in the wake of yesterday's tragedy at the Clackamas Town Center mall near Portland, Oregon. Earlier this year, Seattle had its own tragic shooting at beloved local hang-out Café Racer.  

This Thursday, December 13th, Café Racer and Brown Paper Tickets are hosting a very special benefit for the victims' families and the lone survivor of the shootings that took place on May 30, 2012, claiming five victims and impacting everyone involved in the Seattle artistic community.

Brown Paper Tickets will be debuting their Artist Ticket Program, where a limited edition of event tickets are imprinted with original artwork for an extra fee, with proceeds donated to charity. For this inaugural event, Brown Paper Tickets chose our own Ellen Forney and Jim Woodring, two artists who were very much a part of Café Racer community. Ellen and Jim will perform readings, and will also be available to personally sign your Artist Ticket.

The evening will also feature musicians and performance artists who had a direct connection to those that were lost as a result of this tragedy, including The Bad Things, Baby Gramps, Lonesome Shack, and performance artist Queen Shmooquan. The MC for the evening will be Seattle's effervescent hostess Sylvia O'Stayformore.

Doors are at 6:00 PM, with the event kicking off at 7:00 PM. Cover is "pay-what-you-can" and advanced tickets are highly recommended as space is limited. There will be some tickets available at the door the day of the event but are first-come, first-served. Café Racer is located at 5828 Roosevelt Way NE. 

If you can't make the event but want to donate to the Victims of the Café Racer Shooting Memorial Fund, click here to visit the donation page. 

Not only does the Threadless t-shirt company keep us lookin' good, but now they're also helping defend our first amendment rights with a benefit for the mighty Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

Tonight, Friday, April 13th, they'll be hosting the CBLDF/THREADLESS C2E2 Fashion Show Welcome Party, launching a colossal new "Comics-On-Tees" collection featuring artwork by Jeffrey Brown, Anders Nilsen, Paul Hornschemeier, and Jeff Lemire, based on a story from Jeffrey!

Raffle prizes will include a plethora of awesome Threadless swag, including original retail art, and great CBLDF items, including classic signed comics, exclusive prints, and more! Giant games of Mario Kart will be projected for attendees to play, with a guest DJ providing non-stop music, getting you in the mood for a weekend of comic con revelry. There will also be a “drawing wall” for ongoing Live Art throughout the night and plenty of beer, wine, and popcorn from the famous Threadless popper.

To top it all off, THREADLESS and CBLDF will announce a major project for 2012, expanding their fundraising partnership and creating something awesome for comic fans of every stripe. 

The CBLDF/THREADLESS C2E2 Fashion Show Welcome Party kicks off at 9:00 PM at The Threadless Atrium [ 1260 West Madison, Chicago ]. Free for card carrying CBLDF members, with a $20 suggested door donation for non-members. Sorry kiddoes, 21 and up only!

Jim Woodring needs your money so he can buckle down on Fran, the in-progress sequel to last year's wildly-acclaimed Congress of the Animals. Jim promises that the new story "pulls the Frank mythos into new realms of emotional and philosophical depth and complexity," and that "I don't drink, take drugs or play the horses; any funding I receive from this United States Artists Special Project will be spent entirely and judiciously on those most essential of art supplies: food and shelter." Believe it or not, our cartoonists are not able to live high on the hog from the advances we give them.

As usual with these sorts of things, there are pledge incentives at various dollar levels, including signed books, sketches and even a two-hour art mentoring session. Go, give till it hurts.

We'll be helping to distribute Rich Tommaso's forthcoming self-published graphic novel The Cavalier Mr. Thompson (as in Jim, not Kim), but before that can happen he's got a Kickstarter campaign going to help pay for the printing costs and help him finish it in time for its European publication deadlines. We've published a few of Rich's comics in the past and most recently you can see his stellar coloring work in our Carl Barks Library series!

Kick in some bucks and you could get a signed copy of the book along with bonuses like prints, buttons, original art or even a 3D sculpey rendition of a scene from the book! Watch the video above for more info and check out a 75-page (!) preview from the book at Rich's website!

Tastes like chicken, helps a good cause: This oversized frog-leg drawing done by Jim Woodring with his giant nib pen is being auctioned, along with signed books and other items from Jim and others, to benefit our Minneapolitan friends at the lit-review quarterly Rain Taxi. Starting bid's only 40 bucks, jeez!

Bid on this original art by Stephen DeStefano for the cover of a Dutch Mickey Mouse comic — proceeds go to benefit Suz Strick, who suffers from endometriosis. (You can see some more of Stephen's Mickey artwork in the back matter of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island.)

This drawing of Wonder Woman by Gilbert Hernandez is on eBay now for the benefit auctions for 2011 Women of Wonder Day (formerly known as Wonder Woman Day), the annual charity event that raises money and awareness for (anti-) domestic violence programs, taking place on October 30 this year.

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Artwork continues to pour in for the benefit auctions for the family of Dylan Williams & Sparkplug Comic Books: above, a page of Stephen DeStefano's artwork from his 2010 graphic novel with George Chieffet, Lucky in Love Book 1: A Poor Man's History (ending in 5 days); below, "Water Goat," a new original drawing by Renee French (ending in 3 days). Click each image to go to the respective eBay auctions, and see additional contributions from David Lasky, Greg Stump and Skinner at The Divine Invasion and Profanity Hill.

You'll wanna hail down one of these wonderful new tees from Jim Woodring, designed for our friends at the non-profit literary organization, Rain Taxi!

I don't even know where to start when it comes to all the great stuff Rain Taxi does for literature. You may already be familiar with their award-winning quarterly-publication Rain Taxi: Review of Books, which is frickin' free all across the nation. But they also power tons of great events, like the annual Twin Cities Book Festival!

So, not only are you sportin' some fine Pushpaw action across your chest, but you're also supporting an awesome organization!

And it looks like they still have some of the Joe Sacco-designed tee in stock, but only in size small!

Two more great pieces of artwork up now in the benefit auctions for the family of Dylan Williams & Sparkplug Comic Books: above, Megan Kelso's one-page story about Nirvana, "My Little Piece of Kurt," from 1994 (as recently seen in the Quiet Rrriot exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery); below, an original page from Paul Hornschemeier's Life with Mr. Dangerous, as seen in Mome Vol. 17. Click each image to go to the respective eBay auctions, and see additional contributions at The Divine Invasion and Profanity Hill.