Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

The Architektur Forum in Linz, Austria recently hosted a fascinating-looking exhibition of "Architecture and Comics" in association with the Next Comic-Festival. The exhibit included reproductions of work by Jim Woodring, Johnny Ryan , Joe Sacco, Gipi, Lorenzo Mattotti, Chris Ware and many others, including this 3D reconstruction of George Herriman's Coconino County Jail from Krazy Kat constructed by exhibit curator Christian Wellmann, who provided this photo. For more photos and information about the exhibit (in German), visit Unkraut Comic Magazin.

Daily clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • Dash Shaw reveals a page from his Spider-Man story for Marvel's Strange Tales 2 • "Cat on the News," a new lithograph by John Hankiewicz • Dame Darcy's portraits of Pee Wee Herman & friends (above) and Clara Bow, plus a new doll and more in her latest blog update • The new installment of Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano, plus an explanatory introduction • New Debbie Drechsler nature sketches here, here and here • Another Gilbert Hernandez t-shirt design for Stussy, as discovered by Love & Maggie…

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "In following Prince Valiant through the third and fourth year of his four-color adventures, it is fascinating to watch Hal Foster shape his hero's personality and his reader's expectations. … These lessons in how a prince and an adventure strip should conduct themselves are gloriously drawn and gloriously packaged. And to think: Fantagraphics will treat us to 30 more years of the same." – Steve Duin, The Oregonian • Interview: Marco on the Bass talks to Bob Fingerman about his illustration work for The Toasters and other ska bands

Next Sunday, May 30th, Cinefamily, in cooperation with Family bookstore and Picturebox's Dan Nadel, bring you "Adventurous Cartoonists & Far-Out Comics," an evening-long presentation featuring Johnny Ryan interviewing Real Deal creator Lawrence Hubbard, Jaime Hernandez presenting a screening of the 1949 Joseph L. Mankiewicz classic A Letter To Three Wives with a discussion moderated by Sammy Harkham, and much more! Click here for details.

These "weekend" updates aren't working out very well. My apologies. We may be returning to our previous Friday evening schedule after this. It's what's for dinner in this week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson… …Blecky finds a new way to ruin things in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan… …and doin' the (coo coo) pigeon in this week's Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman. By the way, Seattlites can now catch reruns of Barack Hussein Obama in The Stranger starting with the current issue!

Esther Pearl Watson has a solo art show of her paintings, with an adjoining exhibit of work by her fella/partner in crime Mark Todd, June 1-26, 2010 at Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco, with an opening reception on Thursday, June 10. More info at Happenstand.

Daily clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • This week's "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman • A new Amazing Facts… and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga • An unfinished sketch by Jim Flora circa 1950-1951 • It's been a while since I posted any Renee French — how about a "giant fat worm"? • Josh Simmons posts a teaser from his new one-page story in the NOLA-based comix anthology Feast

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "There's no cartoonist out there that makes better use of expanding canvasses than Kim Deitch. Literally and figuratively. The rhapsodic spreads — one, two, even four pages — he drops into his narratives are one of comics' finest stand-alone effects, and he creates short stories that are perfectly enjoyable as discrete units but somehow defy those idiosyncratic qualities to work just as effectively as building blocks in his grander books, like this new one [The Search for Smilin' Ed!] from Fantagraphics." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter • Review: "Like Weirdo, Raw, and Drawn…