Things to see: 4/27/10

Daily clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • It's a brand new installment installments of The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE • Swedish Slouchers is a new lithograph from John Hankiewicz • Click to see the latest animated drawing by Lilli Carré in action • "Lisa in a Pink Blouse" is a circa-1990s portrait by Mark Kalesniko • Renee French gets buggy • Eric Reynolds was searching YouTube for Butthole Surfers videos and came across this one which is full of Robert Williams artwork

Daily OCD: 4/27/10

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Redressing a sad literary situation — the prior unavailability of this full masterpiece in English — Fantagraphics finally brings Tardi's wrenching tales of trench warfare during WWI [It Was the War of the Trenches] to American audiences. … From the living hell of combat to the ghostlike calm of bombed-out villages, each panel radiates with the fear and hopelessness of hapless conscripts who strive only to retain their limbs and their sanity. Calling the war 'a gigantic, anonymous scream of agony,' Tardi skewers the concept of nationalism and drives home the banality of death….

Help send T. Edward Bak to Alaska to research his Mome serial

I made brief mention of this in yesterday's "Things to see" but it deserves better notice than that. Congratulations to Mome contributor T. Edward Bak on being awarded a residency in Alaska (our second artist headed up there this year, hot on the heels of Jim Woodring)! He needs your help in covering his expenses and is selling original pages (I've seen them and they're beautiful) to raise funds. Here's his plea in his own words: "So, last week, I was awarded this artist residency in Talkeetna, Alaska, through Seattle's La Familia gallery. I'm planning on being up there through the month of July,…

Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso – Previews, Pre-Order

Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso 232-page monochrome 6.75" x 8.25" hardcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-344-6 Ships in: June 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Megan Kelso has proved herself a master of the cartoon short story with Queen of the Black Black (1998) and The Squirrel Mother (2006). With Artichoke Tales, six years in the making, Kelso expands her range (and her page count) by creating a family saga spanning three generations and an entire continent. Artichoke Tales is a coming-of-age story about a young girl named Brigitte whose family is caught between the two warring sides of a civil…

Things to see: 4/26/10

Daily clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • Spanish-language newspaper El País publishes a Joe Sacco cover for their literature supplement • The cover of Jon Vermilyea's forthcoming turtle-flavored minicomic Pizza Time • This is a photo John Pham posted on Facebook of a piece he has in the Poketo "Los Angeles I'm Yours" art show at Space 1520 in LA which opened on Saturday and which also features handmade minicomics by Jordan Crane • Also on Facebook, Bill Griffith posts this one-page story (excerpted above) which was recently published in a new book about…

Daily OCD: 4/26/10

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Peter Bagge’s not-so-yearly update on the life and times of his signature character Buddy Bradley takes up about half of Hate Annual #8… It’s a funny story with a confident, natural progression and some keen observations to make… [T]his is… a welcome renewal of one of alt-comics’ most treasured series… [Grade] A-" – The A.V. Club • Review: "The mid-’70s found Schulz pushing the strip further and further into the oddball, mixing fantasy and reality in extended storylines… The strip as a whole feels less scrappy and more settled in this era, though it’s…

New Jim Flora print: Ferris Wheel Fireworks

Following last week's teaser, the new limited-edition Jim Flora print, Ferris Wheel Fireworks, is now available in the Jim Flora Fine Art online shop. The print reproduces a spectacular panoramic two-page spread from Flora's 1957 kids' book The Day the Cow Sneezed.