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Here's the second installment of Rain Taxi's videos of Jim Woodring wielding his giant pen at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis last weekend with an assist from Zak Sally. "In this clip, Woodring discusses the self-imposed rules he uses when inking with the mammoth instrument and completes the outlining process before removing the nib," say they. To be continued.

I had a great time at OCX last weekend. I'm too caught up in catching up to write any kind of report, except to say that the convention is tiny and splendidly run, Norwegians are all wonderful people, the weather was exactly like Seattle except the days were longer (the shots outside Jason's gallery opening were at something like nine o'clock at night as I recall) and any cartoonist who gets invited by OCX, go, just go! All photos by Lynn Emmert except as noted. Jason had a small art show opening during the convention, featuring priceless original art elegantly…

I've just been loving all these Fantagraphics fashion posts I'm getting to write lately!  Keep it up, designers!!! First up is this incredible pair of rare Roberto Clemente sneakers! Whoa. Here's the auction listing for 'em, and at that price, you better not be wearing them on the field! [ Thanks to Anonymous Works for the tip! ] Curious about that first pair, I dug around a little online, and came across these beauts, and some more information. Apparently, back in the 1970's, Clemente lent his name to this brand of Super Pro sneakers, sold exclusively in his homeland of…

  Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus by R. Macherot 64-page full-color 8.5" x 11.25" hardcover • $16.95ISBN: 978-1-60699-452-8 Ships in: July 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Sibyl-Anne and her fiancé Boomer live in blissful peace in the French countryside until the evil rat Ratticus, evicted from his previous residence, sets his eye on the quiet acre that the couple share with their friends (a porcupine, a crow, and a rabbit). After a hilariously unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the quiet little community in drag (which leaves a member of the cast smitten, Some Like It Hot-style), the devious Ratticus engineers the…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 2 (1936-1937) by Roy Crane 144-page full-color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-391-0 See Previews / Order Now This second of four volumes reprints in full color the rare Captain Easy Sunday pages from the 1930s. Roy Crane’s Soldier of Fortune, Captain Easy, fights for gold in the frozen north, is mistaken for a bandit, protects a formula for artificial diamonds, is stranded on a desert island, visits the tiny Balkan country of Kleptomania, and faces a firing squad….

[In this installment of our series of Editors Notes, Kim Thompson interviews himself (in a format he's dubbed "AutoChat"), with a special contribution by the book’s translator, Jenna Allen, about Gil Jordan, Private Detective: Murder by High Tide by M. Tillieux, now available to pre-order from us and coming soon to a comics shop near you. Thanks to Janice Headley for assistance with images in this post. – Ed.]

Tell me about Gil Jordan.

He and I were born at the same time. Literally. The week I was born, the first issue of Spirou magazine to run Gil Jourdan was the issue on the stands. I only realized this after decades of being a huge fan of the strip, I should add.

In terms of the history of the strip, I would refer readers back to my quick history of 1940s-1960s Franco-Belgian comics magazines. Remember how I referred to Spirou as the Marvel and Tintin as the DC? Well, for most of his formative years and a bit beyond (1947-1955), Tillieux basically worked for one of the Charltons of the day, an outfit called Héroïc-Albums, where he cranked out a detective series called Félix.

Why was he stuck there? Was his work bad?

For whatever reason he'd originally failed to sell to Spirou, his first choice, and had to fall back on Héroïc-Albums. I guess it's a judgment call as to whether Spirou was right in rejecting his work back in the '40s, but he quickly developed and certainly midway through his run on Félix he certainly would have been good enough to move to one of the majors.

Why didn't he?

From what I understand he remained ticked off at Spirou's rejection and stuck with Héroïc-Albums and Félix far beyond what was necessary. He may also have been concerned about losing his ongoing characters (which were owned by Héroïc-Albums), a Gordian knot he eventually sliced in two by making his new Spirou characters very slightly re-designed and re-named carbon copies of his Félix characters. (He was the Howard Chaykin of his day.) This was a decision that would later be very helpful because when he had some health problems and wasn't able to draw for a while, he was able to take old Félix stories and have helpers draw in the Jordan characters and re-letter them, and call it good. (He also recycled some of the Félix stories into his writing assignments for other characters, but let's not get bogged down.)

Wandering Son creator Shimura Takako has just begun a new series titled Awajima Hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Awajima), serialized at the web manga site Pocopoco. I can't read it but it sure looks pretty! Wandering Son translator and editor of our manga line Matt Thorn introduces the series and provides some context and outspoken commentary that you won't want to miss on his blog.

Don’t miss Jim Woodring signing his latest work of genius, Congress of the Animals, at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery this Saturday from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. Jim’s appearance is part of the lively Georgetown Carnival festivities featuring attractions that will appeal to all: circus entertainers, sideshows, aerial acts, carnival games, confections, music, alluring art, power tool races, and more! The Georgetown Carnival promises free fun for everyone from noon to 8:00 PM, rain or shine.  So plan to arrive early and stay late. For details see www.georgetowncarnival.com. You’ll want to see Larry, Bella and Stacey defend their title at Hazardfactory’s…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Gilbert Hernandez is one of the great craftsmen of modern comics… Hernandez’s new Fritz book, Love from the Shadows, is as bracing as a slug of bottom-shelf rotgut…. Hernandez artfully approximates the broad, thrilling badness of late-night movies and their inept special effects, and uses it as an excuse to show off some of his gifts: spacious compositions built around texture as well as forms, pauses heavy with foreboding, a sense of body language and facial expressions so acute that we can recognize both the story’s characters and the 'actors' playing those characters."…

Oh my gosh! The hot new face on the webcomics scene: the great Arnold Roth, who has a new blog where he's posting new gag cartoons three times a week! It's called Humblug! That is indescribably great! (Hat tip: Tom Spurgeon, who got it from Mike Lynch.)