Daily OCD: 4/20/11

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Erotic, harrowing, graphically violent, and astonishingly grim, Love from the Shadows sees Hernandez plunging ever further into his own heart of darkness. […] Every line is heavy with sadness, with the desire of the character, and the character within the character, and the artist, and the audience, to escape. But if there’s one message you can draw from Gilbert Hernandez’s comics, it’s that once you enter that cave, there’s no going back. Christ, what a fucking book." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal • Review: "Clearly Taking Punk to the Masses will…

Roberto Clemente’s Cartoon Biographer Wilfred Santiago at Fantagraphics Bookstore

April 20, 2011. Seattle, WA – As the Seattle Mariners embark on another season of despair and sordid revelations of players on performance enhancing drugs continue to grab headlines, cartoonist Wilfred Santiago reminds us why we love the game of baseball. 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente documents the unlikely career of the Pittsburgh Pirates legend. Clemente's inspirational rise from the barrios of Puerto Rico to the highest levels of our national pastime was heroic enough. Not content with the fame and fortune brought by his baseball abilities, Clemente became a tireless advocate for social justice and the plight of…

Roberto Clemente’s Cartoon Biographer Wilfred Santiago at Fantagraphics Bookstore

As the Seattle Mariners embark on another season of despair and sordid revelations of players on performance enhancing drugs continue to grab headlines, cartoonist Wilfred Santiago reminds us why we love the game of baseball. 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente documents the unlikely career of the Pittsburgh Pirates legend. Clemente's inspirational rise from the barrios of Puerto Rico to the highest levels of our national pastime was heroic enough. Not content with the fame and fortune brought by his baseball abilities, Clemente became a tireless advocate for social justice and the plight of the underclass throughout Latin America. Over…

Sequential Artists Workshop Benefit This Sunday

An egg-cellent* fundraiser is happening this Easter weekend at the KGB Bar in NYC! [* Yeah, I went there.] It's the very first benefit for The Sequential Artists Workshop, a potential new school for cartooning in Gainesville, Florida, founded by Tom Hart and Leela Corman and others. Leslie Stein will be reading a brand new story titled “Brown Heart” at the event. (That's a page from it, below.) And John Kerschbaum will also be participating! A $5.00 suggested donation this Sunday will help them raise funds for the 2012 opening of the Sequential Artists Workshop. The benefit is this Sunday,…

Things to See: 4/20/11 Roundup

It's been a while, so let's catch up: • New diary strips & sketches by Lewis Trondheim • Artwork from Kurt Wolfgang's work in progress Pinokio plus some Mome meta-commentary and other sketches and characters at New Bodega • Laura Park designed this placemat for fellow Chicago Mome-ster Jeremy Tinder's impending nuptials, and also this cool t-shirt design for The Mountain Goats & Jon Vanderslice • At her Screened-in Porch blog, Carol Tyler presents “Will Work for Food” from The Job Thing — page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5 • "Crabby," a 3-pager by Tony Millionaire,…

Lilli Carré’s Living Things

I'm hoping to get a chance to do a post on my whole Stumptown Comics Fest haul, but one of the things we picked up was the Living Things series of lovely little pamphlet mini-art books from Little Otsu, including this one by Lilli Carré and other volumes by Hannah Waldron, Jo Dery, and Lizzy Stewart. You can order Lilli's here and find the others easily from there.

New Comics Day 4/20/11: Safe Area Gorazde, Crumb reprints

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. (We're also seeing reports that Peter Bagge's Hate Annual #9 may be showing up in some comic shops in the East & Midwest, though it's not on this week's list.) See more about each book at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. Safe Area Gorazde: The Special Edition by Joe Sacco 272-page black & white 7.75" x 10.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-396-5 "Joe Sacco's acclaimed and award-winning comic journalism about the Bosnian war gets Fantagraphics' gorgeous, special edition treatment." – Benn Ray (Atomic…

Daily OCD: 4/19/11

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Interview: At Torontoist, Courtney Clinton talks to Lorenzo Mattotti about The Raven and other topics in advance of his visit to the city for TCAF: "For me, it comes naturally to portray solitary characters. In the end we are all alone and at a certain point we have to confront this idea. Solitude can also be an inability to communicate with others. It’s probably something I as an artist feel more than most, even if I try to fight these feelings. On a positive note, in a moment of concentration solitude can help us…

Things to See: Beto’s Batgirl

The Batgirl, Heck Yeah! blog strikes again with this 2002 sketch of "the original Bat-Girl" by Gilbert Hernandez. These are all from the personal collection of Rico Renzi, who saw our post of Jaime's sketch earlier today and rushed to add Gilbert's this evening. Thanks Rico!