Fantagraphics Blog

Happy triple-8 day. Let's head into the weekend with a whole mess of review links: • This week's barrel of reviews and articles related to Strange & Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell include entries from the Barnes & Noble Review (see the second-from-right column), Minneapolis City Pages, this Italian site (Nova100?), the Montreal Mirror, Johnny Bacardi, and Comic Book Bin (which gives it an A+). Also, Comic Book Resources recaps "The World of Steve Ditko" panel (featuring Blake Bell, Kim Deitch and Gary Groth among others) held at Comic-Con last month. • SF Weekly calls Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars a "Graphic…

Here's the next entry in our current batch of daily video and photo teasers of upcoming releases: Deitch's Pictorama, a unique and exciting book of "picto-fiction" by brothers Simon, Seth and Kim Deitch. Watch the video above, and take a closer look in our photo gallery. (Note that these images are of my own personal copy, so you'll see a signature and inscription on the Table of Contents page that aren't part of the printed book.)

Ted Stearn's "The Comics Industry As Metaphor":

This is the neatest story of the day. Jack Moriarity is the 8-year-old son of cartoonist Pat Moriarity, and Jack is something of a rock prodigy. He made his live debut this summer at a 4th of July BBQ and Pat threw a couple of the vids up on YouTube. One was a cover of Willie Nelson's "A Peaceful Solution," which charmed the pants off of none other than Willie hisself. Pretty cool.

I stumbled across both these links today, and was going to include them in tomorrow's "Blogosphere roundup," but decided they deserve their own post: Woodring Simulacra is a blog compiling images of real-world "things that look like Jim Woodring made them up," and Jimland Novelties is a Flickr user who is posting images of an incredible collection of Woodring rarities and ephemera, with Jim's permission.

I just can't resist pointing out this editorial boo-boo by our pals over at The Stranger, mistakenly placing the graphic for next Wednesday's David B. event with today's item for the Museum of Bad Art on their SLOG blog. I'm trembling in mock outrage!

Courtesy Charles Burns:

Our latest batch of daily video and photo teasers of upcoming releases marches on with a look at the last of three releases in our Ignatz format due later this month: Sammy the Mouse #2 by Zak Sally (which some of you on the West Coast have been lucky enough to pick up at one of Zak's recent tour stops). Watch the video above, and take a closer look in our photo gallery.

The master of all things Arf, Craig Yoe, joined the Inkstuds Radio Programme for a talk about his wide range of projects in the world of publishing.