Monkey of the Week, April 27, 2007: Pussycat-A-Go-Go

Posted on April 26, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Do the monkey!

Obscure Images: Jim Woodring

Posted on April 26, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

I’m starting a new “obscure images” series on this blog taking a look at rare artwork by some of my favorite cartoonists on comicartfans.com (as well as some other places that show comic art online). Comicartfans.com is a site that lets users post their artwork they’ve collected into galleries, and there is a lot of awesome stuff collected there… let’s explore together, eh?

Note that this is just intended to provide an overview… searching comicartfans.com will get you some more results (unfortunately I can’t provide a link of the search from comicartfans.com, as there is no unique url provided for a search, but it is easy to type in yourself).

Today let’s see what they have by one of my favorite cartoonists, genius visionary Jim Woodring. Click any of the below images to view the full sized version at comicartfans.com.

Frank pops a jiva.

Painted panel of Frank, Pupshaw and Frank’s Faux Pa.

Whim and Frank and giant pie and ice cream.

A curious landscape.

A highly disturbing image of Frank and a jiva speaking! This is so wrong…

A image that Woodring created for a fan depicting their personal jiva… he used to do this for free. You can see another one here.

Behold the triceratoad!

Woodring’s tight pencils for the first page of his painted Frank story “Peeker.” You can see the rest of the penciled pages for it on comicartfans.com as well:

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Free Vertigo First Issues Online

Posted on April 26, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

DC Comics imprint Vertigo is offering free .pdf files of the first issues of many of their titles online… a number of which are quite excellent. You can download them here.

(above image of Swamp Thing drawn by John Totleben found here)

I’m sure most of these are worth checking out, but some of them really shouldn’t be missed (in their entirety, not just the first issues)… Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Death: The High Cost of Living, and Books of Magic, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, and Grant Morrison’s Invisibles are all quite fabulous.

All of the above series have been completed and reprinted in book form. As far as stuff that is currently being serialized, I’ve been reading Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man and Bill Willingham’s Fables recently (courtesy of the Minneapolis Public Library) and those are both good reads as well.

Crumbling Paper: Happy Hooligan (1904) by Frederick Opper (strip #4)

Posted on April 26, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Here’s another example of Frederick Opper’s strip Happy Hooligan from 1904. Click the image to read the strip.

You can see more examples of Happy Hooligan (and many other classic comics) at Barnacle Press. Here are some other Opper strips at Barnacle Press.

Here are some other Happy Hooligan examples from Bugpowder.

Here are some other Opper strips from Coconino Classics.

Interesting Links: April 26, 2007

Posted on April 26, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Crumbling Paper: The Love of Lulu and Leander (1904) by F.M. Howarth (strip #4)

Posted on April 25, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Here’s another example of F.M. Howarth’s strip The Love of Lulu and Leander from 1904. Click the image to read the strip.

You can see more examples of this strip (and many other classic comics) at Barnacle Press.

Meet Stwallskull at MicroCon

Posted on April 24, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

I’ll be at MicroCon 2007 this Sunday, representing for The International Cartoonist Conspiracy. MicroCon is the little sister convention of the wonderful FallCon, both run by Midwest Comic Book Association. They are gracious and generous hosts to cartoonists, and offer free tables to all cartoonists who request them in time at both their conventions. Please stop by and see us and check out the fun. The Conspiracy table will be run by Danno, Bud Burgy (selling copies of his cool new anthology Muscles and Fights) and myself. Please check out the MNCBA site for the latest info.

MCBA MICROCON COMIC BOOK CONVENTION
Sunday April 29, 2007 10AM to 4PM
Minnesota State Fairgrounds
Progress Center
1621 Randall Ave
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108
(Enter through the main gate on Snelling Ave, go 2 blocks and go right)

Far Arden Chapter Seven

Posted on April 24, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Chapter seven of Kevin Cannon’s epic 288 hour comic, Far Arden, is online, and continues to get better and better… Kevin is blowing me away with this stuff every month. You would think, producing this stuff under such time constraints (all chapters drawn in 24 hours) that something would suffer… art, storytelling, plot, composition, layouts, design… hell, lettering! Kevin continues to make it all flow perfectly and beautifully, and make it look deceptively easy.