The new Vertigo blog, Graphic Content, previews SWEET TOOTH, the new ongoing series by Jeff Lemire.

Well, it’s a wonderful post apocalyptic story that follows Gus, from the sanctuary of the home he’s known since birth, on an adventure to find “The Preserve” a fabled safe-haven for hybrid children. Along the way, Gus not only learns he loves chocolate, but he begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the origin of the disease that ravaged the American landscape just a decade before.

And at Standard Attrition, Lemire posts the cover for the collected ESSEX COUNTY, now in Previews.

From Golden Age Comic Book Stories illustrator John R. Neill at the peak of his Oz powers for The Emerald City of Oz, which included his scary, manic rendition of the Nome King.

Via Kazu Kibuishi. Above art by Adam Volker.

Fresh off While continuing his run on the ever-cosmic GØDLAND, Tom Scioli is back to his own graphic novel, And yes, it looks familiar. But that is the fun of it.

On August 27, A-Okay Comics celebrates the 10-year anniversary of Thomas Scioli’s Xeric-Winning sci-fi fantasy comic series, The Myth of pus by releasing the first all-new installment in 5 years, The Myth of pus:The Labyrinth.

Why the 5-year gap since the last graphic novel? “Once Godland took off, it ate up so much of my time, ” says writer-artist Scioli, “My intention was to do my work for Image, and keep pus going on the side, but I just wasn’t prepared for the number of hours a monthly comic takes. I had to squirrel away time for it, but I finally was able to finish Labyrinth. I can’t wait to get it out there. It’s where my heart is.”

“8-Opus, the title character, is a space-faring demigod compelled by visions of the past, present and future shown to him by his mystical stone mask. In this latest installment, pus embarks on star-spanning odyssey to expose a conspiracy of cosmic proportions.The tone is a bit different from Godland. It’s got the whole cosmic kirbyesque flavor, but this is underground stuff, real do-it-yourself comics. I wrote, drew and lettered the whole thing from start-to-finish. This is my most personal vision. To me this is a homecoming. My comics career started with pus. I’ve drawn a lot of comics since then and learned a lot about the craft. Now I’ve come back to pus bringing with me all I’ve learned.”

§ Robot 6 asks Yow! What have they done to Little Lulu? Apparently, in Brazil, they’ve made her and her gang manga-style skaters, videogamers and fashionistas. In all honesty, this doesn’t bother us much…The original Lulus are still there, sitting right on my shelf, so nothing has been hurt in the making of this comic. Plus…the originals were of their time — kids lived a simple suburban life without electronic stimulation, aside from the radio and an occasional movie. That life is nonexistent, and the kids of today are just as funny and poignant as ever. So…sure, give it a whirl. The PTB would probably be better off thinking of something original, but that might be too hard.

§ Shaenon K. Garrity looks at the Top Five Cartoonists/Children’s Book Illustrators. One is Crockett Johnson — who are the OTHERS?

§ Colleen Doran alerts us to a convention con artist who has everyone from Edward James Olmos to Robert Piccardo on the rampage against him for unpaid fees. Not cool.

MoCCA Section:

§ We’ll have a longer overview of MoCCA along in a bit, but the happy posts where people show off their treasures from the show are in abundance. Here’s one from Ricky Purdin. Geekanerd has another. And Alex Robinson a third. Since we didn’t get as many comics as we would have liked, we’ll try to link to a few more tomorrow.

§ Gary Tyrell summed up the webcomics contingent.

§ Metabunker looks at the Mazzucchelli contingent.

§ Finally, here is the MUST READ post of the day, with Gary Panter’s list of fine artists who should influence comics. Amazing, amazing stuff.

After all that doom and gloom, here’s a new Yojimbo print by Paul Pope, based on the Kurosawa/Mifune classic. And here’s how to order it AND a special T-shirt.

Will there be graphic novels in 2100? Well, the year, we don’t know…the special which airs on ABC tonight…definitely! According to an email from Joe Infurnari:

Tonight at 9pm EST, ABC will air a two-hour news special titled, Earth 2100. What’s exciting about it is that it uses animated ‘graphic novel elements’ to put a human face on it’s dire predictions for the future of our civilization and planet. These animated segments feature the illustrations of Tim Hamilton (Fahrenheit 451), Leland Purvis (Vox, Pubo), George O’Connor (Journey Into Mohawk Country, Kapow!) and myself (the Process, The Transmigration of ULTRA-lad!) and were co-written by Josh Neufeld (A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge)!

More info:
Yahoo Preview.

Official web site

While the Norton booth was hyping the fall release of R. Crumb’s adaptation of the Book of Genesis with a big poster, and editor Robert Weil had a copy, he refused to show it to anyone in the press, citing an embargo until today’s New Yorker.

As a long time loyal New Yorker subscriber, we can tell you that there is indeed an 11-page excerpt from GENESIS in this week’s New Yorker. We won’t spoil things (and it’s sure to be scanned soon anyway) but here’s a one-panel teaser. The rest of it is just as fantastically amazing. Based on this excerpt, it’s a fitting capstone to Crumb’s great career.

Meanwhile, you CAN read online a story about Peter Poplaski and the making of the book:

Peter Poplaski lives in the same medieval village in the south of France as Robert Crumb, and when Crumb began work on “The Book of Genesis” (his unabridged illustrated version of the first book of the Bible), Poplaski brought over his copy of D. W. Griffith’s 1916 silent film “Intolerance.” Crumb was so impressed with its colossal Babylonian gates and attack scenes, he wished aloud for film stills he could reference.

“So I offered to help Robert build a photo morgue,” said Poplaski. “When I was eleven, I used to take pictures of Superman on T.V. My father had a camera you could stop at 1/24 of a second, and I would take pictures of George Reeves crashing through windows.”

Technorati Tags: Genesis, R. Crumb

When geniuses collide! Cartooner Tony Millionaire does the cover for Elvis Costello’s latest album.

Via Todd Alcott.

Continuing our brief survey of this year’s Russ Manning Award nominees, Eleanor Davis is one of America’s most acclaimed young cartoonists. With her husband and collaborator Drew Weing, she runs their self-publishing company, Little House. A frequent contributor to MOME, she drew the cover for the 2008 Best American Comics. She created the children’s graphic novel STINKY for Toon Books, and the first volume of her new GN series, THE SECRET SCIENCE ALLIANCE, is due soon from Bloomsbury. Of Davis’s art, Toon Books editor Francoise Mouly told PRINT Magazine, “It’s very imaginative and funny and fanciful, but it’s also very thoroughly worked out. She’s not afraid to be clear.”

More at her website, Doing Fine.

We thought it would be nice to spotlight the art of this year’s Russ Manning Award nominees. With so many people getting into all levels of comics these days, it’s hard to keep up with all the emerging talents. First up: Gregory Baldwin.

According to his website, Gregory Baldwin bounced around at many jobs while pursuing his first love, art. Finally he landed a gig as Lead Character Artist at Insomniac Games, a video game company whose games include Ratchet and Clank and Resistance.

Baldwin entered the graphic novel world with PATH, published by Com-X, described as the tale of a rabbit and an elephant attempting to survive in a hostile landscape.

As the editor of the eagerly awaited WEDNESDAY COMICS, Mark Chiarello is widely known as an editor who gets all the best people working for him, but many forget he’s an artist in his own right. Luckily, he’s just launched Mark Chiarello.com to remedy that. Posted are much of Chiarello’s recent trading card art, including his wonderful Negro Leagues set, and some other tasty goodies.

Colleen Coover reimagines the popular board game. Did she do it with a wrench in the conservatory? That’s how we like to do it.

Via PR, the nominees for this year’s Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award, to be presented at this year’s Eisner Awards ceremony:

The 2009 nominees are:

Gregory Baldwin, writer/artist of Path (published by com.x Ltd)

Eleanor Davis, writer/artist of Stinky (published by RAW Junior/Toon Books)

Leigh Kellogg, artist of Wayfarer’s Moon (Single Edge Studios)

Lukas Ketner, artist of Witchdoctor (self-published)

Christian Slade, artist of Korgi (published by Top Shelf)

The Manning award has been given out annually at the San Diego Comic-Con since 1982. It is presented to a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. It is named for Russ Manning, the artist best known for his work on the Tarzan and Star Wars newspaper strips and the Magnus, Robot Fighter comic book. Russ was a popular guest at the San Diego convention in the 1970s. The first recipient of the award was former Manning assistant Dave Stevens, Others to have received the award include Jan Duursema, Steve Rude, Scott McCloud, Art Adams, Eric Shanower, Dan Brereton, Jeff Smith, Gene Ha, Alexander Maleev, Goran Sudzuka, Eric Wight, R. Kikuo Johnson, David Petersen, and Cathy Malkasian.

The nominees were selected by a committee consisting of representatives of the West Coast Comics Club and Comic-Con International: San Diego, and the winner will be chosen by past Manning award winners and Russ Manning assistants. The recipient will be announced during the Eisner Awards ceremony on July 24 at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

More information about the Manning Award can be found at www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_manning.shtml

Speaking of N.C. Wyeth, John K., whose blog we don’t link to nearly often enough, compares the illustration great to Yogi Bear in order to demonstrate good composition, and you know what? He’s right!

And to prove how right is he, here’s an unrelated, supporting example, by Jock, via Standard Attrition.

The awesomely amazing Souther Salazar has a new show up at the Jonathan Levine Gallery, and you can view it online here. Beautiful stuff.

SoCal artist Jeff Soto is currently on exhibit in London at the Stolen Spaces Gallery, with a show called “Inland Empire”, and its images of exploding sci-fi mixed with the dusty pickups of suburban California are a haunting mix.

“The region I live in is called the Inland Empire. It is an area about 50 miles east of Los Angeles nestled between the desert and the mountains. Overall it is a low-income area, mostly suburbs and manufacturing plants with a high minority population. When the economy was booming the Inland Empire grew at a fast rate as people headed east, unable to afford homes in Los Angeles. It was one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. But when the economy crumbled the Inland Empire was hit hard. As home values dropped most who bought houses ended up backwards on their mortgages and let them fall back to the banks. We have lost 115,000 jobs since 2007 and the unemployment rate is near 12%. I see the Inland Empire as a miniature version of what is happening around the world- poor people and the working class are getting poorer and disempowered while the rich and powerful are getting more rich and more powerful.”

We’re taking a little R&R for the next few days, and maybe even taking a much needed internet/Twitter-cation. Check back daily for special features in the meantime!

Apropos of time off, Neil Gaiman discusses some fans’ “entitlement issues” and the working process:

Some writers need a while to charge their batteries, and then write their books very rapidly. Some writers write a page or so every day, rain or shine. Some writers run out of steam, and need to do whatever it is they happen to do until they’re ready to write again. Sometimes writers haven’t quite got the next book in a series ready in their heads, but they have something else all ready instead, so they write the thing that’s ready to go, prompting cries of outrage from people who want to know why the author could possibly write Book X while the fans were waiting for Book Y.

I remember hearing an upset comics editor telling a roomful of other editors about a comics artist who had taken a few weeks off to paint his house. The editor pointed out, repeatedly, that for the money the artist would have been paid for those weeks’ work he could easily have afforded to hire someone to paint his house, and made money too. And I thought, but did not say, “But what if he wanted to paint his house?”

In the meantime, here’s some art by Aidan ‘BRUTE! Hughes, best known for his cover art to KMFDM’s catalog.

Worth1000 is a website that runs Photoshopping contests, and occasionally they run one that’s right in our wheelhouse, like this one, which asks folks to put cartoon characters into famous paintings. Not as clever as some other contests we’ve seen, but pairing Caravaggio’s violent classicism with anime is a perfect fit.

Alt.cartoonist/illustrator M. Wartella kindly sent along a copy of his wraparound cover for FOUND Magazine’s new literary anthology Requiem For A Paper Bag edited by Davy Rothbart and featuring personal essays by Seth Rogen, Miranda July, Sarah Vowell, Devendra Banhart, Andrew Bird, Dave Eggers, and many, many more. If you look closely on the cover (click for a larger version) you’ll find a few cartoon names, as well. The book is on sale this week. More here.

A nice story, via pr, about Jean Schulz, widow of Charles M. Schulz, making a big donation to Ohio State’s Cartoon Library and Museum, with a promise of a matching grant if more funds are raised. Housing more than 400,000 pieces of art and 35,000 books, the OSU collection is one of the most important comics collections on earth.

The Ohio State University received a gift of $1 million from Jean Schulz, the widow of Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz to support the renovation of Sullivant Hall, the future home of the world’s most comprehensive academic research facility dedicated to documenting printed cartoon art.

Along with her generous gift, Mrs. Schulz issued a challenge: She will provide an additional matching gift of $2.5 million if Ohio State raises the same amount from other sources, making the total impact of her gift $6 million.

“By helping to underwrite a state-of-the-art facility for the University’s renowned Cartoon Library and Museum, Jean Schulz advances the work of students, faculty, and scholars and deepens our understanding of the importance of the genre,” said Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee. “Her gift is an especially fitting way to honor the remarkable creative legacy of her late husband, Charles.”

(more…)

Dan Nadel writes to tell us of a new art site, the PictureBox Gallery, that should repay more than a few visits.

We are pleased to announce our new online venture, PictureBox Gallery (www.pictureboxgallery.org). On this specially curated site you’ll be able to view and purchase artwork from artists associated with venerable ol’ PictureBox, including Ben Jones, Yuichi Yokoyama, Peter Lloyd, CF and Charlie White III. In the coming weeks Gary Panter, Bob Zoell, and Lauren Weinstein will also be making work available. So subscribe to our RSS feed and watch for updates.

Highlights of the current selection include Charlie White’s classic “Roller Ball” illustration, Ben Jones’ “Decoration Paintings” for home decor aesthetes on a budget, and Peter Lloyd’s pimp-tastic original art for records by The Jefferson Starship and Ronnie Laws, not to mention a killer Jack Kirby original.

So, go forth and enjoy. And remember, PictureBox is not just on your shelf: We’re on your side!

Selections from the site accompanying this blog post: Outdoor (19) by Yuichi Yokoyama (TRAVEL), above, and the cover to Gentle Giant’s 1972 album Octopus by Charles White III, below.

The first of three adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker novels by Darwyn Cooke is coming out this summer, and IDW has a preview of THE HUNTER. As you might expect, given that it’s Darwyn Cooke, there should be no surprise that it looks…delicious. Click the link for the whole thing.

In 2006, on the old Beat, I wrote a post called “Women in Comics: Who is Anne Cleveland?” and I wondered if there hadn’t been more now forgotten women who created comics prior to…well, whenever you think women started making a significant contribution to comics, which is usually about 20 years from the present day. The post elicited a bit of comment at the time, but a few years ago, the old Beat from Comicon was taken down, and the original post was removed.

But you can still find it at the Wayback machine. Back then, I wrote:

Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be some women artists out there who toiled away but fell between the cracks entirely. Up until recently, the only woman painter who existed before the “modern era” was Mary Cassatt who painted babies. A little scholarship turns up the fact that before that there were some pretty decent painters like Angelica Kaufmann and Artemisia Gentileschi, not to mention a few genuine visionaries like Hildegard of Bingen. But they are never just artists, always “women artists.”

Maybe the same thing happened in comics. I was surfing the net the other night and hit on the Cartoon Retro forum on Shane Glines excellent site of old cartoon and comics art. I saw this odd little message thread:

Who was Anne Cleveland? An illustrator? A cartoonist?
I found this book in Maryland several years ago and still refer to it.

Who indeed. A quick google reveals she produced some books of cartoons about Vassar in the 40s, where she graduated, and a solo books of cartoons. And then…what? She got killed in a car crash? She got knocked up? She settled down? What? Her art is pleasing and charming. She’s no long lost John Stanley, but whatever she had to say about the world has been all but lost forever.

However, it turned out she did have some admirers, and her book It’s Better With Your Shoes Off evidently stayed in print for a long time. But Cleveland herself was lost to all but a few blog postings.

Cleveland died recently, and now her daughter, Susan Whitcher, has told the Oregonian what did happen to Anne Cleveland, and the article title tells the story: Terrific cartoonist of 1950s fled from her talent. You should really just read the whole thing, but it’s the common story of an artist whose complicated life — family commitments, depression — keep that first line from going on the paper for year after year.

Anne just never pushed for a big career in art, Susan says. “She was curious, she was tempted, she’d dream about it.” Anne had the talent. “But then she would let the dream stand in for the reality and she would withdraw.”

It would probably please Anne Cleveland to know that the degree may be small, but she hasn’t been lost forever after all.

Among its many interviews with nerdlebrities enamored of the wonderful world of comics, MTV’s Splash Page caught up with James Marsters, formerly of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, who had his run-in with comics writing TEN years ago. But the experience was so traumatizing that his resentment has simmered to this day, eclipsing such things as Smallville, Torchwood, and DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION…

“I thought that if I wrote a comic, I’d have ultimate power over everything,” said Marsters. “It was a rude awakening to find out how little power writers have.”

The real bone of contention was with Dark Horse’s choice of artist Ryan Sook, who drew everything in a dark, gothic style that, while he liked the art, Marsters insists just wasn’t right for his story.

The actor goes on at some length to vent about Sook’s unseemliness..,so long, in fact that Dark Horse felt compelled to respond: explaining that it was Buffy omnilord Joss Whedon himself who approved Sook!

“The artist James was referring to was Ryan Sook, and he was someone Joss really liked,” explained Dark Horse Senior Managing Editor Scott Allie. (The artist was misidentified as inker Keith Barnett in the original post.) “When James expressed his concerns about Ryan, Joss talked to James for me, and told him this was how he wanted the book handled. I talked to Juliet about this recently, and she had no problem with any of it — she’d seen the book and thought it was fine.”

“Looking back, I wish I’d been more sensitive to James’ feelings at the time, but the main problem was a difference of opinion about the tone of the book,” added Allie. “To Joss and me, it was a horror story, focused on two of the best villains from the show — this was before Spike’s redemption. We wanted it to feel like a horror comic.”

Reading of Marsters’s “rude awakening,” one can’t help but recall the words of Alfred Hitchcock: “I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.”

PS: If you go over to Sook’s website you’ll see tons and tons of art, and after a few clicks, you get the feeling he may know more about making comics than your nerdlebrity on the street. (Above, a painting of HELLBOY’s Abe Sapien.)