The Order of Odd-Fish on Boing Boing

My pal James Kennedy's book, The Order of Odd-Fish (for which I drew the paperback cover), was just reviewed on Boing Boing and I couldn't agree with Cory Doctorow's remarks more:

"This is what Harry Potter would be if its magic world was truly wondrous and magnificent, as opposed to plain reality with broomsticks and funny robes."

Farewell, Earwax

After a long history in Chicago, I was saddened to hear that Earwax Cafe is closing. In addition to having some of the best milkshakes and vegetarian burgers I've ever tasted, Earwax served as a meeting place for myself and countless other cartoonists over the years. Earwax, whose walls were adorned with circus sideshow banners and oddities, could lay claim to logos and ads designed by a couple generations worth of funny book people, including Daniel Clowes (who I just saw has a functioning web site, another sign of the progression of time) and Jeff Brown. Jeff and I used to meet up there with some regularity (one such get-together is pictured above), back when we lived in the area, and I know Jeff drew there all the time (with scenes from the cafe featured in some of his books).

I hung up countless posters over the years in this place, went there when I was depressed about this or that, made plans with The Holy Consumption there, and my second date with my wife nervously took place there, before our first kiss on a nearby playground. When I heard Earwax was closing, it was surprising to me just how many memories came back. Sometimes a cafe isn't just a cafe.

Goodbye, Earwax, you'll be missed.

Sale on Everything, Today Only

Because I feel bad about not posting shirts for the past couple weeks (though it's for several good reasons that I'll hopefully be able to talk about soon), I'm trying to make it up to you, dear reader, by offering 20% off everything on the Forlorn Funnies Store.

That's 20% off all original art and prints (I just added some prints and will hopefully be adding more next week).

And that's for 24 hours only... I mean, come on, I don't feel that guilty.

When you're at the store just enter in this code: FEB17. That should do the trick. If you have any problems with the code, please just leave a comment on this post and I'll look into it.

Happy discounting!

Link Burp for 02.16.11

It's high time I started a feature on the blog that is simply a bunch of stuff and bits that I found interesting over the past few days/week, but about which I haven't had the time to write a proper post. Therefore: link burp.

On to some sentences and some links:

• The book is great, but why not listen to the actual recordings of The Hitchcock and Truffaut conversations?

• You've been saying there aren't enough 14-part Star Wars documentaries out there in the world. You can stop saying that quite so much.

• Exciting news for anyone who enjoys The Criterion Collection and the ease of use of Hulu: Criterion comes to Hulu plus.

• Radiohead is releasing their new album this Saturday. Exciting. That they're releasing a "newspaper album" as well? Very exciting. And head-scratch-inducing. What's a newspaper album?

• I enjoy Pantone's colors (I often drink from my favorite Pantone mug). I enjoy cookies. Finally someone made some Pantone Chip Cookies.

• Take a trip around the offices and workspace of Pixar and remind yourself that where you work should always have a secret room triggered by a Shakespeare bust.

Get Flinchy

This has been in the works for some time, so it's a pleasure to finally be able to say that artists Jay Ryan, Diana Sudyka, and Tom Stack (with all around support from designer Jason Harvey) have launched their new shirt site: flinchy.

It's a great line up of attire from an amazing group (who all happen to be phenomenally nice people to boot), and with copy written by my pal and perennial blogger John Huston.

And if the shirts weren't enough to keep your interest (and they should be), you can test your Chicago cultural vocabulary by naming all the models for the shirts. A certain mister Nilsen (below) is among them, along with a Mr. Albini of the musical world and Christen Carter of Busy Beaver Buttons fame.

Give Yourself a Black Eye

There are still 17 days to go and more funds needed for Black Eye, an amazing (pending) anthology of dark humor featuring a long list of contributors. Among that list, some of my favorite people in comics:

Stéphane Blanquet (France)
Lilli Carré (USA- Chicago)
Al Columbia (USA)
Ludovic Debeurme (France)
Kaz (USA- Los Angeles)
Michael Kupperman (USA- New York City)
Mats!? (USA- Oakland, CA)
Olivier Schrauwen (Belgium)
Robert Sikoryak (USA- New York City)
Jon Vermilyea (USA- New York City)

I'll be contributing work as well (something concerning a childhood hero of mine), and I'm looking forward to seeing how such a wide selection of artists and writers comes together. So hurry up, Give to Black Eye now and support independent, grass roots fuckeduppery.

Strange Tales II Cover

No posts? No shirts? What gives?

Well, questioning internet, I've been a bit busy, to put it mildly. And unfortunately I can't talk about most of what I'm doing just yet. But at least one of the projects I can talk about:

I just completed the cover designs for Marvel's Strange Tales II collection, due out in April. It was a pleasure to work on the project, with the only difficulty being what to choose out of all the great art in the series. But there was one person whose work I knew I wanted on the cover before I even began sorting through the files: Kate Beaton, who is, in my humble opinion, one of the best, most pitch-perfect cartoonists working today.