Great post by Aaron Diaz on Focal Points.

[via several people, including Kate Beaton, but I think the first was an email from Spencer Greenwood]

Yeah, I know I talk about this book too much as it is, but when you read phrases like “midnight releases” you know you’re looking at something special.

Vol. 6 was #23 on Amazon this morning. Not too shabby.

In other news (although, I suppose the photo is related), I need to link to this story, just for the the title.

[Edit to add: As of the following morning, it’s been holding steady at #12 [UPDATE: #11!] [UPDATED UPDATE: #5!!] surpassing ALL Twilight books!]

When one the greatest cartoonists of our time decides he wants to build a seven foot long dip pen, y’gotta answer the call!

Check out the video. It’s actually a terrific idea and worth the Herculean effort it will take to pull it off.

Meanwhile, if you don’t have Jim’s gorgeous new book Weathercraft yet, well… what are you waiting for?

link via Fantagraphics.

Well, okay, probably not.

But Dark Horse has a new Bee comic by Jason Little so off to MySpace we go!

San Diego’s famous Comic-Con International begins in only ten days and they’ve just posted their complete 2010 programming schedule.

Thurs | Fri | Sat | Sun

I don’t have anything of my own to promote until The Sculptor is a little further along, so I’ll be joining some great friends on stage on Thursday and Friday (and remembering a great friend of comics on Saturday).

From the convention listings:

Thursday 11:30-12:30
Spotlight on Kurt Busiek— The Eisner Award–winning writer and Comic-Con special guest discusses his career — past, present, and future — in comics. With a résumé that includes Superman, Justice League/Avengers, Conan, and his own creator-owned projects Astro City and Arrowsmith, Kurt Busiek is one of comics most popular writers! Joining Kurt will be long-time friend and fellow comics creator Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics). Room 8

Thursday 1:30-2:30
Beanworld and the Leguminous Life of Larry Marder!— What is Beanworld? Where does it come from? How did it all begin? Comic-Con special guest Larry Marder and moderator Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) celebrate the 25th anniversary of Marder’s most peculiar comic book experience with a visual presentation and a lively dialogue about his many influences. This is your opportunity to discover why Beanworld has captivated readers from grade school to grad school over several generations. Be the first to get a glimpse into Marder’s next Dark Horse Books original Beanworld graphic novel, Something More! Room 4

Friday 4:00-5:00
James Sturm and Scott McCloud, A Center for Cartoon Studies Conversation: Understanding, Making, and Teaching Comics— Join CCS co-founder James Sturm (Market Day) and Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) in a freewheeling discussion about transforming the unruly creative process into practical instruction. Plus catch a sneak peak of Cartoon College, the upcoming documentary about The Center for Cartoon Studies! Room 7AB

Saturday 11:30-12:30
Will Eisner, The Dreamer— Will Eisner played a central role in the first seven decades of comics history. Many times during his career, he reinvented sequential art and himself to overcome new challenges. He was a true dreamer, and these panelists hope to show you that side of him: Denis Kitchen (artist, author, publisher, and Will Eisner’s agent and longtime friend), Scott McCloud (artist, author, and theoretician about comics and sequential art), Dennis O’Neil (comic book writer and editor for Marvel Comics and DC Comics), Paul Levitz (writer, former president/publisher, DC Comics), and Michael Schumacher (bestselling author and Biographer with a new biography of Will Eisner due out this fall). This is your chance to learn more about the “Father of the Graphic Novel.” Room 4

Via Kazu’s blog comes word that the Flight 7 preview is up. And—no surprise—it looks gorgeous.

Volume 7 will be the last penultimate(?) Flight (at least in its current incarnation). Volume 1 came out in July of 2004, only six years ago, so I might be overreaching to tag this with “Comics History,” but it feels that way to me.

One of my favorite memories of Comic-Con 2004 was when the boxes of Volume 1 arrived at the Flight booth and I ran over from our funky, inflatable furniture-filled booth nearby, in time to see them opening the first one with a box cutter.

I asked if I could buy the first copy. Someone (probably Kazu himself) offered to give me a copy since I’d written an afterword, but I said Hell No, I wanted to buy the thing and insisted on giving them a twenty.

Nobody cares who gets the first “comp copy.” I wanted to be Flight’s first paying customer, and so I was.

A small moment in comics history, maybe, but one I’ll always remember fondly.

I didn’t know this would be New Site Week when I started, but here we go with another and it’s a big one.

Jon Rosenberg of Goats fame has launched his brand new Scenes from a Multiverse and (after a few hiccups) it’s up and running smoothly. Check it out today, click back to last Monday and read it from the beginning!

True to his word, Patrick Farley has begun posting new pages at electricsheepcomix.com: A new prologue for his epic, SF, alternate history gulf war comic “The Spiders.”

Mr. F. writes:

“‘The Spiders’ will update WEEKLY, from now until the story concludes. Also in the works: the site redesign (I’m *going* to make it work on the iPad if it kills me) as well as the reboot of ‘Apocamon’ and ‘Delta Thrives,’  both of which will appear later this summer.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for allowing me this opportunity!  You’ve made me a very happy primate. “

Regarding the iPad mention, this is a decision a lot of cartoonists and other artists are making this year: abandoning Flash for the uncharted territory of HTML 5’s equivalent offerings.

Flash was a key ingredient for experimental webcomics artists like Farley and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey. It’s not clear yet how easy the transition is going to be, but Farley at least has decided it’s a necessary one in the long run, and I tend to agree with him.

Paul Chadwick has a new site featuring excerpts from his award-winning series Concrete, as well as other features.

Ivy and I have a running joke that every time I get nominated for anything, we just assume that Chadwick will beat me since that’s what happened for years while I was working on the Zot! series (at least until I did UC and invented a category he wasn’t competing in).

Truth is, though, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Check out his swanky new site and the great comics within.

[Link via Comics Reporter.]

I was waiting to mention this, because I knew that Tom Spurgeon would have the best write-up on the late master and he does.

Only met the man a few times. We travelled in different circles. But he seemed kind and charming and his talent was self-evident.

Combined with the recent passing of Frazetta, expect the phrase “end of an era” to come up a lot—and not without justification.

Meanwhile…

In other news, just a quick note for those of you who were intrigued by my write-up of the Legendary Brian Dewan and his filmstrips a while back, to let you know that Brian will be performing at Los Angeles’ equally legendary Museum of Jurassic Technology on June 25 and 26 in their teeny tiny theater.

Tickets on sale here.