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.]

Although the official 24-Hour Comics Day won’t be until October 2,  it looks like artists in The Philippines will be sitting down to draw on Saturday, July 17 at 9:00 am. in preparation for PICCA. Good luck to all participants!

Only a few days later, across the Pacific Ocean, Comic-Con will be starting here in the U.S.

Since I’m deep in the middle of my own project right now and not ready to show anything yet, I’ll be on four panels focusing on other comics creators this year: Friends Kurt Busiek, Larry Marder, James Sturm (heard a lot from those names on the blog recently) and a tribute to the great Will Eisner.

I’ll have an official announcement once the schedules are online. No table this year. Just happily wandering.

Ivy has written up her feelings about the prospect of Con moving to LA or Anaheim and why she’s resolved to only attend comics panels this year. We both agree that it would be a depressing development for Con to land in LA, especially because the glut of Hollywood programming is the reason Con is so overcrowded in the first place. Guess we’ll see what happens.

Okay, lost time in LA yesterday so I wanna get right back to the drawing board, but in the meantime, here’s the new international trailer for Scott Pilgrim (via Mal), a new OK GoVideo (via our friend Lori), and one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while.

One other important item: Comic-Con has identified some fake hotel scams. If you’ve been contacted by anyone claiming to have hotel rooms available for Comic-Con, do your homework and make sure they’re legit. One outfit, “Elite Locations,” is apparently not.

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.

For those who didn’t follow the link in Friday’s post, James Sturm has quit the internet for four months and is writing about it at Slate.

It’s not exactly Thoreau territory. He’s still using his phone (now more than ever!) and still part of the electronic landscape in other ways. He’s even talked to ABC about it. But his observations on the process are illuminating and his illustrations for the article are a delight.

James and I have had some vigorous debates about the value of information technology over the years. It’s no secret that I’m pretty happy with the way things are going. But a part of me wouldn’t mind following him for a while.

I’m increasingly aware of my own addictions. After answering as many emails as I can in the morning (never enough!), I’ll sometimes close my laptop and put it away to avoid the temptation of checking for new mails until I get at least a few hours of drawing done on the main machine (yeah, I use a local client for email—not living up to my surname yet). Sooner or later, I may have to start unplugging the modem for part of the day too.

If James inspires you to try something similar, go for it. But you might want to wait until his Slate reports are done, since those are available only on…

Yeah.

Ivy throws me surprise parties once in a while. She’s brilliant at engineering surprises, but it’s almost wasted, because I’m pathetically easy to fool. (Imagine Ricky Jay doing card tricks for a cocker spaniel, seriously.)

Anyway, she pulled off another wonderful party Saturday, two days after my actual birthday, which was all it took to eliminate any suspicions on my part, because, well… see above. I’m dense. We had a fantastic time all the way into the wee hours.

Along with our great local pals, longtime friends Kurt Busiek, Larry Marder, and Barry Deutsch flew/drove/rode in for the occasion, and Larry and local legend Paul Smith even gave me some gorgeous original art! (Check it out!: Paul’s | Larry’s)

And then there was the cake! Yet another piece of great original art; quickly demolished, but no less appreciated.

Friends, Life, Wife: I love you.

Thanks. ^__^

I read three books on the plane back from London: Jim Woodring’s Weathercraft, Dan Clowes’ Wilson, and James Sturm’s Market Day (thanks to Gosh! and Forbidden Planet for having them in stock).

I strongly recommend the Woodring and Clowes books. Weathercraft is a perfectly-crafted hallucination from a brilliant cartoonist at the top of his game. Wilson, while uneven, has a ton of dark, funny moments, and is far more than the sum of its parts.

But, of the three, Sturm’s Market Day made the strongest impression on me. I talked to James Sturm recently and told him that he went toe-to-toe with Woodring and Clowes and won, but I want to make it official here so he knows (provided someone tells him) that I wasn’t just blowing smoke up his ass. Market Day is the best comic I’ve read all year.

Sturm’s story follows a rug merchant in a distant time and place, but if you make art of any kind and have ever questioned your relevance in a changing world (show of hands?) this book will speak to you. It might not cheer you up, but you’ll know you aren’t alone.

I’d say more, but John Martz seems to have beat me to it, so I’ll just recommend that while all three books are worth reading, if you read just one graphic novel from the year so far, I hope it will be Market Day.