Easily the best comic book I’ve read in 10 years: “Daytripper” by Moon and Ba

Just finished reading Daytripper by Fabio Moon &Gabriel Ba. Easily the best comic I've read in ten years. Breathtaking.
Remember what it felt like reading the first ten issues of David Lapham's Stray Bullets? Remember the first time you read Dan Clowes' "Caricature" short story or Paul Pope's "Escapo?"

Remember what it was like before our favorite "alt-comics" artists slipped into a cocooned self-caricature and before everybody else stopped creating and just copied those guys? Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba’s “Daytripper”reminds me of that great feeling. Of actually feeling something when you read a great comic. I drank it up, savored it, soaked in it and I don't want it to ever rub off. But I know it will. And that’s part of what this book’s about.

Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba

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Some of my SpongeBob Comics – Super Suspicion

Here’s a SpongeBob comic book story I did for Nickelodeon Magazine back in ought-two. This was done during the break between the end of SpongeBob’s 3rd season and before production started on the Movie.

It was fun ‘cause I finally had a chance to get back to my comic book roots, and reach a huge audience, too.

Story, pencils and lettering by me,
inked by Vince Deporter, coloring by Digital Chameleon.

Anyway, just click on any image to open up a HUGE high-resolution comic page.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve never posted any of my Nick Mag comics before. Oh, wait…I remember why. I was still freelancing for Nickelodeon Magazine and I didn’t wanna make  them mad. But last December the magazine shut its doors, so here they are.

^ That was a fun panel to draw!

I’m always fond of bookending the opening and closing panels
(or scenes in a cartoon)

A lot of these comics were collected
into book form: Comic Crazy!

Click HERE to see more on the book
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Wanna see more of these SpongeBob comics stories? I’ll post some more if you let me know in the comments. Talk to you soon! --Sherm

A Well-Drawn Funny Newspaper Comic? Really? YES!

Believe it or not, there's some exciting news in the world of newspaper comic strips. Bob Weber Jr. (creator of the adorable Slylock Fox puzzle comic) and Jay Stephens (creator of The Secret Saturdays, Jet Cat, and The Land of Nod) have teamed up to create a new daily strip called "Oh Brother."

Both Bob and Jay have drawing styles that are super appealing and capture the innocence and fun of being a kid. I'm totally psyched to see a cute, funny comic strip that's wonderfully well-drawn to boot!
 "Oh Brother" is scheduled to debut in newspapers on June 28... so keep an eye out on your local newspaper.

The layouts are very cool...in most strips it looks like it could be split in half to run horizontally, but then I see others (see above) that are built like a comic book page: multiple-tiered, and really taking advantage of the unlimited layout possibilities that a comic could have. This is the best thing to hit the comics pages since Richard Thompson's Cul-de-Sac! I hope we get it in Los Angeles ^_^

Right now you can see a preview of the strips on Bob Weber's Facebook page. You need to be logged in to Facebook to make this work, but the link is http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028458&id=1122146965

Cartooning Advice: Zippy's Bill Griffith gives his Top 40 List on Creating Comics

Bill Griffith (of Zippy the Pinhead fame) has been successfully creating his idiosyncratic comics since the early ‘70s. He’s a keen observer and a funhouse mirror when it comes to society’s foibles…and his cartooning chops are top-notch!

Griffith recently posted his “Top 40 List on Comics and Their Creation,” an incredible, inspiring and thought-provoking gift to the cartooning community.

Gems on this list range from the philosophical (#10: “Cartoon characters have souls”) to the downright practical (#12 on lettering and speech balloons, #26 on copyright protection)

After sharing these links with some of my friends on Facebook and Twitter, I realized that all this great info will soon be buried under all the millions of other posts added daily to the internet. Click on any of the thumbnails above to see and download the 4 pages of great cartooning advice. If you want to find Bill Griffith on Facebook, he’s HERE:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=735107763&ref=mf

While you’re at it, you can find me on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/ShermCohen

…and on Twitter at:

http://twitter.com/shermcohen

New Captain Easy collection by Roy Crane -- At Last!

Finally! A full-color collection of Captain Easy Sunday comic pages! Roy Crane is my favorite cartoonist of all time, and this is some of his greatest work!

Click HERE for more info!
and check out this preview video from the publisher:
Video courtesy Fantagraphics Books

Roy Crane combined breakneck action and nail-biting suspense with a bigfoot cartoony style that produced a timeless classic strip that would influence the biggest names in 20th century cartoon art, including Milton Caniff, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman and Charles Schulz.

R.C. Harvey says it all in
the best article on Roy Crane that I have ever read:
http://www.adventurestrips.com/washtubbs/
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...and some more Roy Crane links to peruse: http://lambiek.net/artists/c/crane_r.htm http://www.stevestiles.com/crane.htm http://www.adventurestrips.com/washtubbs/ http://greatest.cartoonist.ever.com/

What are SORDID comic books doing to our children? 1954 News Article on Dr. Frederic Wertham

April 24, 1954 – From the Milwaukee Journal:
What are SORDID comic books doing to our children?

“The Senate judiciary subcommittee on juvenile delinquency is currently holding hearings in New York on the effect of comic books upon child behavior. Among those who have testified before the subcommittee is Dr. Frederic Wertham, senior psychiatrist of hospitals and author of a new book, “The Seduction of the Innocent” published this week by Rinehart.”

Click on the newspaper clipping image to read “a chat with Dr. Wertham” from the very week his infamous book was released. Google is scanning tons of old newspapers, so you can read it right from the pages of the old newspaper scans. Fun to search thru the archives too!

Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories coming SOON!

Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories

is a new collection of comics that promises to reprint every one of Milt Gross' rare comic book tales, plus offering a career-spanning biography based on interviews with those who knew and worked with him.

This thick, full-color, 368-page hardback tome, in addition to exhuming every one of Gross' wild and crazy comic book stories, shares rare photos, sketches, and unpublished art, including the previously unknown cover to the Milt Gross Funnies #3!

I've been reading color xeroxes and digital scans of this material for years...it'll be fantastic to have it all in one beautiful book! Click HERE or on the book image for more info!

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli - Worth the 16-Year Wait!

David Mazzucchelli is one of my favorite cartoonists from the late-eighties and early nineties, but he seemed to drop off the face of the Earth after creating three issues of his “Rubber Blanket” comic, and adapting Paul Auster’s City of Glass. Finally... 

...after sixteen years of hoping and waiting, he has released his first new original book since 1993's Rubber Blanket #3 --  Asterios Polyp … is David Mazzucchelli’s new full-color 344-page magnum opus… definitely worth waiting for!

I just spent the weekend reading this marvelous and engaging and challenging and inspiring graphic novel. It’s huge, sprawling, lovely, multi-layered, melancholy, beautiful…can you tell I loved it?

I was sad that I finished it, but I will probably start from the beginning again very soon.

I’m not going to attempt to describe the plot or characters…you’ll want to discover all that for yourself. Anyway. this gorgeous book is published by Pantheon Books, so it should be available at regular bookstores or better comic shops. If you can't find it there, you can always find it (at a discount) at Amazon.com. ENJOY!

And if you've already read it, I'd love to chat
about it through the comments section below.

Ape Escapes! Museum Mayhem! More Super Rabbit Comic Book Scans

Here are some MORE old-timey funny-animal comics from
Super Rabbit Vol.1 Number 3 published by Comedy Publications, Inc.

(If you missed the previous Super Rabbit story, you can find it HERE.)

Click on any of the comic book pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

What does 300dpi look like? Well, when you click on the story pages below, you'll get to see them with detail like this...



This story starts off with two pages of pure cartoony silliness, then shifts gears a bit when Super Rabbit investigates some robberies at the museum.



Museums are among the best settings for any cartoon story, dontcha think?
There's always a mummy or a knight or a catapult nearby when you need one!



Okay..here we go! Enjoy this latest installment of Super Rabbit!



Click comic book pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!





Click comic book pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!





If you missed the last Super Rabbit story, you can find it HERE.
There's also more info on the comic book, the character, and the creators at:

Toonopedia article on Super Rabbit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Rabbit_(comics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Hart

Super Rabbit Timely Comics Cover Gallery

ComicArtVille article on Vince Fago and Timely Comics

TwoMorrows Alter-Ego article on Vince Fago

There's LOTS more comic book scans
to look at and download! Click HERE

Super Rabbit Comic Book Scans

Here are some super old-timey funny-animal comics that I think you'll dig:

Super Rabbit Vol.1 Number 3 published by Comedy Publications, Inc.

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

What does 300dpi look like?
Well, when you click on these pages,
you'll get to see them
with detail like these panels below...

I mean, if I'm gonna bother to scan them,
I might as well do it at a good resolution!

...and you can't really appreciate this beautiful linework unless you see it up close. I'm not sure who the artist is on these stories. Vince Fago is my best guess, but that's based on memory alone because I can't find anything to confirm it. I remember that Vince Fago had a very distinctive lettering style, too...and that lettering shows up in these pages.

I only have this one issue of Super Rabbit, and I haven't been able to find very much info on the Internet. I found this cover (below) which was credited to Vince Fago. If he drew that cover, then he probably drew this story.

More sample panels from Super Rabbit #3

What I have been able to find out is that Super Rabbit was created by Ernie Hart and appeared in the Timely comic book line. Super Rabbit's appearance changed pretty drastically over the course of just a few issues. You can see the morphing of Super Rabbit at this great website that features cover galleries of many Atlas and Timely Comics. This was the publishing house that eventually became Marvel Comics, but in the 1950's they published an enormous range of magazine and comic book styles and genres.

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

Click on any of these pages to see a HUGE 300dpi detailed scan!

UPDATE: There's LOTS more comic book scans to look at and download! Click HERE

More info on Super Rabbit and Timely Comics and Ernie Hart and Vince Fago at:

Toonopedia article on Super Rabbit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Rabbit_(comics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Hart

Super Rabbit Timely Comics Cover Gallery

ComicArtVille article on Vince Fago and Timely Comics

TwoMorrows Alter-Ego article on Vince Fago

• ...And if you liked this post, please help me share it (Please CLICK on one or more of the "sharing" links directly below) Thanks! --Sherm