Ragged Claws Network

From Kookie #1, posted in its entirety by Chance Fiveash at his site, Last of the Spinner Rack Junkies.

“The Blood Money of Galloping Chad Burgess,” The Unseen #5 (June 1952) .

“Murder Mansion,” Adventures into Darkness #5 (August 1952).

“Alice in Terrorland,” Lost Worlds #5 (October 1952), as reprinted/recoloured in Seduction of the Innocent #1.

“The Phantom Ship,” Out of the Shadows #6 (October 1952).

“Joe Yank: Black Market Mary,” Joe Yank #5 (1952).

“The Hands of Don José,” Adventures into Darkness #9 (April 1953).

“The Corpse That Lived,” Out of the Shadows #10 (October 1953).

“Grip on Life,” The Unseen #12 (November 1953).

“Images of Sand,” Out of the Shadows #12 (March 1954), as reprinted/recoloured in Seduction of the Innocent #4.

“The Reaper,” Creepy #114 (January 1980) - story by Archie Goodwin.

Bonus link: Twenty Questions with Alex Toth.

Gratuitous link: “Barney Rooster” with fabulously fluid funny-animal art by the fabulous Frank Frazetta.

Today, ICv2 is reporting that the venerable alt-comics publisher Fantagraphics has acquired the rights to reprint two classic adventure strips: Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant (which Fantagraphics held the rights to not so long ago) and Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs & Captain Easy. Click here for details…

Click the images below, scroll down the page, and you’ll find a link to download all the music files in one zip archive.

At Adweek.com, I read “Profile: Ralph Steadman - Gonzo art through the Decades” by Eleftheria Parpis:

“There’s a saying: ‘In art there is no such thing as a mistake — a mistake is an excuse to do something else,’” says the 72-year-old artist. “That’s how I feel about drawing and writing. I couldn’t draw very well. I kept blotting things by accident, so I decided to make mistakes part of my work.” Which is how, he adds, his work evolved from the cleaner lines of illustrated books such as I, Leonardo and Sigmund Freud to the messier, frenetic style that later defined his most iconic creations, such as the drawings for Thompson’s novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I caught up with Moving Pictures by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen:

I briefly browsed through the posts at GFXworld.org.

I admired the scans of Virgil Finlay’s H.P. Lovecraft illustrations, posted by Mr. Door Tree over at the blog, Golden Age Comic Book Stories: part one, part two and part three. Here’s a tiny taste (the images on Mr. Door Tree’s site are much larger):

I browsed through the latest images from the Phoenix Mars Mission. There are many more available today than there were yesterday.

I read/skimmed a few articles about the Democratic nomination campaign in the U.S., including this oddly uplifting profile of Barack Obama’s “body man” (an unusual term — or at least, one I’ve never heard before — that appears to be derived from “bodyguard”).

I went back to take another look at a small gallery of gorgeous cartoons by Ethel Hays. Love those sinuous ink lines! Love those flappers!

And I checked out Read Yourself Raw to see if the August preview list is up yet. It’s not.

To be continued…

This is a test of ScribeFire 2.2.5, a Firefox Add-on by Christopher Finke. ScribeFire is a full-featured editor that makes it easy to post to your blog from within your Web browser, without having to visit your site and log into your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, upload images, and post to multiple blogs. Supported blogging services include WordPress.com, LiveJournal, Windows Live Spaces, Performancing, Jeeran, Tumbir, MySpace, b2Evolution, and Splinder. Supported blogging platforms include WordPress, Moveable Type, Drupal, Textpatter, Roller, and Blogger, as well as any blogging software or platform that implements the MetaWeblog API.

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I added this bit when I opened this post with ScribeFire in order to correct a couple of typos.

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WORKS LIKE A DREAM!

Volume 1 (of 2) of the collected Journey by William Messner-Loebs is available for pre-order at an online bookstore near you. Here’s the cover:

From the publisher: “A realistic and absorbing account of life in the 19th century frontier wilderness finds Wolverine McAlistaire enduring tornadoes, Indians and even the walking dead, all in Messner-Loebs’ unique neo-Eisnerian style. A classic adventure series from Eisner nominee William Messner-Loebs, Journey introduced the world to Joshua ‘Wolverine’ McAlistaire and the Fort Miami settlement populated by both real-life and fictional characters. Now, IDW is re-presenting this acclaimed work in two comprehensive volumes, the first of which collects issues #1-13.”

I would post my own comment on Journey, but it has been a long, long time since I read the comics, which were originally published first by Aardvark-Vanaheim, then by Renegade Press, and finally by Fantagraphics Books, and I simply can’t be bothered to dig them out of storage (I do own them). Anyway, suffice to say, I have fond memories of Messner-Loebs’ work — if memory serves, the series opened with a virtuoso first issue that consisted entirely of Wolverine McAlistaire being chased by a bear — and I look forward to owning the collections, which I know from experience will be so much easier to store and read than the original comics.

Gallery 1, Gallery 2, Gallery 3, Gallery 4, Gallery 5, Gallery 6, Gallery 7, Gallery 8, Gallery 9, Gallery 10, Gallery 11, Gallery 12, Gallery 13 and Gallery 14.

Today on ebay, I purchased the following book from a “Buy It Now” auction: “THE AMERICAN SHORE (Dragon Press, 1978, first trade edition). Author: SAMUEL R. DELANY. Fine copy with reinforced binding and without dust jacket, as issued. SIGNED. According to Lloyd Currey, there were 949 trade copies and 100 numbered copies signed by Delany.”

The book was US$15.00, and the shipping $9.95, for a grand total of US$24.95.

Truth be told, I already own an unsigned hardcover copy of The American Shore; however, as a long-time collector of the works of Samuel R. Delany, I had to have a signed one — especially since the price was so right!