Art

Want to buy some of the best comics art available anywhere and do a good deed, too? Tom Spurgeon has details of artist Steve Rude's efforts to raise money to prevent foreclosure on his house. Rude is running a bunch of auctions at bargain prices. Rude is a much-beloved comics creator who is among the premiere artists of his generation and this is no charity but the chance to own some iconic art that will only increase in value.

This week's theme is "The Money Issue."

Yep, it's that time of year again! And we already have so many awesome contributions we may have to to do more than one picture a day just to keep up. But please keep the links and art coming. We kick off this year's festivities with Andrea Tsurumi's 13 Witches project. According to her website, Tsurumi is an illustrator/cartoonist who is part of the Tapir Tooth comics collective, and creator of the webcomic TERKA.

Jennifer Tong has put the contents of her limited edition book online for all to enjoy. Only 75 copies have been made. There seems to be a whole sub-genre of indie comics about mystical forest creatures, usually told as a fairy tale, many by women. Salamander Dream by Hope Larson. Black Lagoon by Lilli Carre. Much of the work of Anders Nilsen. Flesh and Bone by Julia Gfrörer.

It's called Insane White People.

Experimental, award-winning cartoonist Dash Shaw is obsessed with the reality show Blind Date. Don't ask why -- it just is.

This was sent to us in email by artist Ulises Farinas and we're not sure what it is, but it is pretty damned amazing. Farinas has done other "unauthorized" Marvel art before, but this should so be used for something cool.

Somehow or other we just stumbled across this blog by Hungarian cartoonist Attila Futaki whose comics adaptation of the immensely popular Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book One: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan just came out. There are quite a few of these YA novel to graphic novel conversions going on, but Futaki's art is a lot nicer than it has to be. The final version is colored by José Villarrubia and looks even better.

This Strange Tale II cover by Ivan Brunetti -- revealed in Marvel's December solicitations -- has been justly lauded from coast to coast -- just look at the expression on Dr. Strange's face if you don't believe us. But we also like this Ozma of Oz cover by Skottie Young. We've seen a lot of Oz art in our day, and this takes it in a whole new direction that genuinely exciting.

Art blog Four Color Process - adventures deep inside the comic book blows up comics panels and finds the truth about life in benday dots. And it's a whole lotta truth.

As a drawing exercise for his art class, Jeffrey Brown redraws John Romita Jr panels from UNCANNY X-MEN #192 with various materials.

From 1951.