Cartoonists

After several years and three printed collections, cartoonist Julia Wertz has announced that she's finally retiring the Fart Party name for her comic strip. The name had been a constant source of bemusement for Wertz over the years -- although it didn't seem all that appropriate as the name of a comic strip about a 20-something young woman, it had the advantage of name recognition. BUt eventually it was time to move on, she explains. Wertz has moved her comics over to juliawertz.com, where her strip will continue under the moniker Museum of Mistakes.

Before she was a much admired editor at DC and Vertigo, Joan Hilty was a talented cartoonist, and somehow she managed to keep both running for nearly a decade. She's just launched JoanHilty.net to showcase all her skills. The site includes new episodes of her strip Bitter Girl, excerpt above.

Although comics are such a cool, welcoming place that sometimes it seems no one ever goes away, that isn't true. People drop in and out all the time. Two recent blog posts rack down some of the most missed MIAs. At Comics Comics, the indie side of things gets covered with Frank Santoro and friends recalling Guang Yap, (above) Joel Orff, Jeff Nicholson among others. The long comments thread brings u many other memories and ideas of Things That Are Best Left Forgotten:

We've seen trading cards for everything from NASCAR to bakeries, so why not cartoonists? Trading cards were a huge fad in the '90s, so it's not surprising that most of the cartoon trading sets we've seen hail from that era. But now, the current crop of superstars is getting its OWN trading card legacy, courtesy of the CBLDF and Cryptozoic Entertainment, called The Liberty Trading Cards. The set will spotlight the Fund's exploits in defending the First Amendment and include sketch cards, chase cards and autographs, along with more than 70 of today's top creators.

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Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko is mostly known these days as a cranky recluse who refuses to talk about any of his Marvel experiences, but he's actually an active cartoonist who has an apartment full of art. Jog brings you up to speed with his recent output.

While Beat pal and cartoonist Batton Lash probably wouldn't mind being on MSNBC, this may not have been the context he'd have preferred. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell attempted to go Olbermann last night on Obama Nation, the cartoon by James Hudnall and Lash that runs regularly on the right-wing Big Hollywood website. O'Donnell is not a fan of Lash's cartoon stylings in a comic that mocked Michelle Obama's ongoing battles against American obesity, which some think have gone too far by banning the kind of unhealthy crap that makes life worth living:

TwoMorrows has been publishing its series of artists spotlights, Modern Masters, for some time, and they're up to volume #25 and Jeff Smith by...

David Brothers is blogging Black History Month, spotlighting great cartoonists George Herriman and Jackie Ormes, thus far.

No wonder that creators are getting a little more vocal about the importance of creator-owned material. Eric Powell's controversial video got things going, but itself was a response to a week-long tweet storm by writer Steve Niles who blogged recently What’s all this Creator-Owned Talk?

Just to send you off on your weekend, here's Eric Powell of THE GOON with a hilarious and yet sobering video on what is really going on in the comics industry.