Two Comics-Related Things That (Inexplicably) No One Is Linking To

A while back I resolved to do no more link blogging, thinking that–even if it meant only one “real” post a week–it’d be better to not pepper my blog with commentary on random things on the ‘net that likely many, many other folks have noted long before I.  However, in this case, I’ll break that vow just to point out two recent items that seemed to have slipped under the radar of the comics blogosphere.

(1) The conclusion of Lone Wolf and Cub Month at Satisfactory Comics

February has twenty-eight days.  The great Manga series Lone Wolf and Cub comprises twenty-eight books.  So, Mike Wenthe (one half of the Satisfactory Comics duo) decided to read and post a blog entry about one volume each day in February.  Let me repeat that: he read one entire volume each and every day and then posted a substantive analysis of that volume to the blog–scans and all.  You can find all the posts on a single page here, starting at the bottom.

I’ve only read the first few volumes of this series, but this series of posts has inspired me to add it to my “to read” list… once I’m done with my marathon reading for the upcoming Eisner Awards nomination weekend, of course.  Also, from now on when people ask me whether I’m a “Mister Mom” because my daughter is home with me during the weekdays, I’ll tell them that the preferred terminology is that I’m a “lone wolf and cub.”  Then I will strike them down thusly with my trusty nihontō:

(2) Free Charles Flanders Instruction Booklet PDF at TeachingComics.org

Over at NACAE/Teachingcomics.org, a operation I’ve been involved with off and on (although, mostly “on”) since its inception, you can download a free educational copy of a comics how-to booklet by the cartoonist Charles Flanders.  Who’s Charles Flanders?  Like it says:

After attending classes at the Allbright Art School, Charles Flanders (1907-1973) moved to New York, where he was later employed by King Features Syndicate in 1932. There he worked on a number of comic strips by other artists, including Alex Raymond’s Secret Agent X-9, and Bringing Up Father. He adapted Ivanhoe and Treasure Island for Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson’s New Fun Comics as well as his original strip, Sandra of the Secret Service. He’s best known, though, for his work on Fran Striker’s The Lone Ranger, which he drew from 1939 until 1971.

He wrote the booklet, “How to Draw the Newspaper Adventure Strip,” in the 1960s and his daughter Shelley unearthed it recently and allowed it to be hosted and distributed by NACAE.  Find it at http://flanders.teachingcomics.org. Edit: find it here