§ Superhero division: Maxim presents 12 Superheroes Who Should Be On ’70s Vans, which, considering that several of these characters were created at a time when van art was an influence is a little Moebius strip for our tastes, but has Photoshop ever been used for a better purpose?

§ Indie Division: We’re very late on this, but The Daily Cross Hatch’s Indie Costume Contest Winners are too epic to ignore, esp. this Matt Furie-inspired Landwolf.

The Hero Initiative wants your Ed Hannigan art! Hannigan is a prolific artist from the late ’70s on, with work on such titles as THE DEFENDERS, GREEN ARROW, and SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN. He’s just returned to comics with some covers for CAPTAIN ACTION.

The Hero Initiative is putting together an Ed Hannigan art exhibit to be shown at a museum in early 2010! As Ed has kept only a few of his own originals…we need your help!

If you have any Ed Hannigan art you can loan us for the exhibit, please contact Jim McLauchlin at: jmclauch@aol.com . We’d need to get the art in-hand by December 15, and can return it to you by April 30.

Doug Gray posts a vintage Frankenstein story by Dick Briefer: “The Return of the Mummy”, with commentary, even:

This story, The Return of the Mummy, really highlights some great cartooning. The composition in each panel is nice and clean: the characters are nicely posed, there is no clutter and very few tangents. The information in each shot is processed quickly on first sight. Backgrounds appear where background detail is necessary, and are abandoned where it is not (especially page 4, where aside from one lone column, there are no backgrounds at all). The other side of the coin is demonstrated by the last two panels of page 2 and the first two panels of page 3: the backgrounds quickly establish location and a sense of the distance traveled from the boat to the tomb.

To which we’d add a few of our own — note the gentle characterization, and easy evocation of Moise the Mummy’s nostalgia over long ago Egypt. And the unselfconscious denouement, crammed into the very last panel, as if Briefer just ran out of panels, which he probably did.

AND ALSO, as we’ve noted here a few times, while reading old comics like this on the web and the recent sublime Toon Treasury of Children’s Comics — in which Briefer is represented — these comics were colored with a LOT more care than you’d think, given the primitive nature of color seps at the time. Check out the cover alone — a great use of primary colors, simple, bold, direct, and even a little wee gradient on the sun rays. There were some sophisticated folks making comics in the ’40s and ’50s.

If you are interested in comics history and design issues, master letterer Todd Klein has got the blog for you. And now he’s done some real archaeological digging by discovering the creator of the Batman logo seen above — which was in use until 1965.

Curious Pages, a blog of children’s books, by award-winning illustrator Lane Smith and a guy named Bob.

Above, THE CARROT SEED by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson, 1945.

Below, Den Rode Kuffert by Elin Bing

Here’s a little benefit and a pretty groovy piece of art that cat lovers may want to be aware of: Alex Ross has donated an original piece of classic Catwoman art to Saved Whiskers Rescue Organization, Inc, a cat rescue in Voorhess, NJ. The piece was created exclusively for SWRO. You can see a bigger version or bid on eBay here. Bidding ends Friday. The piece is signed by Ross and has never been seen anywhere.

Alex Ross Stated “Animal rescue is one of my favorite causes.  Saved Whiskers does great work to save the lives of animals in need.  Doing this painting for them was also a great excuse for me to illustrate a version of a character I love.”

All Proceeds for the auction will be donated to the Saved Whiskers Rescue Organization, Inc. — a non-profit 501(c)(3) cat & kitten rescue that is dedicated to saving the lives of countless felines.

For more information or donations to S.W.R.O., check out their website.

Comics Alliance has a smashing look at a sketchbook featuring Tintin by Dozens of Comics Artists and as fearsomely sweet as Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Tintin is, we think you will agree — Kate Beaton was born to draw Captain Haddock. Please click the link to check them all out!

With a new house to pay for, for the first time EVER, David Lapham is selling original art from STRAY BULLETS. If only we had a spare $500 lying around.

While linking to this site, we became aware of the fact that you can read the first four issues of STRAY BULLETS online for free. If you have not read this ’90s masterpiece of pain, trauma, violence, and degradation, this first four issues are, to fall back on an overused term, as good as it gets. (Above page not for sale; top page is.)

I was also not aware that a new STRAY BULLETS story had been published in Dark Horse’s recently released NOIR anthology. Now you know as much as we do.

Dash Shaw suggests art schools “Teach House Styles”:

The more outdated and inapplicable the house style is, the better. They only have the understanding; they’re not being bred for a specific job that currently exists.

Comments are a must read, as always.

See his current show at the Corey Helford Gallery.

This is not comics, too, but we’re all big Pixar fans here, right??? Plus one detects perhaps a bit of influence from some of our favorite Pixar-based cartoonists here, as well.

UPDATE: Artist Paul Conrad writes to give credits —

Eric Tan did the “Journey into the Wild” (with the dogs).

Craig Foster did the SAA South American Air (with the Lama).

Erik Evans did the “Paradise Falls” (with the bird).

I did the rest.

There’s more on the posters at Conrad’s blog.

Also, we’re trying to find out if they are for sale, but apparently they were just sent out as files to websites as promo. If we find out any more, we’ll let ya know!

Anyway to celebrate the release of UP on DVD and Blu-Ray, Pixar has released a series of retro posters. Click for larger images.

This link has been making the rounds and it’s Not Comics, but it’s so worth a look: Soviet War Paintings. To the horrors of war, you can add cold, bleak, brutal images rendered in rigid, propagandistic art styles.

The Invisible Man

Does anything signify contemporary terror in comics more than this series? Cover by Charles Adlard.

More here

The great Jim Woodring is always available for some chills. Wish this one was larger. Here’s a bonus image.

Cartoonist/teacher Nick Bertozzi illustrates an article about a haunted house.

John Rozum, writer of such spooky things as MIDNIGHT, MASS., SCOOBY DOO and XOMBI, has been doing his OWN 31 Days of Halloween. Here’s one of his collage illustrations.

BONUS! The great underground/alternative artist is interviewed by Bill Baker about his Haunt of Horror project for Marvel, which adapts Poe and Lovecraft.

I feel that much of Poe’s works deals directly with that most basic of all human feelings, fear, and its more extreme state, horror. He speaks directly to me because I am a very fearful guy. And he expresses these feelings in an artful way, which to me makes them more palatable. Lovecraft also deals with fear and horror but in a very different way. Poe gets close to his characters, even inside them. The fears that Lovecraft deals with are usually strange, alien, even cosmic, definitely from the outside.

Joel Priddy has been posting monsters all month at his blog.

In other holiday news, Priddy’s adpatation of The Gift of the Magi will be out from HarperCollins next week.

Artist T.D. Ward contributed this piece entitled HOWL-o-ween.

Day Prize nominee Tom Williams of Draw Robot shared this piece with us.

Steve Emond, creator of EMO BOY and the upcoming HAPPYFACE, shared his seasonal drawing of the classic NEWS game Maniac Mansion with us.