Last week, Pixar story artist Enrico Casarosa finished his personal watercolor comic The Venice Chronicles. For much of the past year, Enrico has been uploading the comic page-by-page to his blog, and at 124 pages, he finally considers the project completed. The entire thing is available to read online, either as a Flickr set or in Slickr gallery format. I’m a fan of Enrico’s distinctive sense of storytelling and humor, and I’m delighted to hear that he’s also looking to release the Chronicles in book form, either as a self-publishing project or through a mainstream publisher.

Kali Fontecchio posts a Little Audrey comic story (in Spanish) drawn by animator Steve Muffatti.

We may never see a Bill Watterson-approved animated version of Calvin and Hobbes but the following student film from Italy is a nice unofficial attempt. The animation was done by Donato Di Carlo at the CFP Milano film school.

(Thanks, Brian Jones)

COMIC SHOP PICK-OF-THE-WEEK: DC’s LOONEY TUNES No. 150.

It’s an all-star extravaganza as Daffy details his long, illustrious movie career. But the real highlight is the art by some contemporary cartoonists not normally associated with Looney Tunes material, including Neal Sternecky, Stephen DeStefano (see panel below), Peter Bagge, Bob Fingerman, Scott Shaw!, Mike Kunkel, Aaron Renier and Chynna Clugston. A very cool way to celebrate a milestone issue.

This week’s Underworld comic strip from Kaz (Kazimieras G. Prapuolenis), the alternative cartoonist also known for his writing on Spongebob Squarepants and Camp Lazlo.

Superstar cartoonist/designer Chris Ware (Acme Novelty Library) apparently animates too. Here’s a four-minute segment he did for Showtime’s new series This American Life, based on the public radio program of the same name which interviews ordinary Americans about events in their lives. The story in this short strikes me as being more interesting than the animation, which doesn’t particularly enhance the audio track in many ways. All the same, it’s interesting to see Ware doing animation. It’d be even more interesting if he collaborated with an animator who understood his work and wanted to build on his graphic style in animation.

(Thanks, Adam Koford)

The Beat is reporting King Features Syndicate Comics editor Jay Kennedy passed away in a drowning accident while on vacation in Costa Rica. Jay was a friend of the Brew and one of the good guys at Hearst. Jay also wrote The Underground and New Wave Price Guide in 1982.

Dailycartoonist.com has a complete bio/obituary.

Great news for fans of Walt Kelly (like me). Fantagraphics Books has acquired the rights to publish a comprehensive series of Walt Kelly’s classic POGO comic strip. The first volume will appear in October, 2007, and the series will run approximately 12 volumes.

Kelly joined the Walt Disney Studio in 1935, where he worked on numerous shorts and features, including Pinocchio, Dumbo, and The Reluctant Dragon. Kelly left Disney in 1941, moved back east and began drawing comic books for Western Publishing (Dell comics). It was during this time that Kelly created the character Pogo Possum for Dell’s Animal Comics (as a supporting player in the Albert the Alligator stories). In 1949, the Hall Syndicate started distrbuting Pogo as a comic strip to newspapers in the United States.

Each Fantagraphics Pogo volume will be designed by Jeff Smith (Bone). This continues Fantagraphics teriffic series of hardbound comic strip collections - which already include Schulz’ Peanuts, Ketchum’s Dennis the Menace and Segar’s Popeye. For more information, check the Fantagraphics website.