At San Diego last year, we met a small troupe of Brazilian illustrators and cartoonists, among them Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (who we should get around to talking about as well) and Kako. Kako had many of us falling over ourselves when we caught a glimpse of his work for the first time, a combination of gorgeous illustrations with a wonderful sense of space and design.

Kako has work featured in ROCK’n'ROLL, and he also has a story (“Dog on Wheels”) in the new Belle and Sebastian anthology, both published by Image Comics.

Visit Kako’s website, Kakofonia.

A spin-off of Shaenon K. Garrity’s astoundingly well-written series Narbonic, Li’l Mell and Sergio follows the adventures of Sergio Mendoza (“the little quiet weirdo”) and Mell Kelly (“the big loudmouth weirdo”) as they make their way through the first grade. Of course, Mell is later destined to grow up to become the intern of Narbonic Labs…

You will need a subscription to Girlamatic to read the full archives, but the first story arc is available to be read for free, and features art by Flight contributors Vera Brosgol and Bill Mudron.

Go here to begin reading Li’l Mell and Sergio.

Eric Stephenson and Image Comics has just released the much-anticipated Belle & Sebastian comic anthology entitled “Put The Book Back on the Shelf”. It features comics by Flight artists Catia Chien, Jacob Magraw, Nicolas “Bannister” Seigneret, Joey Weiser, Matthew S. Armstrong, and Matthew Forsythe. Look for it in stores or you can order it here at Amazon.

Here’s the official roster for Flight Volume Three:

Alex Fuentes
Azad
Bannister
Becky Cloonan
Ben Hatke
Bill Plympton
Chuck BB
Dave Roman
Israel Sanchez
Joey Weiser
Johane Matte
Kazu Kibuishi
Kean Soo
Khang Le
Matthew Armstrong
Matthew Forsythe
Michel Gagné
Neil Babra
Paul Harmon
Phil Craven
Rad Sechrist
Reagan Lodge
Rodolphe Guenoden
Steve Hamaker
Tony Cliff
Yoko Tanaka

with illustrations by Chris Appelhans and Catia Chien.

Flight 3 is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com

You can also pre-order the book at your local comic or book store by giving them this ISBN: 0345490398

Previews coming soon…

Lark Pien has just launched a new online art journal, which showcases new paintings, sketches and work in progress material. Already worth noting are roughs for her new Long Tail Kitty story, and even a sketch from her forthcoming story for Flight 4.

If you’re only discovering Lark’s work for the first time, be sure to take a look at her other website for more of her portfolio work and comics.

Hope Larson’s second graphic novel, Gray Horses, recently recieved a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly. Be sure to pre-order Gray Horses at amazon.com, available in March 15th from Oni Press! Congratulations, Hope!

Whoops! We forgot to mention this earlier, but Amy Kim Ganter will be at the Barnes and Nobles in Thousand Oaks (160 S. Westlake Blvd.) on Thursday, Feb. 16th at 7pm to promote and sign a few copies of her new book, Sorcerers & Secretaries, so if you’re in the Los Angeles area, you might want to swing by and say hello!

Kazu has contributed a gorgeous cover for On Spec’s latest winter issue. It’s interesting to note that for a very brief moment in time, we toyed with the idea of using this image as the cover for Flight 3, before it was eventually decided that we move in a different direction for the cover.

View a larger version of Kazu’s cover, or go here to learn more about On Spec.

Erika Moen just keeps on pumpin’ out the comics — she’s just updated her website with four new stories. If you’ve never read her work outside of Flight before, I Like Girls is an excellent place to start. And if you’re not reading it already, Erika’s DAR: A Super-Girly Top-Secret Comic Diary continues to update weekly over on Girlamatic.

Note that some of Erika’s comics contain adult material.

The new SketchCrawl blog has been launched, and features some of Enrico’s sketches and photos from the last worldwide SketchCrawl just this past weekend, as well as a link to Danny Gregory’s recounting of the NYC SketchCrawl.

Brian Ralph, creator of “Cave-In”, is one of my favorite cartoonists. He, along with a great crew of other very talented indy comickers like Jordan Crane, Marc Bell, and Ron Rege Jr., has posted a weblog featuring their work. Link via Scott McCloud.