Kazu sits down with Newsarama to break a big announcement about a new anthology geared towards younger readers: Flight Explorer.

From the interview:

Kazu Kibuishi: I had been hearing a lot of librarians and booksellers talk about how much they wanted good comics for younger readers, and I saw how there was so little of it out there with the exception of Jeff Smith’s Bone. Flight always contained a high percentage of material that would be perfect for young readers, but the more mature content often steered parents and librarians away from sharing the books with kids…

…Up until just recently, [Flight 4] was going to [be] published as a 432-page volume that was packed to the hilt. However, it seems Random House made an error in their cost projections for the book when they gave the greenlight for the huge book, and they asked me to find a way to cut down the page count. So, instead of cutting out any material, I took this as an opportunity to push for a separate book for kids with added material, and Flight Explorer was born.

Flight Explorer is set to be released in Spring of 2008, and will feature stories by Jake Parker, Ben Hatke, Steve Hamaker, Johane Matte, Phil Craven, Kazu, myself, and a few other contributors. Just to clarify, this means that Flight 4 will be pared back down to 352 pages, and the remaining stories from Flight 4 will see print in Flight Explorer. Everybody wins!

More details about Flight Explorer can be found in the Newsarama article.

On Saturday April 28th, Khang Le will be making an appearance at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is being held on the UCLA Main Campus.

Khang, Mike Yamada, Felix Yoon and Scott Robertson will be on hand at 2:30 PM to sign copies of The Skillful Huntsman at booth #318 (Hi De Ho Comics & Books with Pictures), so stop by and say hello if you’re in the area!

Becky Cloonan has just started a new weekly webcomic called Comic Attack! It is completely autobiographical, and anyone that has actually met her in person will be able to tell you that it is all true, down to the very last detail.

In case you missed it the first time around, Scott McCloud has now made his online comic, “The Right Number,” freely available for your reading pleasure. From his site:

The Right Number was originally presented in June 2003 using a micropayments system offered by a company called Bitpass, sold for 25 cents each. Since Bitpass ceased operations in January 2007, I’m offering Parts One and Two for free now.

The flash interface for Scott’s story is still something that’s unique to online comics, and it’s something that’s definitely worth checking out.

(via boingboing)

It’s a Silent Kimbly guest week! Artists like Mike Wieringo and Rich Stevens have drawn guest strips for Ryan Sias’ adorable (and pun-filled) Silent Kimbly, so go check it out. And don’t forget to check back on Friday for another guest strip!

Steve Hamaker recently picked up a Wacom Cintiq, and he’s been busy recording some of his coloring work on Jeff Smith’s Shazam! Monster Society of Evil series. You can check out videos of Steve coloring Shazam, as well as a direct screen capture of him coloring Talky Tawny.

New York Magazine has just added a new section to their arts & entertainment blog — simply titled The Comics Page, they plan to “[introduce] you to brand-new graphic novels by the world’s best artists and writers. Manga, superheroes, indie comix — we’ll cover them all as our editors select the best the exploding comics world has to offer.”

Their first featured story? Sarah Mensinga’s “The Forever Box,” from the forthcoming Flight 4. They’ll be posting a new page from Sarah’s story every day for the next five days, so be sure to check back with their site for the rest of this week!

(for more of Sarah’s work, feel free to visit her website or her more frequently updated sketchblog.)

The Montreal Mirror briefly interviews Graham Annable on the forthcoming “Music of Hickee Mountain” group show at the end of the month. My favourite quote from the interview?

“Scott Campbell does the best knights eating pizza slices that I know of. Hands down. He’s got that market cornered for sure.”

Pop on over to the Montreal Mirror website and give the interview a read. The flyer for the Hickee group show can be seen here.

What are you doing this weekend? There seem to be conventions happening everywhere this weekend! Here’s a partially incomplete list of who’ll be where. I’m almost certain I’m forgetting Flight people that will be attending APE (there’s going to be a lot of them, you should really go if you can make it out there).

Alternative Press Expo (Flight is once again sharing a table with Nucleus, and they’ll be located at tables 517-518):

Hope Larson (Special Guest; table 123)
Derek Kirk Kim (table 124)
Lark Pien (table 439)
Kazu Kibuishi
Amy Kim Ganter
Chris Appelhans
Vera Brosgol
Jen Wang
Dylan Meconis
Erika Moen
…and Graham Annable, Scott Campbell and the rest of the Hickee gang!

Anime Boston:

Dave Roman
Raina Telgemeier
Ryan Sias

For our French-speaking readers, Veeny’s Wired has posted a 15-minute video interview with Bannister and his work on Les enfants d’ailleurs.

The 2007 Eisner award nominees have been announced! Congratulations to Tony Cliff (Best Short Story; “Old Oak Trees,” Flight 3), Becky Cloonan (Best New Series; East Coast Rising), Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Best U.S. Edition of International Material; De:TALES), Sonny Liew (Best Penciller/Inker; Wonderland), Lark Pien (Best Coloring; American Born Chinese), Hope Larson (Special Recognition; Gray Horses), and to all the other nominees!

The official press release and full list of Eisner award nominees can be viewed here.

Clio Chiang is participating in a group show called The 40 Show! The details:

Group show at Tenforward Collective. April 20 & 21, 2007 20 Water Street., Vancouver. 8pm. Over 40 artists painting 40 oz Malt liquor bottles to protest Vancouver’s termination of malt liquor sales.

Head over to Clio’s blog to get a closer look at her bottle, or check out the official 40 Show blog to take a look at even more bottles!

The April issue of The Believer contains an interview with Scott McCloud, and luckily for us, they’ve posted the entire interview online for all to read as well. Unsurprisingly, Scott shares his (many) insights on comics, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

(via coming up for air)

Diverging Comics has just posted a interview with Kazu about all things Flight over on their website.

Diverging Comics also wrote up a brief review of Flight 3 recently, which you can read here.

Matthew Woodson and Rodolphe Guenoden have recently redesigned their websites, and while I must admit that it’s been a while since I was last there, Jon Klassen’s website, Burst of Beaden, is also sporting a snazzy new interface (to me, at any rate). Go, explore.