While I’m busy congratulating people, belated congrats are in order to Jake Parker and Ben Hatke, whose comics have been picked up by publishers! The Beat reported (via Publishers Weekly) that Jake Parker has signed a deal to produce two Missile Mouse graphic novels for the Scholastic Graphix line, and Ben Hatke will also have two Zita the Spacegirl graphic novels to be published by First Second!

Both characters made their first appearance in the pages of Flight Explorer. As reported, Missile Mouse: The Star Crusher (pictured below) will see print in 2010. Jake talks about the announcement a little more on his blog.

Congratulations, guys! This is awesome news indeed.

Matt Forsythe’s Eisner nominated webcomic, Ojingogo, is finally complete, and is now available in print, care of Drawn & Quarterly! And to celebrate the release of Ojingogo, Matt has this to say:

Here’s the new Ojingogo book that’s coming out at the end of August; published by Drawn & Quarterly under their Petits Livres imprint. There’s going to be a launch party in Montreal at the Drawn & Quarterly store on August 27 at 730pm.

Drawn & Quarterly store
211 Bernard W.
Montreal

Congratulations, Matt! I’m really looking forward to holding a copy in my hands. Montrealers, don’t miss out!

I’m a little late on the game with this one, but Jeff was recently featured on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. In it, they highlight the success of Bone and talk about the recent gallery show featuring Jeff’s work, alongside works by other cartoon greats (Seger, Kelly, Schulz, Herrimann). Check out the video and audio streams here. They also posted a follow-up podcast here.

This Saturday, Gallery Nucleus will be hosting the opening reception of The Great Great Grand Show, featuring a bunch of artwork from Flight artists Scott Campbell, Graham Annable, Jon Klassen, and Israel Sanchez. The pieces I’ve seen so far are hilarious, and beautiful. This is going to be one of the best shows this year, so be sure not to miss it. The opening reception begins on Saturday at 7pm to 11pm. The artists will be at the show, along with quite a few other Flight folks, so drop by and say hello!