As a postscript to a recently-concluded, forthcoming-in-print interview with Neil Gaiman, cartoonist and teacher Steve Bissette briefly surveys British children’s comics from the 1950s and 1960s, with illustrations and links to various image galleries. Gaiman is well-known as the writer of the Sandman comics series as well as several novels for adults and children, among other projects. His own foray into children’s comics was published in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night, and was drawn by Gahan Wilson.

Nominees for the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice awards have been named. The “Favorite Book” category includes a collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is heavily illustrated with cartoons and comics.

Là où vont nos pères, the French edition of Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, won the Fauve d’Or prize for “Best Comic Book” at the 2008 Festival International de la Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, France, the largest annual comics festival in Europe. The West Australian spoke with Tan after the award was announced: “I am always unsure about how a book will be received and this one was quite experimental, so it is very gratifying simply to receive positive reader feedback… An award is really great because it comes from people who really appreciate the form so they are judging it quite critically. You realise that the book actually does work.”

Pappy’s Golden Age posts “Supermouse and the Timid Giant,” a ten page story from Coo Coo Comics #40, published in 1948.

TOON Books celebrates its official launch with a librarian reception at the ALA Midwinter Meetings in Philadelphia. With a standing room only audience, Michele Gorman, author of Getting Graphic! Comics for Kids; along with NYPL’s Betsy Bird, who is also a contributing blogger for School Library Journal, made the formal introductions. Francoise Mouly, art editor for The New Yorker and her legendary husband, Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novelist Art Spiegelman, spoke to key librarians and industry insiders on how they approached creating a line of graphic novels for beginning readers. In this photo: Betsy moderates questions from the audience for Francoise and Art.