The new CD by Seattle’s Reptet, Chicken or Beef? (Monktail Records), adapts elements of Flora woodcuts from Murderpie, a 1939 Little Man Press chapbook. The package—which includes additional Flora imagery on the back and inner disc sleeve—was designed by Jeffrey Huston and Reptet drummer John Ewing. The original typography replicates Flora lettering. This is the second release by Reptet to feature Flora imagery. Their 2005 Do This! was emblazoned with a critter we call a…

Not quite hot on the heels of The Mischievous Art and The Curiously Sinister Art, Barbara and I are now compiling a third volume of Floriana. Tentatively titled The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, the book will be published by Fantagraphics in July or August 2009. Designer Laura Lindgren will once again transform our loosely organized text and Flora’s genial monstrosities into a tight, 180-page coffeetable bouquet. Over the next year, this blog will…

When composer-arranger Bill Finegan passed away last week at the age of 91, a New York Times writer (on the recommendation of a mutual friend and Flora admirer) contacted me for some background on the music legend. I confessed that, in all honesty, I knew less about what Finegan did for Glenn Miller, Nelson Riddle, and Tommy Dorsey than I do about what Jim Flora did for Bill Finegan. Flora gave Finegan two right arms,…

Extending the Flora album cover tradition, contemporary designers have been licensing Jim Flora images for CDs. At JimFlora.com, we’ve launched a gallery of recent digital releases that have been Floradized. Interested in using Flora art for your CD? Just ask.

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis has mounted the first-ever exhibit of Little Man Press memorabilia in their Library display case. Although not viewable by the public without appointment, the collection features rare chapbooks with Flora woodcuts, a narrative chronicle, original pencil sketches, and vintage Little Man ephemera. (Click to enlarge the above panorama.) Designed by Flora archivist Barbara Economon with the assistance of WAC Librarian Rosemary Furtak, the exhibition deserves a wider audience. Interested…

Detail, Green Mansions resort brochure, 1947Full work reproduced in The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora

The Newspaper Archive offers a massive online database of regional papers. It claims to have archived 895 million articles published in 747 cities over 240 years. In case you’ve run out of things to read on the web, here’s a bottomless library. I bought a ten-day pass to search for Jim Flora illustrations. Easy, right? Well, yes and no. NA’s search engine uses OCR to find word strings in old newsprint that’s been erratically scanned….

Jim Flora Art LLC has released a limited edition fine art print of an uncirculated Flora pen & ink drawing from the mid-1990s entitled Sunday Morning. This is the latest-life work by the artist we have offered in a numbered edition. Two prints are now listed on eBay at a launch price, after which subsequent prints will be offered at increasing prices as edition depletes. Update: Launch prints have been sold. Edition now available at…

Flora-related stuff on the web: Dan Pearson of the Pioneer-Press (Illinois) reviews the Lake County Discovery Museum‘s exhibit: “Flora’s Art is Full of Fun.” Story includes interviews with LCDM’s Steve Furnet and your Florablogger. “Scribbler,” based in San Antonio, blogs about Vintage Books My Kid Loves, including Flora’s Kangaroo for Christmas and Grandpa’s Farm. Flora illustratrations for “Will Robots Make People Obsolete?” Parade Magazine, 1959, posted at the Paleo-Future blog. And download some Flora WFMU…

Bridgeport, tempera on paper, early 1960s