Nate Silver has had two great posts today detailing the Senate recount in Minnesota. “Did the Wall Street Journal fire their fact checkers?” takes a look at the facts behind many of the Republican talking points circulating about this race, and “The good news for Coleman” outlines what the Coleman camp is banking their strategy on. Buried in that second post was this gem:

Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian.

Nebraska cartooning legend Paul Fell has created a new email service — The Daily Felltoon. Subscribers to the service receive a new cartoon in their inbox each business day.

As more newspapers and magazines face growing pressures on their finances, they’ve often made the decision to eliminate high-quality content, including the work of cartoonists. This not only leads to a generally lower quality print product, but it keeps readers from being able to enjoy a more light-hearted view of political and social issues that face everyone, regardless of their political persuasion.

You can sign up to the Daily Felltoon at paulfellcartoons.com/thedailyfelltoon.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on art for Powerpop Comics, a new comics publisher out of New Jersey. It was my first stab at an actual comic book, and it has been a fun experience. Everything was kind of under wraps until now, as the site is up, the books are printed and the company is officially in business.

I’m the artist on Weird Thrills, an adventure comic about vampires and that kind of good stuff. The publisher’s intent is to create fun comics that are appropriate for all ages, and I think he’s put together a great story for this. I had no idea what to expect when I got involved, but the story has been a blast to illustrate. It’s also been a great learning experience, as far as the process of putting the pages together goes. I’m penciling, inking, coloring and lettering this thing, so the learning curve was kind of steep, especially with the deadlines.

It’s also refreshing to have a creative outlet that doesn’t involve stepping into the increasingly vicious and decreasingly civil world of political discourse. You have to take a break from that stuff, and a fun adventure story has been the perfect antidote for me.

Powerpop is also releasing a series called Comics Classics, which is comic book adaptations of classic short stories. And if you’re a teacher trying to get your students to read classics, they offer a classroom discount for subscriptions.

No more sales pitches, I promise.

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