Illustration: Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree looks set to be a stonker

Pennsylvanian cartoonist and illustrator Ed Piskor is living every child-cartoonist’s lifelong dream, creating incredible images for the best folks in town. In 2005 he followed in the illustrious (if slightly weird-fitting) shoes of Robert Crumb, drawing for Harvey Pekar’s seminal American Splendor series; since producing two more graphic novels with Harvey as well as a slew of his own titles. He’s perhaps best known for Wizzywig series; a collection of comics dedicated to the history of computer hacking.

Right now though, Ed’s caught up in the promotion of Hip-Hop Family Tree, a huge collection of comics detailing the early days of a musical genre that more or less runs the music industry these days. In it he takes a long, hard look at the first few years of Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaata and Kurtis Blow, among others, documenting their blundering rise to stratospheric fame. It’s already been serialised on Boing Boing, but pretty soon you’ll be able to pick up the whole lot, in print, from the lovely guys at Fantagraphics. “Being in an Ed Piskor comic is cool enough to freeze hot water” says Fab Five Freddy, and that guy sure knows what’s fly.