Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Multiversity Comics' David Harper counts down the Best Graphic Novels of 2011, with Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman — "Part prose, part two color comic, this beautiful hardcover is a fanciful romp through history the way I wish it really was. I can hardly wait for the next hundred years to pass so we ca get the next installment" — and Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book 3 — "If it doesn't make you sick, you shouldn't be allowed to walk among the public in the first place. If it doesn't make…

Our weekly strips from Kupperman, Mahler & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web: — Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size): Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size): Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size): And elsewhere: The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE: Amazing Facts… and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Forming by Jesse Moynihan: Humblug by Arnold Roth (4 new strips this week, continuing serialization of his unpublished 1979 strip Downtown): Lucky by Gabrielle Bell :…

I don't think anything I can say could quite do this justice: the Hey Oscar Wilde! Tumblr dug up this holiday greeting card sent from the great manga creator Osamu Tezuka to the great Carl Barks with a sketch by Tezuka showing his best-known character Astro Boy greeting Barks's Donald Duck. When giants collide — and hug adorably! (Originally posted at comicartfans.com. Via a Twitter trail of Forbidden Planet International retweeting Eric Orchard.)

The Silver Comic Books for Free Comic Book Day 2012 were announced today and we're pleased to be able to reveal that we'll be bringing you TWO wonderful all-ages titles! (We don't have cover art to show you yet (the ones on the FCBD website are just placeholders) but we'll be sure to post 'em here as soon as we can.) Walt Disney’s Donald Duck Family Comics Three amazingly adventurous, thrillingly stupendous, wonderfully wondrous comics by one of the greatest cartoonists of all time, Carl Barks! CARL BARKS! The biggest name in cartoons, second to only Walt Disney! Find out…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Plug: At The Huffington Post, Dave Scheidt's "2011 Holiday Gift Guide Comic Books" include Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 by Michael Kupperman: "The funniest comic you've never read. Laugh out loud funny. Spastic, bizarre and gut busting. Fans of Saturday Night Live, Mad Magazine and just anyone who likes to laugh will love this book. A fair warning, if you read this book in public, you will laugh like a mad man and most likely frighten people like I did." • Plugs: The staff of The Outhouse puts together their "Holiday Wishlist 2011,"…

At his Warren Peace Sings the Blues blog Matthew J. Brady makes a pretty darn convincing case that Floyd Gottfredson drew an uncredited cameo by Offissa Pupp from George Herriman's Krazy Kat into the December 19, 1930 Mickey Mouse strip, as collected in Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley. See the evidence and judge for yourself!

Johnny Ryan’s new comic for VICE would be pretty great even if it ended right there but there’s 6 more panels of that awesomeness. [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7 by Michael Kupperman 32-page full-color 6.75" x 9.5" comic book • $4.95 Ships in: December 2011 (subject to change) — This comic will be available to order simultaneous to its release to comic shops. In this issue Quincy, M.E. makes his comic book debut, struggling through the fantastic landscapes of his own dreams in “Quinception,” in which St. Peter also gets his own comic book. Snake ‘n’ Bacon make an appearance in “Reservoir Dogs 2,” where the gang reunites for another caper. Twain and Einstein deal with some family issues, McArf the Crime Dog takes…