Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Signed copies of Ray Fenwick's new book Mascots with an exclusive print (shown above) are available today from Tiny Showcase! (Hmm, it's not supposed to be up for another 4 hours, but the first few have already sold…)

From Jim Woodring, this short video showing off his giant pen nib. It's beautiful. See it in action this Sunday!

• Very nice Peanuts fan art by Dale O'Flaherty • This week's "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman is a doozy; plus Tom Selleck and Daughters of Satan on his Chewing Gum in Church blog (see 'em raw on Flickr) • A nice celebratory sketch and one hell of a story from Carol Tyler at her Screened-in Porch blog • "Top News Stories of 2011" for the L.A. Times plus more sketches, portraits and caricatures, with commentary, by Steve Brodner And more Things to See from the past week: • Early strips and film reviews by Jason at his Cats…

Kevin Huizenga posts a sneak peek at some panels from the forthcoming Ganges #4 (judging from the image filename, anyway). Still no sleep for Glenn!

Time for lots more awkwardly-formatted year-end lists, a review from The Washington Post and much more in what might be the longest Online Commentary & Diversions ever: • List: For the Las Vegas Weekly, J. Caleb Mozzocco counts down his top 5 comics of 2010: #3: Temperance by Cathy Malkasian: "Blessed with a Dr. Seuss-like ability to evoke the most serious problems and bleakest emotions in personalized, original, timeless fantasy elements, Malkasian has constructed a graphic epic involving a handful of colorful, tragic characters and their interlocking lives." #5: Werewolves of Montepellier by Jason: "A successful jewel thief disguises himself…

Here's this week's Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web (our last holiday-related delay for a while): — Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size): — And elsewhere: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit: Lucky by Gabrielle Bell: Maakies (and its inspiration) by Tony Millionaire: Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

Peter Bagge has a whooole buncha new original art offerings on his Comic Art Collective page: recent illos, Apocalypse Nerd pages, even a bunch of classic Neat Stuff pages! Go, look, buy.

Teaser time! Just last week Gahan Wilson sent us the new original art for the cover of our forthcoming definitive collection of his National Lampoon strip Nuts (it's looking like a 2012 release) — here's a scan courtesy of our production wiz Paul Baresh. This one's high on my personal list of projects I'm looking forward to!

This month's issue of Booklist includes reviews of four of our recent publications, excerpted below: The Littlest Pirate King: "David B.’s swirly touches and jolting figures have the unnerving quality of a not-quite nightmare, and the sometimes frank bloodiness and scary passages are probably right in line with the reality of kids’ unwhitewashed imaginations. What’s most refreshing is how well this maintains a sense of subversiveness while ending on an oddly touching, though definitely vexing, note." – Ian Chipman Special Exits: "Emotional and physical crises are depicted naturalistically, never hyped up to tug the heartstrings or extort pity, and the…

*(Alternate post title: "Betolicious") Let's flash back a few years to the video for "Bootylicious Rockwilder Remix" by Destiny's Child featuring Missy Elliott… Say, what is that Beyoncé's wearing? Can we get a better look? Why that's… that's… …that's a (re-styled) Gilbert Hernandez New Love #1 t-shirt! (Via Carol Hernandez on Facebook. Post title inspired by Sean T. Collins’s Bowie Loves Beyoncé Tumblr.)