Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Jeezum crow! Colin Batty's fully-modeled renderings of some of Basil Wolverton's most infamous cartoon grotesques add a whole new dimension of GYAAAAH. Believe me, the one above is one of the least horrifying. (Via Bleeding Cool.)

Oh nuts, I'm about to start today's Online Commentary & Diversions and noticed I never published yesterday's in my APE prep frenzy. Here it is: • Review: "Rip M.D. is near perfect. …[T]he art is fantastic; with original and distinct designs that border realistic and cartoony, with the best qualities of both carrying a jovial wit, which never balking on making the subject matter truly scary. And the story by Mitch Schauer is told in a clear and concise manner, taking on a sort of fairy tale tone in the beginning that sort of fades by the end. The book…

We're on our way to the Alternative Press Expo this weekend in San Francisco and we decided at the last minute to bring display-only copies of a few of our upcoming releases with us for lucky fans to peruse: Unfortunately they won't be for sale at the show (and they're not available for pre-order here on our site just yet) but at least they'll be there for the looking!

In all the APE excitement we nearly overlooked PIX: The Pittsburgh Indy Comics Expo, also happening this weekend and featuring special guests Kevin Huizenga and Frank Santoro, among others. Looks like a good time — there's been a welcome proliferation of these regional shows lately, it seems.

Eeeeuuughh! Jim Blanchard, who along with J.R. Williams will be our table-neighbors at the Alternative Press Expo this weekend in San Francisco (as usual), put together his own version of the show poster.

Eyeworks Festival 2010 trailer from Lilli Carré on Vimeo. Lilli Carré writes: "I'm organizing a new experimental animation festival called Eyeworks with Alexander Stewart, and we're very excited to announce the details! It will be a mix of abstract animation and unconventional character animation, shown on 16mm film and video. It's taking place November 6th in Chicago, at 247 S. State Street at the DePaul CDM Theatre." To paraphrase Tom Spurgeon, if I were in Chicago, I would totally go to that. Trailer above; more info and programming details here.

Howard Stern can't shut up about Drew Friedman! From yesterday's show. Starts after about 1:30 of setup. Nice mention of Al Jaffee too. (YouTube link.)

Thanks to The Daily Cartoonist for reporting this: CBS recently re-presented the 1999 60 Minutes segment on Sparky and Peanuts in commemoration of the strip's 60th anniversary, available to view online embedded above or in higher-def here.

ALTERNATIVE PRESS EXPO 2009 from chris anthony diaz on Vimeo. From über-fan Chris Diaz comes this all-star montage of clips filmed at last year's Alternative Press Expo, just in time for this year's show! Among others you'll see Dash Shaw, Frank Santoro & Jon Vermilyea showing off Mome Vol. 16 at our table, Esther Pearl Watson & Mark Todd at their Funchicken setup, and our very own expo expert extraordinaire Janice Headley rocking her Jad Fair glasses. We'll see you in San Francisco in a couple of days! Get all our APE info here.