Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review/Roundtable: TIME/Techland's "Comic Book Club" roundtable of critics (Douglas Wolk, Graeme McMillan, Evan Narcisse and Mike Williams) discusses You'll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage by C. Tyler. Wolk leads off: "The first volume of You'll Never Know, Carol Tyler's projected three-volume series about her father's experiences in World War II — and all the family history connected to it — was my favorite graphic novel of last year. The new volume, Collateral Damage, is even stronger in a lot of ways." • Photo of the Week: That's a funny one of Stuart Immonen…

At Wired.com Scott Thill presents a gallery of 8 images from Dave Cooper's Bent and writes "Canadian artist Dave Cooper's latest comic book collection, Bent, is stuffed to the breaking point with surreal, sexual grotesques and caricatures. Which is probably why Hollywood's own resident king of magical horror Guillermo Del Toro wrote the book's glowing introduction (and, like some of the city's other creative talents, snapped up Cooper's work for his own personal collection). […] Bent, out Oct. 27 from indie comics powerhouse Fantagraphics, collates Cooper's nightmarish nudes and bizarro dreamscapes from recent solo gallery shows in New York and…

The Sanctuary pt II from Andrew Perrine on Vimeo. Nate Neal and Chenukee offer a tutorial on the language in Nate’s new graphic novel The Sanctuary. (Follow the link for a higher-def version… or just hit the full-screen button.)

At Grids, the official blog of the Society of Publication Designers, Robert Newman presents a selection of images from Drew Friedman's new book and says "Over the past 15 years, Drew Friedman has been one of the most popular and prolific illustrators in the magazine world. […] Now Friedman has a brilliant new collection of his magazine work, Too Soon?: Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010, published by Fantagraphics Books. It's hardcover, 200+ pages, packed with hundreds of  comics and caricatures and even more laughs. And it's graced with a wonderful introductory essay by Friedman that is a great history of both his…

Stephen DeStefano has posted some great photos (taken by Siobhan DeStefano) from his exhibit opening 2 weeks ago in NYC. Here are just a few; click here for more on Stephen's blog. Crowd: Lucky in Love writer George Chieffet: Stephen drawing Lucky Testaduda outside on the sidewalk:

Remember a month ago today when we were touting the availability of the 1987 first hardcover edition of Love and Rockets Book 3 (Las Mujeres Perdidas, as it was known for subsequent editions)? Turns out, these copies have an original signature plate signed by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez! They're still offered at a deeply discounted price — just try and resist!

With the imminent arrival of the landmark Mome Vol. 20 we are pleased to offer two new additions to our selection of bargain-priced Mome multi-packs: the Mome Vol. 11-20 Mega-Bundle for $99.99 and the Mome Vol. 16-20 Five-Pack for $49.99 — each priced at nearly 1/3 OFF the combined cover prices! Pre-order now and we'll ship the whole pack(s) to you when Vol. 20 arrives in our warehouse. If you're interested in what's "happening" and "now" in comics, there's one place to turn: Mome, our quarterly anthology of the best in contemporary, cutting-edge cartooning from around the world. With so…

Johnny Ryan done went and got hisself a fancy-pants new website. News, merch, artwork, comix, it's all there. Bookmark it, RSS it, live it, love it.

The collage art of Robert Pollard is now available to view and purchase at The Art of Robert Pollard website (still a bit under construction), including originals, prints, and the upcoming issue of Eat. (I don't see the Town of Mirrors book on there, so get that from us.) Art show announcements and other news will be posted there as well.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions (with one carried over from yesterday's post-less day): • Review: "Normally I wouldn’t put in a spoiler warning for a few blog notes, but this is a special case. I’m going to be talking about Love and Rockets: New Stories #3, which contains what is arguably one of the best comics stories ever… It’s so easy to take the Hernandez Bros. for granted: they’ve been around so long, put out work regularly, and often use the same characters. So the temptation is to just think that they’re a stable public resource, like the library or…