Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Daily clips & strips — click for improved viewing at the sources: • Dame Darcy is selling framed original spot illustrations from Frightful Fairytales in her Etsy shop for crazy cheap (if they're not already all sold). How can you resist Zombie Jesus? • Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond keeps bubbling along with Kevin Huizenga's latest • Thank goodness Renee French is giving the teeth a rest — this guy's name is Rocky • From Hans Rickheit, page 17 of Ectopiary and another unpublished Cochlea & Eustachia strip • All those nutty Derek Van Gieson pages I've been…

Online Commentary & Diversons: • Review: "A marvel… [Supermen!] is a non-stop visual delight as much for the art as for the colors as for the audacious (sometimes by default) layouts: A way of doing comics that would soon disappear and would return only in the 1960s and 1970s with the ascent of American underground comics, for the early days of comic books were like the underground: Everything was possible, especially the impossible. You absolutely must buy this book…" – Jean-Pierre Dionnet (co-founder, Les Humanoïdes Associés; translated from French) • Review: "King of the Flies is a very surreal and…

The Best American Comics Criticism Edited by Ben Schwartz; cover illustrations by Drew Friedman 360-page 6" x 9" illustrated (b&w) softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-148-0 Ships in: May 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Whether you choose to call them “comics lit,” “graphic novels,” or just “thick comic books,” book-length narratives told in words and pictures confidently elbowed their way into the cultural spotlight in the first decade of this new millennium — beginning with the simultaneous 2001 release of Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth and Daniel Clowes’ David Boring, and continuing on through ground-breaking and…

We forgot to mention, the new second printing of The Wolverton Bible is currently in stock and features an updated color scheme for the cover — what was shades of green on the sold-out first printing is now various rust colors as seen above. Purty! We're still offering a free set of Wolvertoons Postcards with all direct orders, so get yours today!

Sorry about the messed-up update schedule lately! The man, the myth in this week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson… …but what about World War III? Find out in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan…. …and Steven Weissman thinks he's turning into Doonesbury with this week's Barack Hussein Obama strip but I don't see it.

Miss Lasko-Gross and a host of other comics creators will join moderator Jeff Newelt for a discussion about all things Jewish in comics at the Yeshiva University Museum, 15 w. 16th St., NYC, on Thursday April 8th, 7-9 PM. See the Facebook invitation for more info.

Daily clips & strips; click on for improved viewing at the sources: • At the Abstract Comics blog, Andrei Molotiu finds a really interesting convergence between Willem De Kooning and Charles M. Schulz and creates a mash-up • Has there ever been a more perfect comic for Johnny Ryan to do for the Covered blog? • This is Laura Park's print in the new edition of the Cloudy Collection

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Newave! The Underground Mini Comix Of The 1980s is a small but substantial celebration of the movement, an era during which creators let their ids run riot on the page without worrying about sales, censors, editors, or an audience. Many newave mini-comics had print runs as low as a dozen or so, while others became relative bestsellers; in Newave!, one of the form’s pioneers, Michael Dowers, has edited a gorgeous, utterly essential document of these artifacts, a thick-as-a-fist tome full of stark, crude, obscene, nihilistic, and at times genius comics. Everything from grotesque pornography…

Head over to Comic Book Resources for an exclusive 6-page sneak peek of the latest Buddy & Lisa adventure from Hate Annual #8 by Peter Bagge!