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 The cleanest picnic blanket of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Review: Heroes Online covers the twenty years of Peanuts covered so far in our Fantagraphics reprints. Andy Mansell states, "I strongly recommend the following volumes: 1963-1964, 1965-1966. [and 1981-1982]. The highest point of the highest level of any cartoonist output in the last 60 odd years. Every strip is brimming with creativity, laughter, pathos and painful emotional truth." • Review: On the High-Low, Rob Clough writes a tribute to Jaime Hernandez's collected editions; Maggie the Mechanic,  The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S., Perla La Loca.  "Ultimately, there's an idealistic streak in Jaime's…

  Many of you were first exposed to Gary Panter through his early "Jimbo" comix in Slash and RAW magazines. Or maybe through his brilliant work as set designer for Pee Wee's Playhouse. Old school Seattle residents recall his ubiquitous posters for the Screamers, plastered all over town by the late punk performance artist Tomato du Plenty. An industrial-strength adhesive allowed this alluring image to remain visible for the better part of a decade, becoming one of the enduring motifs of the Northwest punk school. Panter's comix appeared prominently in the seminal Seattle music magazine The Rocket. (Coincidentally, he later married former…

  This just in! PEN Center USA announced the winners of the 2012 Literary Awards and Joe Sacco takes home the Graphic Literature award for Outstanding Body of Work. A "distinguished panel of writers, editors, critics, and journalists judge the Literary Awards" which will be given out on October 22nd, 2012 at the 22nd Annual Literary Awards Festival in California. Joe Sacco is best known for his gripping comics journalism by telling the stories from inside war zones; observing, witnessing and documenting all that he sees. From his strip Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy in The Comics Journal of yore to his newest…

Say, we haven't shared these with you yet: Above, final cover art for Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 4: House of the Seven Haunts! by Floyd Gottfredson, and below, the box set for the Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 3 + 4 Box Set. More rollicking, globe-trotting adventures starring Mickey, Minnie, their pals Goofy and Donald, and a rogue's gallery of baddies! We've put up an excerpt with 18 pages of strips from Vol. 4 which you can check out right now. These are at the printer and in the pipeline for mid-to-late Fall.

 The we'll-need-to-iron-these-papers Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Interview: Everything is coming up Barnaby this week. On the Westfield Comics, writer Philip Nel and Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds (both editors of the upcoming Barnaby collections) dish on this popular but hard-to-find strip comic by Crockett Johnson. Reynolds states, "If Peanuts was the Beatles, Barnaby was the Velvet Underground." Nel continues, "Yeah. Schulz read Barnaby. Bill Keane read it. Dan Clowes, Spiegelman, and Chris Ware are all fans of it. . . It was a strip the culturally influential loved. So it's important and influential, but it's not something that many people…

Behold the Bona Fide Balderdash! We just put the finishing touches on Pogo – The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 2 and sent it off to the printer! (Right on schedule too, we might add.) Here's your first look at the final cover artwork (click the image for a slightly bigger version) — once again the book is lovingly edited and designed by Walt Kelly's daughter Carolyn Kelly. Look for the book to hit shelves right around Thanksgiving time; learn more about it and pre-order your copy here. Also, although we decided not to when we started the series, we…

* Other People's Publications** Yeah, You Know Me. While we all eagerly await the release of Barack Hussein Obama, Larry has somehow unearthed an older title from cartoonist Steven Weissman! Originally released in 1999 on Alternative Press, The Lemon Kids, Book 1 is a collection of stories that Steve was self-publishing under the Yikes title, and some stories that were included in the Last Gasp Comix & Stories anthology. Fans of our other Yikes titles like Chocolate Cheeks and Chewing Gum in Church will definitely want to get their hands on this lost classic while supplies last! The Fantagraphics Bookstore…

  The official state slogan of Illinois is "Land of Lincoln," making it the perfect location to celebrate the release of The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln! Join Noah Van Sciver on Wednesday, September 19th at Quimby's in Chicago, with special guest, John Porcellino, who will be debuting King-Cat #73! Together, they’ll be reading from and showing slides of their work, answering questions, and signing books. The event kicks off at 7:00 PM. Quimby's is located at 1854 W North Ave. Gather up your pennies and five dollar bills, and head down there, Illinoisans.

Prince Valiant expert Brian M. Kane shares this graphic he created to commemorate the debut of Val and Aleta's son Arn in the strip 65 years ago today. The blessed event just happens to take place in Prince Valiant Vol. 6: 1947-1948, which just happens to be the next volume in the series and just happens to be in the works for a scheduled December release and just happens to now be available for pre-order here on our website. Imagine that!

Get blighted with our friends at the Elysian Brewing Company on Friday, September 21st, as they debut "Blight," the latest from our 12 Beers of the Apocalypse collaboration!  "Blight" is a perfect seasonal Pumpkin Ale, available on draft, and in exclusive 22 oz. bottles with labels featuring the artwork of the great Charles Burns from his weirdly apocalyptic Black Hole series.  The official tapping begins at 4:00 PM, followed by a survival demo by Bryan & co. at 5:30 PM, with Spuds in the Hole from 4:00 to 7:00 PM!   Come by and collect the next stamp in your…