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THE COMPLETE COMICS JOURNAL ARCHIVES JOIN THE UNDERGROUND AND INDEPENDENT COMICS ARCHIVE FROM ALEXANDER STREET PRESS Fantagraphics Books, publisher of The Comics Journal, has announced a partnership with Alexander Street Press to make the complete archive of the The Comics Journal available as part of its Underground and Independent Comics online collection. This is the first-ever scholarly online collection for researchers and students of literary and underground comic books and graphic novels, and the inclusion of more than 25,000 pages of interviews, commentary, theory and criticism from the 35 year history of The Comics Journal marks a significant contribution to…

  Just when you think Professor Van Sciver couldn't find a more complicated member of the extended Todd-Lincoln family, BLAMMO: Ninian Wirt Edwards arrives. "Ninian married Elizabeth Porter Todd, Mary Todd’s older sister, and played a key role in Mary and Abraham Lincoln’s marriage. . . After the Whig party’s successes, Ninian would invite all of his friends over to the house for oysters and cigars to celebrate." And this is where Mr. Lincoln started to really garner some attention. Read more about Noah Van Sciver's historical research for The Hypo on his blog and preorder The Hypo today!

Max Clotfelter, Ben Horak, Tim Miller, and a student from their comics class with 826 Seattle. // photo credit: Kelly Froh While we were at Comic-Con, the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery launched the “The Massive World of Mini-Comix,” an exhibition featuring art created by young students who attended an 826 Seattle workshop!  I finally had a chance to view the show this past weekend, and it was so inspiring! I loved getting to see artwork by 12-year-olds next to work by people 2-to-3x their age, their teachers, Seattle cartoonists Max Clotfelter, Ben Horak and Tim Miller.  The show closes on…

If you can read that flyer, you should go to this!  Jason is back in North America, and will be signing on Saturday, August 11th at the Planète BD [ 3883 St-Denis ] in Montréal, Quebec! Join him at 2:00 PM for this special event!

Monday, July 30th • Portland, OR: Northwesterners should not miss the chance to see Tim Kreider while he's on our side of the coast! Tim will be doing a reading at 7:30 PM at the infamous Powell's Books! (more info) Wednesday, August 1st • Bothell, WA: And then, Tim Kreider will be doing a reading at 7:00 PM at Third Place Books! (more info) • Snoqualmie, WA: And our own Jim Blanchard is launching his art show Primitiva at The Black Dog. Ten or so of his acrylic paintings will be adorning their walls through September 15th. Check it out…

  Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers is filled from indicia to back cover with a love of music, creating jams, going to concerts and odes to punk songs. Robert Boyd recently compiled a nice list of songs in Jaime and Gilbert's comics. Then LA-based comic store, Secret Headquarters, went ahead and built a playlist around said list of music. Listen away on Spotify, whether you are drawing, walking around town, hanging with friends or generally being a badass. Playlists Locas by Jaime and Palomar by Gilbert.

The newest, brightest bulb Online Commentaries & Diversions: •Review: Sarah Hansen of Autostraddle looks at No Straight Lines. "I like my queer comic anthologies like I like my women. Handy AND beautiful. . .What No Straight Lines really achieves is putting all of these influential comics in one place. Together, they contextualize each other and the LGBTQ scene at the same time." •Review: Paste's 'breeder' journalist Sean Edgar cracks open No Straight Lines and has a baller time. "The work in this book illustrates a sweeping chronology of our generation’s greatest civil conflict with all of the tears and smiles that follow. It’s…

The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 (Vol. 18) by Charles M. Schulz 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-572-3 Ships in: August 2012 — Available to order upon its arrival in our mail-order warehouse. Peanuts reaches the middle of the go-go 1980s in this book, which covers 1985 and 1986: a time of hanging out at the mall, “punkers” (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Snoopy with a Mohawk), killer bees, airbags, and Halley’s Comet. And in a surprisingly sharp satirical sequence, Schulz pokes fun at runaway licensing with the introduction of the insufferably merchandisable “Tapioca Pudding.” Also…

The west coast party for No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics continues to Berkeley! Join our wonderful editor Justin Hall for a signing and reading at Pegasus Books tomorrow, Saturday, July 27th. He'll be joined by Jon Macy, Paige Braddock, Lee Marrs, Andy Hartzel, and Christine Smith for a series of comic book readings to celebrate the release of this important anthology. Pegasus Books is located at 2349 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. It's gonna be another awesome event!

Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur edited by Jacques Boyreau & Peter Van Horne 96-page full-color 10.75" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-553-2 Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Sexytime is the book that pornoisseurs all over the world have anxiously been waiting for. Not that grade drooler, the porn addict, mind you, but the porn aesthete, the porn classicist who knows his stag film history and lives by the credo, Veni ergo sum. An oversized coffee table book celebrating the art of the 1970s porn movie poster, Sexytime collects over a hundred of the…