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Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…[T]hese comics are among the best in their genre without a doubt. …[This] period was certainly the period of Jack Kirby’s greatest commercial success, and also the period of work which posterity has most neglected. For that this book [Young Romance ] is to be cheered, though there is much else to be happy about in it. There is the excellence of Gagné’s restoration work. It’s of a kind of cleanness which in the past, in archival projects by others, has often resulted in garishness. …[I]t appears that Fantagraphics, perhaps by accident more…

Kupperman's back! Plus a new Mahler page and links to strips from around the web: — Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size): Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size): And elsewhere: The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Humblug by Arnold Roth (two new updates): Lucky by Gabrielle Bell : Maakies by Tony Millionaire: The Pain — When Will It End? (plus answers to last week's "Ghandi or Batman?") by Tim Kreider: Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim: Truth Serum by Jon Adams: What's in the…

This week's issue of OC Weekly features this Jaime Hernandez depiction of inequitably distributed afterglow — plus more sexy comics by others inside. (Hat tip: Entrecomics.) [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]  

  Cartoonists will want to arrive early to Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday evening to preview the "Funny Valentines" ahow and experience visiting artist Frank Santoro's comic book layout workshop at 5:00 PM. Santoro is a columnist for The Comics Journal and teamed with Dash Shaw in the latest Kramer's Ergot anthology.   When wandering around Saturday's Georgetown Art Attack, don't forget to contribute to the Georgetown Music Store recovery fund. This neighborhood institution was the recent victim of a brazen burglary. Thieves literally tore the gates from the storefront and made off with valuable guitars and gear. Georgetown merchants are taking collective…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Feature: Jill Russell of KOMO TV's Seattle Pulp blog spotlights Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 and talks to author Pat Thomas: "The main lesson Thomas takes away from this project is that young people are a forced to be reckoned with. The average age of a Black Panther was just 22. 'How many young people do you know are leading national movements?' he asked. 'When people have been stripped of their pride or ostracized too much, they will eventually fight back.'" • Review: "For fans of comics from the…

Check out some of the tasty tributes to Jack Davis you'll find this Saturday at the "Funny Valentines" exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.   Two original drawings by Jim Woodring. Castaway, indeed.    Original paintings by celebrated Southern California artist SHAG.   A multimedia homage by Seattle artist (and frequent Fantagraphics printmaker) Art Garcia.  Plus awesome works by graphic design legend Art Chantry, ceramicist Charles Krafft, and cartoonists Tom Neely, Johnny Ryan, Roberta Gregory, Pat Moriarity, Peter Bagge (from the pages of MAD), and a dozen others, including the master himself, Jack Davis. Arrive at 6:30 to experience a virtual visit with Davis via Skype, hosted…

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (8th Printing) by Daniel Clowes 144-page black & white 7.5" x 11" softcover • $19.95ISBN: 978-1-56097-116-0 Ships in: February 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Like a Velvet Glove… collects all 10 chapters of Eightball's terrifying and fascinating journey into madness that makes Twin Peaks look like Teletubbies. As Clay Loudermilk attempts to unravel the mysteries behind a snuff film, he finds himself involved with an increasingly bizarre cast of characters, including a pair of sadistic cops who carve a strange symbol into the heel of Clay's foot; a horny over-the-hill suburban…

On the occasion of our impending release of Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 by Ernie Bushmiller, our pal and colleague Ben Schwartz has penned an excellent essay on the strip for the current issue of Bookforum. Do get a copy if you can; click the scan above for a larger, legible version and we've taken the liberty of excerpting the parts where he heaps praise on the book below: "In this, the reading public has a rare opportunity. No, make that a rare challenge — to read Bushmiller without the benefit of recontextualization of any sort. The fact that…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "And now, Fantagraphics has packaged some of the best movie parodies in this ripely-colored book [The Sincerest Form of Parody]. But these aren't Mad comics. They're the imitators which popped up on newsstands in the 1950s — comic books like Whack, Nuts!, Crazy, Bughouse and Unsane…. Most of the comics in the pages of this book are understandably dated for today's web-weaned generation who may have never heard of I, Jury ('My Gun Is the Jury by Melvie Splane'), What's My Line? ('What's My Crime?'), or Come Back, Little Sheba ('Come Back Bathsheba'),…

Swarte collectors will want to buy their copy of Is That All There Is? directly from us, as every mail-order copy ordered from Fantagraphics will be accompanied by "Actually, That Wasn't All There Was," the FBI•MINI giveaway featuring a half-dozen hilarious Jurassic-era Swarte comics stories that have not been in print for over 40 years, and have never been seen in English! (Even I was totally unfamiliar with them.) I'd hate to pick favorites, but this may be the most collectible FBI•MINI of them all, showcasing Swarte's earliest, pre-Hergé-pastiche, more underground-y style. A revelation! And if you've already pre-ordered your…