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How great is the great John Severin's cover for the new 10th issue of Desert Island's esssential free tabloid comics anthology Smoke Signal? Even greater with the watercolors of Mome contributor Victor Kerlow! Also in this issue: Michael DeForge, Bill Griffith, Sam Henderson, Keith Jones, Kaz, Benjamin Marra, Dane Martin, Jesse McManus, Tony Millionaire, Donny Robinson, Jim Rugg, Matthew Thurber, James Turek, and Noah Van Sciver. A stellar lineup as always! Get your FREE issue at Desert Island in Brooklyn, or if it's not geographically convenient you can pay a paltry 4 bucks and have one shipped to you.

Jaime Hernandez's signing at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn the other week was a total success, no surprise there!  Thank you so much to everyone who came out to celebrate the release of Love & Rockets: New Stories, Vol. 4 with Jaime, and thank you so much to Tom & Amy from BSC* for hosting such a wonderful event!  All photos are courtesy of their Facebook page! [ * Bergen Street Comics, NOT the "Baby-Sitters Club"… ] My wish came true!!!  Here's Jaime with my longtime-literary-crush, John Hodgman. Adrian Tomine also stopped by! Some happy Love & Rockets fans!  […

Hair fresh from my shower, I walk into the Fantagraphics office, still in my robe. Gary has convened a meeting and is complaining vociferously about misuse of an intern, who was apparently given a job to perform above normal intern capabilities — or who had screwed up a job as a result, I'm not quite sure which. He starts quizzing me about it, and in fact I suspect it was me who gave this intern (note to current and past interns: it was none of you) a huge interview-transcribing job that is the issue, but I deflect the interrogation by…

Washington State-based arts foundation Artist Trust has announced the shortlist of finalists for its 2011 Arts Innovator Award, including Queen of the Black Black and Artichoke Tales creator Megan Kelso! The award consists of a nice fat cash prize (and two other finalists get smaller cash amounts) out of the deep, deep Dale Chihuly coffers. This would certainly be a huge boon to Megan as she works on her next book. Recipients are announced next week. Good luck Megan!

It's been a while since Paul Hornschemeier has had a new t-shirt design, but he's back… and he means business.  As in this t-shirt design. Go get one and go for that promotion, available online at Paul's Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop.

We're still reeling from the amazing weekend Fantagraphics had at the 2011 Small Press Expo earlier this month! Kim's awesome wife has some photos she's gonna share with us later, but in the meantime, here's some photos, thanks to our friends at the SPX Facebook page! Here's our fearless leader Kim Thompson accepting Jaime Hernandez's "Outstanding Story" Ignatz for "Browntown" from Love and Rockets: New Stories #3! And here's Mome newcomer Joseph Lambert accepting either the award for "Outstanding Cartoonist" or "Oustanding Collection" for I Will Bite You! Presiding over the evening's events is SPX Executive Director, Warren Bernard… also,…

The Twain in the Membrane Tour rages on with a reading and signing this Wednesday, September 21st at BookCourt in Brooklyn, NY! The fun kicks off at 7:00 PM during "Cousin Corinne's Live Comix Block," MC'ed by Jeff Newelt, and curated by Dean Haspiel. Michael Kupperman will be doing a slideshow and reading of Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, and Ben Katchor will also be in attendance, signing his latest, The Cardboard Valise. Time Out New York listed this as one of the 20 Top Book Events this Fall! Don't miss it!  And keep an eye on the Fantagraphics events page,…

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web: — Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size): Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size): And elsewhere: Amazing Facts… and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga: Cochlea & Eustachia by Hans Rickheit: Humblug by Arnold Roth: Maakies by Tony Millionaire: Truth Serum by Jon Adams: What's in the Backpack by Victor Kerlow:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010 is both hilarious and very strange. The book exudes a unique mood of giddy amazement… Credit for both the mirth and oddness belong to cartoonist Michael Kupperman, who illustrated the book based on a manuscript he says was given to him by Twain. Given the fact that the off-kilter humour of the book is very similar to the sensibility displayed in Kupperman’s earlier work, notably his dada-esque comic book Tales Designed to Trizzle, the cynical might assume that Mark Twain is only the nominal author of this book. Yet…

Ah yes, I remember that. 1976 or 1977. My family had just moved from Munich, Germany to Montpellier, France, and my Mother, my brother, and I were cooling our heels in our usual summer vacation spot of Copenhagen, Denmark while my Father was setting up our new Montpellier digs. (That would be the same Montpellier that currently serves as home base for Lewis Trondheim and Jason.) WIth ample time on his hands, my Father, who was (and is) an avid photographer, had just discovered the age-old trick of photographing someone multiple times in front of a black backdrop to create…