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You don't want to miss this: Charles Burns returns to his native Seattle this Saturday, October 30 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM for a festive reception commemorating the publication of his amazing new graphic novel X'ed Out. In addition to an exhibition of rare posters and prints spanning Burns' illustrious career, we'll be celebrating the artist's lasting Seattle legacy with a display of his seminal work for Sub Pop records, as well as his early contributions to Art Spiegelman's RAW magazine. Start your Saturday night at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery to welcome Charles Burns back home. The evening features a…

Ivan Brunetti's cover for this year's Halloween issue of The New Yorker, brought to us by The Ephemerist as usual (via Forbidden Planet International). So many great details.

The latest release from the Jim Flora Fine Art shop is nothing to sneeze at (haw! haw!): an open-edition mini-print reproducing the cover of Flora's 1957 children's book The Day the Cow Sneezed. You may recognize the kittycat and mouse from the cover of our book The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora. As always, much more info from Flora doyen Irwin Chusid and all the ordering details can be found at the Flora website.

Comics Alliance has a sample of Gilbert Hernandez's "old-school" Iron Man tale for Marvel's Strange Tales II #2, coming next week. Bottoms up! Jeez, we're doing a lot of shilling for Marvel lately, huh?

More fan tattoos are coming out of the woodwork! Above, Drinky Crow in the clutches of an cephalopod by Ximena Quiroz of Portland's Skeleton Key Tattoo (who also does a pretty good Woodstock) on the leg of one Aaron Lauer (thanks to Janice for the link). Below, James Henry Dufresne's Little Enid, shared with us on our Facebook page.

Check out this amazing array of cakes featuring characters and artwork from Rip M.D. created by the Culinary Art Institute and Chef Rick Royal for their Halloween Cake Contest. Wow! See the photo album on the Lincoln Butterfield Animation Facebook page.

Ran across this one-page Alan Moore strip in an issue of Moore's Dodgem Logic magazine, and although I've seen Moore's "underground" work before, I was struck by just how heavily influenced by Robert Williams that this page was: See below for a comparison to Williams' style (from Hysteria In Remission). The lettering, the hulking "Brody Bodine"-esque nitwit, the anthropomorphized pen, the "chicken fat" in the last panel, the stonerish detail, etc. It's impressive. Do more underground comics, Mr. Moore.   

Here's a sneak peek at Tony Millionaire's contribution to Strange Tales 2 #2 hitting stores next Wednesday from our ol' chums (*cough*) at Marvel Comics. Pure Tony Brand Pickled Hairbrain, it's delicious, even though I always pegged Thor as more of a lutefisk man, myself.   

  This weekend, Seattle lost a very beloved member of its music and arts community, and more heartbreakingly, a little girl lost her father and a wife lost her husband. My friend Andy Kotowicz was killed in a horrific car accident in the neighborhood we both lived in, Ballard. Andy and I weren't close, by any stretch, but we played poker together a couple times a year for the last several years with a group of mutual friends, and I always enjoyed his company, his sense of humor, and talking about having daughters around the same age.  I'm going to…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Bent by Dave Cooper 80-page full-color 10.25" x 9" hardcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-378-1 Ordering Info & Previews Fine artist Dave Cooper offers us a window into the wobbly dollhouse that is his mind’s eye. The work in Bent gathers a diverse mix of imagery that is also strangely focussed in its single-mindedness. This work has found a devoted and passionate following with visitors to Cooper’s solo gallery shows in Los Angeles and New York in recent years. Cooper continues to obsess and fixate over his bizarre procession of milky figures as…