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Meaty Online Commentary & Diversions today: • List: The Browser's Roland Chambers talks to comics scholar and junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows Hillary Chute about her top five graphic narratives, including Aline Kominsky-Crumb's Love That Bunch: "To me, Aline is one of the most important figures in comics, which isn’t to say that she’s one of the most well-known. She’s not. But her comics have inspired a legion of cartoonists working in comics autobiography: specifically women cartoonists, because Aline published the first ever autobiographical comic from a woman’s point of view." • Review: "King has long been…

It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi 120-page black & white 7.75" x 10.5" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-353-8 Ships in: March 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now World War I, that awful, gaping wound in the history of Europe, has long been an obsession of Jacques Tardi’s. (His very first — rejected — comics story dealt with the subject, as does his most recent work, the two-volume Putain de Guerre.) But It Was the War of the trenches is Tardi’s defining, masterful statement on the subject, a graphic novel that can stand shoulder to shoulder with…

Let's start out with a little showin' off! • Mr. Gahan Wilson was kind enough to contribute this astonishing page to my Yoda theme sketchbook. (Mr. Wilson having been one of my favorite cartoonists since I was about 8 — 3 decades — this was an unparalleled thrill.) I just scanned and uploaded about 50 previously unseen Yodas — of particular interest to Fantagraphics fans may be (chronologically) T. Edward Bak, Bob Fingerman, Derek Van Gieson, Kurt Wolfgang, From Wonderland with Love contributors Christoffer Zieler & T. Thorhauge, Sara Edward-Corbett, Gary Panter, Trina Robbins, Lewis Trondheim, Roger Langridge, Frank Santoro,…

Presidents Day does not stop the Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "In Hernandez’s hands, [The Troublemakers] unspools on the page like a Russ Meyer production, from the in-your-face nudity, right down to the cartoony violence played for laughs. …[I]t sure is fun." — Rod Lott, Bookgasm • Review: "Even if I finally accepted that [Sublife Vol. 2] did not answer any of my questions from the first volume… I still admired the growth in Pham’s work on display between the two volumes. Volume 2 shows a terrific range, beginning a Clowes-like opening series of strips about a murderous blogger…

Saturday night was hopping at our flagship store in Seattle as fans turned out in droves to see Gahan Wilson with his exhibit & book of Playboy cartoon art and Michael Leavitt with his sculpture of R. Crumb. Below, a few select photos; for many more, including closeups of the original art, head to our Flickr set.

One of my favorite books I've received lately is this handsome, considered little tome from Spain's Blur Ediciones, Rotulando in Spanish • Lettering en Español, collecting something that on the face of it might sound a bit loopy: lettering by the cartoonist Nono Kadáver created for the Spanish editions of work by American greats R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Joe Sacco, Johnny Ryan, Peter Bagge and Gilbert Shelton. Nono worked throughout most of the 1990s at Barcelona's Ediciones La Cúpula, one of Spain's leading comics publishers, and was one of the last of an era when book production was done largely by hand, not…

Friday nite webcomics party… new weekly strips for you… Back to the bar in this week's The House of No by Derek Van Gieson… …eye boogers gone bad in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan…. …and for your Presidents Day weekend, some questionable parenting from Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman.

Behold: • 3 images from one of Ben Catmull's current projects • Two spot illos for the Feb. issue of Linus by Sergio Ponchione • The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog shares some Valentine's Day advice from Jack Cole & Shel Silverstein • Groovy poster design by Jim Blanchard for his Missus's band The DTs' gig tomorrow night (head there after seeing Gahan Wilson at our store) • Johnny Ryan's contribution to The Sinstones, an anthology minicomic of Flintstone gags • An animated editorial cartoon by Steve Brodner (there's a cute dog) • Dangit Laura Park, yer makin' me hungry with…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Anderson’s King is most definitely NOT your feel-good, sanctifying version of King’s life that most readers are probably used to. …[T]he MLK presented here is a multi-dimensional, gifted man … but still very much a man, nevertheless, filled with doubt, frustration, anger, arrogance, and even deceit. … While Anderson starkly presents King’s less-than-saintly episodes… the final reaction is a fuller understanding of a great man, with inspiring ideals, and an unshakeable dedication to equality through nonviolent, loving means. … MLK’s legacy undeniably lives on in Anderson’s King." – Terry Hong, Bookdragon (Smithsonian Asian Pacific…

We have the great privilege of hosting Gahan Wilson here in our offices today. Mr. Wilson's radio interview on KUOW this morning is already archived and available for streaming or direct MP3 download for those who weren't able to tune in live.