The New Yorker has announced a contest inviting cartoonists to design their own version of the magazine's mascot, Eustice Tilly (originally designed in 1925 by Rea Irvin for the very first issue). My favorite Tilly probably has to be the above Crumb version, which was perceived as a blasphemous betrayal of the mag's proud tradition by some of its more calcified subscribers when originally published in 1994. Now it's a decade and a half later and folks like Crumb, Aline Kominsky, Chris Ware (see his Tilly below), Adrian Tomine, and Daniel Clowes are fairly regular contributors to the mag. Mouly and Spiegelman, what hath thou wrought?!

Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace Box Set 1955-1958
By Hank Ketcham

A swell custom-designed case containing the third and fourth volumes of Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace with strips from the years 1955 through 1958. (Sorry, case is not peanut butter or root beer resistant.)

two 672-page B&W 5.5" x 6.25" hardcovers with custom box $39.95
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Acme Novelty Library #18
By Chris Ware

In keeping with his athletic goal of issuing a volume of his occasionally lauded ACME series once every new autumn, volume 18 finds cartoonist Chris Ware abandoning the engaging serialization of his "Rusty Brown" and instead focusing upon his ongoing and more experimentally grim narrative , "Building Stories."

Collecting pages unseen except in obscure alternative weekly periodicals and sophisticated expensive coffee table magazines, The ACME Novelty Library #18 re-introduces the characters which New York Times readers found "dry" and "deeply depressing" when one chapter of the work (not included here) was presented in its pages during 2005 and 2006. Set in a Chicago apartment building more or less in the year 2000, the stories move from the straightforward to the mnemonically complex, invading character's memories and personal ambitions with a text point size likely unreadable to human beings over the age of 45. Reformatted to accommodate this different material, readers will be pleased by the volume's vertical shape and tasteful design, which, unlike Ware's earlier volumes, should discreetly blend into any stack or shelf of real books.

56-page full-color 8" x 10.75" hardcover $18.95
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Acme Novelty Datebook Vol. 2
By Chris Ware

Straggling behind the mild 2003 success of cartoonist Chris Ware's first facsimile collection of his miscellaneous sketches, notes, and adolescent fantasies arrives this second volume, updating weary readers with the last ten years of Ware's clichéd and outmoded insights.

Working directly in pen and ink, watercolor, and white-out whenever he makes a mistake, Ware has cannily edited out all legally sensitive and personally incriminating material from his private journals, carefully recomposing each page to simulate the appearance of an ordered mind and established aesthetic directive. All phone numbers, references to ex-girlfriends, "false starts," and embarrassing experiments with unfamiliar drawing media have been generously excised to present the reader with the most pleasant and colorful sketchbook reading experience available. Included are Ware's frustrated doodles for his book covers, angry personal assaults on friends, half-finished comic strips, lengthy and tiresome fulminations of personal disappointments both social and sexual, as well as his now-beloved drawings of the generally miserable inhabitants of the city of Chicago. All in all, a necessary volume for fans of fine art, water-based media, and personal diatribe. Hardcover, attractively designed, and easy to resell.

208-page 7" x 9.5" full-color hardcover $39.95
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... regarding Chris Ware's recent output. From the aforementioned publications earlier this week, to the recent film poster for The Savages, and now to obscure midwestern literary journals, he continues to shame underachievers everywhere. More here. Tip 'o the Floghat to reader A.T.

Insomnia #3
By Matt Broersma

In the conclusion to Matt Broersma's noir triptych... Miles Anderson lives in a safe, predictable world defined by his job as an L.A. television producer, his affairs with girls from the office and the shopping trips of his beautiful wife, Elena. Then, one evening, Elena disappears. Is she off on another trip? With a man? In mortal danger? As the days pass, and the suspense mounts, Miles Anderson's search for answers leads him instead deeper and deeper into an abyss of mystery, until at last he's forced to confront the unthinkable...

Part of the Ignatz Series.

32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" saddle-stitched softcover with jacket $7.95
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The Last Musketeer
By Jason

After his existential thriller (Why Are You Doing This?), his Parisian famous-writers crime caper (The Left Bank Gang), and his time-travel story (I Killed Adolf Hitler), Jason's fourth full-color album may feature his loopiest premise yet. Set in the present time, The Last Musketeer stars the by-now centuries old musketeer Athos, who has been reduced to a suavely dressed but useless near-panhandler trading on his now almost extinct fame. All this changes when one day the Martians attack Earth. Suddenly there is a need for swashes to be buckled, and Athos leaps back into the fray with a vengeance. The Last Musketeer is a vintage sci-fi adventure with a unique twist from an internationally acclaimed cartoonist.

48-page 7" x 10" full-color softcover $12.95
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MOME Winter/Spring 2008 (Vol. 10)
By various artists; edited by Gary Groth & Eric Reynolds

Critically acclaimed for its compilation of dynamic young cartoonists, this volume of Mome showcases the vibrant newbies and a few of the more established artistes. Mome Vol. 10 features the 20 page conclusion to the Jim Woodring graphic novella, "The Lute String." This story, previously published only in Japan, features Woodring's signature characters — Frank, Pupshaw, and Pushpaw — in a universe-bending saga that finds the trio in a very unexpected world of flying, shrieking demons and bulbous-faced monsters. Also featuring the work of Tom Kaczynski (and an interview with him with Gary Groth), Robert Goodin, Dash Shaw, Ray Fenwick, John Hankiewicz, Sophie Crumb, Tim Hensley, and Jonathan Bennett, plus a surprise Mome debut from Jeremy Eaton. The reclusive Al Columbia emerges once again, this time providing the cover.

120-page 7" x 9" b&w/color softcover $14.95
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Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads from Seattle's The Stranger
By Ellen Forney

Ellen Forney's follow-up to her wildly popular I Love Led Zeppelin is a collection of cartoons celebrating the sometimes stunningly crude, sometimes surprisingly sweet online world of personal classifieds. Forney has for several years been illustrating the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger's "Lustlab" classified ads by interpreting the most interesting, outrageous, or idiosyncratic ad in that week's paper. To cap it off, the collection includes frank, revealing interviews with some of the advertisers conducted by Forney, plus an introduction by the notorious sex advice columnist and novelist (and Stranger editor), Dan Savage.

168-page 6" x 6.5" black & white hardcover $19.95
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From today's edition.

Look who popped up on my latest periodic round of Fantagraphics ego-surfing on Flickr: Nate Neal (Sanctuary), with a sneak peek at his contribution to Mome 11: