The new issue of Comics Foundry magazine features this pretty awesome explication of Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw: 

Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features the compelling 1999 debut from Chris Lanier.

Combustion

Combustion is a striking visual parable on War, drawn in an expressionistic woodcut style. This mature, poetic work by newcomer Chris Lanier holds its own with such best-selling and critically acclaimed graphic novels as Maus and Palestine. Elegant and subversive, at times harrowing, Combustion will intrigue and enlighten with its stark, chiaroscuro visuals and compelling story of a soldier lost in a ravaged country.

56-page black & white 8" x 10" softcover
regularly $7.95 • ON SALE $5.96
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Hector Mumbly : Dave Cooper :: Lemony Snicket : Daniel Handler

Dave's also showing off his process and selling the original art from the book. (Hat tip: Meathaus.)

Our week of video and photo teasers of upcoming releases continues with Mome Vol. 12, the next installment of our quarterly-ish cutting-edge comics anthology. Watch the video above, and take a closer look in our photo gallery.

This week's free preview is actually 3 previews! We're bringing you 4-to-5-page excerpts from three upcoming installments in our Ignatz Series: Baobab #3, Delphine #3 (pictured above), and Grotesque #2. These previews are exclusive to registered Fantagraphics.com users, so sign up and/or sign in to view.

(As a reminder, 20/20 Club members receive these previews two weeks before we post them on the website, just one of many great reasons to join up...)

Our pals at the First Post have posted a special nine-page preview of Blake Bell's STRANGE & STRANGER: THE WORLD OF STEVE DITKO, which seems to be the book everyone is talking about this week. Find out what all the hubbub's about. 

Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features a rescued-from-obscurity rarity from comics great Gil Kane.

Blackmark

In 1974, Gil Kane created Blackmark as a paperback series for Bantam Books. Kane was a comics artist specializing in superheroes who had drawn every major character from Superman and Spider-Man to Green Lantern and Conan. Blackmark was his attempt to go "independent" and create a series which he would own and whose creative direction he could control. The first volume of this sword-and-sorcery/heroic-fantasy narrative, designed and published in the paperback format, has been out of print for over 25 years, and the completed second volume was never published. Fantagraphics Books is proud to collect both volumes in a single trade book format, larger than the original paperback size to better showcase Kane's elegant art.

160-page black & white softcover
regularly $16.95 • ON SALE $12.71
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Made by our pals at Sparkplug and found via our pals at Drawn & Quarterly, the above map shows you where to feel the love (and do all your shopping) at Comic-Con next week. Click for the big version.

OUT NOW! 

DIAMOND COMICS no. 2

The second issue of Floating World Comics experimental comics tabloid. Maybe you were lucky enough to find a copy of the first issue? They’re free at cafes, bars, and shops all over Portland. Issue 2 features more incredible work from Luke Ramsey , Evan Meister, Barnaby Ward, Bald Eagles , Kevin Hooyman and more.

 Huzzah!