Before we get to the announcement below (which explains the video above), we have some related information of our own to tout: Neil Gaiman will be providing one of two introductions to Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons, our mammoth three-volume slipcased set coming this fall. (The other introduction: Hugh Hefner. Stay tuned for more info about this release in tomorrow's "Fall 09 - Winter 10 Preview" post!)

And now, from The New Yorker, a must-attend event:

This Friday night at 7, the Morgan Library & Museum will hold a special screening of “Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird,” a documentary, directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe, about the life and work of the New Yorker cartoonist of the gleefully macabre bent. Wilson and the director will be on hand for a Q. & A. after the screening (which is being presented in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition “On The Money: Cartoons for The New Yorker”). Meanwhile, we have some new work by Wilson: he illustrated this short animated adaptation (also directed by Jaffe) of “It Was a Dark and Silly Night,” a story by Neil Gaiman... [embedded above; view it on the New Yorker site if it's not visible here.]

All this week and next week we're bringing you a sneak peek at our Fall 2009 - Winter 2010 schedule of releases! Today's excerpt from our latest book distributor's catalog includes a new softcover edition of The Classic Pin-Up Art of Jack Cole; the anthology From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium; our first two Jacques Tardi reprints, You Are There and West Coast Blues; and This Side of Jordan, a new prose novel by Monte Schulz. (Note that all the info in this catalog is subject to change along the way to the books' release, including release dates, prices, cover art, book specs, etc.) Click here to download the PDF!

Now available for preview and pre-order: Connective Tissue, the new boldly bizarre illustrated prose novel from Bob Fingerman. Some meat-flavored candy takes video store clerk Darla Vogel on a trip to a weird, throbbing, monstrous other world! This book is scheduled to be in stock this month and in stores approximately 4 weeks later.

View a photo & video slideshow preview embedded here. Click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended). And at our product info page, read the entire first chapter as a 15-page downloadable PDF!

• Review: The Star Clipper Blog on Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers: "To say Boody Rogers was ahead of his time is an understatement. Boody was underground before there was an underground. His comics were surreal and sexy before the Comics Code was even around to censor such outrageousness. Think of every bizarre and trippy moment from 40's Disney features, the overt sexuality of Fleischer Studios Betty Boop, and a Freak Show and Superman in a blender, and that's not even half as odd as Boody Rogers' comics. Will you have seen anything like it before? No, and you'll probably never see anything else like it again."

• Review: Blog @ Newsarama looks at Boody too: "[W]eirdness... permeates these stories and radiates outward from the pages. To say they're 'ahead of their time' would be an understatement; they seem like they were drawn just last week... [I]t's a beautiful book."

• Review: Obsessive-Repulsive finds a kindred spirit in the pages of the "rad" Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti: "I would go further than saying 'nothing is sacred' in his work and say that nothing is tolerated in Brunetti’s world. He skewers the hypocrisy, cruelty and weakness in people but it doesn’t appear that Brunetti loathes humanity nearly as much as he loathes himself. Check it out! Funny stuff!"

• Review: Comics Should Be Good! enthuses over Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941: "I can’t recommend this book enough, people! Run, don’t walk, to your nearest purveyor of comics awesomeness and pick it up. You will not be disappointed... you could not buy another comic this year and be happy if you pick it up. Would I lie to you?"

• Preview: Robot 6's "What Are You Reading?" column's guest contributor this week is Dash Shaw, and regular contributor Matthew Maxwell says of The Wolverton Bible, "Wow. Just wow... man, that’s a piece of work."

• Interview: The Groovy Age of Horror talks to Josh Simmons about House and other more recent work

• Commentary: ReadingArt.ca imagines Snoopy's "It was a dark and stormy night" novel in a context of digital/mobile delivery (calling The Complete Peanuts "fantastically beautiful" while they're at it)

• Things to see/read: Conservative entertainment blog Big Hollywood has posted Steve Ditko's 2007 essay "Toyland" in its entirety (via Slog)

• Things to see (and buy)/bookmark: Jim Blanchard's "Fine Art Chophouse" blog is the place to buy original art and prints from Jim. The latest offering: a limited edition print of Butch & Petey, everyone's favorite Trucker Fags in Denial (only 16 bucks)

Finally getting around to Flogging photos from Emerald City Comicon and our Jaime Hernandez/Stan Sakai exhibit opening last weekend. Lots more photos, plus a couple of short videos, can be seen in our Flickr sets linked above.

Jaime:

Dame Darcy (checking out Mother, Come Home) & Paul Hornschemeier:

Bill Schelly:

Green Lantern & friends flip through Ellen Forney's Lust:

Stan & Jaime post-show Saturday chatting:

Xaime & Sakai art (head to Flickr for closer looks at each individual piece):

Men of the hour:

• Review: PLAYBACK:stl analyzes Comics Are for Idiots! by Johnny Ryan: "Ryan's loathing of the precious, the celebrity-obsessed, the hypocritical, and so on bleeds thru the best of these sorts of cartoons... Ryan's yen for out-offending every book he's done before is really just more righteous anger dressed up as sick comedy."

• Review: The Comics Reporter on Blazing Combat: "Like many of the best reprint projects... this republication of the four-issue Warren war magazine into spiffy hardcover form features work that you can't easily buy anywhere else, is historically significant and offers its buyers a lot of very good comics... Blazing Combat is simply a handsome, well-presented selection of very good comics that for having them around we're all a bit richer as comics readers. I'm glad it's here."

• Review: Rob Clough examines Mome Vol. 14, saying the issue "juxtapos[es] stories with ambiguous images and endings to create a dizzying and fascinating array of visual styles... The balance struck by editors Eric Reynolds and Gary Groth between unpublished, up-and-coming artists, alt-comics legends with short stories to publish and international stars with stellar work that needed translation has been a delicate one, but when everything comes together just so (especially in... this issue), then Mome becomes a crucial component in understanding alt-comics as they stand today."

• Review: NPR.org on Humbug: "Certainly, Fantagraphics, the exemplary Seattle-based archivists of comics and comic-strip history, couldn't have lavished more care in restoring Humbug's yellowing pages had they been original Shakespeare folios... it serves to fill in the missing piece on a seminal period of satiric shenanigans and to evoke an era when making nose-thumbing comedy was the work of smart alecks in creased slacks, pressed white shirts and skinny ties. It'd make a helluva TV series; you could even call it Mad Men."

• Blurb: Quick Stop Entertainment's "Weekend Shopping Guide" recommends The Complete Peanuts 1971-1972: "This series continues to be a wonderful exercise in still fresh comedy and childhood nostalgia."

• Blurb: Atomic Kommie Comics praises Supermen! The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941: "...magnificent...worthy of any fan's library!" (Note that they are also shilling their own related wares)

• Blurb: The Oklahoman, publisher of Bill Mauldin's early cartoons, takes note of Willie & Joe: The WWII Years's Eisner Award nominations

• Things to see: On the Covered blog, Vermilyea does Venom

• Things to see: Photos of Josh Simmons's "Special Nice Cosmic Hyperdeath" exhibit and opening reception at Secret Headquarters

Mome readers take note: a page from Dash Shaw's story in Vol. 14 was accidentally printed out of sequence. Our apologies. Dash explains on his blog.

Your weekly dose of new webcomics awaits...

More awesome parenting from Aunt Jiggles in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan...

It's horror time in this week's installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 50-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures....

And Rocky gets into some issues of varying degrees of seriousness (from Islam to "gwifstrexes") in our current 5-day chunk of Martin Kellerman's hilarious Swedish smash-hit Rocky, updated Monday-Friday!

If you missed the Mr. Media interview with Monte Wolverton about The Wolverton Bible when it was originally broadcast, now you can listen right here thanks to the magic of this embedded player below (or click here if it's not visible):