A late-ish addendum to our launch of Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest, Book 1: we're pleased to now offer that book together with Joe's previous book, The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, for a special discounted price of $29.99 (a savings of about 6 bucks)! Two books full of intrigue, action, weird characters and stoner humor delineated in stunning, hyper-detailed clear-line cartooning. Order right here and we'll ship you both books when Dungeon Quest arrives in our warehouse (and if you've already placed an order for both books individually, contact us and we'll adjust your order).

British magazine 125 has a pretty wild feature in its latest issue, No. 15: a photo tribute to Charles Burns' BLACK HOLE, featuring seven re-creations of Burns' classic mutant yearbook photos from the book/comic book series. The photos were taken by Max Oppenheim. Here's a couple:

Dungeon Quest, Book 1
by Joe Daly

136-page black & white 6" x 8.25" softcover • $12.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-347-7

Ships in: May 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

One day Millennium Boy decided to grab his hobo stick, his bandanna, and his Swiss Army knife, bid his mom goodbye, and head off on a quest for adventure. Joined by his best friend Steve (weapon: baseball bat; clothing: wife beater, cargo pants and sandals), they soon find themselves in a violent altercation with two other adventure seekers. It ends badly for their antagonists (“Whoa, check it out, dude! You actually knocked this dude’s brain right out of his cranium!”) and Millennium Boy and Steve become the proud owners of fancy weapons upgrades (a crowbar and a steel chain). So on they trek, and the next inductee to their group is the muscle-bound Lash Penis.

And then things start getting weird!

Readers of 2009’s Red Monkey Double Happiness Book will recognize Joe Daly’s delightfully unique stoner/philosopher dialogue and distinctive character designs, but the hilarious over-the-top Role Playing Game action (complete with periodic updates for each character’s status in ten criteria, including “dexterity,” “intelligence,” and “money”) propel this new story into a heretofore unachieved action-comedy realm. By the end of this book (the first chapter of a projected four-part epic), the trio has been joined by Nerdgirl the Archer, Lash Penis has nearly had his arm cut off, they’ve acquired a whole new nifty bag of tricks, and the menaces have become increasingly surreal and lethal. Where will it end?

Winner, Prix special du Jury (Jury Prize), 2010 Festival International de la Bande Desinée d'Angoulême

Download an EXCLUSIVE 12-page PDF excerpt (725 KB).

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

From Beware the Creeper No. 5 by Steve Ditko, DC Comics, 1969. 

The Creeper No. 2 by Steve Ditko, 1968, DC Comics.

The Homewood Art Workshops wraps up its 35th anniversary celebration with a slide talk by legendary cartoonist Kim Deitch on Monday, April 26. Deitch's talk, "The Search for Smilin' Ed and Other Tales," will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Room 101 of the F. Ross Jones Building, Mattin Center, on the Homewood campus at 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore.

Deitch's latest book, The Search for Smilin' Ed, will be published by Fantagraphics in June. He will sign advance copies of Smilin' Ed at the Johns Hopkins Barnes & Noble, 3330 St. Paul Street, on Sunday, April 25, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Both events are free and open to the public. 

Daily clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• A new Vice comic by Johnny Ryan

• Steven Weissman's new series of Stinckers is taking shape

• On his Clip Joint blog John Hankiewicz says "My lithograph No Argument is part of the 30th Annual National Print Exhibition at Artlink Gallery in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The show, now open, runs until May 26th. More information here."

• From Frank Santoro, what I can only assume are process pics of some color backgrounds using airbrush or spray paint... they're pretty, whatever they are

• Get yourself a Dame Darcy Witch Craft Kit for all your charm-casting needs

• Debbie Drechsler draws a fallen crow

• Gabrielle Bell re-runs her story "Roosevelt Island"

• It's Archer Prewitt's packaging design for Presspop's forthcoming Allen Ginsberg vinyl figurine

• I don't imagine Renee French intends to remind us to floss, but that's what I'm getting here

• This looks like it might be the cover to a new mini by Kevin Huizenga but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part

• "Blond Girl in a Black Dress 2 " by Mark Kalesniko

• Josh Simmons & Wendy Chin have been keeping the cute coming on the Quackers blog

• I'm super excited for Roger Langridge's new Thor series

• Ectiopiary page 20 and "an ancient illustration" by Hans Rickheit

• Jon Vermilyea posts a teaser from his upcoming TMNT zine

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "At every turn, and every turn of the page, in Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune:  The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 1 from Fantagraphics, the reaction is the same: Good Lord, but Roy Crane could draw. ...There are countless pleasures in this first volume of the Captain Easy Sunday pages." – Steve Duin, The Oregonian

• Review: "Of course, the Bradleys story remains the best reason to pick up any of these Hate Annuals, and this time Bagge doesn’t disappoint; even though I still can’t stand Buddy in his Popeye the Sailor look, this story of wife Lisa wanting to get out of the house (since the kid is in school) and do something for herself, eventually ending up in a two-woman rock band playing in a strip club, is consistently funny and sharply observed." – Johnny Bacardi, Popdose

• Plug: In the Portland Mercury, Floating World's Jason Leivian recommends Mezzo & Pirus's King of the Flies for fans of Paul Verhoeven's 1980 film Spetters: "Similar stories of fucked up youngsters spiraling into a black hole of self destruction with incredibly rendered artwork that will appeal to fans of Charles Burns."

• Plug: "If you've not checked out Luba by Gilbert Hernandez, you should. Especially if you live in LA. ... Luba is as funny and delightful as ever in these stories (some super short one-pagers, others much longer, over a hundred stories in this collection) of her and her family and the play between their work lives and personal lives is comical and poignant and over the top in classic Hernandez style." – Callie Miller, LAist (via Robot 6)

• Plug: "I've spent most of this week reading "Plunder Island," the fourth and latest collection of classic Popeye comics from Fantagraphics. This is the third time I've read this material... and it still never fails to enthrall me. In fact, I think Popeye has knocked Peanuts and Krazy Kat out of my personal canon to become my MOST FAVORITE COMIC EVER at the moment. There's just something about E.C. Segar's blend of melodrama, adventure and unrestrained, big-footed comedy that really knocks my socks off." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Interview: Via ¡Journalista!: "New to the TCJ Audio Archive: Over an hour of excerpts from Arn Saba’s 1979 interview with Prince Valiant creator Hal Foster, recorded toward the end of Foster’s life and originally published in The Comics Journal #102," and also reprinted in The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion

• Profile: "Other comics publishers have fallen all over themselves trying to leverage a hoped-for crossover appeal into the mainstream of culture in the last twenty or so years. Meanwhile, Fantagraphics has hung surprisingly tight to their mission statement. But the bigger surprise for me came from learning that Fantagraphics still runs its publishing operation out of the same full-to-bursting house in Maple Leaf where they first planted their Seattle roots in 1989." – E. Magnuson, In North Seattle (Seattle P-I)

• Contest: One lucky person will win a free copy of The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit from Kevin Church, who describes the book as "beautifully drawn, disturbing and sad"

• Links: Love & Maggie highlights some recent Hernandez Bros. -related web action

• PSA: In a letter to the editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jean Schulz warns collectors to be on the lookout for counterfeit original Peanuts art (via Mike Lynch via ¡Journalista!) — I guess this lady needn't worry

• Nerd-out: Spurge's no. 5 superpower FTW

My pal Hernán Migoya sent me this cover to his new novel, Quitame Tus Sucias Manos de Encima (a.k.a. Get Your Hands Off Me), being published in Spain this summer. The book tells the story of an obscure, fictional movie from the '70s written by Rod Serling and Richard Matheson and directed by Tom Gries and sports an original cover by our own Peter Bagge (and, I might add, a title page by yours truly)! 

Join Dash Shaw & Paul Karasik in conversation about Dash's new book Bodyworld at the Harvard Bookstore, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, on Wednesday April 21 at 7 PM. Both guys will be signing books after the talk so bring your Bottomless Bellybuttons, Unclothed Men, Civilized Planets and Evil Creations. More info here.