Is it still a "sneak peek" if the book is already available? If you haven't seen it yet, sure! Today we're bringing you a belated video and photo teaser of Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes, the first-ever collection of work from the controversial underground/outsider cartoonist. Watch as I try to flip past the most blatantly NSFW material! View the video above (or click here if it doesn't show up), and take a closer look in our photo gallery.

"La Semaine de la Bande Dessinée - A Week Celebrating the French Graphic Novel" got off to a great start last night at the Alliance Française of Seattle, as a standing-room-only crowd gathered to see our own Kim Thompson present his slide lecture "Vingt sur 20: French Comics from Goscinny to Satrapi," an informative and entertaining overview of 20 artists who transformed la bande desinée from a children's medium into "the ninth art." We are working on presenting this slideshow in interactive format, with audio, here on the Fantagrahpics website in the near future, so stay tuned! And don't forget that this week-long event continues tonight with screenings of Tintin et Moi at Northwest Film Forum and David B.'s "My Story, My Stories" exhibit opening and book signing at our bookstore tomorrow!

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery proudly presents the return of Daniel Clowes on August 29. His appearance marks the premiere of Ghost World: The Special Edition. The reception will feature an exhibition of Clowes’ meticulously rendered original graphics related to the book, as well as a brief discussion of the artist's cinematic approach to cartooning moderated by Fantagraphics Books co-publisher Gary Groth. Admission is free, as always. Please join us on August 29, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM to welcome this extraordinary artist. Click here for more details and the full media release!

(NOTE: The exclusive limited-edition silkscreen print shown above will be available ONLY at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. Out-of-towners, now is the time to call in favors to your Seattle-area friends.)

Courtesy Peter Bagge*:

* Drawn during his YEAH! days. 

L to R: Gary Groth & Mike Baehr cltuch the first copies as Zuniga looks on. 

 Zuniga, Kim Thompson, John Pham & Raina

Further inspection by Gary & Mike 

Kim & John examine the print quality  

Tim Hensley (in hat), Kim & John 

 John & Raina discuss

John, Raina and Tim jawin' about the binding 

A quick note to those of you who are on The YouTube: we've just uploaded over a dozen of our recent video previews that have heretofore been hosted only on Flickr. We like the video quality on Flickr better, but we know there's lots of you on YouTube, too, so please, watch and enjoy.

By the way, we'd like to encourage those of you with your own blogs and websites to use our Flickr preview images and embed our videos, if you so desire. It's all kosher, so don't be shy.

Peanuts and Rock the Vote have teamed up this election season to show everyone how easy it is to vote... And the big question of the day is which Peanuts character would you want for President? Log on HERE to learn about the candidates: Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Sally.... Then it's up to you to decide and VOTE... 

Right now Charlie Brown is in the lead. Not a terrible choice, but come on, is there any doubt that Linus would make the Greatest President Ever? At least vote for Sally -- you know she'd pick a smart VP.

Meanwhile, if you're near Santa Rosa, CA, this year, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center has mounted an exhibition of election-themed strips spanning  the twelve presidential elections that took place during Schulz's 50 year run on Peanuts.

R. Kikuo Johnson and the Poetry Foundation have teamed up to produce a two-color rendering of A.E. Stallings' poem, "Recitative." Lovely. 

Courtesy Richard Sala: