I just learned that there is a "Zippy the Pinhead: The Musical" opening Nov. 12 (and running thru Nov. 21) in Baltimore, MD. Hello?!?! It's written by Baltimore composer Lorraine Whittlesey and tells the story of the Zipster's return to Baltimore to attend his high school reunion, and includes numbers such as "Pinhead Love," "The Condiments" and "Type 'Z' Personality." 

For the second time in a row Elvis Costello has tapped Tony Millionaire for the cover art for his new platter. National Ransom streets on November 2nd in the U.S. More info on the album here.

Joe Sacco is rightly considered to be one of our greatest living cartoonists, but he is most underrated as a humorist. From yesterday's New York Times.  

A Drunken Dream and Other Stories
by Moto Hagio

288-page black & white/color 7.25" x 9.75" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-377-4

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

This book is available with a signed bookplate as a FREE premium! The bookplate has been uniquely designed for this book, and each bookplate is printed on acid-free cardstock and hand-signed by the author. (Click here for more books available with signed bookplates.) Please select your preference when adding the item to your shopping cart. Signature plates are VERY limited in quantity and available only WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.

Forty years ago, the legendary manga artist Moto Hagio reinvented the shōjo (girls' comics) genre with an ongoing series of whip-smart, psychologically complex, and tenderly poetic stories. Here, now, in English for the very first time, as the debut release in Fantagraphics Books' ambitious manga line of graphic novels, are ten of the very best of these tales.

The work in A Drunken Dream and Other Stories spans Hagio's entire career, from 1970's "Bianca" to 2007's "The Willow Tree," and includes the mind-bending, full-color title story; the famously heartbreaking "Iguana Girl"; and the haunting "The Child Who Comes Home" — as well as "Autumn Journey," "Girl on Porch With Puppy," the eerie conjoined-twins shocker "Hanshin: Half-God," "Angel Mimic," and one of the saddest of all romance stories, "Marié, Ten Years Later."

A Drunken Dream and Other Stories is supplemented with a feature-length interview with Hagio, where she discusses her art, her career, and her life with the same combination of wit, candor and warmth that radiates from every panel of her comics.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 31-page PDF excerpt (4.8 MB).

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

From the new Complete Peanuts 1977-1978. 

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

• Bleeding Cool presents this R. Crumb sketch which was printed on the front page of Brazilian newspaper O Globo

• Bob Fingerman depicts "Another Day in Hell"

• Two unpublished Jason pages: a gag strip starring "D.V." and an aborted Poe adaptation

• This week's "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman 

• This week's Maakies by Tony Millionaire (still on Facebook while his new website is being built — if that last link doesn't work try this)

• New Mome contributor D.J. Bryant has a strip in this week's issue of The Stranger — it's not online so I took a snap of it

• Looks like maybe a new Cold Heat page from Frank Santoro? Also figures in conflict

• I don't usually editorialize here but Phineas X. Jones's version of Usagi Yojimbo #36 at Covered is awesome

• Drew Weing's Set to Sea pages 122 & 123

• A partial scan (with color checker card) of an unpublished 1954 Jim Flora woodcut print, Sheffield Island

• Debbie Drechsler draws skinks

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop

• Josh Simmons & Wendy Chin bring us Quackers vs. Buzzers, Quackers vs. Pony Cheetah, & Quacker loves Bunny; also from Josh, these scary guys

• Renee French draws a portrait of Tim Kreider; also these sketches and this photo

• Steve Brodner's animated take on Charlie Rangel

• A new Truth Serum strip by Jon Adams

• Ray Fenwick made a t-shirt design for Nike

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...[Rand Holmes] could tell a story, and he hit his stride with lengthy action-comedy epics like 'Wings Over Tijuana' and 'Hitler’s Cocaine,' which explored the shadier sides of drug culture in a style that veered from the shockingly real to the morbidly slapstick. Imagine a Jack Davis MAD magazine piece with heavier overtones; that was Holmes at his best, and that best is well-represented in The Artist Himself. [Grade] B+" – The A.V. Club

• Review: "Drew Weing’s breezy, lyrical graphic novel Set to Sea... tells a simple story about art and experience, delivered in one-step-follows-another fashion. Weing’s cartoony figures and detailed backgrounds — rendered with precise cross-hatching — suit his one-picture-per-page format well, making Set to Sea look like an animated film slowed down to a slideshow. ...Weing’s beautiful art and masterful pacing are so pleasurable that Set to Sea stands up to multiple reads. It’s a catchy little tune that sounds better with each spin. [Grade] A-" – The A.V. Club

• Review: "Fantagraphics has taken care to showcase Hagio’s work in as beautiful a package as possible. ... For the right reader, adult or teen, man or woman, these stories [in A Drunken Dream and Other Stories] can be windows into a world where finally they can see themselves, both their strengths and their flaws. That’s a powerful thing for a book to be able to do and it takes a masterful craftsman like Hagio to be able to do it." – Snow Wildsmith, Graphic Novel Reporter

• Review: "Temperance is a story of awakening and transformation — physical, emotional, and spiritual. A profoundly empathetic reflection upon the systemic societal problems of culturally ingrained violence and brainwashing, Temperance is profound, meaningful, and deserves to be read and reread at length." – Midwest Book Review/ComicList

• Plug: "The excellent graphic novel Special Exits is soon coming out from Fantagraphics. It is a labor of love of more than 10 years by the American comic artist extraordinaire Joyce Farmer. ... Of course another reason I am excited about the publication of Special Exits is because I’ve seen it grow and take shape throughout those years as Joyce Farmer has honored me with her friendship. Some of my students at the Ornerakis Cartoon School would also remember her as she was gracious enough to present her work to them. I am really looking forward to have the book in my hand and re-read it again and again as I think it is one of the best graphic novels ever created!" – Elias Tabakeas, Kailoipalogion

Get a 9-page sneak peek of Rand Holmes art and comics from The Artist Himself: A Rand Holmes Retrospective by Patrick Rosenkranz at Graphic Novel Reporter!

Steven Weissman tosses us a curveball this week, giving Barack Hussein Obama a rest and bringing us Truman Capote, "drawn on the beach!" as Steven boasts.

We still need to bring our roster of online strips back up from one... stay tuned.

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...I had more fun reading this book than just about any other comic I’ve read so far this year. ... There’s a sort of Hergé-like mechanical perfection to his artwork; not only is it super-clean and super-crisp, but the panel-to-panel consistency is so strong that his characters sometimes don’t look drawn so much as stamped out by some sort of automatic drawing machine. ... Steve and Millennium Boy are funny — sometimes on purpose, sometimes not — and it’s a pleasure to walk around with them. ... I haven’t played an RPG since I was a teenager, but I think I’d play a Dungeon Quest one in a heartbeat." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Review: "This amazing, sweeping epic... spans decades of time and hundreds of miles of geography, and it deals with no less than war, fear, religion, trust, memory, violence and the mysterious, barely understood ways in which these broad, vague emotions are used to form communities and society, and/or how they can tear them apart. ... I can’t recommend Temperance highly enough. It’s a book that everyone should read, and then reread." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Review: "If the message and method of delivery seem simple, the artwork is anything but. In that regard, Set to Sea is the comics equivalent of good poetry. It’s not what’s being said so much as how beautifully Weing’s saying it." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Las Vegas Weekly

• Review: "Combining the utterly irresistible power of nostalgia and insatiable curiosity with science-fiction, conspiracy theory, urban history, fact and legend, show-biz razzmatazz, supernatural horror, Film Noir and a highly developed sense of the meta-real, [in The Search for Smilin' Ed] Deitch once more weaves an irresistible spell that charms, thrills and disturbs whilst his meticulous drawing holds the reader in a deceptively fluffy, yet inescapable grip." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This! (via Bill Kartalopoulos)

• Review: "Widely acknowledged as the greatest adventure strip ever created, Prince Valiant is also arguably the best comic strip in that medium’s history. However, reprint collections have failed to truly capture the beauty and consummate artistry of Hal Foster’s creation…until now, that is. ...[T]his new Fantagraphics edition goes beyond simply correcting the shortcomings of past reprints — in truth, it is more of a revelation than a mere restoration. ... Ultimately, Prince Valiant is much more than a series of fantastic adventures in some legendary era; rather, it is a depiction of the making of a fully rounded and realized human being. ... Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant is a story to be read and cherished — today, tomorrow, always." – ForeWord Reviews

• Plug: The New Yorker's Sally Law talks to Jordan Crane about his webcomics concern What Things Do

• Analysis: Love & Maggie return to their detailed, annotated rundown of the second chronological issue on their list of the Top 10 Issues of The Comics Journal, #59

• Commentary: Vom Marlowe is the latest to weigh in in The Hooded Utilitarian's critical roundtable on Popeye