The PREVIEWSworld website presents an assortment of 7 pages from Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954, which is scheduled to hit comic shops next week! The preview shows a nice mix of Toth's horror, war and romance work.

Elsewhere on their site PREVIEWSworld also shares our promotional "BLAD" brochure for Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, previously seen here on our website.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising 1870s-1940s
edited by Rick Marschall & Warren Bernard

128-page full-color 9.5" x 13" softcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-399-6

See Previews / Order Now

The history of the genre known as Cartoon Advertising is addressed for the first time in the oversized, full-color, 128-page, fully illustrated book Drawing Power. “There are many obscure masterpieces to be found lingering at the intersection of American Commerce and Comic Art,” says co-editor Rick Marschall. Drawing Power covers the years from the Gilded Age and the pioneer illustrated magazines of the 1870s to the 1940s, just before American entry into World War II.

This landmark volume features the work of iconic cartoonists doing work that mostly has been lost to history, by the nature of its in-the-moment splashes. There are examples by Thomas Nast, Joseph Keppler, F Opper, Bud Fisher, George Herriman, John Held, Jr., Charles Dana Gibson, Percy Crosby, Peter Arno, Gluyas Williams, Milton Caniff and over 60 other cartoonists. Generous portfolios are devoted to the substantial work in the genre by R F Outcault, Dr Seuss, cartoon sheet music, and more.

Many famous products and many famous campaigns and slogans – but also forgotten gadgets and outrageous claims – are found in Drawing Power. Dr Scott’s Electric Cigarettes from the 1880s… Yellow Kid cigars… the Campbell Soup Kids… Rose O’Neill’s Jello-O ads… Snap, Crackle, and Pop… Little Orphan Annie’s Ovaltine… Mr Coffee Nerves… they are all here! Other “pitchmen” include Popeye, Mickey Mouse, Barney Google, Walt & Skeezix, and more!

But Drawing Power is not just a fascinating stroll down memory lane. It is a serious look at a significant category of American culture… one that has not been anthologized nor analyzed until now. Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising is guaranteed not to shrink, even after repeated washings. Smooth, satisfying, easy on the throat. No longer will your friends notice your dishpan hands, once you have read Drawing Power! Buy two today!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Alex Toth was a tale-teller and a master of erudite refinement, his avowed mission to pare away every unnecessary line and element in life and in work. His dream was to make perfect graphic stories. He was eternally searching for 'how to tell a story, to the exclusion of all else.' This long-awaited collection [Setting the Standard] shows how talent, imagination and dedication to that ideal can elevate even the most genre-locked episode into a masterpiece [of] the form and a comicbook into art." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "Shimura Takako’s Wandering Son crafts, with the utmost care, a story of the struggles and adversities faced by cross dressing youths at the brink of blossoming into preteens.... Given the delicate subject matter of the main characters involved I felt that Shimura Takako crafted a wonderful introductory volume into the lives of these young individuals as they struggle with their identities, school life, and most of all approaching the brink of puberty." – Amy Grocki, Manga Village

• Plug/Conflict of Interest: Our own Eric Buckler has begun writing a new "Adventures in Indie Comics" column for The Snipe, and in his inaugural post he highlights Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes: "Drawn by Carl Barks, a pioneer in cartooning and inventor of much of Donald’s universe, the stories highlight the duck at his best 1948-1950. Like the Mickey strips, Barks’ Duck introduces us to an edgy and crazed collection of creatures in contrast to the softer Disney we are used to. The first in a series will be out in October."

• History: A fascinating footnote to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson: at Planet Mouse, Jim Korkis writes about his involvement with eariler, unauthorized attempts to reprint Gottfredson's Mickey strips and presents two introductory essays he wrote for the aborted series

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Interview? (Audio): Tony Millionaire appeared on host Benjamen Walker's radio show Too Much Information on WFMU — we haven't had a chance to listen yet so we don't know exactly what form it takes but you can download or stream the episode here

• Profile: At GALO Magazine, Emily Crawford Misztal talks to Nate Neal and looks at his debut graphic novel The Sanctuary: "While the language and the ways of the characters in the book will be unfamiliar to readers, the motives that drive them are as old and familiar as the sun. Neal sees the ancient setting as a way to get at the core of what it means to be human—in any era. 'It is a chance for me to examine human behavior on a more universal level,' Neal said. 'Sex, power, revenge, the primal stuff, is underneath everything that we do. There’s more covering over what we do now. With the cavemen, I can strip everything away and get right down to it.'"

• Plug (Video): Roger Ash of Westfield Comics sits down on camera to recommend our upcoming release Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture

• News: The Washington Post's Michael Cavna gets Gary Groth's comments on Robert Crumb's withdrawal from the upcoming GRAPHIC festival in Sydney, Australia

• Commentary: At Robot 6, Brigid Alverson examines the topic of aging as "the final frontier" of comics storytelling and praises creators such as Joyce Farmer and Carol Tyler for their handling of the subject matter (in Special Exits and You'll Never Know, respectively)

• Feature: Rob Lammle of mental_floss posts an entertaining list of "10 Peanuts Characters You've Probaby Forgotten" — devotees of our The Complete Peanuts series will be familiar with some of them, and some of them give hints as to what to expect in future volumes!

• Analysis: At Taking Its Time, Jeff Hayes writes on the use of Jacques Tardi's It Was the War of the Trenches in an academic setting, specifically the high school English classroom: "In using a text like It Was the War of the Trenches, democratic education is being practiced. It is not just because of how the book is constructed visually; we must look at it also as an artifact of importance in presenting how another culture views historical events-how those events may or may not have affected the lives of others we do not think of in the rush of war and the aftermaths that follow as we choose what is important in history and what is not."

Chuck Forsman makes his Fantagraphics debut in the new (and final) issue of Mome. You may have noticed that his mashup of Jaws and Peanuts (which you can buy a print of) (oops, no, it's sold out!) (now there's a second printing!) has made a bit of a splash (no pun intended) lately. You can also find him all over the internet, with a website here, a blog (Snake Oil) here, an online shop with prints, minicomics, commissions and more, a Flickr page and a Tumblr blog. Plus Twitter!

Apologies for the long delay since the last roundup. I enjoy bringing you these posts but lately it's been hard to squeeze them in. I may need to figure out a new approach or something. Anyway, on with the show:

• "Unemployment" strips by Tim Hensley

• Hey, a new comic from Jonathan Bennett! Spin commissioned a 2-page strip from Jonathan as part of their commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind and posted it on Facebook (Via Spurge)

• Nate Neal has a new website you should bookmark/subscribe to, with lots & lots of updates, including comics in the video "Comix-O-Matic" format, sneak peeks of a new book he's working on and a whole mess more

• Drew Friedman spotlights those awesome "Cool Art Pencils" that Pentech put out in the early '90s

• Dave Cooper shares this rough preliminary sketch and a whole mess of reference photos (and behind-the-scenes shenanigans) for a new painting he's working on

• Richard Sala — now on Tumblr! Still some previously unshared updates on his Here Lies Richard Sala blog too

• Tim Lane illustrates the poster & program for the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase festival

• Lorenzo Mattotti also illustrates for a film festival, Annency Cinéma Italien; plus a New Yorker cover and Johnny Rebb

• Lilli Carré illustrates for the Chicago Reader and animates a Wallace Stevens poem at The Hooded Utilitarian

• You may have heard we've signed Noah Van Sciver's in-progress graphic novel about Abraham Lincoln, The Hypo — here Noah presents an excerpt

• Stephen DeStefano continues to fill up his new Tumblr with Popeye designs, sketches and other stuff

• The usual amazing stuff from Renee French

• Steve Brodner on the debt-ceiling debacle for the Washington Post and additional recent sketches at his blog

• Yes, it's a panel from Kevin Huizenga's eagerly-awaited Ganges #4

• Four weeks worth of Paul Hornschemeier's daily sketches at The Daily Forlorn

• As we enter the dog days of summer Wilfred Santiago's arctic fox is looking mighty cool

• Johnny Ryan gets in the Smurf spirit (Seal Team Smurf? Smurf Team Six? Smurf Team Smurf?) and draws his favorite bullies

• Yowie, this back cover to Stan Sakai's latest annual sketchbook — yowie!

And more Things to See since the last update:

• Glimpses of a new comic from Matthias Lehmann

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spots and more at his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• A figure painting from a life drawing class by John Hankiewicz

• Dame Darcy's developed a propinquity for dolphins

• Debbie Drechsler returns to her nature-sketching blog Just Around the Corner

• Sketches by Mark Kalesniko for his new graphic novel Freeway at his blog

• Sergio Ponchione gives some glimpses of his summer projects (if I'm interpreting the autotranslation correctly)

• Here's the blog of new Mome contributor Nick Drnaso

• Recent sketches (and aquarium videos) by Laura Park

• New drawings from Sophie Crumb

• Anders Nilsen 's book tour travel sketches

• Lots of updates on recent projects and an autobio-ish strip or two from Derek Van Gieson

• Anthony Vukojevich takes on Love and Rockets #1 at the Covered blog

At his  blog Jason shares the first glimpse of Hubert's coloring for Athos in America (shown with the French dialogue). Hubert gets the spotlight with an interview in the upcoming Jason Conquers America, for which Jason has posted the front and back cover illustrations. Also since the last time we checked in with Jason's Cats Without Dogs blog, he's posted a bunch of reviews of '80s films, a moving piece on the Oslo bombing attack, more older illustrations and some new sketches.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "As with Chun's earlier volumes in the series, it is fantastic to see this work brought back. The original digests were pervasive and invasive...they once arrived by the pallet to newsstands all over the country, but because of their risque and sexist slant, they've been Orwelled right out of our world. It is nice to see them presented here as the art they were. Other than their super-busty raunch (and the occasional spanking) the girly gags of Humorama have aged well because they were hidden for some fifty years. They are also harmless, sometimes woman-friendly and FUNNY." – Jim Linderman, Vintage Sleaze

• Review: "Isle of 100,000 Graves represents his first true collaboration, with writer Fabien Vehlmann providing a template that is a remarkable complement to Jason’s deadpan style.... At a crisp 57 pages, Vehlmann and Jason cram a surprising amount of plot and character development into this graphic novella, yet the book has a pleasantly unhurried pace and plenty of room for gags.... The secret hero of this book’s success is the colorist Hubert, who brings a vivid richness to the book that gives it a quality not unlike that of Carl Barks’ work.... The result is pure storytelling pleasure, a kind of narrative eye-candy that is doubly attractive for its sense of restraint and Vehlmann’s deadpan story beats." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal

• Review: "I never thought I could look at Poe in a way that was fresh. Poe has been done a thousand times and, while it’s always fun to watch someone else do their thing with Poe’s work, it tends to all go pretty much the same. [The Raven] is different, though. This is scaling back layers of dead flesh — Poe’s, Reed’s and Mattotti’s — and then grafting all of the raw, naked skin together to make a creature that is both disturbing and beautiful.... Knowing that this work came from a musical, I thought perhaps I might be missing a large piece of it, experiencing it through only one sense. I was wrong, however — Mattotti’s art combined with the inherent lyrical quality of the writing to make a more beautiful song than anyone could sing." – Lyndsey Holder, Innsmouth Free Press

• Review: "Fenwick's use of fonts is fascinating, as he seems obsessed with their aesthetic and decorative qualities as a way of eliciting a certain kind of reaction.... Fenwick slips between the absurd, the thoughtful, the existential and the sublime from page to page, keeping the reader off-balance but engaged.... Mascots flips from image to image with a dream logic that's sometimes whimsical, sometimes creepy, sometimes weird and always vivid. It's that vividness that gives the book its energy and an almost hallucinatory quality. Readers should not expect a coherent narrative but rather simply enjoy the ride." – Rob Clough, High-Low

• Review: "Josh Simmons picked an interesting way to write a graphic novel... Jessica seems to be a child in an abusive situation but either she’s found how to stay sane within her own imaginary world with a host of friends or she’s found a way to fight back. I’m not sure if her courage is a shield or a weapon. [Jessica Farm is a]n interesting life project and I think, well worth a read." – Terry Grignon, Golbing

• Interview: From the archives, The Comics Journal presents Gary Groth's great, historic 1993 interview with Jim Woodring

• Quote of the Week: At The Comics Journal, R. Fiore's review of Luc Besson's film adaptation of Tardi's The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec contains this bon mot: "My rule of thumb is that making a movie out of a comic strip is like making a love song out of a blowjob: You may well make a perfectly decent love song out of it, but it will lack the characteristics one values in the original experience."

Lynn Johnston has generously placed her entire foreword to the new volume of The Complete Peanuts (1981-1982) online for everyone to read at her For Better or For Worse website (online headquarters for her beloved long-running newspaper strip). Read, enjoy, pass along and (of course) order the book here.

Even More Old Jewish Comedians
by Drew Friedman

36-page full-color 10" x 10" hardcover • $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-489-4

Ships in: August 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Master caricaturist/portraitist Drew Friedman’s spectacular visual tribute to, well, old Jewish comedians returns with a third and concluding installment that throws its net a bit wider to include a few women (Olive Oyl voice Mae Questel, Ed Sullivan show regular Jean Carroll, and The Rise of the Goldbergs creator Gertrude Goldberg); a handful of more contemporary figures (Richard Belzer, whose Law & Order: SVU gig has eclipsed his stand-up comedy, and Welcome Back, Kotter’s Gabe Kaplan); and pop-culture legends (Prof. Irwin Corey, legendary Warner Bros. voice artist Mel Blanc), plus among others Marty Ingels, Fyvush Finkel, Gary Morton, Sam Levenson, Bobby Remsen, Max Patkin, Marvin Kaplan, Norm Crosby, Sammy Shore, Joey Adams, Lou Jacobi, and Sid James. It’s a heaping pastrami sandwich of gloriously liver-spotted, wrinkled personalities, that will appeal to anyone who likes old people, Jews, or comedians.

Even More Old Jewish Comedians, which features a cover of comedian Stewie Stone, is augmented with an introduction from not-quite-old-yet Jewish comedian and Comedy Central roasts regular Jeffrey Ross.

"You'd have to be absolutely mushugina to pass this book up." – Juxtapoz

"This is a beautiful tribute to all the men & women who have made life a joy. If Job had a copy and had known these people, he would never had written that terrible book." — Jerry Stiller

"I grew up adoring old Jewish comedians and through Drew Friedman's renditions, I now appreciate and love them more than ever. God bless these books!" – Joe Franklin

“Drew Friedman is better than Picasso.” — Howard Stern

“I’m proud to be in the old Jew book!” — Jerry Lewis

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

Exclusive Savings: Order all 3 Old Jewish Comedians books together — the Complete Old Jewish Comedians Collection — and save 20% off the combined cover prices! Click here to order.