Just as we received our office copies of the new issue of Previews, we've already submitted our March 2010 releases for the next issue, and as always we just can't wait to give our website readers an exclusive first look at our offerings! It's another big month — heck, I guess they all are — with 9 books & comics headed your way. We've got us another Jacques Tardi masterpiece (pictured above), the next volume of The Complete Peanuts, a brand new Hate Annual from Peter Bagge, another great collection of Walt Kelly's Our Gang, our new collection of the earliest Krazy Kat Sundays, and a great, never-before-reprinted Basil Wolverton rarity, plus an R. Crumb classic in hardcover for the first time, and softcover reprints from Tim Lane and Jack Cole! Here's the scoop.

Well technically it's not comics, but arriving in comic shops across the land this week (hot on the heels of its arrival at our warehouse) is Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box. Newsarama says "it looks totally awesome," and who are we to argue?

Of course, the BEST comic shop at which to pick up this book (up at which?) is Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery this weekend at our Portable Grindhouse launch/3rd Anniversary Party & Portable Grindhouse panel discussion! Barring that, though, I'm sure your local shop would love to see you.

(Also out this week and highly coveted by me: Dark Horse's collection of Carol Swain short stories Crossing the Empty Quarter — if you haven't picked up Giraffes in My Hair yet, why not make it a Swain two-fer?)

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: The American Book Center in Amsterdam names Rock Candy: The Artwork of Femke Hiemstra one of its Books of 2009

• Review: "...[T]here’s one reason why Pim & Francie pulls off the unlikely feat of being more than the sum of its fragmented, disconnected, half-inked parts: it’s terrifying. ... The book... hangs in your head long after you close your eyes." – Martyn Pedler, Bookslut

• Plug/Name Drop: Whitney Matheson of USA TODAY's Pop Candy blog calls Dash Shaw's IFC.com web series The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. "colorful and captivating" (and mentions that writer/director Paul Feig liked Dash's graphic novel Bottomless Belly Button, so that's cool)

• Plug: Thanks to Hef for plugging Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons on Twitter today!

• Plugs: Lots of Popeye plugs and Segar tributes today, in addition to Google: Technologizer, Mike Lynch, The Beat, Robot 6, Super I.T.C.H., and The Daily Cartoonist

• Plug: "If you ever skipped school to zone out to stacks of rented VHS tapes, or exhausted the wealth of movies at your local video store by 1995, then this is the perfect item for you, or someone like you. Packaged lovingly to resemble an VHS tape from days gone by, the book Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box contains some of the greatest crap-rack video covers of all time." – The Incubator

• Interview: Publishers Weekly's Calvin Reid talks to Joe Sacco about returning to Palestine

• Reviewer: For The Wall Street Journal, Alexander Theroux reviews a new biography of Patricia Highsmith

• Things to see: Original Al Columbia artwork for sale from Floating World

The Comic-Con organization has announced the Special Guests for Comic-Con International 2010 in San Diego, and we're pleased to report that among them is C. Tyler. We're going to do our darnedest to debut You'll Never Know, Book 2 at the con. Stay tuned for future announcements.

At his blog, Tim Lane reveals the back covers for the paperback edition of Abandoned Cars coming next year (note that the bar code and ISBN have yet to be added). Head over there for larger images and Tim's inspiration for the design. Let me just say that he totally nailed that flea market/used bookstore price handwriting, which seems to be the same wherever you go. Previously: the front covers.

Do a good deed, and then gamble with the results: Donate $20 to The Stranger's annual "Strangercrombie" charity fundraising effort and get a set of Stranger playing cards featuring artwork by Stranger illustrators such as Steven Weissman (King of Spades above). Hopefully Jeremy Eaton is in there too. Find the donation link on the right side of this page.

UPDATE: You can also bid on an auction including a $50 gift certificate to Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, and The Stranger's sister publication the Portland Mercury has their own charity auctions, one of which includes a selection of our best-selling essentials. Go, bid!

Popeye creator and cartooning all-time great E.C. Segar would have been 115 today. Even Google is getting in on the celebration on their homepage today! I'm going to celebrate by reading Popeye Vol. 4: "Plunder Island".

(The "Google doodle" is uncredited, but I wonder if it's by Stephen DeStefano, who's done Popeye work in the past...)

Dash Shaw's animated web series for IFC.com, The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. (to which the book of the same name is the companion), is now online for your viewing pleasure! (Don't be thrown off by the preceding "sponsor messages.") There are 4 episodes plus a "making-of" segment with interviews with Dash, animator Jane Samborski, and soundtrack artist James Lucido. And as a bonus, IFC has put Dash's story "Look Forward, First Son of Terra Two," along with some exclusive wallpapers and "buddy icons," under "Extras."

How rad is this: the folks down the street at Seattle's rightly venerated Scarecrow Video have gone through Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box and put together a special rental section of titles found in the book. (Take a close look at the image above.) Scarecrow's Marc Palm, who will appear on Sunday's Portable Grindhouse panel at Fantagraphics Bookstore, explains on the Scarecrow blog.

The talented and lovely Femke Hiemstra visits Seattle from Amsterdam showing new paintings on Friday at Roq la Rue and as a guest at the wild 3rd anniversary party at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday.

Roq la Rue proprietor and lowbrow culture maven Kirsten Anderson observes, "Drawing on a range of influences from firework wrappers to Japanese woodblock prints, Femke's use of both pop culture detritus and child-like fantasy create a vibrant playground for the imagination, with each piece looking like a portal for a fantastic adventure. It is left to the viewer to imagine the story that lies inside."

On Saturday Femke will sign copies of her recent book ROCK CANDY (introduction by Kirsten Anderson). She joins an amazing cast including Paul Hornschemeier and Jay Ryan from Chicago, Dame Darcy and Jacques Boyreau from Portland, and Seattle's own Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, Jim Woodring, Scott Musgrove, and Jim Blanchard with music, refreshments, and comix, natch. The holiday party of the season.