Michael Kupperman provided this cover illustration & design for Gojira: King of the Monsters, a new novella by National Book Award-nominated author Jim Shepard from NYC small press Solid Objects.

Special Exits: Joyce Farmer from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.

Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds sat down for a filmed chat with Joyce Farmer about her "extraordinarily powerful" new graphic memoir Special Exits.

Esther Pearl Watson & Mark Todd are having a holiday sale on select prints, shirts and books in their Funchicken online shop, including this awesome 4-color glow-in-the-dark Unlovable silkscreen!

Congratulations to Stephen DeStefano for being nominated for an Individual Achievement Annie Award ("Animation's Highest Honor") for Character Design in a Television Production for his work on Cartoon Network's Sym-Bionic Titan! (It's an awesome show.)

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Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):

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And elsewhere:

Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane:

Lucky by Gabrielle Bell:

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

Ectiopiary  pages 51 & 52 by Hans Rickheit:

Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

Amazing Facts... and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Cathy Malkasian's Temperance is one of Largehearted Boy's Favorite Graphic Novels of 2010: "I have been creating a list of my favorite graphic novels of all time, and as the list grows smaller, one title remains near the top of the pile. Cathy Malkasian's debut, Percy Gloom, skillfully told (and illustrated) its story, and wholly transported the reader into an alternative world. Malkasian is back with another stellar graphic novel, Temperance, a dark and literate dystopian fable centered on themes of violence and control."

• Review: "...Joyce Farmer... in the ’70s contributed to the feminist anthology Wimmen’s Comix and helped create a notorious series about women’s sexuality whose title can’t be reproduced here. She’s kept a fairly low profile since then, but her new book, Special Exits, is forceful, unsparing and equally concerned, in its way, with saying the unsayable. [...] Farmer’s tone recalls her underground days and suits the gently rambling narrative. [...] She renders her wobbly, minutely textured characters with wit and tough affection, and her habit of looking for the darkly funny side of everything keeps the book from getting too bleak." – Douglas Wolk, The New York Times Sunday Book Review

• Profile: Cindy Frazier of the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot talks to Joyce Farmer and her early publishing partner Lyn Chevli: "'So I put a sign in the window saying, "Artist Wanted,"' Chevli said. Farmer, who worked at a bail bonds office next door, responded. The rest is comic book history, as the pair became pioneer women comic book publishers."

• Profile: Jennifer Erickson of the Laguna Beach Independent talks to Joyce Farmer: "While she honed very useful skills of observation at art school, 'reading about Socrates was life changing,' said Farmer, struck by inequities of contemporary society that echo ancient times. 'I wanted to do things to improve our culture – make the world a better place,' she said."

• Review: "Norwegian cartoonist Jason is a genius, full-stop, and that statement is undeniable by anyone who has even a passing knowledge of his work. ....What I Did... practically sell[s] itself, but those still in doubt can be assured that, apart from it being an excellent deal, the quality of the work within this book is impeccable. [...] Each story on its own is unquestionably superb, and readers will delight in the moods Jason evokes and the artistic techniques he employs. Together the stories in What I Did are sterling examples of Jason’s fantastic skill as both an illustrator and a storyteller that are well worth the purchase in spite of their vast differences in tone, style, and content." – Steve Higgins, PLAYBACK:stl

• Review: "Well, no children are brutally murdered in this one, so thank heaven for small favors! Of the Fritz B-movie books so far... [The Troublemakers] is the most straightforwardly a product of genre. Grifters and gunplay, seductions and quadruple-crosses, all that stuff. [...] And there’s magic, too, but like everything else it’s just used to fuck other people over." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Review: "The chief surprise with Newave! is the vitality and merit it sustains throughout its length and not so much in its content, although there is a lot of content … well over 70 complete minis from the day. This is altogether riveting stuff, a host of guerilla comics from so many different hands offering an astonishing variety of visual experiences." – Rich Kreiner, The Comics Journal

• Plug: "Compiled... to catalog the sometimes glorious, sometimes ignominious, always entertaining history of punks-on-film, this anthology [Destroy All Movies!!!] features over 1,100 mohawked rockers, funky new-wavers, and down-and-out weirdos..." – Thrillist

• Plug: "Fantagraphics have done an amazing job putting together this huge slab of Stan Sakai's samurai epic [Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition]. Over a thousand pages in a gorgeous slipcased two-volume set that may be overkill, but isn't that what the holidays are about?" – "Lydia Park," The Rack

• Coming Attractions: Greek site Comicdom reports on the triumphant return of The Comics Journal with issue #301 (coming in February 2011)

• Coming Attractions: Bleeding Cool reports on our Spring 2011 publication of Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals and also reports on our Summer 2011 publication of Dave McKean's Celluloid

(Click image to embiggen)

Behold! A never-before-seen Daniel Clowes sketch from 1992 provided to us by the great Barbara Manning, who (as previously noted) is playing a show at the Sunset Tavern here in Seattle in mere hours, sharing the bill with Peter Bagge's band Can You Imagine?! It's all a big circle of comics and music and love! Thanks to Barbara for sending us this image!

Progress update from Jim at The Woodring Monitor: it's painted!

The Oslo Comics Expo has announced 3 Fantagraphics artists as special guests for the 2011 show taking place May 27-28: Dave Cooper, Tony Millionaire, and Dash Shaw. Also on hand: our own Kim Thompson, whose activities at the Expo (beyond smuggling beer for Tony) are TBD.

It's that time of year, and as with past years for your browsing and shopping reference we have created a handy page of 2010 Critics' Picks, listing books that are being selected by critics, fellow artists, readers and other comics professionals as the Best of 2010. (See also the 2008 and 2009 lists — these lists can also be found under "Award Winners" in our "Browse Shop" navigation tab.) This page will continue expanding as the year winds down and more lists appear. And of course we're noting the critics' selections here in our "Daily OCD" posts on Flog — they're all categorized under the "Best of 2010" tag.

If you're a critic, blogger, pundit and/or enthusiast who's putting together your own Best of 2010 list and need to be reminded which of your favorite Fantagraphics releases were released this year, by all means use our complete and up-to-date 2010 Releases section as your guide. (Note that this list includes multipacks which may contain previous years' releases.)