Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace 1959-1962 Box Set
By Hank Ketcham

two 672-page black & white 5.5" x 6.25" hardcovers in a custom slipcase • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-312-5
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

slipcase also available separately, exclusively from Fantagraphics • $4.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

A swell custom-designed case containing the fifth and sixth volumes of Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace with strips from the years 1959 through 1962. (Sorry, case is not peanut butter or root beer resistant.)

(Click the following links for more details on the 1959-1960 volume and the 1961-1962 volume, including preview excerpts.)

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Chocolate Cheeks
By Steven Weissman

112-page color/b&w 7.5" x 7.5" softcover • $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-56097-927-2
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Hilarious, frightening, mysterious, adorable and utterly bleak, Chocolate Cheeks has arrived to disgust and delight comic-book readers of all ages. “Sweet” Chubby Cheeks and the Pullapart Boy (a 21st Century Frankenstein’s monster for kids) are driving each other crazy. Forced together by their dating parents, these two bitter enemies have alienated — or otherwise disposed of — most of their social circle, leaving them with plenty of quality time for each other. They go camping, start a business, form a band, join a team, try to make some new friends (including icky new characters Crustache and Lumpy Noodle) and engage in a "holy war." Things go from worse to worst, though, when the two boys find a cat — or is it a bird? — one hot summer day in the harrowing 51-page story "Blue Jay" (as previously serialized at Fantagraphics.com).

Steven Weissman, modern master of light tragedy, is at his most horrible with Chocolate Cheeks. Juxtaposing gag-driven, newspaper-fashioned strips that are just gross enough to delight younger readers and sophisticated enough to be appreciated by grown-ups alongside the symbolically rich extended narrative of "Blue Jay," this is the greatest "Yikes" book yet.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 10-page PDF excerpt (5.1 MB).

Looks like these posts are pretty much daily, huh?

• Three "lost" prints from Paul Hornschemeier's vaults have been found and are now for sale on his blog

• Holy smokes, it's a multi-page Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond epic by Kevin Huizenga, Ted May and Dan Zettwoch, from the pages of the Riverfront Times (with "DVD extras" on Zettwoch's blog)! Will someone in St. Louis PLEASE send us some copies of this?

• Speaking of Huizenga, holy moly, he just opened up a memory that's been dormant in my head for around 30 years with this bit of Jan Lööf fan art (click for full version) — what a great book that was

• Several black & white pieces from the early 1990s by Richard Sala

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions starts with a rave:

• Review: "This is a fascinating book on a lot of levels. For one, it's distinguished by Adam Grano's design work to a degree I think noteworthy: on many levels, Newave! represents better than any book I've seen the clash of comics publishing impulses now and then. ... It says something about Grano's increasingly compelling body of work with Fantagraphics that he provides the work with much of the energy that helps the reader through nearly 900 pages. It's Michael Dowers that makes that trip worthwhile. By avoiding a summary statement and roping in so many cartoonists, presenting 700 pages of their work in doing so..., Dowers lets the reader come to the material rather than shoving it into their face. His confidence is justified: a lot of these comics are fascinating-looking, and the sheer handsomeness of many of the pages, this wall of better-than-expected craft, will probably be the biggest shock to those that kind of dismissed this kind of work whenever one encountered it along the way." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "...[Like a Dog] makes for a compelling scrapbook collection — and a beautifully-bound one at that. ... There’s an inspiring breadth of themes and styles on display here, although ultimately they all point to an artist in the depths of an existential crisis." – Will Fitzpatrick, Bookmunch

• Interview: Bookmunch's Will Fitzpatrick, whose review of Zak Sally's Like a Dog is linked above, has a good long email interview with Zak: "I actually enjoy reading comics so much that it’s slightly embarrassing. The stylistic diversity you mention was, again, not that conscious on my part: it was, again, just having this thing or idea and having to find a way to come at it that made sense, to me; and strangely enough, that often meant I had to experiment with what I thought comics were or weren’t to get there. I was just searching for a way to make comics."

• Contributor notes: Mini comix artist Ed Emmer talks about being included in Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s

• Links: Another exhaustive Love and Rockets link roundup from Love & Maggie

Our contract with the Peanuts licensor stipulates that we can't pre-sell The Complete Peanuts books before they are relased, but we can still bring you these previews!

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 (Vol. 13)
By Charles M. Schulz

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-345-3

Ships in: March 2010 (subject to change)

Good grief, Charlie Brown, we're halfway there! That’s right! With this volume, The Complete Peanuts reaches the halfway point of Charles M. Schulz’s astounding half-century run on the greatest comic strip of all time.

These years are especially fecund in terms of new canine characters, as Snoopy is joined by his wandering brother Spike (from Needles), his beloved sister Belle (from Kansas City), and... did you know he had a nephew? In other beagle news, Snoopy breaks his foot and spends six weeks in a cast, deals with his friend Woodstock’s case of the “the vapors,” and gets involved in a heated love triangle with Linus over the girl “Truffles.”

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 features several other long stories, including a rare “double track” sequence with two parallel narratives: Peppermint Patty and Snoopy travel to participate in the Powderpuff Derby, while Charlie Brown finally gets to meet his idol Joe Shlabotnik. And Peppermint Patty switches to a private school, but commits the mistake of allowing Snoopy to pick it for her; only after graduation does she realize something’s not quite right!

Plus: A burglary at Peppermint Patty’s house is exacerbated by waterbed problems... Marcie acquires an unwanted suitor... Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty become desk partners... The talking school building collapses... Lots of tennis jokes... and gags starring Schroeder, Lucy, Franklin, Rerun, Sally, and that vicious cat next door. It’s another two years of Peanuts at its finest! Featuring an introduction by comedian Robert Smigel (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Saturday Night Live).

"The Complete Peanuts has framed Charles Schulz’s enduring masterpiece about as well any lifelong fan could’ve hoped." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives", The A.V. Club

Download an EXCLUSIVE 14-page PDF excerpt (1 MB) containing all the strips from January, 1975!

Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

PEANUTS ® & © United Feature Syndicate. All rights reserved.

(...And this didn't get posted on time either. Yeesh!)

I'm still trying to figure out how to handle frequent art bloggers like Renee French and Debbie Drechsler (below). Pick one post to highlight each week? Any suggestions or preferences?

Also, some credit: I think I was inspired subconsciously to start these "Things to see" posts by Robot 6's Comics Cavalcade posts.

• Twelve original collages by Robert Pollard for the Guided by Voices release Suitcase 3, for sale on eBay

• Earth tongues by Debbie Drechsler

• Two films and an animated drawing (not shown here so as not to spoil it) by Lilli Carré

• Dash Shaw's Britney Spears

• At What Things Do, part 4 of "This Already Happened" by Steven Weissman

• Heermann's Gull by T. Edward Bak

Oh no, I had this Online Commentary & Diversions update all set to go and then I forgot to post it... Earth to Mike!

• List: At Bully Says: Comics Oughta Be Fun!, our favorite little stuffed bull continues the annual Fun Fifty countown. At #36, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1: "Ditko expert Blake Bell collects several dozen of Steve's 1950s work from Charlton and other publishers, plus plenty of amazing covers, in a thick, hardy collection with glorious gory and ghoulish Ditko comics from front to back. This thing's a gold mine!"

• Review: "...T. Edward Bak's almost comically named 'Wild Man, Chapter 2 -- A Bavarian Botanist in St. Petersburg, Part One'... is the story to which I kept returning long after the publication entire [Mome Vol. 17] should have been swapped off of my end table for something less worked over. ... I hope there's more." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "Next to Scott Pilgrim [Prison Pit: Book 1] felt to me like the western comic that’s got closest to properly understanding the energy of manga, rather than simply aping the surface elements. ... It’s the best art I’ve seen Ryan do in his career, more focused and while it mainly maintains a four-panel-a-page rhythm, when he breaks from that to do a splash page or change the panel rhythm, he does to great effect. If you’re going to do a splash page, it might as well be of a monster made of sperm or a barbed penis." – Brian Smith, Awesome Engine

• Plug: "Hot damn, a new Jaime Hernandez Love & Rockets digest. Those books are the perfect blend of form and function." – Sean T. Collins on Penny Century

• Plug: Tiny Showcase talks up Lilli Carré ("We've been in love with her work for ages now") following the release of her new print last night

• Coming Attractions: ICv2 previews our upcoming August release of Buz Sawyer Vol. 1: The War in the Pacific by Roy Crane

• Interview: Inkstuds host Robin McConnell says "I really enjoyed this chat with Zak Sally. If you are not already reading his work, you will want to after listening to this."

• Events: For Comics Comics, Dash Shaw reports from Angoulême: "At festivals like this you find yourself jetlagged in a taxi with José Muñoz and you’re thinking 'holy shit, what do I ask José Muñoz? What do I ask José Muñoz?!' and you end up just bugging him about random things. Try to milk those ten minutes for as much as you can."

On his blog Comics Commentary, Rodrigo Baeza points out a page which was apparently somehow omitted from our 2nd volume of Walt Kelly's Our Gang, shown above in a scan from microfiche. We regret the error.

UPDATE: We'll print this page at the end of Our Gang Vol. 5, which should be out as soon as late 2011.

Hey Seattle, come get this week's issue of The Stranger signed by cover artist (and weekly "I, Anonymous" illustrator) Steven Weissman when he's in town signing his new book Chocolate Cheeks at our flagship bookstore on Saturday! (Dear Steven: that cover image would make an awesome poster.)