The Toronto Comics Art Festival has announced the first batch of special guests for the 2012 fest, and we're excited to reveal that we'll be hosting the following global guests on May 5th and 6th:

Jason: You asked for him, you got him!  Jason was, hands-down, the most asked-about artist at TCAF 2011. See? Don't say we don't ever listen to you, Toronto. He will be signing his latest, Athos in America, along with many, many other books.

Gabriella Giandelli: We are absolutely delighted to be hosting Gabriella, all the way from Italy! This is a rare treat to meet this wonderful artist, and we'll be debuting the collection of her Ignatz comic Interiorae!

Olivier Schrauwen: And making his North American comic convention debut (we're pretty sure), it's Olivier Schrauwen! He'll be signing copies of The Man Who Grew His Beard, among other things.

And stay tuned to the FLOG as we announce which artists from this continent will also be joining us at the Fantagraphics table for TimBits! See you at TCAF!

Get ready to listen up on Thursday, March 1st as editor Pat Thomas gives a special presentation for Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975!

Join us at the historic Washington Hall [153 14th Avenue, Seattle] for a slideshow on this powerful and politically-charged period of music, starting at 7:00 PM.

Tickets are $10 at the door, or you can purchase tickets in advance for $8 general public / $5 students at Brown Paper Tickets.

This wonderful event is presented by Seattle's Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, and co-presented with Elliott Bay Book Company and co-sponsored by Hollow Earth Radio’s Central Sounds. We could not be more thrilled to be working with such great Seattle institutions of culture!

It's true: in a couple of weeks Gary Groth hops a plane to New Delhi and meets up with Robert Crumb for the 2nd Annual Indian Comics Convention at Dilli Haat!

On Saturday February 18th, Gary gives a special talk about the evolution of alternative comics in America and the history of Fantagraphics.

And on Sunday February 19th, Gary leads a live conversation with special guest of honor Robert Crumb for what promises to be an illuminating and entertaining look at the life and work of one of comics' all-time greats.

Will there be photos of Gary, Crumb and Drawn & Quarterly chief Chris Oliveros (also in attendance) sharing an elephant ride, as pondered by someone on the D&Q Twitter feed? We can dream. For the 0.65% of you who live in India (thanks, Google Analytics), this is the event of a lifetime!

Everyone -- er, everything -- will wanna follow you home when you're wearing this snazzy t-shirt designed by our own Jim Woodring!

Jim designed these t-shirts just for our friends at the website Boing Boing! This exclusive design is screened in scarlet ink on a jet black t-shirt, for a "tigers' breath in a cave" effect, as Jim describes it. Follow this link to get one sent to your home!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Athos in America
by Jason

196-page full-color 6.5" x 8.75" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-478-8

See Previews / Order Now

Another all-original collection of full-color graphic novellas in the format of Low Moon, Athos in America takes its title from the lead story, a prequel of sorts to the graphic novel The Last Musketeer, in which the seemingly ageless swashbuckler turns up in a bar in 1920 New York and relates the tale of how he went to Hollywood to play himself in a film version of The Three Musketeers. Another tie-in with a previous Jason story occurs in “The Smiling Horse,” in which the characters from the story “&” in Low Moon attempt to kidnap a woman.

Also in this volume: “The Brain That Wouldn’t Virginia Woolf,” a mashup of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, told in reverse chronological order; the Bukowski pastiche “A Cat From Heaven” in which Jason works on his comic, has a reading in a comic book store, gets drunk and makes a fool of himself; the dialogue-free (all the text occurs in thought balloons) “Tom Waits on the Moon,” in which we follow four people (one of them a scientist working on a teleportation machine) until something goes wrong; and “So Long Mary Ann,” a prison-escape love-triangle story.

Tim Lane shares his breathtaking cover illustration for next week's Riverfront Times, which will feature his graphic feature narrative "Notes of a Second Class Citizen." You lucky St. Louisans will not want to miss out on getting your hands on a copy!

[Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]

Tomorrow, February 2, 2012, through Sunday, February 5, 2012, it's the return of our "Undergroundhog Day" Sale with at least 30% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by Vaughn Bodé, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer, Bill Griffith, Rand Holmes, Jack Jackson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! Yes, this includes brand new books like Bill Griffith's Lost and Found and the hardcover Fritz the Cat collection, plus not-quite-out-yet books like Diane Noomin's Glitz-2-Go, Spain Rodriguez's Cruisin' with the Hound and the expanded edition of The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 1! The sale starts tonight and continues through the weekend. (Discount not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Nearly every cover in this collection [Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age 1933-45] sizzles like a good slice of breakfast bacon. Pop art and the peculiar modernist aesthetic that defined postwar American culture really started here, with the liberation of comics from the funny pages and their metamorphosis into this most dynamic and demented of mediums. As a result, every deli and newsstand in America became its own peculiar gallery exhibit, a nexus of transient mass culture. This magical and immersive communion is now a thing of the past, but flipping through the gory, scary, and often beautiful pages of this discerning and honest anthology is an intoxicating experience." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "If you think you've seen all the best early comic covers, this'll make you think again.... I have a bias here myself...I helped Greg put parts of this together, with rare and fun covers from my own collection. Here you find the really cool and offbeat stuff... And Greg writes a concise bio of every cover and cover artist, putting each in perspective. I can't wait to show this to my Golden Age collecting buddies, it's a must-have book. You have my word on it." – Bud Plant

• Review: "...[N]o publisher has done more to preserve the Great American Newspaper Strip than the Seattle-based Fantagraphics, which has undertaken an audacious program of reprints in the last decade.... The most recent addition to the Fantagraphics line is the most anticipated: Walt Kelly’s unassailable funny-animal strip about Pogo the possum and his cadre of friends and antagonists in the Okefenokee Swamp. ...[I]f the company can pull off a complete edition of Kelly’s masterpiece — especially a full series as lovely as the first volume promises — ...it will be a publishing masterpiece of its own." – Matthew Everett, MetroPulse

• Review: "Is Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 the coolest book ever published? Yes, it is. Just out from the stellar Seattle publisher Fantagraphics, Listen, Whitey! is a gorgeously designed and smartly written coffee table book... Author Pat Thomas has done major archeological work to unearth albums from the era; for people like me who love classic record designs from the 1960s and ’70s, it’s heaven.... The book is a joy to leaf through.... Black music, art, and culture has been assimilated, and it’s made America a better, stronger place. Listen, Whitey! is an archival project, not a modern one. To which I, a white guy, can only say: Right on!" – Mark Judge, The Daily Caller

• Review: "The page in [The Cabbie Vol. 1] where the cabbie brings his father’s sewage covered remains home and puts them in what’s left of the coffin and then puts the coffin on top of his mother’s recently deceased body tells you everything you need to know. Unless you’re a Prince Valiant dude, this is the best reprint of the year. Impregnable would be the best word, EXCELLENT! will have to do." – Tucker Stone, Savage Critics

• Review: "Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 is not only a great book, I think it could also serve well as a good jumping-on point for those curious about the strip. By this point Foster has gotten a strong grip on his characters and the format of the strip, and with a new storyline beginning so early on in this volume you don’t have to worry about being lost. And while this volume doesn’t end at a conclusion for the last storyline (running a whopping 20 months in all, as it turns out, only the first 7 months are present here), there’s so much meat here that you’ll be eager for Prince Valiant Vol. 5 so you can find out how it ends. I, for one, can’t wait." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

• Review: "Are you a fan of Ghost World? You might not have noticed that Seattle-based Fantagraphics has reduced the price of their Ghost World: Special Edition to a bargain-priced $25.... The Special Edition is packed with goodies sure to thrill the Ghost World geek.... It’s a great item to add to your Ghost World collection — or to get it started." – Gillian Gaar, Examiner.com

• List: At Library Journal, Bonnie Brzozowski presents a guide to graphic nonfiction for librarians, spotlighting works including Palestine, It Was the War of the Trenches, Oil and Water, and King, and recommending The Comics Journal as an online resource

• Plug: At Boing Boing, Mark Frauenfelder shares a beautiful Johnny Gruelle Mr. Twee Deedle panel (via The Pictorial Arts). Hey Mark, we have a whole book of that stuff coming out!

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about it (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age 1933-45
by various artists; edited by Greg Sadowski

208-page full-color 8" x 10.5" softcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-494-8

"If I had $30, I’d... pick up Action! Mystery! Thrills!, a colorful collection of comic book covers from the Golden Age edited by Greg Sadowski. It’s not as insightful as some of Sadowski’s other books like Supermen!, but it’s still a clever pop-candy tour through comics’ yesteryear." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Meanwhile, Fantagraphics brings Action! Mystery! Thrills!: Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age 1933-1945, the latest Greg Sadowski joint, this time a 208-page collection of vintage comic book covers and historical notes on the various publishers and artists populating the scene; $29.99." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"I can't think of another collection that gives such an excellent glimpse into the diversity of the Golden Age of comics. Sadowski edits a gorgeous collection of covers by artists like... Jack Cole, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Walt Kelly, Jack Kirby, and many more." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy

It's gonna be amazing! Join editor Blake Bell and our friends at The Beguiling on Wednesday, February 29th for the launch party of Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1!  Be one of the first people to get your hands on this long-awaited book, and get a special bookplate, signed by Blake himself!

Blake will also present a slideshow, titled "Bill Everett and Steve Ditko: Before the Sub-Mariner and Spider-Man" -- featuring a sneak peek at Blake's other upcoming collection, Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3, out in the Spring.

The event starts at 7:00 PM at The Central [ 603 Markham Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada], a restuarant/bar located next door to The Beguiling.