Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's spotlight features a great collection of classic comics starring an all-time beloved cartoon character, as drawn by his original creator, Otto Messmer.

Nine Lives to Live: A Classic Felix Celebration

Best known as an animated cartoon character, Felix the Cat has also had a tremendously successful run in his own newspaper comic strip. Now, gathered here is a generous sampling of many of his most important and entertaining adventures. Felix was created in 1919 by Otto Messmer for the cartoon Feline Follies (first named Master Tom, he was given a new, lasting name when he headlined his third cartoon, Adventures of Felix) and it wasn't long until Felix became the most popular cartoon character of the silent era. Wildly popular in the U.S. and England for years, well over 150 cartoons have been documented as being produced in the original series (and perhaps many more of which we have no record). Hesitating to make the jump to sound, the cartoons began to experience distribution problems and a decline in popularity. The original series ended its run in 1931. Begun in 1923, the comic strip outlasted Felix's screen career. Although credited to Pat Sullivan (as was everything else regarding the cat), the strip was produced under the constantly inventive direction of Messmer who did most of the pencils and inks on the strip until 1954. The strip began fading in popularity in the late 30's, but comic books revived public interest in the 1940's. Seeing several ups and downs from the 50's on — a TV series, various comic book original and reprint series — Felix's popularity endures to this day.

144-page full-color 9" x 11" hardcover
regularly $39.95 • ON SALE $29.96
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Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today we're featuring another recent award nominee (Best U.S. Edition of International Material, 2007 Eisners) that we want to put back in the spotlight: the mind-bending debut from French artist Matthias Lehmann.

Hwy. 115

A road movie featuring two detectives, René and Agatha, on the tracks of Robert Illot, a.k.a. "The Heimlich Killer," a serial killer whose modus operandi is to suffocate his victim with various objects (including chickens and lightbulbs) along the highways and byways of France. As they get closer and closer to catching up with him, seeking out and interrogating men and women from his past life at the insane asylum, he always stays one step ahead and the row of corpses grows longer and longer... In this lengthy original graphic novel, dreams and flashbacks converge with the ongoing narrative, done in Lehmann's hypnotically intense and insanely labor-intensive woodcut style to form a dark and disquieting vision of humanity.

240-page black & white 6.5" x 8.75" hardcover
regularly $19.95 • ON SALE $14.96
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No update next week due to Comic-Con, but the next one will be a two-fer. In this week's web reviews:

• The Stranger weighs in on Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button

• Sean T. Collins looks at Mome Vol. 11

• The Toronto Star, Newsarama, Javier Hernandez, ComicMix and Maclean's on Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell - see this previous Flog post for even more recent links related to this book

• On the NPR website, Laurel Maury looks at Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin; The Miami Herald also takes a look

• Til the Last Hemlock Dies looks at I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks

• Vice loves Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comix #14

• Sequart continues their detailed examination of Love and Rockets Vol. 1 with issue #34

• Sequart also looks at the anthology fanzine Mineshaft #19

• Sequart additionally examines The Comics Journal #291

• The Alex Ross Collector looks at Ross's covers for TCJ #216 and #223

• Newsarama digs the Comic Arf anthology

In other news:

• Here's what the hardworking Roger Langridge is up to lately

• Empire magazine names Usagi Yojimbo the 31st-greatest comic book character of all time (the highest-ranking alt-comics character on the list is Vladek Spiegelman, at #13)

• du9 presents a 2004 interview with Daddy's Girl author Debbie Drechsler

• The latest cat-n-comix find on Flickr, from user "contrasts":

Steven Weissman brings us something new! Starting today and running each week through late February/early March 2009 we'll be bringing you in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 32-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures. The story begins right here! (Remember, you must be registered and logged in to read.)

Here's our schedule of signings and panels for Comic-Con International next week, all prettified by our Art Department. Click it for a readable size (and see here for the text version)!

Our week of video and photo teasers of upcoming releases continues to continue with Abandoned Cars, the debut collection from the young and scarily talented Tim Lane (whom you can meet at Comic-Con!). Watch the video above, and take a closer look in our photo gallery. Finale on Monday!

Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features the compelling 1999 debut from Chris Lanier.

Combustion

Combustion is a striking visual parable on War, drawn in an expressionistic woodcut style. This mature, poetic work by newcomer Chris Lanier holds its own with such best-selling and critically acclaimed graphic novels as Maus and Palestine. Elegant and subversive, at times harrowing, Combustion will intrigue and enlighten with its stark, chiaroscuro visuals and compelling story of a soldier lost in a ravaged country.

56-page black & white 8" x 10" softcover
regularly $7.95 • ON SALE $5.96
Order Now

Hector Mumbly : Dave Cooper :: Lemony Snicket : Daniel Handler

Dave's also showing off his process and selling the original art from the book. (Hat tip: Meathaus.)

Our week of video and photo teasers of upcoming releases continues with Mome Vol. 12, the next installment of our quarterly-ish cutting-edge comics anthology. Watch the video above, and take a closer look in our photo gallery.

This week's free preview is actually 3 previews! We're bringing you 4-to-5-page excerpts from three upcoming installments in our Ignatz Series: Baobab #3, Delphine #3 (pictured above), and Grotesque #2. These previews are exclusive to registered Fantagraphics.com users, so sign up and/or sign in to view.

(As a reminder, 20/20 Club members receive these previews two weeks before we post them on the website, just one of many great reasons to join up...)