I just stumbled across this on Flickr today. Devlin Thompson says "I scanned this for possible inclusion in the book, but it didn't make it. You should buy the book anyway." Click for larger.

A quiet day for Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "There's always a touch of melancholy in everything that Jason writes, but there's a bleakness in some of these stories [in Low Moon] that I haven't seen since Hey, Wait.... All told, this is still a book every Jason fan should read..." - Rob Clough

• Plug: "Buy [Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1]! It's amazingly good." - Jackson Publick (co-creator, The Venture Bros.)

• News: Robot 6 reports that Michael Kupperman will provide the cover for the 2009 Best American Comics volume edited by Charles Burns

• Sincerest form of flattery: Old Jews Telling Jokes has a familiar ring to it, no? (Found via Slog)

Ellen Forney makes a triumphant return to the pages of our hometown newsweekly The Stranger in the new annual "Queer Issue" with the full-page strip "How to Have a Mind-Blowing, Decadent, All-Day Threesome!" They've made it available as a downloadable PDF file, enabling you to print out one copy to laminate for future reference and one to insert with her other "how-to" strips in your copy of I Love Led Zeppelin.

Mome contributor Ollie Schrauwen posts intriguing images on his blog. (Hat tip: Spurge)

Here's a special blog post from our fearless co-captain, Kim Thompson... Kim, take it away...

A shoutout to our buddy Jason, who returned to France last week after a whirlwind tour of the U.S. (New York/Portland/Seattle) to promote his new book LOW MOON and to visit his old haunts (he's lived in all three cities). He manfully signed and sketched for many fans in all three locales despite a persistent miserable cold - a true cartooning hero!

This seems like a good time to answer the "what's next" question from Jason fans...

Jason and I were so enamored of the LOW MOON format that we have decided to repackage all of his black-and-white and two-color books (except POCKETFUL OF RAIN) as two LOW MOON format books -- in the process bringing back into print the out of print YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE, TELL ME SOMETHING, MEOW, BABY! (currently fetching $40 or more on Amazon), and THE IRON WAGON (up to $68!).

The first book, ALMOST SILENT, will collect the first three above, plus THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, and will be released toward the beginning of next year. (For a sneak peek at the new cover, see above.) The second book, tentatively titled WHAT I DID, will collect that hard-to-find IRON WAGON as well as SSHHHH! and HEY, WAIT, about a year later.

In the interim, that is to say next Summer, we'll be publishing a brand new Jason color album in the HITLER/LEFT BANK format, WEREWOLVES OF MONTPELLIER -- his first graphic novel in the (by then) two and a half years since THE LAST MUSKETEER.

From Jim Flora archivist & doyen Irwin Chusid comes the following announcement:

Jim Flora Art has released a limited-edition fine art print of a hyperactive 1960s painting entitled THE BIG BANK ROBBERY. This three-tiered tableau depicts characteristic Flora mayhem: inscrutable monsters with misshapen features, Lego architecture, bug-eyed buildings, gumdrop color fills, and -- yes -- a bank robbery.

http://tinyurl.com/flora-bankrobbery

Only thirty (30) prints of Big Bank Robbery were produced for this edition, and the first five (5) are available at a launch price of $165 each. Prices will increase for subsequent prints as the edition depletes.

Produced by Flora archivist Barbara Economon, the print was meticulously crafted from and color-matched against the original work.

More Flora fine art prints
http://www.jimflora.com/fineartworks.html

Jim Flora website
http://jimflora.com

Jim Flora blog: rare works featured regularly
http://jimflora.blogspot.com/

Jim Flora on Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/flora-facebook

From Journalista:

Now online for subscribers — and available soon in better bookstore and comics shop shelves nationwide — The Comics Journal #298, chock full of all the comicky goodness you need to get through the summer. Check it out:

• Diego Assis presents a full-length interview with breakout comic-book stars Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, who discuss their self-publishing apprenticeship in Brazil, their entry into the North American comics scene, their work on such titles as Casanova and The Umbrella Academy, and exactly who does what on their various projects.
• Shaennon Garrity sits down for a chat with Perry Bible Fellowship creator Nicholas Gurewitch, who explains how he became an Internet cartoon sensation, where he goes next after ending his weekly run on the strip, and the joys of being an envelope artist.
• Michel Fiffe tracks down one of the most fascinating cartoonists to rise out of the superhero-comics scene in the last three decades, Trevor Von Eeden, in a no-holds-barred conversation that illuminates Von Eeden’s struggles in the New York City corporate-comics industry and the attendant racism that came with it.
• You will definitely not want to miss our comics section this issue, which features a massive gallery of Percy Crosby’s legendary newspaper strip, Skippy — the first publication of these exquisite strips in decades!
• Bill Randall takes us through an issue of the renowned avant-garde manga anthology AX, and prepares us for the eagerly anticipated English-language collection of comics from said magazine scheduled for release later this year.

As always, we’ve got free excerpts from the new issue of the Journal on our TCJ.com website, fiendishly selected to whet your appetite: Here are choice bits from the Moon/Bá interview, the Gurewitch interview and the Von Eeden interview. It’s a wondrous bouquet of cartoon excellence — The Comics Journal #298! Accept no substitutes.

A double batch of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Bdzoom reports that l'Association des Critiques et journalistes de Bande Dessinée (ACBD) has placed Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw on their summer reading shortlist (there's Tardi on there too)

• Review: "Nell Brinkley was an icon for several generations of women... The art [in The Brinkley Girls] has been beautifully restored, a task that must have been pure torture given the density of Brinkley's drawings and that sophisticated color work. My hat's off to whoever did that fabulous job." - Allan Holtz, Stripper's Guide

• Review: "At one point in her comic-style memoir [You'll Never Know Book 1: A Good and Decent Man], Carol [Tyler] talks to us directly and says, 'The war was never really buried under tons of mental concrete. Rather, it was an active shaper of life, affecting moods and outcomes ... more than anyone ever knew.' Indeed. This is an important and deeply spiritual contribution to American culture." - David Crumm, Read the Spirit

• Review: "[You'll Never Know Book 1: A Good and Decent Man] is not your blood and guts portrayal of a ruthless soldier but rather an investigation into the emotional costs that war has on the combatant and the family that they sire, presenting a familiar story of the 'greatest generation' in an unfamiliar way." - Quentin Williams, two.one.five Magazine

• Review: "...Supermen! [is] a beautifully designed volume of early American comics... The edition is both aesthetically pleasing and sturdy, featuring clarified reprinting of the colour strips, covers, and scattered elements of advertisements and back matter." - Michael Leader, Den of Geek

• Review: "[West Coast Blues] is everything you would expect from a suspense thriller... Visually the comic book is also great. It's everything you would expect from Tardi... I don't believe that anybody else than him would have been able to visually translate Manchette's novel so well. It's like they worked together and that the comic book is the original material. Bottom line, this is another great comic book by Tardi. If you have never read anything by him you should. Luckily for North American readers, Fantagraphics announced that they that they were going to translate Tardi's work starting this fall." - Patrick Bérubé, Comic Book Bin

• Review: "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!... gathers all the remaining material that the alcoholic, abusive [Fletcher] Hanks did during his brief tenure as a comic book creator in the late 1930s and early 40s... [T]here’s still plenty of weird and wonderful tales to delight and disturb... [and] there are panels here that are rather stunning in their ability to create tension and drama... The work remains strange, powerful, funny, terrifying and yes, at times beautiful..." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6 (be sure to read the comments for an important clarification from editor Paul Karasik)

• Review: "Fans of Norwegian cult comics star Jason are in for something of a treat with Low Moon... what we have here are five stories, each of which would’ve previously warranted a collection in its own right, delivered together in one delicious hamper of Jason goodness... There’s never been a better time, then, to jump aboard the Jason train... This is as essential as comics gets." - Bookmunch

• Review: "It’s hard to think of a modern cartoonist with a more recognizable drawing style than Norway’s Jason... But Jason’s storytelling is just as distinctive as his drawing style... [and] the artist’s narrative approach has grown more adventurous over the years. Jason’s latest collection, Low Moon, is evidence of this trend... The reader, meanwhile, just lapses into a giddy comics coma." - Casey Jarman, Willamette Week

• Preview: Previews posts 7 pages from Low Moon. Have we mentioned it's in stores today?

• Preview: Action Yes throws a big spotlight on Abstract Comics with "A Quick Introduction to Abstract Comics" by Tim Gaze; several excerpts from the anthology, including part of editor Andrei Molotiu's introduction; and new comics (one, two) from Molotiu; not only that, the same issue includes new visual poetry from our very own Nico Vassilakis

• Interview: Brian Heater of The Daily Cross Hatch concludes his 2-part chat with "the visionary" Jason. Sample quote: "I worked in a furniture factory for nine months... I really hated it. So I went to art school instead. Turned out to be not that much of a difference, of course."

• Interview: The hosts of The Comix Claptrap podcast "talk comics shop and try to get LA gossip from talented cartoonist, John Pham, of Sublife, Kramers Ergot 7 and Mome fame"

• Plug: At The Geek Curmudgeon Rick Klaw says "I've been eagerly awaiting" the new Fletcher Hanks collection You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!; previously, of Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 he simply says "WOW!"

• Plug: In addition to the previously linked online excerpt, New York Magazine also drops Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 by Michael Kupperman into the "Lowbrow/Brilliant" quadrant of their "Approval Matrix" in the print edition

• Plug: "Low Moon: It’s the latest from Jason. Or, in other words, it’s one of this week’s absolute must-reads." - J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Plug: "Pick of the week: Low Moon... [B]y this point Jason has proven himself to be one of the stellar talents in Fantagraphics' roster (which is really saying something, by the way) and this collection of short stories... should likely only cement that reputation as the artist plays with such traditional genres as the Western, film noir, and alien abductions. All offered with the usual dollops of sardonic humor and heartfelt sympathy." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Plug: "Jason is sly and brilliant. [Low Moon] is highly recommended." - Corey Blake

• Plug: "Low Moon: New Jason, from Fantagraphics. All I need to know... This guy's a treasure." - Jog - The Blog

• Plug: John Jakala of Sporadic Sequential takes us to task for the smaller trim size of Luba vs. Palomar, but concedes "the smaller size is actually easier to handle when reading. OK, you win this round, Fantagraphics"

• Events: Publishers Weekly reports on the panels at the 2009 MoCCA Festival, including the Humbug panel with Al Jaffee & Arnold Roth and Paul Karasik's Fletcher Hanks presentation

• Speaking of whom: Paul Karasik posts an all-too-rare blog entry, this time on the sequential storytelling of Renaissance master Giotto

• Things to see: Richard Sala unearths an alternate, unused cover for Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires

• Things to see: A new batch of sketchbookery from Anders Nilsen

Our head honchos and "the best known good cop/bad cop team in comics today" Gary Groth & Kim Thompson appeared on Bob Andelman's "Mr. Media" interview show on Blog Talk Radio Monday night to talk about all things Fantagraphics. Needless to say, if you have any interest in the history and current state of comics and the comics industry, it's a must-listen. Listen in streaming audio in the embedded player below or, if you don't roll that way, click the link above.

Don't make me say "tunes & 'toons"! Tonight at 8 PM at Union Pool in Brooklyn, Gabrielle Bell, Michael Kupperman & R. Sikoryak appear alongside 3 bands for a night of interdisciplinary fun: