Earlier today, I was downtown and happened to see the mayor of Seattle a few feet away from me. That's nothing compared to Bush Junta collaborator Ethan Persoff meeting John Ashcroft. Too fucking weird. 

Between being a father myself and having a preternatural predilection for nostalgia, I can relate to this short piece in the New Yorker all too well, although unlike that writer, it's no surprise to me that the great Gene Deitch is the missing link uniting it all.

By the way, that Spike Jones trailer for the Where The Wild Things Are really is pretty cool. Thank goodness Zack Snyder wasn't a Maurice Sendak fan...

Judging from the banner atop their website, Comics Comics is published in Kings County.

The Comics Journal is published here in King County. 

Comic Art magazine is published by Buenaventura Press in California, whose name is derived from a storied paradise peopled by black Amazons ruled by Queen Califia. 

Thus we settle the question of the comics family's royal roots.

...Another useless post.

• Review: The A.V. Club gives Humbug an A-minus: "Fans of vintage Mad will immediately be at home thanks to familiar artists and attitudes, although Humbug ultimately feels a bit like an alternate-universe Mad, one 1950s grown-ups could stack between Playboy and Harper’s on the coffee table... Humbug remains a fascinating showcase for a group of artists operating at the height of their powers and inspiration. The lovingly assembled package — beautifully reprinted and filled out with extras like a long Roth and Jaffee interview — doesn’t hurt either."

• Review: The A.V. Club says "The Wolverton Bible shows the often-surprising result of [the] collaboration between a pulpit-pounding televangelist organization and one of the loopiest cartoonists of his era.... it features some of [Basil] Wolverton's most breathtaking art, and he finds plenty of opportunities in Bible stories and end-times predictions for his sense of the grotesque and horrific... for Wolverton fans, it's a must-see, and a look at a truly surprising chapter of the man's career."

• Interview: The Inkstuds radio programme has a lengthy chat with Ted Stearn

• Interview: Douglas Noble tipped us off to his late-2007 chat with Roger Langridge

• Awards: Congratulations to Snoopy, chosen "Cutest Cartoon Character" by the readers of Nickelodeon Magazine in the Nickelodeon Magazine Comics Awards

Dig this eye-popping, bone-crunching cover for the Spanish edition of Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars, coming later this year from our colleagues at La Cupula. From Tim's blog.

Drew Friedman & Peanuts: two great tastes that taste great together. For The New Republic, via Drew's blog.

It's your weekly batch of new webcomics!

First up, Blecky finds a crafty solution to her problem in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan!

Next, an unexpected turn of events in this week's installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 50-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures.

And lastly, a trip to Gothenburg in our current 5-day chunk of Martin Kellerman's hilarious Swedish smash-hit Rocky, updated Monday-Friday!

What to get that creepy pervert in the next cubicle who has everything? 

"Ward's Beauties" dingbat font! It's not like you wanted to spend money on that guy, right?

• Review: 13 Milliones de Naves says Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars is "drawn with the raw precision of a compassionless physiognomist, with a style midway between Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns... removing the rubble from the shipwreck and bringing to the fore a collection of human beings in the state of abandonment... [T]his book is anything but indifferent; the realistic and stark graphic style of its author shakes with a flying kick... [T]he Lane name has many numbers to enter on the same roster as Tomine, Burns, Clowes and company." (Translated from Spanish with help from Google)

• Review: Bookgasm on Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers: "Each page of Boody is a delight to take in. These comics are colorful, good-natured and good-humored, full of pep and personality... Rogers definitely was ahead of his time, demonstrating more zeal for the medium than much of his contemporaries."

• Review: Rob Clough on Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti: "No other artist in the history of comics has worked out their misanthropy and self-loathing on the page quite like Ivan Brunetti... with each strip yet another needle jabbed into the eyes of his viewers. Brunetti's enormous discipline and talent as a cartoonist shines through in this collection..."

• Review: A Bucket of Instant Sunshine reads Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes: "...I think it's safe to say that if you like surreal imagery, vague noir-ish plotting, and freak shows, then you will probably like this."

• Events: The Daily Eastern News reports from yesterday's Ivan Brunetti talk at Eastern Illinois University