Well lookee here:

Memoirs of a Scanner (Pillows Edition) from Damon Stea on Vimeo.

• Watch carefully or you'll miss a certain cameo appearance in this clever video that Kim came across on The Daily Dish a few days ago

• A Johnny Ryan drawing for a good cause

• And the logo for that school? It's by Jordan Crane (the above two items via Steven Weissman on Twitter)

• Three Men in a Tub's Ted Dawson posts this 1976 self-portrait by Charles M. Schulz. Dig those pants! (Via The Comics Reporter)

• Hand-embellished purses (and bunny ears) made by Dame Darcy, very reasonably priced

• A flurry of activity from Lilli Carré: a print for Artifice Magazine, a silkscreened accordion book she's selling at the Chicago Zine Fest this weekend, and two watercolor drawings

• New sketches from Mark Kalesniko

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest illustration for the WSJ; also, last chance to order that commission you've been wanting

• Another in a series from Tom Kaczynski

• A cut Mome one-pager from Derek Van Gieson

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "[High Soft] Lisp has its share of tender moments and tragic ones, although it’s relatively buoyant with humor throughout. ... This is the stuff of soap operas, minus the melodrama. Lisp comes loaded with palpable emotions and heaps of honesty, even amid a cartoony backdrop." – Rod Lott, Bookgasm

• Review: "Part one of a proposed trilogy, King Of The Flies Vol. 1: Hallorave is an extremely promising title from French crime comics artists Pascal “Mezzo” Mesenburg and Michel Pirus. ... Its approach to violence and turmoil is surprisingly fresh, although the story bears obvious debts to David Lynch, and the art just as obvious ones to Charles Burns; it all combines in surprising, powerful ways. ...King Of The Flies is a fascinating new take on the nearly exhausted subject of youthful alienation… B+" – The A.V. Club

• Interview: At The Comics Journal, the conclusion of Matt Thorn's Moto Hagio interview from TCJ #269

• Interviewer: Over at his Profanity Hill concern, our own Jason T. Miles picks the brain of Sparkplug Comic Books publisher Dylan Williams about the business and ethics of independent comics

• Event plug: "If there's a greater comics-related joy to be had on an early Spring Saturday sipping beers, hanging out in Seattle's cartooning headquarters, finding out you're standing next to Jim Woodring while occasionally taking a focused gander at Beto's originals, I haven't been informed as to what that might be." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

We're no longer distributing Mineshaft, but we're happy to report that the essential underground comix zine is still going strong and the new 25th issue, with a cover by Sophie Crumb and featuring Peter Bagge, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch's review of papa Crumb's Genesis, Pat Moriarity and much more (see above), is at the printer and will be available from the publisher soon! If you order or subscribe now you can get $1 off select back issues — whatta deal!

In this week's New York Times Sunday Book Review, Douglas Wolk writes:

"Peanuts always had a bite to it; Schulz’s favorite source of comedy was the anxieties and humiliations of childhood. Still, some of these strips are unnervingly bitter even for him, as when Marcie destroys Snoopy’s doghouse in a rage, then screams at Peppermint Patty that she needs to 'face up to reality.' It provokes laughter, of course, but shocked laughter: you can tell these kids aren’t going to grow up happy."

"Jacob Covey’s design for E. C. Segar’s Popeye series is appropriately tall, imposing and sturdy, with a big die-cut in the middle of each volume’s front cover, as if the sailor man himself had punched somebody through it. ... ['Plunder Island'] is crude, jolting, scary and funny, and there’s nothing like it in the beaten-down funny pages of the present."

Your daily Fantagraphics-related artblog links:

• The penultimate installment of Steven Weissman's "This Already Happened" at What Things Do

• Rick Veitch presents part 1 of a mid-1990s comic based on a dream he had while being interviewed for The Comics Journal #175 (via The Comics Reporter)

• A censored cover by Marco Corona

• This week’s episode of Belligerent Piano from Tim Lane

It's today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Commentary: At Manga Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson comments on our recent manga publishing news, saying "I’m expecting great things."

• Interview: At The Comics Journal, part 3 of Matt Thorn's Moto Hagio interview from TCJ #269

• Interview: On KBOO Community Radio's "Words and Pictures" program, host S.W. Conser welcomes Dame Darcy for a half-hour chat

• History: At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer gives a brief overview and critical commentary on Fantagraphics anthologies throughout the years: "Any complete history of Fantagraphics will have to tell the story of how they slowly learned to put together interesting anthologies."

 ... and he's got the pictures to prove it! More details at the MoCCA site.

Now arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Unlovable Vol. 2
by Esther Pearl Watson

416-page two-color 5.75" x 5.75" hardcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-314-9
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Loosely based on a teenager’s diary from the 1980s found in a gas-station bathroom, Unlovable is the remarkable story of Tammy Pierce, as filtered through the pen of Los Angeles artist Esther Pearl Watson. This second and concluding volume picks up where the first volume left off (winter break) and finishes Tammy’s tragicomic sophomore year of high school in 1985.

Tammy has built a devoted following over the last several years in the pages of Bust magazine, where Unlovable continues to be serialized on the magazine’s back page, and this beautifully produced, dayglo-orange and sparkly pink hardcover presents over 400 pages of her sometimes ordinary, sometimes humiliating, often poignant and always hilarious exploits. Her hopes, dreams, agonies and defeats are brought to vivid, comedic life by Watson’s lovingly grotesque drawings, filled with all the ’80s essentials — too much mascara, leg warmers with heels and huge hair, etc. — as well as timeless teen concerns like acne, dandruff, and the opposite sex (or same sex, in some cases).

Unlovable is about the rawness of trying to figure out who you are in a very public and humiliating way. Unlovable addresses these mysteries of adolescence through Tammy’s naiveté; girls and women in particular will find much that resonates, but men will also relate to Unlovable’s universal humor and wide cast of characters.

In the epic saga that is Unlovable, Tammy finds herself dealing with: tampons, teasing, crushes, The Smiths, tube socks, facial hair, lice, celibacy, fantasy dream proms, gym showers, skid marks, a secret admirer, prank calls, backstabbers, winter ball, barfing, narcs, breakdancing, hot wheels, glamour shots, roller coasters, Halloween costumes, boogers, boys, boy crazy feelings, biker babes, and even some butt cracks. Tammy’s life isn’t pretty, but it is endlessly charming and hilarious.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 20-page PDF excerpt (3 MB).