Residents of the Northwest will want to visit Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery before next Wednesday, March 10 for a final look at Gahan Wilson's art exhibition. A half-dozen exquisite original paintings are complemented by 10 delightful new prints from the master of the macabre.

As an incentive, Fantagraphics is offering a bookstore-only discount on both the normal and special editions of the 3-volume, embossed slipcase set GAHAN WILSON: 50 YEARS OF PLAYBOY CARTOONS. Through the end of the show, the normal edition is $25 off and the special edition is $50 off cover price! And while supplies last, each purchase will include a signed silkscreen Gahan Wilson print.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in the heart of the Georgetown arts community, only minutes south of downtown Seattle. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00. Phone 206.658.0110. See you all soon.

(Ed. note: Above, Gahan Wilson makes the acquaintance of Michael Leavitt's action-figure sculpture of R. Crumb. Have a look at this and more recently-posted photos of the exhibit opening from Flickr user and friend of Fantagraphics Bookstore Jo David.)

I love this playlist of some of Joe Sacco's favorite songs that he put together for the New York Times. For one, Joe cites Wings' "Magneto & Titanium Man," describing it as a song about "made-up superheroes." Joe has to be the only comic book artist in America whom I could believe loves this song yet doesn't recognize Magento and Titanium Man as the iconic Marvel super-villains that they are. Joe, your FOOM card is revoked. I also love it because Joe cites Charlie Patton's "Down the Dirt Road Blues." Around the time Joe was working on Safe Area Gorazde, after one of our hundreds of conversations about music that we've had over the years, Joe gave me a mix tape of classic delta blues that he titled, Feels Like Murder Here. It's a phrase that routinely flitters through my mind... 

I'm listening to the Stones' Exile on Main Street right now, in honor of Mr. Sacco.

Above image: Paul McCartney and Jack Kirby  revoke Joe Sacco's nerd cred.

Guaranteed to be the glitteriest book slated to arrive in comic shops throughout the land today:

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

Being the second and final installment of the hilarious and humiliating adventures of high school misfit Tammy Pierce. In their weekly recommendations new Comics Comics correspondent Joe McCulloch admits "I didn’t read the first one, but it seems to have been well-received for its gangling verisimilitude" and Robot 6's Chris Mautner calls it "Poignant, cringe-inducing comics, to be sure."

Catch up with more info and extensive previews here, and verify availability with your local shop.

Cribbed directly from Dash's blog:

Making The Abyss
Drawings from BodyWorld, Bottomless Belly Button, animations and comic short stories by Dash Shaw.

Shaw's recent works (BodyWorld, The Unclothed Man, and Bottomless Belly Button) connect an interest with the human body, informed by figure drawing, with humorous character-driven narratives. This show displays his original art for these stories, which are often a combination of traditional crowquill and ink work with gouache paints, acetate sheets, animation-style backgrounds, colored marker storyboards, and mixed media collages.

At the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art
594 Broadway, Suite 401 (btwn. Houston and Prince) New York, NY 10012

March 12 – May 30, 2010
Artist Talk: Tuesday, May 25, 7pm

Bill Griffith returned my Facebook friend request just in time for me to catch his post with the original to-be-colored cover art for his next Zippy the Pinhead collection coming later this year.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of original artwork and book signing by celebrated cartoonist Gilbert Hernandez on Saturday, March 13 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Gilbert will be Fantagraphics guest at the Emerald City Comicon in Seattle on March 13 and 14. The reception at Fantagraphics Bookstore serves as the official after-party for the convention, so expect to see a wide array of comic book professionals in attendance.

Together with his brother Jaime, Gilbert Hernandez revitalized the moribund comics medium nearly 30 years ago with the inspiring series LOVE AND ROCKETS. Los Bros. Hernandez created socially relevant stories illustrated with stunning artwork that would influence generations of cartoonists that followed. Their work reflected America's emerging multicultural social environment and restive youth culture in an accessible manner that attracted a diverse and devoted readership. Their stories continues to resonate and the Love and Rockets franchise remains a signature of Fantagraphics Books.

The exhibition and book signing celebrates publication of LOVE AND ROCKETS BOOK 25: HIGH SOFT LISP. The book follows Rosalba "Fritz" Martinez — bombshell, former punkette, former psychiatrist, "Z" movie star — in this supremely sexy, constantly surprising graphic novel. Hernandez has taken a suite of stories originally serialized in Luba's Comics and Stories and the second volume of Love and Rockets, and fleshed them out with new pages, creating an original and inventive story that, through its connections to his main character Luba, works both as a standalone graphic novel and a further exploration of his rich, fictional world. Longtime fans and new readers alike will delight in this superbly rendered tale.

This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic neighborhood. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street, at Airport Way S. only minutes sought of downtown Seattle. Open every day. Admission is always free.

Listing Information:

Gilbert Hernandez: HIGH SOFT LISP

Book Signing and Art Exhibition

Saturday, March 13, 6:00 - 9:00 PM

Exhibition continues through May 5, 2010

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.). Seattle, WA 98108. (206) 658-0110
Open daily 11:30 - 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM

Your daily roundup of art bits from 'round the web:

• Is this a glimpse inside Tales Designed to Thrizzle #6 from Michael Kupperman? (Update: Nope) (Update update: Our own Adam Grano IDs it as a colorized page from Snake 'n' Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret — what's goin' on here?)

• Steven Weissman's remaining Post-Its from the GR2 show are now available on Comic Art Collective — who are you to resist?

• A 5-page Kim Deitch story from 1973, presented by John Glenn Taylor (via The Comics Reporter)

• This 1948 Jim Flora illustration accompanies news about a future Flora publishing project

• Derek Van Gieson keeps previewing that "Janet Planet" story — that's a great sound effect

Today's dose of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: The great John Porcellino names Zak Sally's Like a Dog as one of his favorite comics of 2009 (unsurprising, since he wrote the introduction): "It's impossible for me to be objective about this book, as Zak is one of my closest friends, but this is a really powerful, fascinating collection of comics. Very dark, and even brutal sometimes, but bracing, and highly original."

• Interview: Blogcritics' Michael Jones talks to Femke Hiemstra about her art book Rock Candy: "I do not deliberately strive for a 'childlike' feel or a 'children's book gone wrong' atmosphere in my work. But I'm aware that that's what's in me and therefore in my work, so a vibe like that will of course be a part of it. It's a funny thing, now that I think about it."

• Plug: School Library Journal's "Good Comics for Kids" column recommends some snow-day reading, including The Complete Peanuts ("The volumes from the mid-1960s onward... feature the gang that younger readers know from the numerous TV specials, newspaper strips, and products, and would be a great way to occupy an eight or ten-year-old for a few hours on a snowy day") and Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace ("his penchant for mischief has enduring appeal")

Good grief, all you art bloggers sure stay busy over the weekends...

• Man, remember the awesome comics that Tower Records' Pulse magazine ran back in the 1990s, like this one from Frank Santoro?

• A piece by Richard Sala for an Oz-themed art show at Gallery Meltdown in L.A. which opened on Saturday (Steven Weissman's in it too)

• Speaking of Steven Weissman, here are some ideas he's working on

• Nautical sketches circa 1950s by Jim Flora

• Two from Jim Blanchard, who describes the commissioned drawing at top as "Definitely the high point of my art career so far"; at bottom, a record cover (click through for even more groovy lettering on the back cover)

• A series of mother-with-child sketches by Mark Kalesniko

• God damn, Renee French

• Alain Saint-Ogan fan art and "F" is for Fielder by Kevin Huizenga

• This and two more sketchbook spreads by Anders Nilsen

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary page 13, plus a singing monkey

• The continuation of a New York Lucky story by Gabrielle Bell

• Nate Neal sneaks a guy into this page of Derek Van Gieson's story

• More new Jordan Crane at What Things Do

• Talk about a blockhead (haw haw): I'm Learning to Share! shares a Charles M. Schulz rarity, Two-by-Fours (via Robot 6)

In like a lion with Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Thank God then for Almost Silent, a new collection repackaging some of Fanta’s older Jason books — some of which are no longer in print in their original format — as an anthology the same size, shape and design as Low Moon. ... Buy it to read the stories, keep it to restore order and balance to your bookshelf." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

• Review: Avoid the Future collects and expands on their first 10 Twitter micro-reviews of Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s: "More than just a collection of mini-comics, the book features interviews and insightful commentary from some of the creators as well as the lovingly-reproduced source material."

• Opinion: Comic Book Galaxy's Marc Sobel makes a case for reading Love and Rockets in the original comic-book format

• Contest: "Beaucoup" Kevin Church is giving away a copy of Joe Sacco's Palestine: The Special Edition to one randomly-selected winner

• Award: Congratulations to Crumb, Ghost World and Art School Confidential director Terry Zwigoff for being awarded the Maverick Spirit Award at Cinequest 20 (why it's reported by an automotive news website I have no idea; via Bleeding Cool)