Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Created during two overseas wars, rising inequity, a city lost under flood waters, skyrocketing public debt and the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression, this collection [Twilight of the Assholes] is the pained scream of a frustrated liberal trapped in a nation whose zeitgeist, he feels, spent much of the decade steadfastly marching in lockstep to the Right. The excesses of a neo-Gilded Age provokes Kreider with often hilarious results... Sometimes vulgar and crude but often insightful, always passionate, Kreider's essays and illustrations offer a voice for a nation seemingly without hope." – Publishers Weekly

Paul Hornschemeier, who says he feels bad about not updating his blog more often, is compensating by offering 20% off everything in his online shop (prints and original art) through Thursday (March 24). See here for more details and the secret magic discount code!

So much convention news to share today! The organizers of the Small Press Expo just announced an initial lineup of featured guests for the 2011 show, one of whom is Jim Woodring! Jim hasn't been to the show in quite some time so this will be an extra treat for SPX attendees. The show's still a ways away (September 10-11) so stay tuned for further details and announcements. (No word yet on whether he'll be bringing the Nibbus Maximus with him, but we're hoping so.)

CORRECTION: I should've checked my facts before posting — this will be Jim's first time ever at SPX!

Just announced: The Raven by Lou Reed and Lorenzo Mattotti will be making its debut at the Toronto Comics Art Festival in May! Mattotti, as previously announced, will be a Featured Guest at the festival. TCAF organizer Chris Butcher puts it best: "Look for further information on Fantagraphics’ TCAF 2011 plans, as well as feature events with Lorenzo Mattotti, as the Festival draws closer."

We're a little late in reporting this exciting news: Megan Kelso has been announced as a special guest at the Olympia Comics Festival in our state capitol of Olympia, WA! Olympia, of course, has a storied history as a mecca of zine publishing and indie culture, so we can't imagine a better fit. The festival takes place on Saturday, May 21, and we are currently hustling production of the new edition of Queen of the Black Black along in the hope of premiering it at the show. Stay tuned and mark your calendars!

Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind - A Visual History from the Permanent Collection of Experience Music Project
Edited by Jacob McMurray, Senior Curator of EMP

248-page full-color 7.5" x 9" softcover with DVD • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-433-7

Ships in: April 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind visually documents the explosion of Grunge, the Seattle Sound, within the context of the underground punk subculture that was developing throughout the U.S. in the late 1970s and 1980s. This musical journey is represented entirely through the collection of Experience Music Project, Seattle’s museum of music and popular culture, pulling from a permanent archive of over 800 filmed oral history interviews and 140,000 artifacts – instruments, costumes, posters, records and other ephemera – dedicated to the pursuit of rock ’n’ roll.

Featuring over 100 key artifacts from EMP’s collection, Taking Punk to the Masses illustrates the evolution of punk rock from underground subculture to mainstream embrace. These artifacts are put into context by the stories of those that lived it: Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart, Beat Happening’s Calvin Johnson, X’s Exene Cervenka, Sub Pop founders Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, Black Flag’s Henry Rollins, Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan, Blondie’s Chris Stein, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis, Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil, and nearly 100 others.

Tracing a lineage from “Louie Louie” to the rise of Grunge with Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Mudhoney, Taking Punk to the Masses is the first visual history of one of America’s most vibrant music scenes, as told by its participants and seen through the surviving artifacts.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 22-page PDF excerpt (1.3 MB).

Over the past 15 years, Experience Music Project has amassed over 800 filmed oral history interviews with musicians, producers, club owners, fans, and others associated with every genre of music. These interviews, along with the museum’s massive artifact collection, form the basis for every exhibition. The exhibition Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses includes footage from over 100 interviews. A selection of those interviews are included in a DVD, exclusive to the Taking Punk to the Masses book.

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

The Complete Peanuts 1979-1980 (Vol. 15)
by Charles M. Schulz

Introduction by Al Roker; designed by Seth

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-438-2

Previews & Ordering Info

Charles Schulz enters his fourth decade as the greatest cartoonist of his generation, and Peanuts remains as fresh and lively as it ever was.

(How do we know it’s 1980? Well, for one thing Peppermint Patty gets herself those Bo-Derek-in-“10” cornrows — Peanuts’ timelessness occasionally shows a crack!)

That said, The Complete Peanuts 1979-1980 includes a number of classic storylines, including the month-long sequence in which an ill Charlie Brown is hospitalized (including a particularly spooky moment when he wonders if he’s died and nobody’s told him yet), and an especially eventful trek with Snoopy, Woodstock, and the scout troop (now including a little girl bird, Harriet). And Snoopy is still trying on identities left and right, including the “world-famous surveyor,” the “world-famous census taker,” and Blackjack Snoopy, the riverboat gambler.

In other extended stories, Snoopy launches an ill-fated airline (with Lucy as the agent, Linus as the luggage handler, and Marcie as what it was still OK then to call the stewardess)… Peppermint Patty responds to being leaked upon by a ceiling by hiring a lawyer (unfortunately, she again picks Snoopy)… plus one of the great, forgotten romances of Peanuts that will startle even long-time Peanuts connoisseurs: Peppermint Patty and…“Pig-Pen”?!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

R.I.P.: Best of 1985-2004
by Thomas Ott

192-page black & white 6.25" x 10" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-417-7

Previews & Ordering Info

This omnibus collection of Thomas Ott’s short shock-ending horror stories — imagine E.C. Comics done with no words, and executed in an impossibly lush black-and-white scratchboard style — collects a dozen stories originally published in three (now out of print) thin European style “graphic albums” (Tales of Error, Greetings from Hellville and Dead End) during the 1980s and 1990s, plus 8 previously uncollected tales, including "The Breakdown" from Fantagraphics' Mome anthology and Ott's collaboration with French great David B., "La Fiancée du Lapin." The book also features an afterword by rocker Martin Eric Ain, a.k.a. Martin Erich Stricker (Hellhammer, Celtic Frost).

Presented in the same deluxe format as the now sold-out Cinema Panopticum and The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8, R.I.P. offers up twenty twisted tales of murder, suicide, oppression, terror, mutilation, crime, marital strife, and nuclear annihilation.

Exclusive Savings: Order R.I.P. together with The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 and save 20% off the combined cover price!

• Chris Ware draws Tiny Tim for 6-year-old Clara Ware's review of a Tiny Tim compilation album at Roctober (yes, you read that correctly)

• Dame Darcy offers artwork for sale with partial proceeds donated to the Red Cross for Japan relief; she also encourages you to donate directly

• Fight or Run artwork from Kevin Huizenga; also some super-moon-related cover art

• A commissioned sketch of Wonder Woman from 1998 by Richard Sala

• Drew Weing posts a page from the story he drew in the new issue of Papercutter

• Title design (in various stages) by Leslie Stein

• It was tough deciding between this and the kitty portrait by Renee French

• A tantalizing glimpse of something in progress by Joe Kimball

And more Things to See from the past week:

• New original Matthias Lehmann illustrations for sale at La Galerie de Matthias Lehmann

• Illustrations, promotional artwork, sketches and film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spot on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Artwork and sketches from Frank Santoro

• Recent sketches by Marco Corona

• Leslie Stein posts the real-life Marshmallow & friends and links to some Eye of the Majestic Creature fan art

• Sketches by Mark Kalesniko for his new graphic novel Freeway at his blog

• Sketches, strips, a horrible experience and other updates from Noah Van Sciver

• New sketchbook strips by Laura Park on her Flickr page

• "The Strangest Story You Ever Heard in Your Life" continues at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Daily storyboards & concept drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• Tony Millionaire dug an old interactive Maakies strip thing out of the bowels of the internet

• More new sketches by Tom Kaczynski at his Transatlantis blog

• Eleanor Davis just keeps murdering it on her We Be Ouija blog (NSFW, some of it)

If you have the means please consider making a purchase or donation to Hans Rickheit as he searches for a new job after his place of employment shut down. He has plenty of stunning original pages for sale or you can buy a book or even just slide him a few bucks for his acclaimed free webcomic Ectopiary. See all your options listed and linked here. Yep, we're all getting rich off of comics, boy howdy.