On The Ruined Cast blog Dash Shaw posted this page from his story "Blind Date 3" appearing in the next issue of Mome. Looks like a bit of a stylistic departure from the first two "Blind Date" strips. If you're not already familiar, yes, these are comics adaptations of actual episodes of the TV show Blind Date and yes, they're as funny and weird as you think.

Erstwhile Mome contributor Gabrielle Bell and some of our other pals will be participants in a special presentation of R. Sikoryak's long-running "Carousel" series of cartoonist slideshow talks at Parsons in NYC, in conjunction with the Cartoon Polymaths exhibition, next Monday, March 21. More details here.

On his Cozy Lummox blog, award-winning designer Eric Skillman discusses his process for putting together the new issue of The Comics Journal: "I was pretty excited when Jacob Covey emailed me to ask if I might be interested in re-designing the venerable Comics Journal for its upcoming relaunch as an annual (rather than monthly) publication. Then I found out it was going to be 600-something pages. But by that point it was too late to say no! (I'm kidding... mostly.)" It's a fascinating behind-the-scenes peek!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente
by Wilfred Santiago

200-page two-color 6.25" x 8" hardcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-56097-892-3

Previews & Ordering Info

The biographical 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente is a human drama of courage, faith and dignity, inspired by the life of baseball star Roberto Clemente.

No other baseball player dominated the 1960s like Roberto Clemente and no other Latin American player achieved his numbers. Born in 1924 in Puerto Rico, Clemente excelled in track and field and loved baseball. By the age of 17 he was playing in the PR Winter league. Spotted by the big-league scouts because of his hitting, fielding, and throwing abilities, he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1954. A fierce competitor, within two seasons he was hitting above .300 consistently. He played like a man possessed, fielding superbly, unleashing his rifle arm, and hitting in clutch situations. Despite his aesthetic brilliance, he faced prejudice throughout his career and was given his due only after his unexpected and tragic death in a 1972 plane crash.

Although baseball was his obsession, Clemente never lost sight of his dreams and his greater responsibilities outside the game. This sense of urgency is what came to define him beyond that of a grand athlete. His eventual success and accompanying celebrity gave him the opportunity to engage his conscience in public life. He died when his plane went down in the Caribbean Sea on a relief mission to earthquake-torn Nicaragua that he personally directed.

21 chronicles Clemente’s life from his early days growing up in rural Puerto Rico, the highlights of his career (including the 1960s World Series where he helped the Pirates win its first victory in 33 years, and his 3000th hit in 1972 during the last official at-bat of his life) as well as his private life and public mission off the field.

After his death, Major League Baseball declared September 18 to be “Roberto Clemente Day,” and in 1999, Pittsburgh’s Sixth Street Bridge was renamed the Roberto Clemente Bridge in honor of the greatest Latino ballplayer in history.

Wilfred Santiago captures the grit of Clemente’s rise from his impoverished Puerto Rican childhood, to the majesty of his performance on the field, to his fundamental decency as a human being in a drawing style that combines realistic attention to detail and expressive cartooning.

"Wilfred Santiago's 21 is brilliant and beautiful, challenging and lyrical ... which seems exactly right, as Roberto Clemente was all those things and more." – Rob Neyer, ESPN.com

"A kaleidoscopic look at the life of the great Clemente. Santiago's artwork is superb and the depth of his passion for the subject and incredible preparation comes through on every page." – Steven Goldman, author of Forging Genius: The Making of Casey Stengel and editor of Baseball Prospectus

"I'll admit, being a baseball player often feels like a comic book experience: the costumes, the origins, the battles for great victories and inspiration it conjures in our fellow man. This book captures the essence of one of our sport's greatest heroes, and it does so in a way that engages the imaginations as much as it reveals the heart, ink, color, style, and character; I can think of no better way to share a tale of a true legend." – Dirk Hayhurst, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher and author of The Bullpen Gospels

Diamond Comics Distributors has confirmed with us that the following 4 books are shipping this week, though only one is included on their official weekly shipping list. Therefore, most of these will likely be reappearing with additional comics-blogger blurbs in next week's New Comics Day post. Be extra-sure to contact your local shop to confirm availability. Previews and more info about each book, as always, at the links below:

The Arctic Marauder
by Jacques Tardi

64-page black & white 9" x 11.75" hardcover • $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-435-1

"If The Arctic Marauder is indeed out this week – ComicList lists it, but Diamond doesn’t – I’m totally getting that too, budget be damned..." – Michael May, Robot 6

Dungeon Quest, Book 2
by Joe Daly

136-page black & white 6" x 8.25" softcover • $12.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-436-8

"Joe Daly's D&D/stoner/sword-and-sorcery semi-parody epic continues. Opening caption: 'In their ongoing mystical quest to find the missing parts of the Atlantean resonator guitar our heroes find themselves wandering through the primeval gloom of Fireburg Forest in an attempt to find the prophet and poet, Bromedes, and return his borrowed penis sheath...' That about sums up the aesthetic here." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921: A Kind, Belevolent and Amiable Brick
by George Herriman

176-page black & white 9" x 12" softcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-364-4

"The next-to-last volume of Fantagraphics' reprint of all of George Herriman's miraculous 'Krazy Kat' Sunday strips. I could go on about this stuff all day, so I won't start, except to say: not for fast quaffing, for slow sipping." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

"Hey, it's a book featuring page after page of the best comic ever. Krazy Kat is so good that if you don't get it, it's better for you in the long run that you do whatever is necessary to change yourself until you do get it." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"Fantagraphics are still enthusiastically plowing on with their plan to collect every Krazy Kat Sunday page ever, which is about as ambitious a plan as they come. A Kind, Benevolent and Amiable Brick is the penultimate volume of the series, collecting over 150 pieces published between 1919 and 1921. As usual, they’re housed in a handsome package designed by the esteemed Mr. Chris Ware so they’ll match the others on your shelf, or near enough, providing he isn’t pulling a wacky Acme Novelty Library design on us." – Gosh! Comics

"CONFLICT OF INTEREST RESERVOIR: And speaking of commonalities with Spawn and Youngblood, Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921: A Kind, Benevolent and Amiable Brick offers 176 pages of blood-drenched chrome and muscle carnage as you like it..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Mome Vol. 21 - Winter 2011
by various artists; edited by Eric Reynolds

112-page full-color 7" x 9" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-394-1

"From Fantagraphics you can get the latest instalment in their acclaimed comics anthology Mome, now in its sixth (!) year. There’s stuff from Sara Edward-Corbett, Steven Weissman (Chewing Gum in Church), Sergio Ponchione (Grotesque), Nate Neal, Dash Shaw (Bottomless Belly Button), Jon Adams, Tom Kaczynski, T. Edward Bak, Derek Van Gieson, Kurt Wolfgang, Lilli Carré (The Lagoon), Nicolas Mahler (Van Helsing’s Night Off) and Josh Simmons, whose biography goes 'Simmons draws comics about happy bunnies, cirkus folks, and violent sex. He is a nice young man.'" – Gosh! Comics

On all of them:

"If I had $15: It’s a toss-up between the latest volume of Mome [and] the second volume of Joe Daly’s great stoners-meet-D&D fantasy Dungeon Quest... Splurge: Two big books out this week from Fantagraphics, both must-buys, at least for me. The first is Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921 which collects more wonderful Herriman goodness. The second is The Arctic Maurader, the latest release in Fanta’s ongoing Jacques Tardi library. This one is particularly interesting as it’s a) a parody/homage of sorts to the classic Jules Verne/H.G. Wells/19th-century pulp stories; and b) done in a scratchboard-style motif designed to emulate woodcuts that apparently all but drove the artist around the bend. Since I’m splurging, I’ll get them both." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...[T]his... phenomenal one-shot [is] a baroque masterpiece... It's difficult to do justice to the artistic qualities of Tardi's stark, understated line drawings; whether he's depicting a motley crew of sailors, highly detailed industrial machinery, or an ice floe, the art is both technical and madly expressive. Precisely calibrated, perfectly laid out, and incredibly graphic, [The Arctic Marauder] is as good as adventure comics get." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

• Review: "This [story] sounds fantastical and almost the staple of short science fiction stories, but Jason’s work has a dark and twisted tone, like a hideous fairytale for a soulless child born in haunted forest. [...] I Killed Adolf Hitler manages to take the subjects of hitmen, time travel, dictators, alternate timelines, patience and love without ever feeling crammed or rushed. It fuses them into a story that by the end, leaves you marveling at its beautiful symmetry and craft." – Kevin Scully, The Negative Zone

• Plugs: "I purchased You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation, the second and final collection of comic book stories by the golden age artist Fletcher Hanks, during a recent Fantagraphics sale. While the stories in this volume aren't as good as those collected in I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets, it is wonderful to have the entirety of Hanks's work collected in these two books, both edited by Paul Karasik. I also enjoyed Fantagraphics' latest Jacques Tardi release, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Volume 1: Pterror Over Paris and The Eiffel Tower Demon. [...] Tardi is constantly confounding my expectations as a reader." – Patrick Markfort, Articulate Nerd

• Commentary: "...I found myself quite happy to see that Moto Hagio’s A Drunken Dream won About.com’s Readers’ Choice Award, just because I’m happy to see Hagio’s book win anything anyone cares to award it, but also because a 'readers’ choice award' indicates that it’s clicking with more people than just dudes on the internet who don’t read a lot of shojo with which to compare it, like me." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

Ragged Claws Network posted this scan of an original Jack Davis page from the 3rd issue of Humbug — unfortunately we didn't have this original when we were compiling our complete Humbug collection, but we have a scan on file now and it's certainly a candidate for inclusion in the Jack Davis art book we're putting out late this summer, Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture!

You've got a second chance to bid on these amazing original pages by Justin Green (above) and Kim Deitch (below), who asked us to sell their original artwork from last December's Medieval Thinkers exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on eBay. Bid on Justin's piece here and Kim's piece here, and see additional images here and here.

Johnny Ryan is up for two 2011 Stumptown Comic Art Awards for his Prison Pit work: Best Cartoonist and Best Letterer! The online ballot/complete list of nominees is here — you know what to do! Congrats Johnny! Winners will be announced at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland OR next month. (We'll see you there!)