Today we've already brought you one sneak peek at Pocket Full of Rain, the upcoming collection of early work from Norwegian cartoonist Jason; now registered users can get a further free preview in the form of a downloadable 15-page excerpt from the title story. These previews are exclusive to registered Fantagraphics.com users, so sign up and/or sign in to view.

(As a reminder, 20/20 Club members receive these previews two weeks before we post them on the website, just one of many great reasons to join up...)

Another first look at an upcoming book today, this time Pocket Full of Rain, the hotly-anticipated collection of early work by Jason, which is due in June and now available for pre-order. Watch the video above and click here for a gallery of preview photos.

Coming soon and now available for pre-order, the first volume of Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace in an affordable (and cute) softcover edition. Enjoy this video preview, and click here for a gallery of preview photos, including a comparison shot with the hardcover edition.

A finer cartoonist never lived. Link.

As my pal Jem Eaton put it to me, "If, as they say, God is in the details, then he'll be sharing a cup of tea with Will Elder right about now."

You New Yorkers are insane if you don't go to this tonight. Feiffer is going to be at The Strand Thursday night for the world premiere of EXPLAINERS. It's going to be pretty great. He's going to give a drawing presentation, read some of the strips of this historic book and then read a bit from his forthcoming memoir. It's going to be special. 

Just received today: the breathtaking wraparound cover, designed by Chris Ware, for the final volume in our Krazy & Ignatz series (that is, until we start re-printing the early Eclipse volumes -- more info on that in this previous Flog post). The book is due later this year. Click the image for a closer look.

The Comics Journal #290
Edited by Mike Dean and Kristy Valenti; Gary Groth, executive editor

Hard truth, subjective take or slanted hatchet job? Monte Schulz and a roundtable of Peanuts experts and critics probe and debate David Michaelis's controversial new biography of one of the most influential and beloved cartoonists of our time: Charles M. Schulz. Matt Madden, co-series-editor of the Best American Comics anthology series, will dish about his upcoming comics textbook (written and drawn with Jessica Abel, his frequent collaborator) and his efforts to translate the OuBaPo movement into English with 99 Exercises in Style. A preview of the Joe Kubert biography Man of Rock. Plus: A color gallery of "The Wall of Flesh" and other '50s horror stories from Golden Age cartoonist Bob Powell (the Good Girl artist known for his work on Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, Blackhawk and the original Mars Attacks trading cards) rounds out the magazine.

224-page squarebound 7.5" x 9.25" magazine • $11.99
Update: SOLD OUT

For over a year Bob Staake has been working with London animation studio Wyld Stallyons to produce an animated version of his book Struwwelpeter (part of our Blab! Storybook series). The second animation test is now online for the world to see and dang if it doesn't look great -- Staake's work is beautifully suited to modern animation techniques. (There's also a downloadable Quicktime version. And don't forget to visit Bob's official site for the book.)