• Dash Shaw's animated trailer for Bottomless Belly Button is now available to watch on ComicBookTrailers.com (in addition to on our own site)

• Speaking of Bottomless Belly Button, Matthew Brady takes a good look at the book

• Congratulations and good luck to Linda Medley for being named a finalist (and the only American on the list) for the Prix de la Critique 2008 by the Association des Critiques et Journalistes de Bande Dessinée for Château l'Attente, the French edition of Castle Waiting

• More stunning sketchbook pages from Anders Nilsen

• Austin English has some very nice things to say about Lilli Carré's The Lagoon

• Ellen Forney has some bad-ass Brazilian jiu-jitsu desktop wallpaper for you to download

• Stickers and Donuts declares "Ray Fenwick is my boyfriend"

• Brian Ralph asks: "Did Charles Burns make this mask?" Note: Pee-Wee Herman is involved

Freshly arrived Nicolas Mahler Palesmurt screenprint for the Dec. 13th BEASTS! print show. Only five of these are available on this continent. (Note that this is not the art that appears in the book... It's bonus Mahler!)

After a couple of quiet weeks we're back with a vengeance at your local comics shop this week with the following titles scheduled to arrive:

• Castle Waiting Vol. II #13 by Linda Medley
• Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville by Ted Stearn
• The Lagoon by Lilli Carré
• Petey & Pussy by John Kerschbaum 

As usual, check the links for more info and previews. (Note that the new Castle Waiting is in stores before we have it in stock ourselves.)

• Webcomics avatar/fictional comic shop clerk Lydia includes The Lagoon and Petey & Pussy in her staff picks this week in The Rack

• Here's a transcript of Gary Panter's panel discussion with C.F. and Dan Nadel at the Tokion Creativity Now Conference

• Sequart looks at Sublife Vol. 1 by John Pham

• Syndicate Product gives a quick overview of The Complete Peanuts

• Wart plugs the January 2009 release of the French edition of Jason's Pocket Full of Rain (in French)

• The Phoenix compares The Drinky Crow Show (debuting this weekend!) to its source material, Tony Millionaire's Maakies

• Wow, check out this amazing mosaic made of Peanuts strips at the Schulz Museum (photo by David Lasky)

There'll be a little more catch-up tomorrow:

• Etch-A-Peanuts

• Fantagraphics art director Jacob Covey talks to United Arab Emirates newspaper The National about Garfield Minus Garfield - wait, what?

• Flog commenter "Faraquet" points out this 2001 Dutch TV interview with Daniel Clowes (via this blog) and says "It's very weird" (having watched the first few minutes we're going to say it's the background music that gives that impression)

• For Publishers Weekly, Frank Santoro looks at the new volume of E.C. Segar's Popeye

• Ellen Forney announces on her blog that she'll be collaborating with Sherman Alexie again on his next book - congrats, Ellen!

• Chris Diaz shares a photo of Gene Deitch from Gene's recent visit to San Francisco

• Comics Bulletin looks at The Portable Frank by Jim Woodring

• I'm pretty sure I've seen this circulate on the blogosphere before, but: Tim Hensley presents The World's Weirdest Comics Jam

A recent sweep of our warehouse has revealed copies of the following titles which had been thought to be sold out. Quantities are limited so get them before they're gone again!

• ACME Novelty Library #3 by Chris Ware
• Hate #13 by Peter Bagge
• Lena's Bambinas by Monte Wolverton
• The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories by Daryl & Josef Hutchinson

Time for the new installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 32-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures. In this week's episode: getting to the bottom of things by climbing to the top. (Note: last week's page is also still up, since we had to update the page yesterday for scheduling reasons.)

This is also a great time to catch up on our current 5-day chunk of Martin Kellerman's Rocky, updated Monday-Friday!

As a reminder, registration is no longer required to read our webcomics; they're free for all!

Daniel Clowes fan Matt Taylor dressed up as the Death Ray from Eightball #23 for Halloween and documented the creation of the costume on his blog. Nicely done!

Robin McConnell and the Inkstuds crew talk to Anders Nilsen about Big Questions and more.

Van Jensen of CBR talks to Jacob Covey and Femke Hiemstra about BEASTS! 2.  

• Vice approves of Popeye Vol. 3 (along with 8 other recent comics)

• Comic Book Resources talks to Beasts! Book 2 curator Jacob Covey and contributing artist Femke Hiemstra (with previews from the book)

• Tom Neely previews his Beasts! Book 2 contribution

No updates tomorrow or Monday: I'm taking a long weekend (Felt Club ahoy) so I'll have a multi-day update for you next week.