Presenting your first look at the final design (from one angle) of our eagerly-anticipated Humbug collection. Image (and post title) provided by book designer Adam Grano. Read more about the Humbug project right here. (Press: higher-res image available - contact Eric Reynolds.)

Here's an advance look at Ted Stearn's existential funny-animal farce Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville, the continuing adventures of the titular stuffed bear and featherless rooster. Click this link if the embedded slideshow doesn't appear above, or to open it in a new window.

Hey, how about a new content feature here on the ol' Fanta web homestead? We're pleased to present you proud papa Gene Deitch's introduction to Deitch's Pictorama by His Three Sons, reprinted in its entirety from the book. (And if you've missed it, here's an earlier, exclusive Gene Deitch article, with music!)

Thanks to Joe Sacco for supplying us with a fresh batch of signed bookplates exclusively for folks who order Palestine: The Special Edition and Safe Area Gorazde directly from us. We're continuing to replenish our limited quantities of these FREE premiums when and where we can. Click here for the full selection of books available with free signed bookplates.

(Disclaimer: Signature plates are limited in quantity and available only while supplies last. In the event that we run out, signature plates will not be backordered. Bookplates are not available separately from their respective books and are only available to individual consumers.)

Holy smokes, I didn't know that Kim Deitch designed and storyboarded a Waldo animation for They Might Be Giants' "Trees" on their Venue Songs DVD! Shame on me! Follow this link to watch the video and get the whole backstory. Thanks Comics Comics!

Popeye Vol. 3: "Let's You and Him Fight!"
By E.C. Segar

Our third volume (of six) of the acclaimed hit series collecting the entirety of E.C. Segar's original Popeye (a.k.a. Thimble Theatre) comic strips features work from 1932 to 1934. In addition to the daily and Sunday strips, this volume will present a true collector’s item: Segar’s never-reprinted two-week “World’s Fair” continuity. In 1933, in addition to the normal daily and Sunday continuities, Segar produced a special, two-week sequence of extra-large strips (two to three tiers each) in which Wimpy and Popeye travel to Chicago to take in the World’s Fair. Olive Oyl is left behind on account of “she ain’t wide-minded,” but Olive has other ideas and follows Popeye to make sure he isn’t flirting with any pretty girls. This sequence has never been republished since its original publication 75 years ago.

Stories in this volume include "The Eighth Sea," a nautical thriller-diller starring, in his only appearance in the actual Segar Popeye strip, Bluto (plus the shape-shfiting detective Merlock Jones); "Long Live the King" and "Popeye King of Popilania"; "Star Reporter," in which Popeye juggles his career as a newspaperman and a recent adoptive Dad to the one and only Swee'pea. Plus over a year's worth of great full color Sunday strips, many of them focusing on everyone's favorite glutton Wimpy!

This volume also contains the conclusion of Donald Phelps’s incisive and articulate critical essay on Segar’s work “Real People, Real Theatre.”

E.C. Segar blended complex narratives, slapstick traditions, brilliant characterization, and an inimitable cartooning style to create the most exciting and profound humor of his era, rivaling the great film comics of his era, such as Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. Discover this American treasure in this handsomely designed series perfect for all ages.

168-page b&w/color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $29.99
Add to Cart • Read More...

Today is my birthday and you get the presents! Starting now, and for one week only, the 20/20 Club is the 20/30 Club: members get 30% OFF instead of the usual 20%! This applies to everything on our site: new stuff, old stuff, exclusive stuff, you name it. And just in time for early holiday shopping! Here's how it works:

If you are a current 20/20 Club member and we have your email address, check your inbox for a message from me. This message includes a special Members-only coupon code for you to use to get your additional discount. (This will actually take 12.5% off your already-discounted price; when you do the math, it comes to 30% total.) If we don't have your email address or you didn't get the message for some reason, contact us and we will send the coupon code to you (and add you to our exclusive 20/20 Club mailing list so you can get more special offers, unless you ask us not to).

If you sign up online for the 20/20 Club while this offer is going on, unfortunately we can't apply the extra 10% to your first online order, but we will send you your own one-time-use extra-10% coupon that you can use on your next order any time before Jan. 1, 2009. And if you prefer not to shop online, our customer service folks can apply your discount over the phone at 1-800-657-1100 or 206-524-1967 outside the US.

This special offer ends 11:59 PM Pacific time on Sunday October 26, so get shopping!

Our weekly compilation of online reviews and such:

• Madinkbeard (aka Derik Badman) examines Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• Jog examines Deitch's Pictorama

• Comic Book Bin looks at Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by the Hernandez Brothers; L.S.D. - Letras Sin Desperdicio also checks it out

• Publishers Weekly looks at Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 by Patrick Rosenkranz

• Sequart gets in the first word on John Kerschbaum's Petey & Pussy, calling it "one of the best [books] of the year to date"

• The Guardian reprints excerpts from Matt Groening and Jonathan Franzen's introductions to The Complete Peanuts 1955-1956 and 1957-1958 respectively as those volumes see UK release

• Johnny Bacardi weighs in on Meat Cake #17 by Dame Darcy

• Artvoice looks at Krazy and Ignatz 1943-1944: He Nods in Quiescent Siesta by George Herriman

Here's the "and such":

• For Legacy.com, Zak Sally memorializes E.C. Segar

• On her website, Ellen Forney demonstrates some of her snazzy wedding invitation designs

• Johnny Ryan: ready for Halloween

• Here's a report from last Saturday's Cosmocopia event at our bookstore

• Scene Magazine looks at the Los Angeles Farmer's Market through the eyes and pen of Mark Kalesniko

• Print comments on the Vanity Fair interview with David Levine

• Drinks with Tony has a 3-part audio interview with Daniel Clowes from 2006 (an old link which resurfaced on Lout Shelter)

• Freezerbox profiles Bill Mauldin

• Comic Book Resources talks to Robert Goodin

• Drawn highlights John Cuneo's illustrations for the Society of Illustrators' call-for-entries poster for Illustration 51

• Conflict of Interest Dept. again: for comiXology, TCJ assistant editor Kristy Valenti interviews Tim Hensley about his soundtrack, as Victor Banana, for Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by Daniel Clowes

• Snake Eating Its Own Tail Dept: Love and Rockets/Comics Journal advertiser popidiot gives a nice plug to those publications on their blog, so here's some free extra advertising for them

• Sharing the sketchbook love: here's Nightcrawler as drawn by Colleen Coover, Jordan Crane, Linda Medley, and many others (via Drawn)