Now available for preview and pre-order: Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1. Before Spider-Man, before Dr. Strange, before Mr. A, the legendary Steve Ditko was conjuring all manners of horrors at his drawing table. For the first time, all of Ditko's pre-Comics Code horror and suspense stories from the first two years of his career are collected in one beautifully designed hardcover, restored to their full, lurid, four-color glory. Edited and with an introduction by Blake Bell, author of the acclaimed biography Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko. We've put together an exclusive 15-page PDF excerpt containing two complete stories, which you can download right here. This book is scheduled to be in stock and ready to ship as early as next week and in stores approximately 4 weeks after that (subject to change).

View a photo & video slideshow preview of the book embedded here. Click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended).

Fantagraphics is storming APE this weekend in San Francisco. Come check out a slew of new books and get 'em signed by some amazing cartoonists!

FANTAGRAPHICS SIGNINGS AT APE:

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

NEW BOOKS INCLUDE:

As an added bonus, DASH SHAW is an official APE guest this year and will be signing copies of his new book, THE UNCLOTHED MAN IN THE 35TH CENTURY A.D. For anyone who buys the book at one of his Fanta signings during APE, Dash will do an original PAINTING on the front cover! You will not want to miss out. 

Not sure if there will be an Online Commentary & Diversions update tomorrow or Monday, as your humble correspondent will be en route to and from San Francisco for APE. Say, we should have an APE announcement coming up any time now.

• Review: "Femke Hiemstra, a Dutch artist, was 'raised on liquorice and buttermilk,' in her words. Fittingly enough, her work is an alluring mixture of sweet and sour. ... Hiemstra... does a wonderful job of offsetting her cuteness with a measure of tears, skeletons, Venus fly-traps and demons. The palette, meanwhile, is unrepentantly pretty — can we call it girly? — and Hiemstra's paintings emit the sort of candy-charged excitement of Halloween night. Rock Candy is a jewelbox of a book, with its deep mauve die-cut cover and metallic red lettering. ... Rock Candy is... a delightful new work for those who like liquorice and buttermilk, or better yet, both." – Molly Young, More Intelligent Life

• Commentary: Chris McLaren of Homo Sum looks at a Jules Feiffer strip from Explainers that remains relevant after all these years

• Potpourri (in the Jeopardy! sense): Dame Darcy is gearing up for a witchy Halloween

• Events: Comic Book Resources' Steve Sunu reports from the Stan Sakai spotlight panel at Baltimore Comic-Con

• Contest: Dust off your Enid Coleslaw glasses, Buddy Bradley flannel, etc. and enter The Daily Cross Hatch's indie-comics costume contest

• Things to see: A couple of recent commissions by Anders Nilsen

• Things to see: Budding genius Charles Weissman draws Popeye

Tim Lane is working on a cut-out-n-assemble diorama of The Temptations for his next book Folktales — on his blog he shares some of the artwork in progress and a few Temptations tunes to boot.

Now available for preview and pre-order: Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days and Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days - Collectors Edition by Al Columbia. One of our most hotly-anticipated books of the year, this gorgeous grimoire is part alchemy, part art book, part storybook, part comic book, and part conceptual art, a broken jigsaw puzzle of a book starring two childlike imps whose irresponsible antics get them into horrific trouble. We've put together an exclusive 24-page PDF excerpt which you can download right here. This book is scheduled to be in stock and ready to ship as early as next week and in stores approximately 4 weeks after that (subject to change).

The special limited Collectors Edition will come with an original sketch hand-drawn and signed by Al Columbia tipped in to the book. See here for a representative example of a typical sketch. This special edition is strictly limited to 50 copies and is available exclusively only to consumers who order direct from Fantagraphics. In-stock availability is TBD, but this item is almost certain to sell out during the pre-sale period, so don't delay in placing your order!

View a photo & video slideshow preview of the book embedded here. Click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended).

Well that didn't take long: as promised, here's the second half of comics podcast The Backroom's video interview with Peter Bagge. Again, pardon the advertisements.

Variety has the first news I've seen on Peter Bagge's development deal with FOX for a TV-show based on his Fantagraphics book, THE BRADLEYS.

UPDATE: Whoops, I jumped the gun there on that teaser — justifiably proud art director Jacob Covey has a better reveal planned, so forget what you've seen here and stay tuned! Sorry Jacob!

Comics podcast The Backroom (based out of my neighborhood comic shop) presents part 1 of a video interview with Peter Bagge (plus some commercials). We will, of course, bring you part 2 when it's posted.

Your latest batch of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Sometimes... an issue [of Mome] manages to hit perfectly, striking the ideal balance between new blood and Fantagraphics mainstays. It’s a standard that Volume 16 meets and exceeds, making for the best addition to the quarterly series in recent memory. ... Taken together, it’s a vital and vibrant sign of life for both the series and the indie comics community at large." – Brian Heater, The Daily Cross Hatch

• Review: "The aptly titled From Wonderland With Love features the best of contemporary Danish comics––and with weather like they have up there, you can bet that a lot of drawing gets done. If we had to generalize, we’d say that Danish comics specialize in a clean visual style, deadpan humor and a fidelity to revealing strange truths." – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Review: "The tenor of the dialogue and the methodical pacing are evidence of the story's early 20th century origins, yet Jason still makes the story entirely his own. As with other comics of his that I've read, Jason's The Iron Wagon moves very quickly, remains slightly absurd in even the most dire of situations — largely due to Jason's peculiar anthropomorphic characters and deadpan delivery — and simply doesn't take itself so damn seriously." – Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Interview: At Newsarama, Michael C. Lorah has an in-depth chat with This Side of Jordan author Monte Schulz: "Dad exposed me to books and movies, comics ... I was thinking about this the other day; I think he pushed me into books and away from his work. One, of course, I can’t draw. Two, he actually felt that book writing was a higher art form than cartooning, and he thought that he couldn’t really do that. And he thought that maybe I could."

• Reviewer: Alexander Theroux reviews Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City for The Wall Street Journal

• Things to see: Johnny Ryan visits 1994 in his newest strip for Vice