Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web (now updated with Maakies!):

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Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size):

Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):

And elsewhere:

The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE:

Amazing Facts... and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga:

Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane:

Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit:

Forming by Jesse Moynihan:

Humblug by Arnold Roth (3 new strips this week):

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

The Pain — When Will It End? by Tim Kreider:

Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim:

Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

What's in the Backpack by Victor Kerlow:

Today's your last day to save at least 30% off comics and graphic novels by international creators! From manga to bandes desinées, classic to cutting-edge, we have masterpieces from every permanently-inhabited continent (if you count New Zealand as part of Australia, anyway). Our original announcement lists just a few of the amazing creators whose works are on sale. There's never been a better time to discover some of the best comics the world has to offer, and it's almost over, so don't delay!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Rendered in a simply stunning panorama of glowing visual passion and precision, Prince Valiant is a non-stop rollercoaster of stirring action, exotic adventure and grand romance; blending human-scaled fantasy with dry wit and broad humour with shatteringly dark violence. Beautiful, captivating and utterly awe-inspiring the strip is a World Classic of fiction and something no fan can afford to miss. If you have never experienced the intoxicating grandeur of Foster’s magnum opus these magnificent, lavishly substantial deluxe editions are the best way possible to do so and will be your gateway to an eye-opening world of wonder and imagination." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review (Audio): The hosts of the Comic Book of the Month Podcast discuss Mark Kalesniko's Freeway in their new Alternative Press Expo wrap-up episode

Via the Facebook page for 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente:

40 YEARS AGO…
October 13, 1971
Game 4- Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Baltimore Orioles, was the first World Series game held at night ever.
Roberto Clemente batted three hits in a Pirates' 4–3 comeback victory! ♥

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Feature: At SF Weekly, Alan Scherstuhl provides you with "10 Reasons Why Prince Valiant Bests All 2011's Adventure Heroes" (starting with "He lances giant crocodiles"), saying "Sure, those glossy lips and that pageboy bob makes him look something like ye olde Ramona Quimby, but don't let that fool you. The star of what is arguably the twentieth century's best-drawn newspaper comic strip, Hal Foster's Prince Valiant is all hero, through and through, for his age and ours. The first four volumes of Fantagraphics' collected Prince Valiant reveal young Foster's creation as both the sum total of the heroic ideals that preceded his debut in 1937 as well as a source of serious inspiration for all the heroes that have followed him, in all media formats, in the decades since."

• Review: "War and disorder [in The Armed Garden and Other Stories] from the creator of the much-admired Epileptic and, more recently, Black Paths, visually styled to each story’s setting. The first was my favourite to look at: a forest of spears, a torrent of arrows and a swirling sandstorm of bleached bones and skulls against a velvety, light mushroom brown — a tremendous sense of space.... So there you have it: religion, jealousy, conflict and a great deal of transmogrification. Oh yes, death; a great deal of death too." – Stephen L. Holland, Page 45

• Review: "It helps if you can illustrate your fever dreams as well as Sala can — lavishly watercolored in brown, saturated orange and yellow, punctuated by bright blue and (especially later) red, [The Hidden] is beautiful to look at, and as usual, he gives us memorable grotesques and lovely girls in equal measure. Those who are fans of the artist’s previous work will find more of what they like here, and will be gratified by the deviation from his usual norm. Those who are new to his efforts will be entertained, I think, by the story, which is a bit of a page-turner, and will like his beautifully colored art. His best since he wrapped up Evil Eye a few years ago." – Johnny Bacardi, Popdose

• Review: "Dense, claustrophobic, intense and trenchantly funny, the self-contained [Nuts] strips ranged from satire to slapstick to agonising irony, linking up over the years to form a fascinating catalogue of growing older in the USA: a fearfully faithful alternate view of childhood and most importantly, of how we adults choose to recall those distant days." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Plug: Delivery of an advance copy of Kevin Huizenga's Ganges #4 prompts Tom Spurgeon to declare "I Love You, Comics" at The Comics Reporter

• Analysis: Robot 6's Matt Seneca performs a close analysis of a page from Al Columbia's Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days: "The genius of the page above is almost too simple: in four panels that follow the minimalist logic of the gag-strip format, it speaks to both the artificial nature of drawings and to the nature of sequence as something that breaks comics apart as much as pieces them together."

• Adieu: Mome contributor Tom Kaczynski bids a fond farewell to the anthology

Stephanie Escobar tweeted this photo of Johnny Ryan with the great dinosaur illustrator/creature designer William Stout at Babytattooville last week.

In one of the stories in Joost Swarte's upcoming Is That All There Is?, translated from the Dutch, a character speaks entirely in rebuses. Accordingly, Joost had to create an entirely new set of drawings for the English-language rebus, which I basically came up with and he tweaked. The whale is Joost's idea, and while the rebus purist in me objects a little to replacing that many letters, it's such an adorable whale I can't really squawk. Can you decode it?

Book goes to the printer next week! With Complete Pogo Volume 1 now in print and the Swarte book at the printer, many are the doubters who are having to eat their words even as I type this.

Head over to the PREVIEWSworld site for a 5-page preview of The Cabbie Vol. 1 by Martí, which (as we just mentioned) arrives in comic shops today!

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

The Cabbie Vol. 1
by Martí

80-page black & white 9" x 11.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-450-4

"I've seen this Marti Riera graphic novel described as Dick Tracy without a moral anchor, which sounds intriguing; the introduction's by Art Spiegelman, and I suspect it's the same as the one that appeared in the 1987 Catalan edition." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

"Speaking of [Chester] Gould, The Cabbie draws deeply from the Dick Tracy well but in a way that criticizes the excesses of its underlying worldview rather than blindly celebrating its virtues. I'm really grateful Fantagraphics is doing this work, because it's not always easy to read." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Nuts
by Gahan Wilson

144-page black & white 8" x 8" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-454-2

"This is Gahan Wilson's National Lampoon strip, an extended meditation on/reaction to the sugary-sweet quality of most kids strips." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"Some nice archival stuff turned up this week, including Gahan Wilson’s Nuts! from Fantagraphics (a somewhat nostalgic/somewhat terrifying look at childhood)..." – Mike Sterling

Two-in-one comments:

"There’s a lot of great stuff out this week, so with $30 I’d have to... get one of two new books from Fantagraphics — either Gahan Wilson’s Nuts or The Cabbie by Italian cartoonist Marti. I’ve raved about Nuts before–it’s a piercingly accurate look at the pain and perils involved in growing up. Cabbie, on the other hand, is a uber-violent Dick Tracy homage by way of Taxi Driver." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"CONFLICT OF INTEREST RESERVOIR: I first encountered Marti Riera’s bonkers, politicized Chester Gould parody/riff The Cabbie in the 1987 Catalan edition, now re-translated and to be followed by a never-translated sequel per editor Kim Thompson...; $19.99. And reaching even further back, Nuts collects the entirety of Gahan Wilson’s National Lampoon strips from the ’70s, with a new essay by Gary Groth; $19.99." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

photo credit: Edwina Hay

We've got an exciting last-minute addition to our already-thrilling Twain in the Membrane tour: Michael Kupperman will make an appearance at the New York Comic-Con this Friday, October 14th, signing copies of his most-recent masterpiece, Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010!

... or WILL HE?  'Cause we've heard tell that a certain Mr. Twain might show up in his place! Those sure are some beautiful eyebrows, Mr. Kupper-- er, Twain.

He'll be signing from 1-3 PM with our good friends at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund at Booth #1158.

And then at 3:15 PM, head over to the Hasbro Stage for a special NYCC-edition of the cartoon slideshow extravaganza Carousel, hosted by our pal R. Sikoryak! Kupperman will be joined by Sam Henderson, Danny Hellman, and Emily Flake.

As always, stay tuned to the FLOG for future appearances in the Twain in the Membrane tour!

[UPDATE: Mike here, butting in to add the newly-posted flyer and link to more info for the NYCC Carousel performance!]