Virginia Commonwealth University is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with a special exhibit on The Hernandez Bros.

You can check out the display on the fourth floor of the James Branch Cabell Library [ 901 Park Ave., Richmond, VA ], until the end of the week, Saturday, October 15th.

The Twain in the Membrane tour has rolled from Brooklyn back to Brooklyn, and now the Twain Train is heading for Desert Island. In Brooklyn!

This Thursday, October 13th, join Michael Kupperman for a book release party and signing for the smash-hit Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, and be one of the very first to get a copy of Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7!  Plus, free beer with any purchase!

And don't forget: this is your chance to pick up this excellent exclusive print we mentioned last month on the FLOG! Each 16X20 screenprint will be numbered and signed by Kupperman himself.

Desert Island is located at 540 Metropolitan Avenue, and the merriment starts at 7 PM!  Keep an eye on the Twain in the Membrane tour dates on the Fantagraphics Events page!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island
by Floyd Gottfredson

312-page black & white/color 10.5" x 8.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-495-5

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“Oh, for gosh sakes!” Floyd Gottfredson’s classic 1930s Mickey Mouse is back for another round of thrills, chills, and epic quests — taking him from the depths of teeming jungles to the halls of spooky Blaggard Castle. Mickey’s classic Disney bad guys are here, too, with arch-enemy Pegleg Pete joined for this book by the mysterious “Bill Shakespeare” and hypnosis-happy Professors Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex!

Floyd Gottfredson, artist of Mickey Mouse from 1930-1975, made it the most popular cartoon-based comic of its time. Unafraid to tackle social satire and grown-up action-adventure, Gottfredson produced a Mouse for all ages — truly popular in a way that Mickey’s blander 1950s image could never be.

In this book you’ll relive Mickey’s fight with pirates on desolate Treasure Island; his quest with Goofy to catch ruthless counterfeiters; and his battles to save windy Horace Horsecollar from mad scientists, a robbery frame- up — and himself!

Lovingly restored from Disney’s original negatives and proof sheets, “Mickey Mouse: Trapped on Treasure Island” also includes more than 50 pages of fascinating supplementary features. You’ll enjoy rare behind-the-scenes art, vintage publicity material, and vivid commentary by a full team of seasoned Disney scholars.

Walt Disney often said that his studio’s success “all started with a mouse” — and today Mickey is among the world’s most recognizable icons in the world. Now it’s time to rediscover the wild, unforgettable personality behind the icon: Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse.

Download and read a 19-page PDF excerpt (3.1 MB) which includes the full Table of Contents, David Gerstein's first chapter introduction, and 15 pages of strips!

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1 + 2 Box Set
by Floyd Gottfredson

slipcased set of two black & white/color 10.5" x 8.75" hardcovers • $49.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-496-2

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The first two volumes of Mickey's thrilling adventures from the early 1930s, packaged in a beautiful and sturdy slipcase and priced cheaper than the individual volumes! A perfect gift and/or collector's item.

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

© Disney Enterprises Inc.

Help Buddy Bradley stay upright in this interactive poster for the Georgetown Art Attack designed by Tim Silbaugh. Approved by Peter Bagge.

[See our Tumblr blog for more recent Things to See.]

Behold, three brand new eye-popping mini (8.5" square) prints reproducing original paintings by Jim Blanchard! Super limited-edition, easily framable and insanely cheap at ten bucks a pop — buy all 3!

[See our Tumblr blog for more recent Things to See.]

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Wearing its stylistic debt to Chester Gould’s classic Dick Tracy strips on its sleeve, this Spanish-produced series [The Cabbie] (which was originally printed in the ’80s) revels in a stark and sleazy noir aesthetic that drags the reader on a vicious trip through the scabrous underbelly of 'the Big City.'... An intriguing throwback to the days of heroes with worldviews defined in terms as rigidly black and white as the panels they battled their way through, this visual and thematic love letter to (and simultaneous critique of) Gould’s tropes is highly recommended for grownups with a taste for refreshingly lurid pulp fiction." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "The Hidden feels like a Poe short story, but Richard Sala actually reaches further back into gothic literature for information, filtering Frankenstein through a zombie apocalypse. Just like Poe, the fun here is all in the telling, and Sala’s campfire-ghost-story illustration is blunt enough to be cynically hilarious and cruelly gory, often at the same time. The allegory is the same as from Shelley’s original, but like the best gothic writing, the fun comes from putting the pieces — all the pieces — together at the end." – David Berry, National Post

• Interview: Robot 6's Chris Mautner has a brief chat with Richard Sala about a book that's not ours (the Nursery Rhyme Comics anthology from First Second) but any interview with Richard is worthwhile

• Review: "The final edition of Mome leaves a vacuum that thus far has always managed to get filled — let’s hope the graphic world hasn’t lost its taste for short stories just yet — but it will always be a shame to file something this sharply curated in the shelf. The fifth installment of Devil Doll is likely the most beautiful piece here, and there’s a terrific streak of humour throughout — Laura Perk’s Hobbesian, malevolent George is the pitch-black highlight, but there’s plenty of other strains — all adding up to an end that’s perfectly fitting, but no less unfortunate." – David Berry, National Post

• Review: "Last month, Fantagraphics released The Art of Joe Kubert, a wonderful oversized art book that traces the career of the comics legend who has worked successfully in all the major 'Ages' of comics. While seeing the art in a larger format is nice, it's the text that winds through the book that opened my eyes to a lot of new things in comics that I had never known before.... Schelly's words opened up a new world of art critique for me.... The Art of Joe Kubert is probably the best DC book I read in September, and DC didn't even publish it. Fantagraphics did, and a wonderful job they did, from the raw materials to the book design and packaging." – Augie DeBlieck Jr., Comic Book Resources

• Review: "Maybe, perhaps, at last, the time is right for a mass re-evaluation of the Duck comics, as Fantagraphics steps into the breach to produce a definitive library of Carl Barks' oeuvre. Not only do they step in, but they do so fearlessly... The series starts in November with Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes, an impressively affordable $25 hardcover... Happily, the stories look great and the book is a wonder to hold in your hand.... As to the content, itself, it's just as remarkable an achievement in comics as I remembered.... The contents of the book are as good as they're going to get, produced with an eye towards recapturing as much of the look of the original printings as possible, without sacrificing clarity or design. The quality of the black and white line work is top notch, too.... Pre-order today. Just do it. You can thank me later." – Augie DeBlieck Jr., Comic Book Resources

• Interview: Speaking of short interviews about books that aren't ours, there's a Q&A with Michael Kupperman on the Marvel website about his contribution to their upcoming humor anthology Shame Itself

• Commentary: Robot 6's Sean T. Collins points out and comments on Bob Temuka's (spoilery) writeup of the new issue of Love and Rockets: New Stories, saying "it’s as good at conveying the unique nature of the 'Locas' saga, the way its stories shift and grow and can be seen differently over time as we and Jaime and the characters all age and learn more about what happened, as well as any piece I’ve ever read."

• Links: Another comprehensive round of Hernandez Bros.-related links from Love & Maggie

• Commentary: Robot 6's Sean T. Collins again, spotlighting a choice quote re: Ghost World from CBR's report on Dan Clowes & Adrian Tomine's spotlight panel at APE

• Feature: Kudos to Comics Bulletin for including some off-the-beaten-path choices in their "Top Ten Indie Comics That Should Be Movies" list... Studs Kirby: The Movie we would totally like to see

Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times talks to Gary Groth about The Carl Barks Library — "There is in fact an emotional truth at the center of Barks' work; he even said that this was his primary goal, though I can’t dig up the quote at the moment, perhaps I’m thinking of when he told an interviewer that in his stories he was 'telling it like it is' and 'laying it on the line.' The comics critic Don Phelps once told me that it was Barks who made Donald Duck a citizen of the nation of comics characters, which I always remember as being a particularly eloquent way of saying that he invested Donald with such humanity." — and presents a 10-page preview from Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes.

Via The A.V. Club and other internet sources comes news that MTV has a new website for Liquid Television, and they've posted a whole mess of classic clips from the original run of the beloved and long-departed alternative-animation anthology show (along with some newer stuff, it seems)! Watch Charles Burns and Tony Halton's entire live-action Dog Boy serial (part 1 embedded below)...

...Richard Sala's Invisible Hands serial (part 1 below)...

...Uncle Louie, with art by Drew Friedman (episode 1 below)...

...and many other classics. This is fantastic news, and a definite improvement over the bootleg-quality stuff that's been floating around on YouTube. (Now if the original creators are getting royalty payments from it, that's even better. I also wish they had complete credits on the site but I guess you can't have everything.)

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

The Frank Book (New Softcover Edition)
by Jim Woodring

352-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $34.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-500-6

See Previews / Order Now

The Frank Book (New Hardcover Printing)
by Jim Woodring

352-page black & white/color 8.75" x 11.25" hardcover • $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-513-6

See Previews / Order Now

eaders who haven't discovered Jim Woodring's Frank stories will find a treat waiting for them in the pages of this book. Since publication in 1991 of the award-winning, epoch-making "Frank in the River," these lusciously hypnotic fables have dazzled cartoon lovers the world over.

Frank is a generic anthropomorph who lives in a world of mysterious and dangerous beauty. Propelled by forces beyond his control, including his own unquenchable curiosity, he finds himself in one bizarre escapade after another, frequently involving the loathsome Manhog or the power-hungry Whim. Luckily, Frank has a protector and ally in the form of his feisty godling companion, Pupshaw.

Frank's adventures are told in a series of nearly wordless cartoon stories that draw readers deep into a hallucinatory mindscape governed by a profound interior logic that raises The Frank Book to a level above fantasy. As Francis Ford Coppola says in his introduction, "The ancient myths and folk tales of all cultures which have been preserved for so many centuries have meaning for us today because the fantastic elements in them are rooted in immutable reality. The Frank stories belong to this class of literature."

"Jim Woodring may be the most important cartoonist of his generation. The Frank stories are masterpieces, each and every one. Read them. Re-read them. Re-re-read them. Every cell in your body will remember this spellbinding, visionary work." – Scott McCloud

"Frank will take you to another world, re-arrange your consciousness and reprogram the inside of your head. It's cheaper than virtual reality, less risky than recreational pharmaceuticals, and more fun than falling asleep." – Neil Gaiman

"Frank, and I say this without a shred of hyperbole, is a work of true genius by one of the all-time greats." – Daniel Clowes

A fan named Ross Adams went and got himself a tattoo of the Caligulon symbol from Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book 3, and then Johnny went and tweeted about it. No word as to whether Adams can now shoot destructive/transfigurative rays from his shin.