Comics are taking center stage in America's Heartland this autumn, as the University of Iowa presents the exhibit Graphic Language: The Art and Literature of Comics, which runs through December 11th.

This exhibit is truly impressive, featuring original artwork from Carl Barks, Steve Ditko, Hal Foster, and Jack Kirby, as well as Winsor McCay, Frank Frazetta, and Milton Caniff.

There's gonna be a special section devoted to original work for EC Comics, from artists like Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Johnny Craig, and Bernard Kriegstein.

And covering the spectrum, the exhibit also spotlights contemporary cartoonists like Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Joe Sacco, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Chris Ware, and Jessica Abel, as well as Alison Bechdel, Phoebe Gloeckner, Craig Thompson, John Porcellino, Jeff Lemire, James Sturm, and Matt Madden.

Holy crap, right? Well, it gets even more envy-enducing...

To tie into the exhibit, the University of Iowa presents Symposium on Comics, Creativity, and Culture: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, running through this weekend with some impressive panels:

Joe Sacco // photo credit: Jacob Covey

Friday, October 6th

3:15-4:15 PM // Preservation and Presentation: The Art and Business of Comics Publishing: Join our fearless leader Gary Groth in panel with Peggy Burns (Drawn and Quarterly) and Craig Yoe (YOE! Books). [ University Capitol Centre 2520D ]

7:30 PM // Joe Sacco: Keynote Lecture and UI Lecture Committee Featured Speaker [ Shambaugh Auditorium ]

Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez // photo credit: Patrick Rosenkranz

Saturday, October 8th

1:30-3:30 PM // Editing Comics Criticism and Scholarship: This round table discussion features Gary Groth, along with John Lent (Editor, The International Journal of Comic Art) and Frenchy Lunning (Editor, Mechademia) [ University Capitol Centre 2520D ]

7:30 PM // Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez: Keynote Lecture and UI Lecture Committee Featured Speaker [ Shambaugh Auditorium ]

You can view the entire schedule of events at the University of Iowa website. If you read this FLOG and live in Iowa, you better be there!

Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson
by Kevin Avery
Foreword by Nick Tosches
Cover illustration by Jeff Wong

512-page 6" x 9" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-475-7

Ships in: October 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

What happened to Paul Nelson? In the '60s, he pioneered rock & roll criticism with a first-person style of writing that would later be popularized by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer as "New Journalism." As co-founding editor of The Little Sandy Review and managing editor of Sing Out!, he'd already established himself, to use his friend Bob Dylan's words, as "a folk-music scholar"; but when Dylan went electric in 1965, Nelson went with him.

During a five-year detour at Mercury Records in the early 1970s, Nelson signed the New York Dolls to their first recording contract, then settled back down to writing criticism at Rolling Stone as the last in a great tradition of record-review editors that included Jon Landau, Dave Marsh, and Greil Marcus. Famously championing the early careers of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, Neil Young, and Warren Zevon, Nelson not only wrote about them but often befriended them. Never one to be pigeonholed, he was also one of punk rock's first stateside mainstream proponents, embracing The Sex Pistols and The Ramones.

But in 1982, he walked away from it all – Rolling Stone, his friends, and rock & roll. By the time he died in his New York City apartment in 2006 at the age of seventy – a week passing before anybody discovered his body – almost everything he'd written had been relegated to back issues of old music magazines.

How could a man whose writing had been so highly regarded have fallen so quickly from our collective memory?

With Paul Nelson's posthumous blessing, Kevin Avery spent four years researching and writing Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writing of Paul Nelson. This unique anthology-biography compiles Nelson's best works (some of it previously unpublished) while also providing a vivid account of his private and public lives. Avery interviewed almost 100 of Paul Nelson's friends, family, and colleagues, including several of the artists about whom he'd written.

Bruce Springsteen says, "He is somebody who played a very essential part in that creative moment when I was there trying to establish what I was doing and what I wanted our band to be about."

This is a landmark work of cultural revival, a tribute to and collection by one of the unsung critical champions of popular art.

Download and read a 51-page PDF excerpt (3.7 MB) which includes the Table of Contents, Kevin Avery's Introduction, and excerpts from the biography and Paul Nelson's writings.

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

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "We cannot commend Love & Rockets to you highly enough... 'Return for Me' will not disappoint..., and I was left speechless for hours.... There’s far more of Maggie in parts three, four and five of 'The Love Bunglers,' and I could begin almost any review of a Jaime Hernandez story with my 'Poor Maggie' refrain. Still, poor Maggie… Then there’s the delightfully mannered dance and duel from Gilbert Hernandez of 'And Then Reality Kicks In.' No one does comics like Gilbert. Sometimes it’s as if he’s never read another comic in his life (other than maybe his brothers’) and so invents an unprecedented comicbook performance. Time and again Gilbert turns your expectations right on their heads, especially here in 'King Vampire,' the most unusual fang-fest you could ever imagine!" – Stephen L. Holland, Page 45

• Review: "About [Ganges #2] a lot can be said like 'our whole life is a game,' and this will be true, but more true to say will be that all good things must come to an end, you’ve played, and that's enough. And the moral is simple: not work joins people together, but fun." – Ray Garraty, Endless Falls Up

• Interview (Audio): Esther Pearl Watson is one of the guests on the new episode of The Comix Claptrap podcast, recorded live at APE last weekend

This will be amazing.

Join Gary Panter as he presents his latest exhibit at Fredericks & Freiser in New York City.

Twenty paintings by Panter will be on display through November 5th, with the opening reception tomorrow night, Thursday, October 6th, from 6:00 - 8:00 PM. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Fredericks & Freiser is located at 536 West 24th Street in NYC.

The new Diamond Previews catalog is out today and in it you'll find our usual 2-page spread (download the PDF) with our releases scheduled to arrive in your local comic shop in December 2011 (give or take — some release dates may have changed since the issue went to press) and a selection of gift book suggestions. We're pleased to offer additional and updated information about these upcoming releases here on our website, to help shops and customers alike make more informed ordering decisions.

This month's Featured Item is editor Michel Gagné's Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's 1940s-'50s Romance Comics; there's a "Spotlight On" the hotly anticipated Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons; our long-awaited inaugural Nancy volume Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1946 by Ernie Bushmiller is Certified Cool; and we've got a new hardcover edition of Robert Crumb's The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat. We're including some reprints and other reoffers as well.

See them all here!

Above, the cover for Randy Bradley, a novella by Jake Bohstedt Morrill from NYC small press Solid Objects, illustrated by Michael Kupperman. The book itself is described as "thrillingly crazed" and "cheerfully demented," which sounds like it's in Michael's wheelhouse. This is his second job for the publisher; we reported on the first one here.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions, good buddy:

• Review: "...Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 is one of the best comics I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.... The potential hinted at in ‘Browntown’ and the first parts of ‘The Love Bunglers’ (all from last year’s Love and Rockets: New Stories #3) is developed here to a genuinely emotional and satisfying climax that, despite coming out of nowhere, feels utterly in-character and appropriate for the world of Locas, and is delivered with such virtuosic storytelling that I’m kinda choking up a bit right now just flicking through it again! The cartooning on display is really some of the best ever committed to paper. It’s such a joy to see a a guy like Jaime, who’s been around since before I knew what comics were, doing some of his very best work this far into his career." – Berserker Magazine

• Review: "Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez have been writing and drawing Love and Rockets for so long now that their newest work has become like the ever-growing peak of a tremendous mountain that stretches back through all previous incarnations of the series and the iconic characters that they keep returning to. ...'And Then Reality Kicks In'... is the kind of elliptical, emotionally charged storytelling that Gilbert does best, where all of the substance lingers unspoken between the lines, slowly accumulating force through his whimsical, charming dialogue.... 'The Love Bunglers'... is just stunning, ...the work of an artist who really knows and loves his characters and their long, tangled histories. The final act of this story is jaw-dropping in its audacity, and the last ten pages whip by in a rollercoaster of conflicting emotions. Jaime's craft is absolutely assured." – Ed Howard, Thinking in Panels

• Lore: "A big personal step forward for me occurred in North Carolina... I joined Alcoholics Anonymous and quit drinking. That happened in 1983 and I haven’t had a drink since. This laid a solid foundation for me to otherwise improve myself, to learn how to be more generally focused, to work harder, and to finally grow up a little" – Kim Deitch's epic memoir-in-music "Mad About Music: My Life in Records" at TCJ.com finally reaches its concluding chapter

We've had a small quantity of Eightball #22 (the original comic book version of Ice Haven) lurking unnoticed in our warehouse for a while, and we are finally bringing them to the light of day, offering them to you, our mail-order customers...

...However! Due to demand for this out-of-print and highly sought-after item, we are limiting purchases to customers who order at least $50 worth of other stuff. See the product details page for more information and get shopping!

Join us this Wednesday, October 5 at 7:00 PM in the Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Public Library central branch as we welcome Craig Thompson discussing his latest graphic novel Habibi. Don't miss this opportunity to meet one of the most celebrated cartoonists in recent years as he presents his highly anticipated new work. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery curator Larry Reid will introduce the artist and offer a selection of Thompson's work for sale following his slide talk. Admission is free, but you may want to arrive a few minutes early to guarantee seating. The library is located at 1000 Fourth Avenue in the heart of downtown Seattle. Phone 206.386.4636.

Tiny Showcase announces: "Tonight we have the pleasure of launching an edition of Kupperman's new book, Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, signed by the artist and coupled with an exclusive print. A combination archival-digital print with a translucent, glow-in-the-dark screen print overlay -- this showcase is designed to thrizzle. Everything you've ever dreamed of launches tonight at 7:30pm on Tiny Showcase." (They're in Providence so I believe that's Eastern time.)

We'll update with an image of the print once it's available, but we wanted to give you some advance warning since these Tiny Showcase editions are, uh, tiny and tend to sell out fast.

UPDATE: Here's a look at the print! Order here!