In the third series of comics to be released digitally after Love and Rockets going digital, Johnny Ryan's favorite thing to draw in a public restroom critically-acclaimed humor series Angry Youth Comix #8-10 are now available to download via comiXology joining the previous issues from last week. Ryan's work is too hot to handle for iTunes so use your comiXology apps on whatever retina-burning device you prefer. $1.99 can't even buy good laxatives to put in your friend's beer but it can purchase you some excellent comics. $2.99 gets you gut-and-butt-busting issue 10 with 52 pages!

Battling butlers and cover-to-cover, ass-to-ass gags are found in these volumes, issue 10 has been sold out for a few years. Fans of South Park, Beavis & Butt-head, and Jackass simply must discover the steaming ass-genius that is Johnny Ryan and Angry Youth Comix.

Limber up those drawin' fingers, Chicago! October is the time of The Big Draw, a festival of informal drawing programs, all across the city, all dang month long!

And on Thursday, October 18th, the beloved cartoonist and comics scholar Ivan Brunetti will lead a FREE creative salon! Join Ivan from 4:00 to 6:00 PM as he discusses his work, both in and out of the classroom, followed by a Q&A, at EnergyBBDO offices [ 410 North Michigan Avenue ].  

Stop by after work, grab some snacks and a beer, and listen to and learn from this renowned Chicago artist. An opportunity not to be missed!

There really is a Great Pumpkin! He's bringing Charles Burns, Gabrielle Bell, and Tom Kaczynski to Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, October 20 at 6:00 PM. This event coincides with Elysian Brewing's Great Pumpkin Brew Festival - (just up the street at their Georgetown bottling facility) - featuring dozens of seasonal pumpkin beers from regional boutique breweries. The bookstore will be serving complimentary samples of Blight Pumpkin Ale from Elysian's Black Hole-inspired 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series. Our EC Comics Library exhibition, "The Horror," provides the perfect atmosphere for this festive pre-Halloween function. Don't miss it!

You may remember last year when we shared news about MTV putting their classic Liquid Television shorts from the 19mumbledy-somethings online, including work by Charles Burns, Richard Sala and other cartooning greats. We were all waiting for new original material from our comics heroes and MTV has not disappointed, rolling out a new series Worldword! the new episode of which, "Heal Everything, Heal Everyone," features artwork by Ron Regé Jr.! Ron tells us "I did drawings for a second one too, that will be coming out! Future installments will feature art by Leif Goldberg, Brian Chippendale, Kevin Hooyman, Megan Whitmarsh, and probably other people that I don't know about... um.... yeah! ????"

See more info & credits on the Liquid Television Tumblr blog and at Tiny Showcase, who have joined the fun with this limited-edition print of Ron's artwork!

Jason has returned home to Montpellier from his Montreal jaunt and is back to posting images from his next graphic novel Lost Cat (coming in May 2013) on his always-delightful blog, including what he says will probably be the final cover illustration, above.

 The cleanest guest towel of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: The Savage Critic podcast, episode 100, reviewed Lorenzo Mattotti and Jorge Zentner's The Crackle of the Frost.

• Plug: This is Halloween, HALLOWEEN, Halloween Month. Check out your local comic bookstore and see if they have the stuff you want and need for Halloween Comicsfest: namely the Jack Davis' Tales From the Crypt and Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk. 

• Plug: Unbored recently highlighed Gary Panter's drawing tips. Excellent suggestions from a master cartoonist, Dal Tokyo being his latest publication. "Make [a sketchbook] into your little painful pal. The pain goes away slowly page by page."

• Commentary (audio): Publishers Weekly More to Come Podcast, episode 34 talks about SPX! Heidi MacDonald touches on the three Ignatz Awards for The Hernandez Brothers as a bit of "justification or vendication after not even being nominated for the Eisner Award after doing some of the greatest work of their, you know, world-class career. So there were a lot of people very happily clapping for them."MacDonald also touches on the how long it had been since Clowes, Ware, Hernandez and Hernandez had all been together --- since 1999! And The Hypo by Noah Van Sciver was a great as expected.

• Review: On The Weekly Crisis , Taylor Pithers decides New York Mon Amour by Jacques Tardi is a MUST BUY! "The Cockroach Killer is the sort of yarn that David Lynch would go on to tell throughout the tail end of the eighties and culminating in the 'as frustrating as it is exciting' Mulholland Drive. . . For those who have yet to experience Tardi this is as good a place as any to start, but to be honest any of the books that Fantagraphics have published by the modern master are a good place to start, as there is a strong chance that you will be back for the rest once you have read one."

• Plug: Joe Gross of the Austin-American Statesmen mentions picking up Carol Tyler's You'll Never Know Book 3: Soldier's Heart and Chris Wright's Blacklung at SPX. 

What happens when you take two guys from Chicago and shove 'em in front of an audience? Well, find out for yourself on Tuesday, October 9th when Daniel Clowes and Dave Eggers take the stage at Litquake, San Francisco's annual literary festival!

Between Dan and Dave, they have earned the titles of publisher, editor, journalist, cartoonist, philanthropist, educator, illustrator, author, screenwriter, and graphic novelist, as well as former resident of Chicago, The Windy City. The two will discuss the vagaries of the creative process, their favorite comics, books, and movies, and anything else that might come up.

The event starts at 8:00 PM, and will be held at Z Space [ 450 Florida Street ]. Tickets are $15 and are available online here.  Come find out which Chicago hot dog is better: Vienna Beef or Red Hot Chicago. 

The Last Vispo comes first this month at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, OR!

Pages from The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 will be on display at Gallery 214 on campus starting Thursday, October 4th through Friday, October 26th.

And then on Tuesday, October 9th at 6:30 PM, Dr. David Seaman will deliver the lecture "From the First Vis Po Anthology (BC—Before Christ) to the Last Vis Po Anthology (AA—After Apple)".

This discussion is aimed at situating visual poetry in a tradition that counters the conventional oral tradition of literature. From Meleager's Greek Anthology to this current exhibition, poets in opposition to the mainstream have chosen to express themselves in ways that cannot be rendered simply with the spoken word. This lecture/discussion will illustrate past examples and evoke the present poetic reality, with insider insights into the visual poetry scene in the U.S., France, Germany and Italy.
 
Also, on Tuesday, October 23rd, our editors Nico Vassilakis & Crag Hill will be joined by contributor James Yeary to perform a collage of excerpts of essays from the anthology at 6:30 PM!

Gallery 214 is located on the campus of the Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) at 1241 NW Johnson in Portland OR.

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977
by Robert Crumb; edited by Ilse Thompson

264-page black & white 6" x 9" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-560-0

See Previews / Order Now

"R. Crumb's writing, a dimension of his comics that usually passes underappreciated, receives a welcome spotlight in these sparsely illustrated letters that exhibit the artist's ear for the American vernacular." — Rain Taxi Review of Books

“I feel that my work is but a feeble expression of something that in itself is vague and doubtful... Sometimes when I probe myself I find that my intentions in art aren’t as sincere as they should be... Subconsciously I want to make myself immortal among men, leave my mark on the earth to compensate for social inadequacy... So I draw.” — R. Crumb, 1961

Spanning the most formative era of his life, from the painful years of adolescence to the fame and fortune of early adulthood, this collection of personal correspondences with two near-lifelong friends sheds light on the artistic development, bitter struggle, and ultimate triumph of the world’s greatest living cartoonist.

Crumb writes about many key events in his life: the dissolution of his first marriage, the pain of being separated from his first child, his troubles with the IRS, and his obsessions with comics, music and women (including his earliest experiences with Aline Kominsky-Crumb, now his wife of over 30 years). An entertaining and revealing look into the mind of a great artist and thinker; this is Crumb’s sketchbook of words, featuring scores of rare art, including entire letters drawn in cartoon form.

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

The Raven (Softcover Ed.)
by Lorenzo Mattotti & Lou Reed

166-page full-color 9" x 9" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-585-3

See Previews / Order Now

In 2000, veteran rock 'n' roller Lou Reed, legendary director Robert Wilson, and a cast of singers and actors premiered Reed's musical POEtry in Hamburg's Thalia Theater.

An ambitious combination of Edgar Allan Poe's poems and stories and Reed's reinterpretations of same (with a few classic Reed songs such as "Perfect Day" and "The Bed") integrated for good measure, POEtry bridged the centuries to provide a unique vision of beauty and horror for the dawning 21st century.

In 2003, Reed released (under the title The Raven) a double CD reprising the musical, featuring an all-star cast of singers and actors including Steve Buscemi, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson. Willem Dafoe, and the Blind Boys of Alabama, as well as an edited single-CD version focusing on the songs.

Now, for the definitive book version compiling the songs, verses and narratives that comprise POEtry/The Raven, Reed has personally commissioned legendary Italian illustrator and cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stigmata) to visualize this extraordinary collaboration. Mattotti's vivid, abstracted and enigmatic artwork brings out all the terror and beauty of this centuries-spanning masterwork.

For our edition of this book, we enlisted Grammy Award-nominated designer Jesse LeDoux to create the striking jacket design.