The Significant Objects website has the third in a series of posts announcing which 100 stories will be in the Significant Objects book coming from Fantagraphics in the Fall of 2011.

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Here's the official announcement for the book signing in San Francisco, just part of Dave's West Coast book tour this fall:

The Cartoon Art Museum welcomes award-winning cartoonist and illustrator Dave Cooper on Tuesday, October 5, 2010 as he celebrates the release of his new book, Bent, published by Fantagraphics Books. Please join Cooper at 7:00pm for a brief discussion of his career in the Cartoon Art Museum’s galleries, followed by a signing in the museum’s bookstore. Copies of Bent will be available for purchase onsite. Please call 415.227.8666, ext. 310 to reserve a copy.

More info here.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...A Drunken Dream and Other Stories... is a deeply impressive — and immersive — piece of work that's full of complex emotional truths. And deep weirdness. [...] I dug this, and I think many, many people not conversant with manga will, too. Stylistically, it's a curious mix: Her linework gives each page a sense of openness, conjuring a world of light breezes, flowers and sunshine, even as her characters struggle with inner darkness. This darkness can take many forms: doomed eternal love, grief, guilt or — in the collection's most satisfyingly creepy/affecting tale — a parasitic conjoined twin. It’s not overwrought or melodramatic – Hagio's got too good an eye for locating the emotional center of her work for that. But it is sincere, and often abashedly poignant." – Glen Weldon, NPR.org

• Review: "We’re up to the 14th volume of this classy Peanuts reprint series from Fantagraphics. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned in a while how much I like the book design by Seth. His color choices are particularly good this time. [...] In all, great fun and good reading. Highly recommended!" – Todd Klein (via The Comics Reporter)

• Plugs: "It’s a relatively smallish week but Fantagraphics have beefed it up with two brilliant looking books. Lucky in Love: A Poor Man’s History is the first of a two-part story written by George Chieffet about Lucky Testatuda, a rascally teen from New Jersey’s Little Italy and his experiences before, during, and after the war. But it’s not your usual take on the old familiar when-I-went-to-war tale... The other offering from Fantagraphics is From Shadow to Light: The Life & Art of Mort Meskin, a coffee table art book, biography and critique of a highly influential Golden Age artist... This book not only looks at his entire comics career which spanned for about 30 years from the 40’s but also goes on to include stuff from 1965 and onwards, when he went on to become some sort of Don Draper character (one cheerily imagines) in an advertising firm in 1965." – The Gosh! Comics Blog

• Plugs: "A beautiful retrospective on the 30 year career and work of an under-appreciated comics legend. From Shadow to Light makes an excellent argument that [Mort] Meskin has a home in the comics pantheon next to the likes of Jack Kirby and Alex Toth. [...] Both visually stunning and gripping narrative-wise, Lucky [in Love] is like an epic feature length classic cartoon with a modern sensibility — in book format." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy

• Profile: At The Metabunker, Matthias Wivel profiles Nikoline Werdelin, creator of the Eisner-nominated story "Because I Love You So Much" from From Wonderland with Love, on the occasion of her 50th birthday: "And she is indeed merciless. A borderline if not full-blown cynic, her coldness is tempered by an exacting sense of humor that betrays her involvement. Plus it brings a rare clarity to her vision — she is a diagnostician rather than a nihilist. [...] A cartoonist for our age."

I've never seen The Guild, but Gilbert Hernandez did a cover (above) for an upcoming comics one-shot from Dark Horse focused on the character named Vork, reports Robot 6, and hey, any excuse to post some Beto on Flog!

 Underground Comix Scholar, Patrick Rosenkranz  will be teaching an 8 week History of Comics program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Rosenkranz's contribution to the medium of comics is monumental and his class is sure to bring it. There's a lot of comics noise down in Portland, so if you're reading this and live in The City of Roses then you need to start smelling the roses and listen up! If you happen to pay sales tax and pump yer own gas then I implore you to check out the brand new The Artist Himself: A Rand Holmes Retrospective  as well as You Call This Art?! A Greg Irons Retrospective  (only a couple of copies left!) and the indispensable   Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 .

Patrick Rosenkranz (L) & Peter Bagge  (R) 

Following Johnny Ryan's art show at Mishka in Brooklyn last week, they've put a whole bunch of his originals and other merch up for sale on their website, including pages from and the original cover art for Prison Pit Book 2! Go, consume.

The nominations for this year's Lulu Awards have been announced and Miss Lasko-Gross & Carol Tyler are both in the field of candidates for Lulu of the Year, "For the creator, book or other entity whose work best exemplifies Friends of Lulu’s mission statement." Congratulations to both! The online ballot is here.

Lucky in Love Book 1: A Poor Man's History
Script by George Chieffet; art by Stephen DeStefano

120-page monochrome 6.5" x 8.5" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-354-5

"Stephen DeStefano — remember him from ''Mazing Man'? — and George Chieffet's graphic novel is the first of a two-volume project about a young man finding his way in the political and sexual world during World War II. It's a smart, discursive little story, and really nicely drawn, in a kind of grand post-Milt Gross style that one doesn't see very often these days." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

"You couldn’t ask for a better drawn comic than this original graphic novel by author George Chieffet and artist Stephen DeStefano. Well, you could, but you wouldn’t get it." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

"Nice looking book of the week about which I know little save for its looking nice... #2 – a new hardcover account of a short man’s romantic longings in and out of the WWII era, plotted and drawn by comics and animation veteran Stephen DeStefano, with a script by one George Chieffet." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"A hardcover memoir set in early 1940s Hoboken and starring the evocative art of natural-born cartoonist Stephen DeStefano working from a script by George Chieffet. I can't wait to see it." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"It’s been awhile since we’ve seen much from DeStefano — he’s been busy with animation projects and illustration work — but I’m intrigued by his attempt to tell the story (working with writer George L. Chieffet) of WWII soldier Lucky and his various sexual misadventures with a number of women. DeStefano has a nice, thick, rubbery line that I really appreciate, so I look forward to lingering over these pages." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

Prison Pit: Book 2
by Johnny Ryan

116-page black & white 6.5" x 8.5" softcover • $12.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-383-5

"Not sure I can say anything here that the cover image above doesn’t." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama

"Continuing Johnny Ryan’s much-enjoyed fight comic, vol. 1 of which provided maybe the most unexpected bit of successful East-West comics fusion for 2009. Two huge battles dominate these 116 pages, one of them extensive enough to mutilate lead character CF into an entirely new character design, and the second foregrounding the motif of bodily (often sexual) function-as-transformation as a specific means of plot advancement. Parts of this one reminded me a bit of Josh Simmons’ House, which could be taken as a treat or a warning, depending on the reader’s disposition." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"Johnny Ryan's all-violence-and-scatology-all-the-time tour of some kind of personal videogame/quest-narrative mythology continues. Dude's got a vision. A really gross vision... you can tell that what he's making is, as far as he's concerned, the perfect comic book, and I admire that level of commitment." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

"As far as trade paperbacks go, we have Prison Pit 2 (Fantagraphics) from Johnny Ryan — we interviewed Ryan recently about this ultra-violent meditation on mutants, blood, and swearing." – Cyriaque Lamar, io9

"If I did have $15, you can bet one of the first things I’d buy is Prison Pit Vol. 2 ($12.99) Johnny Ryan’s sequel to his exquisitely Grand Guginol, no-holds-barred, incredibly violent and scatological action comic. To say this comic is not for the faint of heart is the understatement of the year — it features an insane amount of blood and viscera, an abundance of fecal matter and [Spoiler redacted – Ed.]. It’s also rather brilliant at the same time — a free-flowing, constantly imaginative display of pure cartooning power that is both disgusted and invigorated by the horror of its ideas. The first volume was one of the best books of last year. Will the second match its power? Bet on it." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

Too Soon? Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010
by Drew Friedman

204-page full-color 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-357-6

"Being a new 204-page Fantagraphics hardcover collection of illustrations by Drew Friedman, who probably didn’t need a link to his website as a means of your realizing who he his, but still!" – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"Since I’m [hypothetically] splurging, I’ll also pick up a copy of Too Soon? by Drew Friedman, because, you know, it’s Drew Friedman." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

The next one is not officially being released this week; read on for the explanation:

Love and Rockets: New Stories #3
by The Hernandez Brothers

104-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-379-8

"Oh God the Hernandez brothers are so good. This isn't even on the Diamond list for this week, but it's on the Midtown list, it's propagating to lots of comics stores, and you need it: Jaime telling the sad story of Maggie's brother who nobody ever talks about, and Gilbert messing with everyone's mind. Plus Fantagraphics is running a special where all three issues so far of 'New Stories' are thirty bucks total." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

"Finally arriving, the 3rd 'annual' version of Love and Rockets is, by all accounts, the best yet." – Chris Butcher, The Beguiling

"Looks like I'm going to make a trip Meltdown this weekend." – Mark Frauenfelder, Boing Boing

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Anyone coming to this volume [of The Complete Peanuts] looking for the rumored decline that is supposed to have happened in the second half of the 1970s might shut the book after its last page slightly confused. Energized by the Peppermint Patty/Marcie duo's emergence into the prime of their own vitality as characters and as a classic comic-strip team (I'd never thought of it before, but there are obviously elements of Easy and Tubbs there), Schulz's dailies were as strong and funny as ever." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "...[N]ot being a big manga reader, I didn’t expect to like the stories nearly as much as I did. But then smartly done genre tales make for some of the best literature, comics, film, etc. What I liked most about the different pieces in A Drunken Dream is the psychological form of sci-fi she employs (strictly speaking, the title story is the only sci-fi one, but I think a looser definition that incorporates the social aspects of the genre also applies here). I thought often of Tarkovsky’s Solaris." – Nicole Rudick, Comics Comics

• Feature: "When historians compile lists of the stuff that helped make America America, they don’t even rank the DeMoulin’s Patent Lung Tester alongside even relatively minor inventions like the cotton gin, the telegraph, and the automobile, much less epic game-changers such as instant coffee and air conditioning. Surely this is an oversight. [...] Along with hundreds of similar devices, the Lung Tester appears in Catalog No. 439: Burlesque Paraphernalia and Side Degree Specialties and Costumes. Originally published in 1930 by DeMoulin Bros. & Co., this strange volume has been newly reprinted by Fantagraphics Books. Like the more iconic Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog, it illuminates its moment in American history as deftly and instructively as any novelist has ever done." – Greg Beato, The Smart Set

• Review: "The Education of Hopey Glass, the latest collection of Jaime's work originally serialized in Love and Rockets, is one of the best ever and requires the least amount of work to figure out what's going on beneath the surface." – Colin Panetta (via The Comics Reporter)

• Plug: "Are you a fan of pop culture-related art? Or possibly just of distorted human features? Well run don't walk... to purchase [Too Soon?,] the new book by Drew Friedman, longtime illustrator for The Observer, Mad Magazine and other publications." – Dan Duray, The New York Observer

• Profile: At Il Sole 24 Ore, Luca Boschi looks at the work of Mort Walker & Jerry Dumas, calling our collection of Sam's Strip "an exceptional volume of comic strips... As always, Fantagraphics' presentation is superb and worth sharing." (Translated from Italian)

Just found in a neglected cranny in our warehouse, the following 6 issues of The Comics Journal, previously thought to be sold out! There are some classic issues in this batch, including the notorious Groth vs. McFarlane throwdown, the "Violence in Comics" issue featuring Wertham & Woodring, and some rare early Dan Clowes sketchbook pages. There's only a handful of each so get them while you can:

#68: Two panel discussions with Frank Miller, Denny O'Neil, Louise Jones, Roy Thomas, Julius Schwartz, Jim Shooter, and Len Wein. X-Men cover by Kevin Nowlan; a Guide to Holiday Animated Specials; Rick Marschall; R.C. Harvey; Superman II; more!

#124: Jules Feiffer speaks out in a far-ranging interview that covers politics, Will Eisner, the Popeye movie, Jack Nicholson, working for Playboy, and more. Plus the legendary "Summer Reading List," "Funnybook Roulette," news and more!

#133: Special "Violence in Comics" issue with a lurid cover by Jim Woodring and featuring interviews with Dr. Thomas Radecki and Dr. Fredric Wertham; "Siren Song of Blood": the rise of remorselessly violent vigilantes; Comics on Trial 1954: a look back at the infamous Senate hearings; more!

#144 : Tim Truman is grilled with customary mercilessness by Gary Groth about the art and business of comics; Jack Jackson's review of "Blueberry"; an interview with Bernie Mireault; Caribbean comics; and a sketchbook by Dan Clowes!

#152: Art vs. commerce! Todd McFarlane takes on Gary Groth in a no-holds-barred interview. Then Chris Claremont speaks up for the first time since his dismissal from Marvel. Alan Moore and others also weigh in. The cover: Gary Groth's decapitated head!

#272: Interviews with political cartoonists Steve Bell & Jeff Danziger; part 2 of Gary Groth's interview with Jerry Robinson; John Stanley's Thirteen presented by Seth; reviews of Epileptic, Promethea, Embroideries; and much more!