Some Small Press Expo staff and guests visited the Library of Congress to check out some of their cartoon archives on Friday before the show — these photos are all ganked from the SPX twitter feed:

L to R: Jim Woodring, Diane Noomin, Jonathan Barli of Rosebud Archives, and our pal Bill Kartalopoulos

L to R: Roz Chast, a Library of Congress staffer identified only as Martha, and Jim Woodring checking out some William Steig cartoons

SPX Executive Director and Drawing Power co-editor Warren Bernard

Here's a slightly embarrassed-looking Jim at the show modeling the highly-covetable SPX tote bag which features his artwork.

More SPX pics as we find them!

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web (Super late! Totally my fault, sorry!):

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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:

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

Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane:

Cochlea & Eustachia by Hans Rickheit:

Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit:

Humblug by Arnold Roth (3 new udpates):

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

What's in the Backpack by Victor Kerlow:

Word comes over the Twitter wires that "Browntown" by Jaime Hernandez, from Love and Rockets: New Stories #3, has won the 2011 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story at tonight's ceremony at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, MD. Congratulations to Jaime for this richly-deserved recognition! And they better get another brick ready for Jaime next year for "The Love Bunglers Parts 3-5" in New Stories #4. Just saying.

Updated to add: Additional congratulations to new Mome contributor Joseph Lambert for picking up 2 big awards, Outstanding Cartoonist and Outstanding Anthology or Collection for I Will Bite You!

Do not miss this! On Wednesday, October 5, Fantagraphics Bookstore, in association with the Seattle Public Library Foundation, welcomes Craig Thompson. He'll be discussing his eagerly anticipated graphic novel Habibi, followed by a book signing. Free admission in the Microsoft Auditorium at the downtown library branch.

Jim Woodring makes a pre-SPX stop at venerable Washington, DC independent bookstore Politics and Prose at 7 PM tonight to present and sign Congress of the Animals! More details here!

We are so excited to announce this rare east coast appearance by Jaime Hernandez this Saturday, September 10th at Bergen Street Comics in Brooklyn!

He'll be signing copies of Love & Rockets: New Stories, Vol. 4 -- quite possibly the most highly-anticipated comic book hitting stores this year! Bubbly (and non-alcoholic drinks) will be served at 8:00 PM, so get there and toast this incredible storyteller in person!

Bergen Street Comics is located at 470 Bergen Street in Brooklyn. Do NOT miss this!

Mome 22 is out this week!!! Have you received your copy in the mail yet? Or, have you hit your local comix shop to buy one?!

Well, Mome 22 features quite a few pieces from artists making their first (and last!) appearance in our now-retired anthology. And today, we'd like you to meet Nick Drnaso!

Nick's got a lot of wonderful pieces up on his website...

You can also read the first four pages of his 2010 comic It's A Wonderful Strife on his site... 

And you can see more of this piece in Mome 22!!! It's a humdinger of an issue, so go get one NOW!

We received the following message from Small Press Expo executive director Warren Bernard, with permission to share it with our readers:

"Yesterday I went up and presented the graphic novels to the Montgomery County Public Library (MCPL) as the final act of the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program. Attached are 2 photos. The first is the Director of the MCPL, Parker Hamilton holding a copy of one of your Love and Rockets books. The second is a picture of the books we donated as well as the people involved. On the far left is your A Mess of Everything and third from the right is your Love and Rockets."

(Also visible in the first picture, a big stack of Escape from "Special"; in the second picture, Wandering Son Vol. 1.)

Left to right:
Mary Louise Daneri, Chief Collection Management MCPL
Parker Hamilton, Director MCPL
"Me!!!!!"
Annette Klaus, Graphic Novel Collections Manager MCPL

Our thanks go out to the MCPL staff for selecting our books and to Warren for asking us to participate — it was our pleasure to contribute.

Each of the donated books comes with this bookplate print drawn by Lilli Carré, which we already posted about but it's so gorgeous I don't think anyone will mind if I include it here again:

As we previously noted, Warren will be putting his Executive Directing duties on hold for a couple of hours to sign his book (with Rick Marschall) Drawing Power at our SPX table this weekend!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Plug: "I’ve only had the brick for two weeks, and I’ve barely made it through one-fourth of it, happily so. For over 30 years, The Comics Journal has been a comics respite from hype and fluff. It keeps the rest of in check and on our toes. I’m a better comics reader because of it (and a reluctantly patient fan)." – Alex Carr, Omnivoracious (Amazon.com)

• Plug: "Here’s another hard-boiled Tardi adaptation of a Jean-Patrick Manchette novel. I liked the other one I read, so I assume I will like this one." – Greg Burgas, Comic Book Resources

• Commentary: Sean T. Collins re-posts Comic Book Resources' video interview with Jaime Hernandez on that site's Robot 6 blog, adding his own commentary: "Ask anyone who’s reading the series in its book-formatted New Stories incarnation — including this autumn’s #4, which picks up where last year’s massively acclaimed 'Browntown'/'The Love Bunglers' storyline left off — and they’ll tell you: Jaime’s making some of the best work of his career, some 30 years after L&R made its debut."

• Conflict of Interest: Our own Eric Buckler spotlights Mome Vol. 22 in his weekly "Indie Comics Digest" for The Snipe

Tony Millionaire:

"I made a t-shirt for my kids school, see how many vaginas you find hidden in the drawing."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Tony!

(Seriously though, I'm kind of coveting this shirt.)