Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Just finished reading and cannot recommend enough the new Fantagraphics release Blazing Combat" - This Is Why I Hate You

• Review: "Something for everyone in this educational, humorous and borderline offensive tome. Communicated in Bagge’s trademarked bugged out style, [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me] is a must-have for fans of incisive political commentary." - Kevin Mathews, The Power of Pop

• Review: "...Supermen! provides a concise glimpse into what the early comic books were like back when the medium was really fresh... Today’s readers will be surprised at how some of the material from a supposed more naive times really comes across rather grim and gritty... The 20 stories on view here provide an intriguing insight of where many of our modern day comic book heroes may have originated from, even if indirectly." - Kevin Mathews, The Power of Pop

• Preview: Fábio Moon previews and provides a bit of background about his and his brother's cover art for The Comics Journal #298

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks with Bob Fingerman about his latest releases, including Connective Tissue

• Things to see: Another eye-melting page from Tim Lane's "The Passenger"

• Things to see: Roger Langridge takes a break from the Muppets for a Krazy Kat kommission

• Review: "Riveting... Fingerman [is] one of the meatiest cartoonists going... Fingerman makes [Connective Tissue protagonist] Darla so smart and funny and draws so distinctively, like Daumier might for Playboy..." - Booklist (no link; from print)

• Review: "Boody... is a compilation of the wonky comics work of that overlooked genius, Boody Rogers... Rogers' quirky cartooning style is faintly reminiscent of Al Capp crossed with Basil Wolverton, and his creations are wild and strange to say the least. This is an attractive compilation, wonderfully designed by Jacob Covey, that captures the charm and feel of 1940s-era comic books." - Gary Sassaman, Innocent Bystander

• Review: "Humbug is... sumptuous... It is quite possibly the best designed book I've ever seen come out of any comics company, clean and attractive and perfectly suiting its late 1950s time period. ...[I]t's a perfect little time capsule by five cartoonists and humorists at the top of their respective games." - Gary Sassaman, Innocent Bystander (same link as above)

• Review: "Sam's Strip is a whimsical little humor strip... It's a giant in-joke, charming in its inception and invention... and again, it's one damn fine-looking book." - Gary Sassaman, Innocent Bystander (same link as above)

• Review: "Supermen! [is]... in a format (designed by the editor) that perfectly complements its source material... I'm hoping for a second volume." - Gary Sassaman, Innocent Bystander (same link as above)

• Plug: Decider previews our FCBD Love and Rockets comic: "While this teaser doesn’t feature any of the series’ most beloved characters (save superhero wannabe Penny Century), it’s still a good introduction to Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez’s blend of magical realism, goofy wit, and surprising poignancy."

• Discussion: The Ohlone College "Bibliophiles Anonymous" book club is reading Ghost World in May

Slow day:

• Plug: Corey Blake spotlights Blazing Combat

• Things to see: Bob Fingerman posts a set of thumbnail sketches from the development of Connective Tissue

• Oddity: Twitter-er mackbrad tells us "You guys should totally bid on this auction"

Connective Tissue
By Bob Fingerman

Video store clerk Darla Vogel is fed up — fed up with her job, fed up with her wake-and-bake roommate, fed up with everything. But when one of the customers at Kwok's Video offers her some of his meat-flavored candies, Darla takes a plunge down the rabbit hole into a surreal world of throbbing, veinous buildings, compulsory public nudity, weird creatures, and more. If William Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, H.P. Lovecraft, and Harvey Kurtzman ever collaborated, the result might resemble Bob Fingerman's bold confection of words and pictures — the copiously illustrated prose novel Connective Tissue.

134-page duotone 7.25" x 8.25" hardcover, available with FREE signed bookplate • $22.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Now available for preview and pre-order: Connective Tissue, the new boldly bizarre illustrated prose novel from Bob Fingerman. Some meat-flavored candy takes video store clerk Darla Vogel on a trip to a weird, throbbing, monstrous other world! This book is scheduled to be in stock this month and in stores approximately 4 weeks later.

View a photo & video slideshow preview embedded here. Click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended). And at our product info page, read the entire first chapter as a 15-page downloadable PDF!

• Review: Comic Book Resources gives 4 stars to Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, saying it "features some of the nuttiest comics you'll ever read... Boody Rogers presents an off-kilter world of hilarity that seems like an oft-unheralded link between the Golden Age of the newspaper strips and the underground cartoonists of the 1960s."

• Review: In the weekly Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?" roundup, Chris Mautner says of Humbug, "It’s a really impressive collection of work... and the production design here is nothing short of stunning. Fantagraphics really knocked this one out of the park in restoration."

• List: At New York Magazine, Bob Fingerman, Dash Shaw and a host of other creators pick their favorite New York City-set comics

• Blurb: Trendspotting blogger RobOrange spots The Wolverton Bible

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch continues their conversation with Al Jaffee, focusing on his early career

• Things to see/read: Illustration and story by Tim Lane

• Things to see: "I did a whole bunch of illustrations for this Japanese business magazine ASAHI," says Johnny Ryan

• Oddity: Kitchen Synch stumbles across some Duplex Planet Illustrated synchronicity

Graphic NYC catches up with Bob Fingerman about his forthcoming book, Connective Tissue, and more. 

• Things to see: Happy Friday the 13th from the Jim Flora Blog

• Review: Comics Waiting Room has the first word on Connective Tissue by Bob Fingerman (coming later this Spring), calling it "perversely hysterical"

• Review: PLAYBACK:stl says Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 by Michael Kupperman "brings more of the crazy"

• Interview: du9 talks Bottomless Belly Button and Bodyworld with Dash Shaw; Belgian site XeroXed reprints the interview (in French) with some additional information

• List: In the holiday spirit, the UCD Advocate's rundown of "Cartoon Sex" names Charles Burns's Black Hole "Creepiest," Robert & Aline Crumb's Self Loathing Comics "Kinkiest," and The Girl from HOPPERS by Jaime Hernandez "Most Realistic"

• Things to see: Two things from Tim Hensley

• Social networking: If you're on the Twitter, you can follow cartoonists Paul Hornschemeier and Mack White; meanwhile, we just got our 1,000th Twitter follower, who appears to be a fictional albatross named Fredrik Lotsie (and you could be our 1,014th)

Here's a teaser for ya: Bob Fingerman has provided the image above, an outtake from his upcoming book Connective Tissue, for use on the exclusive signed bookplate that will be available when you order the book from us (we'll probably have it up for pre-order sometime in the next couple of weeks). Bob's the first -- and won't be the last -- artist to provide us with exclusive artwork for one of our free signed bookplates!

Head over to Bob Fingerman's Art Blog Thinger to see the full-size version. Connective Tissue is at the printer and due this Spring.