Another awesome fan tattoo shared with us on Facebook, this one based on the cover of Black Hole #4 by Charles Burns.

I shot a photo & video preview of the 2009 first softcover edition of Charles Burns's Skin Deep last summer, but never had time to upload it, and it slipped through the cracks for many months — until now! You get to ogle this amazing book and I finally get to cross it off my to-do list. Click here if the embedded player isn't visible below or to enlarge it in a new window (recommended).

The cover illustrations are by Charles Burns, as usual, and check out this month's Alvin Buenaventura-edited comics lineup (full details here):

Hot Stuff by Jonathan Bennett
Random Access by Charles Burns
Anemone and Comics masthead by Lilli Carré
Boy’s Club by Matt Furie
Eric Gill’s Busy Day by Tom Gauld
Giorgio & Dimitrius by Leif Goldberg
I Have No Idea by Lisa Hanawalt
Race Murdock by Eric Haven
Sketchbook by Anders Nilsen
Plut by Emelie Östergren
Goof Ballz by Andrew Jeffrey Wright

Them's good comics. The issue is also the only place you'll find interviews with both Wallace Shawn and "Weird" Al Yankovic. Order it here and tell 'em we sent ya.

Mark your calendars and buy your advance tickets now: The Book Table presents an evening with Charles Burns & Chris Ware on Tuesday, November 2nd at 7:30 PM at the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. Click here for all the details and to pre-order tickets. (Hat tip to Sandy Bilus.)

Make plans for Labor Day weekend in Seattle now! The Bumbershoot art and music festival promises to be the best in recent memory. In addition to performances by the likes of Bob Dylan, Neko Case, Hole, the Decemberists, Weezer and countless other bands, the festival includes a large exhibition of contemporary Seattle cartoonists.

Organized by Fantagraphics resident curator Larry Reid, "Counterculture Comix: A 30-Year Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists" begins with Lynda Barry's work circa 1980 and continues through the present. The show reveals Seattle as the ancestral home of the alternative comix genre and examines the role comix played in Seattle's youth movement of the 90s, which penetrated popular culture globally.

Hundreds of original artworks, comix and related ephemera by an impressive roster of influential Seattle artists will be displayed including Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, Jim Woodring, Megan Kelso, Jim Blanchard, Roberta Gregory, David Lasky, Ted Jouflas, Justin Hampton, J. R. Williams, Pat Moriarity, Donna Barr, Mark Zingarelli, Michael Dougan, Jeremy Eaton, Jason T. Miles, and more.

See you in September.

Charles Burns returns to Seattle this fall with an art exhibition and book signing at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. Tentatively scheduled for Saturday, October 30. Trick and treat this Halloween! We’ll keep you all posted.

Daily clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• Ellen Forney's on the cover (as both artist and subject, with her BF) of this week's issue of The Stranger

• On Facebook, Esther Pearl Watson's Unlovable Fan Page posts the most recent Unlovable strip from Bust

• Johnny Ryan says on his LJ "One of my comics will be in a group print show this weekend in France."

• Another really nice bird sketch (this time a Cooper's hawk) by Debbie Drechsler

• Meathaus posts scans of the latest issue of Charles Burns's Free Shit minicomic

• Josh Simmons & Wendy Chin drop themselves into their Quackers universe

• Kevin Huizenga illustrates a link to an article of interest

• Things in Derek Van Gieson's Abstraction House are really getting weird

• Here's this week's Truth Serum from Jon Adams

British magazine 125 has a pretty wild feature in its latest issue, No. 15: a photo tribute to Charles Burns' BLACK HOLE, featuring seven re-creations of Burns' classic mutant yearbook photos from the book/comic book series. The photos were taken by Max Oppenheim. Here's a couple:

Thanks to all the artists, attendees, and MoCCA staff & volunteers for helping make the 2010 MoCCA Art Festival our most successful ever! We sold out of numerous titles, some within hours (and to the chagrin of our artists who ran out of books to sign — sorry!), and had mobs of fans turn out for our signings.

I took a load of photos; some highlights are below, followed by an embedded slideshow with lots more shots (which you can also view full screen) and a mosaic of thumbnails to browse. You can also browse the full set of photos with captions on our Flickr page.

Our setup at opening time, dwarfed by the cavernous interior of the Armory.

Mome dudes Derek Van Gieson, Nate Neal, editor Eric Reynolds, and Jon Vermilyea.

Jaime Hernandez with a long line of fans.

Eric observes as Jaime & Adrian Tomine share a laugh; that's Todd Hignite, author of The Art of Jaime Hernandez, in the tan jacket.

Charles Burns & Jaime Hernandez.

Eric looks on in admiration as living legends Arnold Roth, Al Jaffee & Gahan Wilson sign and greet fans.

Hotwire editor Glenn Head and Squirrel Machine auteur Hans Rickheit.

We were all knocked out by this guy's Fantomah tattoo!

Kim Deitch & Paul Karasik.

Esther Pearl Watson, Miss Lasko-Gross & Sara Edward-Corbett form a trio of triple-named women.

Dash Shaw, Michael Kupperman & Charles Burns.

The End!

Bonus: We spotted Enid preparing to clobber a pair of amorous pandas in our mural-filled hotel.

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: We published 3 of "The 6 Most Underrated Comics of 2009" according to Robot 6's Chris Mautner, including Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life by Bruce Paley & Carol Swain ("Swain's low-key, nonchalant art fits perfectly with Paley's tales of hippie wanderings and punk-era decadence, stripping the stories of any rock glamor and tinging them with a genuine sadness. Really, this book just underscores how talented and sharp an artist Swain really is") From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium ("...Nikoline Wedelin's haunting, chilling Because I Love You So Much... still resonates with me months after I wrote this review. The unflinching regard for its subject matter is not going to have people beating a path to its door, but the sheer daring artistry on display deserved much  more attention than it got") and Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons ("It's a testament, not only to Wilson's genius (the material never flags or gets rote, no matter what the decade) but also to Fantagraphics skill in presenting this material in such a stellar fashion. Really, it was the best retrospective collection of the year, and I wish more people had noticed it.")

• Review: In the interest of balance, Byron Kerman of PLAYBACK:stl loves Johnny Ryan but didn't care for Prison Pit Book 1

• Commentary: I don't check in with the TCJ message boards as often as I should -- there's some good discussion of the new volume of The Complete Peanuts going on over there (via ADD at Comic Book Galaxy)

• Panel: The concluding installment of The Comics Journal's presentation of a never-before-published panel discussion between Charles Burns, Chip Kidd, Seth and Chris Ware, moderated by Jeet Heer, that occurred October 29, 2005 at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Canada, turns things over to audience Q&A