Good golly, it seems like it was just the other day we were announcing the start of the 3rd volume of the Hernandez Brothers' Love and Rockets in its annual New Stories format and here we are already up to the 5th issue, which will make its debut in July at Comic-Con in San Diego and land in stores a couple months later, as usual. Jaime's cover above reveals the return of Vivian and that can only spell one thing for everyone around her: T-R-O-U-B-L-E. The back cover Table of Contents below should spark your imagination as to the issue's contents and, say, that's a familiar face we haven't seen for a while from Gilbert...

Things have been hectic around here and they're only going to get hecticer. Here are the advances and sample copies that have arrived at the office since the last sneak-peek update a few weeks ago, some of which have already been spotted out in public making their debuts during our current convention gauntlet and all of which should be available between now and July.

It's hard to tell from this angle but Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest Book 3 is thicker than Books 1 & 2 put together:

We already gave you this first glimpse of Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons:

The Furry Trap, the new collection of horror stories by Josh Simmons, is sure to turn heads and stomachs:

God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez collects his superhero fantasia from Love and Rockets: New Stories in this snappy hardcover (the back cover is a humdinger too):

New York Mon Amour wraps up Big Apple-flavored stories by Jacques Tardi and his collaborators under this striking cover:

Steven Brower follows up his biography of Mort Meskin with this collection of Meskin's comics, Out of the Shadows:

It's a new issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman, yaaay! It's also the last issue, waaah!

Shimura Takako's wonderful, acclaimed and beloved manga series continues in Wandering Son Vol. 3:

And we're expecting another half dozen deliveries pretty much any day now. How do we do it? I don't even know!

Three things I've read recently that you haven't:

(1) The first 42 pages of Jacques Tardi's next graphic novel, which looks like it's going to be one of his absolute masterpieces.

(2) All of Carol Tyler's astonishing, heartbreaking final installment of You'll Never Know.

(3) All of Jaime Hernandez's contribution to Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 (a.k.a. "What on Earth He Does for an Encore").

Sometimes it is good to be the publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists. Everyone have a great weekend envying me!

March/April advance shipments bring May/June books... Our shelves are starting to groan with advance copies of upcoming arrivals that have come in over the last couple of weeks. Above, the softcover edition of Stephen Dixon's short story collection What Is All This? (it's prose, folks), the softcover edition of Fredrik Strömberg's Black Images in the Comics, and (also below) Nicolas Mahler's Angelman...

...our biggest trim-size book ever, the hunormous Mr. Twee Deedle – Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle (big book, big title)...

...the 5th volume of our beautiful, beloved, bestselling hardcover collections of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant...

...and from editor John Benson, to whet your appetite for our upcoming series of EC Comics reprints, a brand new issue of EC fanzine Squa Tront (dig that krazy Kurtzman art on the cover)!

At HiLobrow, Significant Objects co-editor Joshua Glenn gives you your first glimpses of the interiors of the book, presenting three two-page spreads as designed by good ol' Jacob Covey and giving a few more details about the book along the way. The excitement is building!

Rob Walker, co-founder of the Significant Objects project, was a guest on today's episode of Public Radio International's Studio 360 with host Kurt Andersen (who also happens to have contributed a story). Andersen interviewed Walker on location at Vintage Thrift in Manhattan and the two chose three new Objects for listeners to assign Significance to in Studio 360's Significant Objects story contest. Listen to the segment here or embedded below:

And hey, designer extraordinaire Jacob Covey just finalized the two — yes, two! — covers for the book. That's right, because we're crazy, we're publishing the book collection with two different covers, evenly split 50/50, so you have a choice of the cow creamer above or the bunny candle below. Amazon isn't going to let you choose, so if you have a preference you'll need to either pre-order from us or pick it up from your local book shop when it comes out in June.

You might not think our two latest preview-copy arrivals have much in common (aside from striking artwork and the fact that both have covers with dwellings in the background and trees in the middle ground), but you'd be wrong. They both feature mysterious, ethereal, supernatural characters observing the actions and fates of mankind! Pretty uncanny, no?

Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli collects her beautiful and haunting 4-issue "Ignatz" comic series with the art now presented in its original full color. We're hustling this one out to premiere at TCAF in May, where Gabriella is a special guest! It should be in stores shortly thereafter.

And here's Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3, the latest tome in editor Blake Bell's comprehensive series compiling Ditko's groundbreaking early work. We're not blowing smoke when we say this is some of the best work of his career. This should be hitting stores right around the same time as Interiorae.

Want to see more? We have sneak peek excerpts of both these books at their respective pages at the links above. We're trying out a new scrolling embedded preview in addition to the traditional PDF download for more instant gratification, so check it out. And of course we'll have more photos and video to come. (In fact, I owe you a lot of those previews.) Stay tuned!

Jaime Hernandez is hard at work inking his pages for Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 (coming this September). Instagram photo via Jaime’s partner Meg.

Editor Greg Sadowski just provided us with this update on one of our most-anticipated books of the year:

Basil Wolverton opus Creeping Death from Neptune is taking a few extra months due to the inclusion of material not originally planned — nearly a hundred pages, including unpublished 1936-38 sci-fi strips and Wolverton's complete non-humorous Marvel comics. Here's a panel from "Eye of Doom" (1952).

Very excited to be putting this one together. I'll be amazed if it doesn't sell out quickly. Do yourself a favor and pre-order a copy today — if you love comics it doesn't get better than this.

Agreed! And Greg's right: demand for this one is through the roof! Thanks Greg!

(final cover may vary)

That's right, the awesome Monster Brains blog got their hands on an exclusive 5-page sneak peek of Prison Pit Book 4, the next volume of Johnny Ryan's senses-shredding ass-demolishing opus of ultraviolence and insanity, coming this Fall!

Are you excited? Are you as excited as THIS GUY???

(Update via Johnny’s blog: tattoo inked by tattoo artist Kelly Kish onto Michael Buckner at The Rusty Needle Tattoo Parlor.)

Oh, and the new logo banner for Monster Brains? Yep, that's by Johnny too: