Jim Woodring needs your money so he can buckle down on Fran, the in-progress sequel to last year's wildly-acclaimed Congress of the Animals. Jim promises that the new story "pulls the Frank mythos into new realms of emotional and philosophical depth and complexity," and that "I don't drink, take drugs or play the horses; any funding I receive from this United States Artists Special Project will be spent entirely and judiciously on those most essential of art supplies: food and shelter." Believe it or not, our cartoonists are not able to live high on the hog from the advances we give them.

As usual with these sorts of things, there are pledge incentives at various dollar levels, including signed books, sketches and even a two-hour art mentoring session. Go, give till it hurts.

You may have been wondering, "Hey, wasn't Fantagraphics supposed to put out a big Jack Davis art book back in December?" Yes, we were, and we very nearly did. Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture — A Career Retrospective was printed, and some copies even found their way into the hands of fans at a few events like the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival and our recent event at our Seattle store. However, we noticed a quality control issue with this initial printing — namely, the covers were prone to warping — so we decided that the best course of action was to reprint the book. Of course, being the obsessive perfectionists that we are, we couldn't resist making a few additional tweaks to the book first, including brand new cover art as shown above, which is why it's taking a little extra time. The new improved version should be hitting the shelves in May or thereabouts. We certainly do appreciate your patience!

If you have a copy from the initial print run, congratulations, you are now the proud owner of a very rare collectors item! However, if you would like to exchange it for the new printing, you may return it to us and we'll send you a new copy. If you want to keep your original copy AND have the new printing, we'll sell you the new printing for 50% off if you send us a digital photo of your copy as proof — contact us to make arrangements.

Delivered this morning: advance copies of Popeye Vol. 6: "Me Li'l Swee'Pea" — the final volume of our complete E.C. Segar Popeye collections. We're excited but also a little sad that the series is coming to an end. Stay tuned for more updates and more/better photos & previews, as always.

The DHL driver dropped off advance copies of a few of our April books today:

Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental (new hardcover ed.) by Drew Friedman & Josh Alan Friedman...

...Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez...

...and Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion by Hans Rickheit! Three great books, three long titles. Look for more & better photos and our video flip-through previews in the coming weeks (and about 5 other previews before that — gettin' hectic around here!).

(final cover may vary)

Last week Joe Daly let us know that Dungeon Quest Book 3 (coming this summer), already planned to be double the length of the previous two volumes of the series, has turned out to be even longer and more epic, fattening up from 240 to 288 pages! (This also means we're raising the price by a buck.) If you're not already on board this Angoulême Jury Prize-winning and Ignatz Award-nominated series, which is jam-packed with outrageous action, hilarious stoner humor, nutty characters and eye-popping settings, for goodness sake order our money-saving bundle of Books 1 & 2 and get yourself caught up!

This is as good an excuse as any to reveal this 5-page sneak peek we've had hiding under our hat for a while. As you can see, Joe's art is getting more and more polished and confident and just plain gorgeous. Click each image to enlarge it in a new window. Enjoy!

(final cover art may vary)

It is my enormous pleasure to announce the return of Linda Medley to active Castle Waiting duty, beginning in April, after a three-year hiatus.

Castle Waiting Volume Two was originally supposed to run for another few issues, comprising a series of additional and concluding scenes, but Linda was unable to complete that material at the time. Since the main story was finished, since it looked as if Castle Waiting was definitely over, and since there was huge demand for a follow-up to the original Castle Waiting graphic novel, we released the chapters that had been completed as the Castle Waiting Volume Two book.

To my surprise and delight, Linda recently wrote me to say that she wanted to go back in and finish the book the way she'd intended it. As I write this she is putting the finishing touches on that long-delayed 16th issue, with two more to come after that, to REALLY wrap up the story. And her work is as great as ever. Here is a sample:

(click images to enlarge)

You may notice that the lettering is quite different, and, we feel, hugely improved. While we thought the typeset lettering in most of Volume Two was fine, we have, in the intervening years, become so adept at creating fonts from cartoonists' lettering that we decided to try that for Linda, and the results are quite stunning. (Believe it or not, this is Linda's hand lettering that we've used, even though it's so neat it looks like typography.)

You may wonder, where does that leave the epilogue-less Volume 2 book collection? Our plan is to let it lapse for the next year (in fact, our distributors just ran out of copies, so it is out of print), and then reprint the book with the new chapters added, and the entire thing re-lettered with the lovely new font.

Since we realize this may be a bit frustrating to loyal Castle Waiting readers/buyers, we are doing a few things that should help. For one thing, we will be offering a subscription to the three $3.95 comics (completing the story) for a supercheap $8.00. (Not bad for 70 pages of great new Medley comics.) And we are trying to figure out a way to accommodate those readers who bought the original Volume 2 book and would prefer the new one but aren't totally thrilled about being asked to fork over money for a whole new book. We don't want to be like Peter Jackson (well, New Line) who makes fans buy new Lord of the Rings DVD's every two or three years!

So stay tuned... and in the meantime, enjoy the imminent return (next month) of one of the greatest and most beautifully drawn fantasy comic books of all time... Castle Waiting!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Feature: Jennifer Anderson, one of the participants in the PDX2GulfCoast project along with Steve Duin & Shannon Wheeler which resulted in Oil and Water, writes for the Beaverton Valley Times: "As the newspaper reporter character in the book, I can attest — 100-percent objectively, of course — that the book is at once tragic, funny, poignant and thought-provoking," and talks to some local experts and Duin himself about the book (via Bleeding Cool of all places)

• Plugs: At Blog Martins Fontes Paulista, Raphael Fernandes runs down "10 Must-See Comics from Fantagraphics for 2012," saying (translated from Portuguese) "Possessing an enviable catalog of experimental and underground comics, Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher that deserves special attention."

Hot on the heels of Nancy... heeeere's Franklin!

Just arrived via FedEx this evening, the first advance copy of Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 by Ernie Bushmiller! We're all pawing at it excitedly, admiring Jacob Covey's above-and-beyond design job. Wait'll you see it, folks, seriously.

(Click for larger image)

The first image is from Nostalgia Press's 1978 re-colored version.
The second image is from Fantagraphics Books' 1991 re-colored version.
The third image is from the original Syndicate proof sheets which will eventually be used in Fantagraphics' Prince Valiant Volume 6 later this year.

While I think the Danish colorists behind the 1991 version made a (heh) valiant effort at capturing the glory of Foster (the less said about the Nostalgia Press version the better), it's pretty obvious which one is the keeper here. (Also, Foster didn't make the native Americans the color of boiled lobsters.)