UPDATE 4/14/09: The prints are all gone and the offer below is over. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Congratulations to the winners of our 20/20 Club Lloyd Llewellyn Llottery! We have a handful of these recently unearthed limited edition Lloyd Llewellyn prints left over, and we're gonna give them away! They measure 8.5" x 11" and are signed and numbered by Daniel Clowes. Read on for details...

This print will be included with your order FREE of charge if A) your order subtotal is $100 or over, before shipping and after any discounts are applied, and B) your order includes at least one item by Daniel Clowes. Any item listed on this page will qualify for part B.  Act fast -- this offer is only good while our extremely limited quantities last, and is likely to expire without warning, so please be sure you want your order even without the print. Thanks and good luck!

 

Your unlikely book review of the day. I want to know if she identified more with Dot or Wanda, tho'.

20/20 Club members: check your inbox for details on how you can have a chance to buy one of a scant handful of recently-unearthed copies of the outrageously out-of-print #$@&! The Official Lloyd Llewellyn Collection by Daniel Clowes! Plus there's an incredible bonus if you combine it with an order of $100 or more. All the details are in the email; if you're a 20/20 Club member and you don't receive the email, for pete's sake write me at "mbaehr" at this here "fantagraphics.com" domain before the end of the week so I can add you to our mailing list and send you all the details.

Everyone else: we'll have another semi-related contest next week featuring an even rarer Lloyd Llewellyn collectible, so be on the lookout for an announcement because you'll have to act fast. And if you're not a 20/20 Club member yet, this is the kind of crazy exclusive offer we'll throw at you every once in a while, in addition to all the usual benefits (20% off, breaks on shipping), once you sign up...

• Review: Winsome Icarus (Katherine M. Hill) writes an appreciation of "The Ladies of Love and Rockets"

• List: The A.V. Club would like to see Daniel Clowes's Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (and Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, and Burns's Black Hole, and 21 other comics) adapted into a movie

• Blurb: Jog previews Sam's Strip: The Comic About Comics by Mort Walker & Jerry Dumas (amongst other of this week's releases)

• Events: Comic Book Resources reports from the "25 Years of Usagi Yojimbo" panel at Wondercon

• Things to see: In honor of the impending release of Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, Pappy's Golden Age Comic Blogzine posts a couple of Sparky Watts backup stories

• Review: Comic Book Resources gives Sam's Strip 4 out of 5 stars and calls it "a must for any fans of comic strips"

• Review: Comics Worth Reading takes on Supermen!

• Review: Rob Clough examines Mome Vol. 13

• Review: Parka Blogs checks out Beasts! Book 2

• Profile: Paul Gravett examines (and recommends) the work of Mark Kalesniko in an article which also appears in Comics International

• Blurb: Jared Axelrod, applying his "10 Rules of Quality Superhero Fiction," declares Jaime Hernandez's story in Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 "one of the best superhero comics of the past year"

• Blurb: John Whitlock recommends our Popeye books

• Blurb: The Geek Curmudgeon (a.k.a. Rick Klaw) previews Humbug, Boody and Supermen!

• Blurb: Books Are People, Too (a.k.a. Russ Kick) also previews Humbug

• Blurb: Rod McKie describes how comics by Daniel Clowes, Peter Bagge and the Hernandez Brothers helped him get through a health crisis

• Video: Slick Rivera visits Larry Reid at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery and finds out where the good stuff is stashed (found via Frank magazine [not to be confused with our Frank])

• Interview: Vice talks to Johnny Ryan and a couple of the other funny cartoonists who are in Kramer's Ergot #7

• Interview: If you're curious about new Mome contributor Hernán Migoya, and speak Spanish, LaNuez has a couple of video interview clips for you (via Entrecomics)

• Things to see: On his blog, Derek Van Gieson previews his work in the just-released Mome Vol. 14 (and keep exploring for a teaser of Mome Vol. 15)

• Things to see: On his blog, Dash Shaw presents a Bottomless Belly Button ex libris plate he created for French comics shop Super Heros (you may also have seen Jason Miles's photo of Dash at Super Heros here on Flog recently)

• Things to see: Boing Boing Gadgets presents a blast from future past, Frank Thorne style

• Things to see: Is an excuse needed to scan and share Seth's cover designs for The Complete Peanuts? The Comics Reporter thinks not

Go here for a fantastic set of interviews with Sammy Harkham, Rick Altergott, Daniel Clowes and Jaime Hernandez about the new Kramers Giant-Sized Annual #1.

I'm not usually prone to the doom-y flight of fancy, but my first thought upon seeing the photo above was: thank goodness a flaming meteor didn't hit that spot at that moment. L to R: Crumb, Ware, Clowes, Tomine, Buenaventura. Sauve, France, Jan. 27, 2009. Alvin Buenaventura has uploaded many more incredible photos such as above and below, from Sauve and Angoulême, to Flickr. Look for a guest appearance by our very own Jason T. Miles, who promises to post his own Angoulême pics soon.

The comics blogosphere does not rest for Super Bowl weekend:

• List: Brick Weekly has 4 "Top 10 Comics of 2008" lists on which Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw and The Portable Frank by Jim Woodring appear multiple times

• List: The Comics Reporter asked readers to "Name Five Favorite Single-Issue Alternative/Independent Comic Books" and lots of folks chose Fantagraphics stuff

• Review: Fictions looks at Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime Hernandez

• Review: Rob Clough says Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes is "a stunning retrospective that seems remarkably fresh today"

• Blurb: USA Today Pop Candy's Whitney Matheson names Esther Pearl Watson's Unlovable the "Best thing I read" last week; she's also reading the current issue of The Comics Journal

• Analysis: At Blog Flume, Ken Parille examines Schulz's use of varied settings in some early Peanuts strips

• Interview: Watch this episode of Canapé, from NYC cable channel CUNY, for a segment on David B. 's recent stop in NYC

• Interview: Robot 6 talks to Lilli Carré about The Lagoon

• Interview: Newsarama talks to our latest Mome signing, Noah Van Sciver

• Events: Sacha Peet is excited for Esther Pearl Watson's Unlovable art show and book signing at our storefront this Saturday, and so should you be

• Things to see: At Liberation.fr, here's what appears to be a promotional video for a French edition of Eightball by Daniel Clowes

• Things to see: Another new story page from Tim Lane

• Things to see: More "Doodle Dump" and rock sketches from Tom Kaczynski

• Review: The Chicago Reader says that Beasts! Book 2 will "[set] loose something that will devour your still-palpitating innards"

• Review: ComicMix approves of Ghost World: Special Edition by Daniel Clowes & Terry Zwigoff

• Review: An older one that we missed - Thmazing reads The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott in the store without buying it, declares it "terrific"

• List: Kiel Phegley's "The Ten Best Comics I Read in 2008" includes Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by the Hernandez Brothers at #7 and Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw at #1

• Analysis: Consequentialart examines a multi-page spread by Pat McEown from Dave Cooper's Weasel #1 (link via Sean T. Collins)

• Excerpt: Entrecomics posts some of Jason's Darth Vader gag strips from Meow, Baby! (as also seen in our 2006 Free Comic Book Day offering) and a page of his juvenilia as printed in The Comics Journal #294

• Preview: The Star Clipper Blog looks ahead to Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations, our forthcoming collection of Peter Bagge's Reason strips

• Events: Comic Book Resources has the announcement of "The Art of Stan Sakai" at the Cartoon Art Museum (we'll have our own related event to announce in the not-too-distant future)

We've brought our previous website poll to a close. In answer to the question "Following Palestine and Ghost World, what should get the Special Edition treatment next?" the top response is "The Bradleys / Buddy Bradley saga" after an early lead for "Complete (non-Frank) Jim Woodring" and a long period of domination by "Complete Eightball." See the final results here. (UPDATE: apparently we've been the victims of ballot-stuffing -- see the comments for details.) So does your top choice have a chance of being made? Well, they've all been discussed at one point or another, but so far the only one to make it onto our schedule is Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition, debuting at Comic-Con this summer as a two-volume slipcased hardcover set with loads of extras -- our biggest Special Edition re-issue yet!

Our new poll asks "What never-reprinted Fantagraphics series would you most like to see collected?" Vote in the right-hand column here on Flog or on our home page. As far as I know, none of the choices have actually been discussed as a possibility, but who knows, if we get an overwhelming response...