The new issue of the The New Yorker is out, and sports a beautiful cover by Ivan Brunetti: 

And if that looks attractive to you, don't miss Ivan's new book, HO!, which you can preorder now and hits stores in a few weeks. 

I was out sick yesterday, so here's a double dose:

• Review: The Fort Worth Business Press takes a loving look at Humbug

• Review: The Daily Cross Hatch finds "a lot to love" in the pages of Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers

• Review: The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat says that The Magic Bottle by Camille Rose Garcia is "a great graphic novel"

• Review: Jog takes you story-by-story through Supermen!

• Blurb: The Comics Reporter is somewhat overcome by the arrival of Humbug

• Blurb: Scamp: An Irish Illustration Blog previews Humbug

• Profile: USA Today Pop Candy spotlights Dame Darcy

• Oddity: Exclusive to the D&Q blog: Paparazzi catch A-list celeb in clutch with Ivan Brunetti

• Oddity: Hopey Glass is in Montreal, posting on Craigslist (via The Beat)

We've just received a fresh batch of signed book plates from Ivan Brunetti for the new Second Edition of Misery Loves Comedy; you can obtain one exclusively from Fantagraphics at no extra charge when ordering the book! Some conditions apply; click here for more details and the complete list of books available with this FREE premium!

Now available for preview and pre-order: Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti. Compiling the panels that put the "gag" in "gag strip" from past volumes Hee! and Haw!, plus a smattering of new material, Ho! is discreetly presented in an uninviting, funereal package of unglamorous black and white. Ho! is scheduled to be in stock in late February and in stores approximately 4 weeks later.

View a photo and video slideshow preview above (click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window), and visit the product details page for a downloadable 10-page PDF excerpt and bonus desktop wallpaper downloads!

• Review: Panel Patter explores House by Josh Simmons

• Review: The Daily Cross Hatch guarantees that Ted Stearn's Fuzz & Pluck will make you laugh

• List: Largehearted Boy names his "Favorite Graphic Novels of 2008," including Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• List: At RevolutionSF, Rick Klaw names "What Is Best in 2008," including The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott (reproduced from his top comics list on his "Nexus Graphica" column)

• List: Zack Soto names his personal "best of/favorite" comics of 2008, including Perla La Loca by Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by Jaime and his brothers, and Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• List: At Robot 6, what Ivan Brunetti (and others) is reading

• USA TODAY Pop Candy names Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw the top comic of 2008, with The Lagoon by Lilli Carré at #6

• Rob Clough has a typically thoughtful review of The Lagoon

• The Miami Herald casts a favorable eye on Strange & Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell and Man of Rock: A Biography of Joe Kubert by Bill Schelly

• Tim O'Shea interviews Ivan Brunetti

• The Daily Cross Hatch presents part 2 of their interview with Kevin Huizenga

• A last-minute Christmas gift from Ellen Forney: free sexy-elf desktop wallpaper!

• The Boston Globe "Out of Line" blog thinks that Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin belongs on more end-of-year Best-of lists

• Sean T. Collins on the unhinged beauty of I Shall Destroy All the Civlized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks

• Johnny Bacardi puts Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 on his Top 10 of 2008 list

• Little Nemo's Kat examines The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger (en Español; Google translation)

• Spurious writes an ode to Ivan Brunetti

• Austin English puts 20 questions to Zak Sally

• Those Fabuleous 50's presents a run of Sunday strips omitted from our collection of Jack Cole's Betsy and Me

• "They'd make great Christmas presents," says The Stranger of the Beasts! books

• ...nurgh... looks back at the Golden Age with the help of Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes

• The Philadelphia Inquirer recommends The Complete Peanuts 1967-1970 box set for holiday gift giving

• Seattlest suggests hitting the adults-only section of our Georgetown store for your holiday shopping

• CuatroTipos looks at the reality-based comics of Joe Sacco (en Español; Google translation)

• Post-It pugilism by Steven Weissman, animated by Chris Diaz

A couple of interviews for your Friday listening pleasure:

• Inkstuds has an audio chat with Ivan Brunetti

• On his Mr. Media internet radio program, Bob Andelman talks to Joe Kubert biographer (Man of Rock) Bill Schelly

Misery Loves Comedy (2nd Ed.)
By Ivan Brunetti

A psychiatric case study masquerading as a fancy-pants graphic novel, Misery Loves Comedy collects Ivan Brunetti's early issues (no pun intended)... wait, let's rephrase that. Misery Loves Comedy collects the first three issues of the legendary comic book series Schizo in their entirety, as well as a host of miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam from various anthologies, c. 1992-2005. Readers will find the author's unwitting self-caricature as a paranoid, deluded young man intriguingly repugnant and often chuckle-inducing. Besides Brunetti's trademark nihilism, self-loathing, relentless depression, and inchoate, spittle-soaked misanthropy, these earlier comics offer a dollop of scatology and blasphemy for that extra puerile, lowbrow tang. These are comics for those who enjoy witnessing one man's sanity in its final death rattle, swinging its tail from anhedonia to schadenfreude and back again. Also: lots and lots of filthy jokes.

While supplies last, you can choose to order the new Second Edition, with a dark red clothbound cover, or the First Edition, bound in dark green cloth.

172-page b&w/color 7" x 10" hardcover • $24.95
Add to Cart • Read More...

The second printing of Ivan Brunetti's Misery Loves Comedy will be available soon and sports a new color for the clothbound cover. (This is the only change between the two editions.) As of right now the first edition, with the dark green cover, is still available; when the new edition arrives we will be offering a choice of editions while our supply of the first edition lasts.

With that out of the way: Enjoy the preview. Click this link if the embedded slideshow doesn't appear above, and/or to open it in a new window.