The book might not be out until October but you can peruse the table of contents of The Best American Comics 2012, edited by Françoise Mouly, now!

Created by series editors, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, this year's Best American Comics honors many Fantagraphics authors. Not only is there a Gary Panter cover but the inclusion of Jimbo, Joyce Farmer's Special Exits, Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals, Jaime Hernandez's Love Bunglers from Love and Rockets, Michael Kupperman as well as Charles Burns, Blab's Nora Krug, Hotwire's David Sandlin, Jordan Crane, Jonathan Bennett, Renee French, David Collier and Chris Ware.

My god, that's a beautiful baby, right? His name is Elliot, and we'd like to congratulate his wonderful parents, Jonathan  and Amy Bennett , on their great fortune.  They were already one of the most talented couples I know, but this is their greatest work yet!

Apologies for the long delay since the last roundup. I enjoy bringing you these posts but lately it's been hard to squeeze them in. I may need to figure out a new approach or something. Anyway, on with the show:

• "Unemployment" strips by Tim Hensley

• Hey, a new comic from Jonathan Bennett! Spin commissioned a 2-page strip from Jonathan as part of their commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind and posted it on Facebook (Via Spurge)

• Nate Neal has a new website you should bookmark/subscribe to, with lots & lots of updates, including comics in the video "Comix-O-Matic" format, sneak peeks of a new book he's working on and a whole mess more

• Drew Friedman spotlights those awesome "Cool Art Pencils" that Pentech put out in the early '90s

• Dave Cooper shares this rough preliminary sketch and a whole mess of reference photos (and behind-the-scenes shenanigans) for a new painting he's working on

• Richard Sala — now on Tumblr! Still some previously unshared updates on his Here Lies Richard Sala blog too

• Tim Lane illustrates the poster & program for the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase festival

• Lorenzo Mattotti also illustrates for a film festival, Annency Cinéma Italien; plus a New Yorker cover and Johnny Rebb

• Lilli Carré illustrates for the Chicago Reader and animates a Wallace Stevens poem at The Hooded Utilitarian

• You may have heard we've signed Noah Van Sciver's in-progress graphic novel about Abraham Lincoln, The Hypo — here Noah presents an excerpt

• Stephen DeStefano continues to fill up his new Tumblr with Popeye designs, sketches and other stuff

• The usual amazing stuff from Renee French

• Steve Brodner on the debt-ceiling debacle for the Washington Post and additional recent sketches at his blog

• Yes, it's a panel from Kevin Huizenga's eagerly-awaited Ganges #4

• Four weeks worth of Paul Hornschemeier's daily sketches at The Daily Forlorn

• As we enter the dog days of summer Wilfred Santiago's arctic fox is looking mighty cool

• Johnny Ryan gets in the Smurf spirit (Seal Team Smurf? Smurf Team Six? Smurf Team Smurf?) and draws his favorite bullies

• Yowie, this back cover to Stan Sakai's latest annual sketchbook — yowie!

And more Things to See since the last update:

• Glimpses of a new comic from Matthias Lehmann

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spots and more at his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• A figure painting from a life drawing class by John Hankiewicz

• Dame Darcy's developed a propinquity for dolphins

• Debbie Drechsler returns to her nature-sketching blog Just Around the Corner

• Sketches by Mark Kalesniko for his new graphic novel Freeway at his blog

• Sergio Ponchione gives some glimpses of his summer projects (if I'm interpreting the autotranslation correctly)

• Here's the blog of new Mome contributor Nick Drnaso

• Recent sketches (and aquarium videos) by Laura Park

• New drawings from Sophie Crumb

• Anders Nilsen 's book tour travel sketches

• Lots of updates on recent projects and an autobio-ish strip or two from Derek Van Gieson

• Anthony Vukojevich takes on Love and Rockets #1 at the Covered blog

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.

MOME contributor Jonathan Bennett has a fantastic, classic Sunday-style comic strip called "Beat of the Traps" in the new Kramers Ergot. John is a fantastic cartoonist whose work exhibits the craftsmanship of a master jeweler, but also has an existential soul a la Glenn Ganges or King Cat that its quotidian trappings often belie. He's really good. It turns out he also completed an additional page for Kramers of B&W dailies leading up to the Sunday payoff that the editor, Sammy Harkham, mercilessly rejected from the book. I like to picture Sammy laughing, with a cigar, as he gave Bennett the news. Anyway, luckily for us, Bennett has rescued the page from oblivion and produced the handsome minicomic version pictured above. The only downside of this is it makes my job harder in putting together that MOME theme issue I'd been planning, KRAMERS REJECTS. But you should search it out nonetheless.

Mike Baehr, Janice Headley and I are headed down Friday for this weekend's Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco, and we will be bringing along about 150 comics and books for you to browse and get signed all weekend long by our amazing line-up of attending authors:

Saturday:

11AM Johnny Ryan
12PM Kevin Huizenga & Bob Levin
1PM John Pham & Johnny Ryan
2PM Daniel Clowes & Ted Stearn
3PM Jaime Hernandez & Megan Kelso
4PM Jaime Hernandez & Dame Darcy
5PM From MOME: Jonathan Bennett & Tim Hensley

Sunday: 

11AM Megan Kelso & Kevin Huizenga
12PM Jaime Hernandez & John Pham
1PM Daniel Clowes & Ted Stearn
2PM Dame Darcy
3PM Dame Darcy
4PM Jaime Hernandez & Johnny Ryan

Meanwhile, Jordan Crane, Esther Pearl Watson, Chris Ware (yes, Chris Ware!), and others will also be appearing at the show. How can you miss it? It runs 11 to 7 Saturday and 11 to 6 Sunday. 

The Washington Post ran a major feature on graphic novels this morning, but the highlight is this handsome strip created to accompany the piece, by Post writer Bob Thompson and MOME contributor Jonathan Bennett, about Thompson's visit to the studio of Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly.  

Gary Groth put the questions to Jonathan Bennett in February 2006 for the interview we printed in Mome Vol. 4; now it's the latest installment of our ongoing series of Mome interview web reprints and you can read it right here. Previously: Paul Hornschemeier, Gabrielle Bell and Kurt Wolfgang. Next up: Andrice Arp.