I'm hoping to get a chance to do a post on my whole Stumptown Comics Fest haul, but one of the things we picked up was the Living Things series of lovely little pamphlet mini-art books from Little Otsu, including this one by Lilli Carré and other volumes by Hannah Waldron, Jo Dery, and Lizzy Stewart. You can order Lilli's here and find the others easily from there.

• Check out Mack White's illustrations for Michael del Ray's book Long Term Parking

• Monster Brains presents "Momster" by Ted Jouflas from Weirdo #26 (1989)

• "Ghost Dream," a sketchbook comic by Drew Weing

• From Lilli Carré, a short animated film, a poster for an event she'll be at, and a teaser of her work in the new Smoke Signal

• Leslie Stein gives this peek at artwork from the 6th issue of Eye of the Majestic Creature

• Panels for the next installment of "Nothing Eve" for Mome by Kurt Wolfgang at New Bodega

• Also working away on a new Mome story: Laura Park

• And yet more Mome previewing: new pages from "Wild Man" by T. Edward Bak

• Messages from Killoffer at Lewis Trondheim's Les petits riens blog

• Shirley from the TV show Community by Josh Simmons

• Renee French custom-painted this Dylan Sprouse vinyl figure; plus the usual drawings etc. at her blog; plus we like this photo on Sprouse's website for obvious reasons

• Sammy Harkham on Flickr

• A panel by Carol Tyler; also check out a photo of her drawing desk

And more Things to See from the past week:

• Illustrations, sketches and film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spot and sketching on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Drawings & diagrams from Frank Santoro

• Puppets in progress by Marco Corona

• Another possible puppet or other figurine in progress in some mysterious photos from Paul Hornschemeier

• Vintage Jim Flora artwork and illustrations at the Jim Flora blog

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

• "The Strangest Story You Ever Heard in Your Life" continues at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog, plus an illustration at Mondobliquo

• Daily storyboards & production art from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• Watercolor panel process by Derek Van Gieson

• Daily sketches by Tom Kaczynski at his Transatlantis blog

Here comes another all-star issue of the always-awesome Smoke Signal from Desert Island! This one's a split issue with the Finnish comics newspaper Kuti so there's sure to be some great stuff to discover by the Finns. Above, the cover by Lilli Carré (the flip cover is by Aapo Rapi); inside you'll find stories and strips by Sami Aho, Gabrielle Bell, Marc Bell, Lilli, Michael DeForge, Roope Eronen, Glynnis Fawkes, Nathan Gelgud, Sam Henderson, Keith Jones, Paul Karasik, Ina Kallis, Tim Lane, Jarno Latva-Nikkola, Blaise Larmee, Mikko Luostarinen, David Mazzucchelli, Jesse McManus, Tommi Musturi, Jyrki Nissinen, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Ville Pirinen, Aapo Rapi, Ron Regé Jr., Anna Sailamaa, Kari Sihvohnen, Avi Spivak, Leslie Stein, Janne Tervamäki, Petteri Tikkanen, Jari Vaara, Amanda Vähämäki, and Mikko Väyrynen.

As always, it will be available for free at Desert Island in Brooklyn (and probably at the MoCCA Fest and presumably somewhere in Finland?) — elsewhere you can order a copy for a measly 3 bucks here.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "...I can safely say that this graphic novel [Stigmata] offers a different experience (in a good way) from any I have read before. Lorenzo Mattotti's line-based art is a perfect expression of the mystical, sometimes demonic aspects of this tale. Instead of areas of solid black, he uses dense cross-hatching to create dark areas within frames full of swirling lines which suggest both Bruno's unsettled state of mind and also the very fluidity of experience. Scenes and characters appear and disappear out of these dense networks as if from a dense fog, and it all creates a sense that perhaps you don't entirely know what is going on at any time or even what constitutes reality." – Sarah Boslaugh, PLAYBACK:stl

• Profile: At The A.V. Club Chicago, Nicki Yowell profiles Lilli Carré: "Carré’s books and accompanying illustration are almost always from another world. They are a cross between a favorite storybook growing up as a child and the warped comedic sensibility of a favorite uncle. [...] She will table at the Chicago Zine Fest, and she views self-publishing as something that brings 'immediate gratification,' especially on 'a very inspired or caffeinated day.'"

• Plug (Audio): Jacques Tardi's The Arctic Marauder is Sam Humphries's Pick of the Week on the latest episode of the Meltcast podcast

• Plug: "I missed this series [Yeah!] the first time round, so I’m really looking forward to grabbing a copy of this collection. Peter Bagge and Gilbert Hernandez are two of my favourite comic creators, so the idea of the two of them creating something together just blows my mind!" – Edward Kaye, Hypergeek

• Jason goes on a murderous rampage, plus more old strips and illustrations and new film reviews at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• A doozy of an "I, Anonymous" spot by Steven Weissman at his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• A new comic page by John Hankiewicz

• Pages from "Professor Fleischmann," an in-progress collaboration between Lamelos and Olivier Schrauwen (via Kuš!)

• This is just a small portion of the catstravaganza that is Drew Weing's back cover for Papercutter #15 from Tugboat Press (he's also in the issue) — see the whole thing at Drew's Here There Be Monsters blog

• Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano Miniature Cut-Out Collectible Diorama Figure No. 2 - One-Eyed Lunatic Goon (in 2 versions, plus assembled photos!)

• Johnny Ryan's original "Mark & Gary Forever" artwork is for sale

• Lilli Carré's poster for the Small Press & Comics Symposium in Chicago next week

• Derek Van Gieson gives a glimpse of the final chapter of his Mome serial "Devil Doll" plus other drawings & projects at his These Days I Remain blog

And more Things to See from the past week:

• Album cover sketches from Matthias Lehmann at his Bloc-Notes blog

• Loads of new mythical drawings from Frank Santoro

• Some cute character design by Marco Corona

• Leslie Stein posts the real-life Marshmallow & friends and links to some Eye of the Majestic Creature fan art

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

• Noah Van Sciver's sketches and photos from his recent trip to Australia

• New sketchbook strips by Laura Park on her Flickr page

• Drawings, sketches, photos by Renee French

• "The Strangest Story You Ever Heard in Your Life" serializes at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Sketches and an illustrated interview from Steve Brodner

• A sketch from Los Angeles by Josh Simmons

• Daily drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• Another old Chrome Fetus strip from Hans Rickheit

• Copious new sketches by Tom Kaczynski at his Transatlantis blog

• Nate Neal's latest monthly men's-magazine comic strip

• Thumbnails for an unfinished comic by Eleanor Davis

As Earwax Cafe, a hub of comics activity in Chicago for many years, slips into memory and legend, Lilli Carré shares the above scan and reports on her blog: "I went there one more time this past weekend as they were closing, and they let me have the last extra copy of their xeroxed menu, the cover of which is adorned with doodles by Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Archer Prewitt, and others." What an artifact!

UPDATE: Paul Hornschemeier also shares some thoughts on the closing of Earwax on his blog.

Lilli Carré reveals on her Kettle of Fish blog that she's contributed a 4-page story and cover illustration to the next issue of long-running Swedish comics magazine Galago. Lucky Swedes!

• This strip by Stan Sakai showing himself interviewing his creation Usagi Yojimbo is so damn cute I'm sharing it even though it was posted on the blog of our rival publisher Dark Horse. Heck, rival schmival, buy Usagi no matter who puts it out! It's Usagi!

• Happy Presidents Day from our own Jason T. Miles

• A glimpse at her story in Mome Vol. 21 from Lilli Carré

• Pick up the new issue of Bitch magazine for a one page comic about Lucy Parsons by Laura Park

• A mess of collaborative drawings by Andrice Arp and friends

• At Covered, it's Tim Hensley's Wally Gropius done Action Comics #1-style by Jeffrey Meyer

And more Things to See from the past week:

• A new illustration from Matthias Lehmann at his Bloc-Notes blog

• Strips, illustrations and film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spot on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Landscapes in airbrush and pen from Frank Santoro

• Recent timely sketches & illustrations by Marco Corona at his Il Canguro Pugilatore blog

• More artwork from Mark Kalesniko's new graphic novel Freeway at his blog — dang a lot of work went into that book

• A page from a Kevin Huizenga "Focus" book at his New Construction blog

• Noah Van Sciver has a Bad Dream and translates a ghost story to video

• New sketches & strips by Laura Park

• The latest from Renee French

• The final batch of sketches from the "21" sketchbook at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Sketches, portraits, & updates from Steve Brodner

• Gipi still illustrates for Internazionale

• A nattily dressed forlorn monstrosity and a portrait of collaborator Shaun Partridge by Josh Simmons

• Daily drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• Recent sketches by Tom Kaczynski at his Transatlantis blog

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Mome Vol. 21 - Winter 2011
by various artists; edited by Eric Reynolds

112-page full-color 7" x 9" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-394-1

Previews & Ordering Info

Our acclaimed art-comics anthology forges into its 6th year with another diverse and wonderful volume full of returning favorites and a few surprises.

On the cover, a detail from Sara Edward-Corbett's haunting, Gorey-esque tale of nocturnally animate objects. Also in this issue: Steven "Ribs" Weissman's freewheeling, sometimes-satirical, sometimes-deeply-weird webcomic "Barack Hussein Obama" (starring the President of the United States and his associates) makes its print debut; Sergio Ponchione provides another full-color prequel story to his acclaimed series Grotesque (translated from its appearance in Italy's Linus magazine); Josh Simmons is back with more "White Rhinoceros" and one of his unparalleled standalone horror stories; Nate Neal takes us back to the world of his graphic novel The Sanctuary; and we welcome Nick Thorburn, cartoonist and frontman of the acclaimed indie bands Unicorns and Islands.

All this plus: a one-pager from Dash Shaw; a blackly comic fable from Jon Adams; a typically trenchant strip from Tom Kaczynski; new chapters of T. Edward Bak's "Wild Man," Derek Van Gieson's "Devil Doll," and Kurt Wolfgang's "Nothing Eve" serials; a dreamlike tale from Lilli Carré; and more autobiographical vignettes by Nicolas Mahler.

The New Chicago Comics exhibit at MCA Chicago may be over but they still have a Busy Beaver Button vending machine dispensing buttons featuring artwork by the exhibiting artists: Jeffrey Brown, Lilli Carré, Paul Hornschemeier, and Anders Nilsen. Oh, me and my precious laundry quarters would soon be parted. (Via Lilli's Kettle of Fish blog.)