Pages from The Exquisite Book are now available as individual archival, bamboo-mounted prints: you got your Ray Fenwick, Lilli Carré, Esther Pearl Watson, Anders Nilsen, Jordan Crane, and Paul Hornschemeier, plus dozens more. 

(Via Paul's blog.)

Paul writes:

This Saturday at Second City's de Maat theater, I'll join host C.J. Toledano and other comedians to sit in front of a giant screen and make up some live commentary for YouTube videos suggested by the audience. It'll be Mystery Science Theater meets every drunken house party in the last five years.

You can buy tickets in advance here. I apologize in advance if I make a dick joke about your cousin.

This post has been in progress for nearly a month now... with so much to catch up on, I'll just be highlighting a few selected items and then giving you links to the regularly-updated stuff. As always, click for better viewing and possible commentary at the sources.

• At The Hooded Utilitarian, Ng Suat Tong reports on some recent Jaime Hernandez original art sales, with lots and lots of images

• At Not Quite Clobberin', a scan of a seldom-seen 1997 autobio strip by Jaime Hernandez

• Doc Shaner posted a bunch of Popeye art on his Tumblr last week, including this amazing "Sgt. Popeye's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by Stephen DeStefano

• Shucks, it's an illustrated love letter from 1916 from E.C. Segar to his wife-to-be Myrtle, at Letters of Note (via The Comics Reporter)

• Jason reveals the cover art for the French edition of Isle of 100,000 Graves (L'Île aux 100 000 Morts); plus early strips, illustrations, outtakes and film reviews at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• A new comic for Vice by Johnny Ryan

• Bob Fingerman's They Live poster for an art show at Maxwell's in Hoboken

• Three from Covered: Mome contributor Jon Adams does Yosemite Sam #2; Tom Pappalardo does Acme Novelty Library #1; and Dyna Moe does Tales Designed to Thrizzle #3. Also see Jon's latest Truth Serum strips

• Two from Repaneled: Matthew Allison takes on Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit and Steven Weissman gets in on the fun; also catch up on Steven's latest "I, Anonymous" spots and sketches on his Chewing Gum in Church blog and more on his Flickr page

• Eleanor Davis's letterpress print for The Cloudy Collection; plus her latest sketches, works in progress and other illustrations at her We Be Ouija blog

• Dig Gary Panter's logo design for his multimedia "band" Devin Gary & Ross

• A two-page all-ages horror story by Richard Sala

• A new war-story page by Tim Lane, with interesting background info; plus recent installments of his ongoing Belligerent Piano strip at his Jackie Noname blog

• At Gabrielle Bell's Lucky blog, the concluding installments of her "San Diego Comic-Con Comicumentary" (which Anthony Vukojevich interprets at Repaneled) and some "embarrassing older work"

• Paul Hornschemeier's weekly t-shirt designs at his News and/or Head Lice blog

• Noah Van Sciver's "Blue Wilson" and lots more drawings, strips and news on his blog

• "The King & The Beast" is a 2006 comic by Ray Fenwick

• New installments of the latest Simon & Jack (& Rosalyn!) story by Jordan Crane at What Things Do

And please catch up on the last few weeks worth of the following:

• Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga and Dan Zettwoch; more Kevin at The Balloonist and New Construction

• Matthias Lehmann's Bloc-Notes blog and stunning new originals for sale

• Sketchbook drawings at John Hankiewicz's Clip Joint blog

• Drawings, paintings, collages and other images by Frank Santoro at the Cold Heat Comics blog

• Artwork, dolls, fashions, other handicrafts and spells from Dame Darcy

• Artwork & illustrations from Émile Bravo

• Illustrations & sketches at Marco Corona's Il Canguro Pugilatore blog

• Vintage Jim Flora illustrations & artwork (plus merch) at the Jim Flora blog

• Nature sketches with running commentary by Debbie Drechsler at her Just Around the Corner blog

• Lots of sketches for Mark Kalesniko's forthcoming graphic novel Freeway (just sent to the printer!) and drawings of women wearing things at his blog

• Comics, illustrations and news from Sergio Ponchione at his Mondobliquo blog

• Laura Park continues to add artwork to her Flickr page

• The latest Josh Simmons sketches, panels and updates at The Furry Trap and The White Rhinoceros and (with Wendy Chin) The Randy Gander and Quackers 

• An entire month's worth of drawings, sketches, photos and jewelry (!) from Renee French

• Animated drawings and Eyeworks Animation Festival updates from Lilli Carré at her Kettle of Fish blog

• Dash Shaw's daily drawings at The Ruined Cast blog

• Sketchbook drawings and comics by Sophie Crumb at her blog

• Caricatures, a new Need to Know video, and commentary on current events by Steve Brodner

• Sketchbook comics etc. by Anders Nilsen at The Monologuist

• More pages from Hans Rickheit's graphic novel in progress Ectopiary, plus other material and commentary at his Squirrel Machine blog

• Pages and panels by Derek Van Gieson at his These Days I Remain blog

• The latest Maakies strips and other updates from Tony Millionaire

• Drawings and works in progress by Joe Kimball on his Flickr page

The previews for Marvel's Strange Tales II #2 are popping up all over the place. The Beat has Jaime Hernandez's lovelorn Space Phantom, while Robot 6 features Paul Hornschemeier's battling doppelgänger Colossi.

Dame Darcy & Paul Hornschemeier both recently wrote stories for Marvel — and not for the Strange Tales series!

Dame Darcy's story is drawn by Robin Ha and will be available online as a "Women of Marvel Digital Comics Exclusive" next week. So reports Marvel editor Ryan Penagos, via Sean T. Collins.

Which reminded me, I happened to glance through Marvel's Halloween horror anthology one-shot Tomb of Terror at ye olde comick shoppe last week and noticed Paul's writing credit on the lead-off story starring Man-Thing (with art by Mark Texiera). That was a cool surprise!

The Late Live Show - Ep 102 - Paul Hornschemeier & David McMillin from The Late Live Show on Vimeo.

As Paul (who has returned to the online world from a short hiatus after such real-life activities as getting married and moving... whatever, dude) describes it on his blog, "...you can hear me discuss the origins of my comics as a cum-rag, debate the muse of gay mummies, and perform rather poorly in a game of 'Win, Lose, or Draw.' I take the stage around the twenty minute mark, but roughly half the references I make are about bits from earlier in the show, so I wouldn't recommend skipping it (and I'd recommend watching it mainly because it's twenty minutes of solid comedy from a bunch of talented young comedians)."

The Exquisite Book is a new exquisite-corpse art book from Chronicle, and Lilli Carré, Paul Hornschemeier and Anders Nilsen will be among the contributing artists signing the book at Quimby's in Chicago on November 5th. (Via Paul's News and Head Lice blog.) Other contributors from the Fantagraphics family include Jordan Crane, Ray Fenwick, and Esther Pearl Watson, plus a bunch of people who appeared in our Beasts! books and other anthologies. Below, a nice photo of the accordion fold-out from contributing artist (and personal pal) Susie Ghahremani (who will be at the San Francisco signing at Rare Device tomorrow night):

Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing and possible artist commentary at the sources:

• Drew Friedman illustrates the latest crop of pop stars-cum-reality TV stars for Billboard (with commentary)

• The cover of a new minicomic Miss Lasko-Gross is debuting at SPX (via Facebook)

• From Kevin Huizenga, a new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip

• Two more stages in Matthias Lehmann's scratchboard work in progress

• From Jason: a 1996 anthology story page; a lizard lady; an illustration of U2; and three early cartoons

• Steven Weissman drew Courtney Love for The Stranger's Bumbershoot guide; also, "I, Anonymous" (original, as printed), and ice cream roundup

• Two more panels from an upcoming comic by John Hankiewicz 

• Two good ones at the Covered blog: Jeffrey Meyer does Al Columbia's Pim & Francie and Derek Van Gieson does New Mutants #33

• Relatedly, at his Wood Paneled Basement blog Robert Goodin says "The Criterion Collection curated a film festival for this year's All Tomorrow's Parties in New York. Comic artists were asked to create posters for the different movies and I did the one above for Gomorrah."

• Original art, crafts and other good stuff in Dame Darcy's latest blog update

• Drew Weing posts this snippet of a comic story he has in the current issue of the Oxford American; Josh Simmons posts an even less revealing bit of his strip from the same issue

• The latest installment of Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano

• At the Jim Flora art blog: a 1960 tempera sketch, 1991 sketchbook & journal pages

• Debbie Drechsler sketches squirrels and other fauna, plus a heron

• Gabrielle Bell's San Diego adventures continue in part 6 of her Comic-Con Comicumentary

• Mark Kalesniko's AMC Pacer reference sketches for Freeway move to the interior

• Sergio Ponchione presents "Riunione di Condominio" ("Condo Meeting") from the new issue of Linus

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop

• Another heartrending Lewis strip from Laura Park 

• Josh Simmons presents his strip from Bound & Gagged; also, "Quacker Alley" isn't credited to Josh but it sure looks like one of his

• From Renee French: scrote face girl, Barry the bird swimming, bunny with twine, a popsicle, and a series of shadowy things

• Dash Shaw's Daily Drawing nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7, plus his animated sitcom pitch — I'd watch it

• Steve Brodner takes on a hero and a villain: Paul Conrad and Pastor Terry Jones respectively

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary page 40 — our Dutch-speaking readers may be interested to know that Ectopiary is being translated and serialized at Serieland

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Literally, I could not put down this book once I hit the second half. Every story is fantastic, because it takes these interesting genre detours and makes them seem just as more true than you could possibly imagine. ...I think sometimes people overlook the sheer potential that human conflict can give. Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream, if nothing else, is a reminder of that, giving a plethora of all-too-human situations under the occasional sci-fi or fantasy trope. If you're looking for a densely-written change of pace that gives great insight into the career of a fantastic artist, you owe it to yourself to give this a look." – David Pepose, Newsarama

• Review: "All and Sundry is a very traditional sort of random-stuff-from-my-file-drawers collection, subtitled "Uncollected Work 2004-2009": the first half is "Drawings and Stories"... Most of these pieces were designed to stand as separate artistic works, and they're all pretty successful. (There are some mostly-text pieces here as well, all published originally in Mome, which are of respectable-literary-quarterly style and quality...) [...] And then the second half of the book is "Sketches and Notes"... These pages are less finished, obviously, and would be of greatest interest to other cartoonists... [I]f you are [a Paul Hornschemeier fan], you'll find a lot to be excited about here." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Interview: John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter talks to Cathy Malkasian about her graphic novel Temperance: "Moderation has been taking a beating in our culture for a while now. If you measure things by our shock-soaked media environment, then the whole world is wallowing in nuttiness and hysteria. Moderation has been reduced to a quaint ideal, but it’s really the engine in the back room, running everything."

• Interview: At Examiner.com, Marvin Miranda posts a months-spanning email conversation with Jacques Boyreau about Portable Grindhouse and the joys of VHS: "There's this chicken/egg first and very fascinating question about 'what we are' based on whether as career voyeurs our first exposure was to [analog] or digital, and what it means to switch from one texture consumption to the other.... I don't know how else to really put it except that it is important to be vigilantly beware of digital. It is a closed, sealed signal whereas the burning grain of projected film and its bastard buddy analog video, are open signals."

Periodic clips & strips -- click for improved/additional viewing and possible artist commentary at the sources:

• Michael Kupperman illustrates a New York Times op-ed piece written by William Gibson

• This video posted by Jim Woodring has a surprise ending

• At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer reminds us of Kevin Huizenga's tribute to Floyd Gottfredson in Or Else #2

• Another stage in Matthias Lehmann's scratchboard work in progress

• An unpublished 1987 Bob Fingerman drawing of young zombies in love

• The cover of the first comic Jason ever made, circa 1979 (it means Tim and Tom On the Go!, not Tim and Tom Are Farting!, you sillyhead)

• This week's "I, Anonymous" plus church sketches and more sketchbookery by Steven Weissman 

• Another page from a comic-in-progress by John Hankiewicz 

• Pegasus progress pics from Frank Santoro 

• An illustration by Marco Corona for Internazionale, with commentary in Italian

• Debbie Drechsler draws the belted kingfisher, with commentary

• From Renee French: fly, fly people

• Steve Brodner draws Abel Meeropol and former Sen. Alan Simpson, with commentary

• Ooh, pretty record cover art for Coil Sea by Archer Prewitt (via Presspop)

• A new animated Underworld cartoon by Kaz & co. (via Ben Schwartz)

• This week's Maakies by Tony Millionaire (still on Facebook for the time being)

• Our own Jacob Covey just posted a bunch of his drawings on vintage postcards to Facebook — I'm not sure what his privacy settings are but some of them are on Flickr too if that link doesn't work

• Paul Hornschemeier's latest t-shirt design for his Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop — Biggeespeare joins the protagonist of Set to Sea in the ranks of hulking poets