Ray Fenwick announceth:

"Next Tuesday Tiny Showcase will release a special edition of my new book Mascots. The first 100 will be signed, but every copy ordered through Tiny will come with a print of the above image. That one was made after the book was off to press so it's not duplicated inside."

He also debuts the new second trailer for the book, "A dramatization of the scene 'Fat Air'":

Grab it!

Ray Fenwick offers this image, available as a print-quality download, via his Flickr page. Merry oblivion, everyone!

• I'm going to go ahead and guess that the next panel says "NN" and going by the spot color that maybe this is a glimpse of the next issue of Ganges from Kevin Huizenga? Also new from Kevin: Fight or Run Post-its

• Ray Fenwick Mascots originals for sale (including the abandoned original cover)

• A short looped animation from Lilli Carré (video embedded above)

And more Things to See from the past week:

• Illustrations and other artwork at Matthias Lehmann's Bloc-Notes blog

• Early strips, illustrations, outtakes and film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spots and other things on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Harold Gray fan art at John Hankiewicz's Clip Joint blog

• Sketches by Frank Santoro at the Cold Heat Comics blog

• A portrait (?) of Marco Corona's upstairs neighbor at his Il Canguro Pugilatore blog

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

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

• More sketches for Mark Kalesniko's forthcoming graphic novel Freeway (now up for pre-order!) at his blog

• Paul Hornschemeier has two new t-shirt designs available in the Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop since our last update from his News and/or Head Lice blog

• Laura Park and some animal friends on her Flickr page

• Illustrations at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Drawings, sketches, photos from Renee French

• Daily drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• A public transportation portrait by Steve Brodner

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

• Some familiar creators post some new Trubble Club collaborative comics

• New sketches by Eleanor Davis at her We Be Ouija blog

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Drew Weing's slender, hand-sized debut graphic novel Set to Sea is a crosshatched masterpiece. [...] Weing draws in an elaborate, crosshatched style that's half Popeye, half Maakies, and it meshes brilliantly with the subject matter and the storytelling. Set to Sea is so lovely in places that I found myself exclaiming aloud -- it's got a naive-but-self-conscious grace that is impossible to describe and that few have ever mastered. This one is highly recommended." – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

• Review: "In the first and the second volume [of Mome] there are a lot of things to enjoy. Stories differ both in length (there are one-page strips, too) and in narrative technique. [...] In these two books there [is] a lot [that is] interesting and confusing, enjoyable and intriguing. Do not be a mome, read these first-rate collections of comics." – Ray Garraty, Endless Falls Up

• Review: Attentiondeficitdisorderly's Sean T. Collins looks at Gilbert Hernandez's half of Love and Rockets Vol. II #20 (as reprinted in the Luba hardcover) in his ongoing "Love and Rocktober" series: "At long last he returns to Venus, Petra’s daughter and one of the least damaged, most well-adjusted, most self-assured characters in the whole post-Palomar oeuvre. [...] It’s an uplifting note to end on after all this darkness."

• Plug: NPR's Glen Weldon recommends "Five Tomes to See You Through Your Turkey Coma": "In honor of the 25th anniversary of this classic all-ages 'funny animals' tale of Miyaomoto Usagi, a stoic samurai rabbit who roams 17th-century Japan, Fantagraphics has collected the first seven trades in a sumptuous 2-book, 1200-page hardcover edition [Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition]. Which, uh ... won't be out until December. Until then, you can pick up a couple volumes and get a taste of Sakai's masterful, action-packed, richly detailed storytelling, and see why it's become such a beloved series."

• Plug: "Mascots, [Ray] Fenwick's forthcoming follow-up [to Hall of Best Knowledge], is similarly a series of episodes told through inventive typography and absurd yet hilarious text. But integrating these elements with brightly colored paintings, the book depicts a more surreal, frenzied world that is strangely resonant with today's super speedy internet age." – Space 15 Twenty

• Reviewer: Dash Shaw on the Osamu Tezuka documentary Secrets of Creation at Comics Comics

Here's an illo Ray Fenwick did for O Magazine (bigger at Ray's site).

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Deb Aoki of About.com: Manga names A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio the Best New Manga of 2010: "Conjoined twins who share a painful co-existence. A young girl rejected by her mother who can only see her as an iguana. Ill-fated lovers who are doomed to be separated in several lifetimes. These characters came to life in this collection of smart, sensitive and thought-provoking short stories created by master storyteller Moto Hagio."

• List: Drew Weing's Set to Sea is on YALSA's long-list of 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens Nominations: "A massive lug, who also happens to be an aspiring poet, is kidnapped and set to sea and discovers hardship and wisdom he never imagined." (via The Comics Reporter)

• Review: "It makes my job as a critic a lot harder when I’ve spent nearly an entire book composing its review in my head only for the final few pages to smash it to smithereens. In that sense, reviewing Luba: The Book of Ofelia is hard work." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Interview (Audio): Destroy All Movies!!! editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly appeared on KBOO-FM Community Radio out of Olympia WA on Monday for an interview with host Erin Yanke — listen here

• Profile: John Beaton of Seattle University's The Spectator profiles Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery and its curator Larry Reid

• Plug: Public School's Will Bryant spotlights Ray Fenwick's Mascots

• Commentary: At The Wright Opinion, Brendan Wright shares his thoughts about the longevity of Las Locas: "I’m as excited as anyone that the graphic novel is gradually becoming the standard model of the modern comic book, but among its many virtues, the fact that Love and Rockets has always been presented as a series is important. This is the comic book that elevated the serial format of comics from soap opera to serialized literature. It’s hard to wait between the annual installments, but it’s worth it to check in with old friends, and whatever else he does with the rest of his creativity, I’m happy that Hernandez always finds time to keep up with the 'Locas' world."

Mascots
by Ray Fenwick

136-page full-color 5.25" x 7.75" hardcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-400-9

Ships in: December 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

The second book from Ray Fenwick, author of 2008’s acclaimed Hall of Best Knowledge. In Mascots, a collection of impressionistic stories combine to create a wildly absurd — yet vaguely familiar — parallel world. Like Fenwick’s previous work, the acclaimed Hall of Best Knowledge (one of Booklist’s “Top Ten Graphic Novels of 2008”), Mascots is driven by lettering and language, part art and part comics, this time taking the form of bright, full color paintings on found book covers. These paintings can be experienced individually, each on their own terms, but together they reveal a surreal world that captures the mood of our times with manic energy.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 12-page PDF excerpt (1.4 MB) and see more previews at Ray Fenwick's website.

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Bonus Savings: Order Mascots together with Hall of Best Knowledge and save 20% off both!

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.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: The New York Times's George Gene Gustines recommends Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream and Other Stories in their "Graphic Books Roundup — Holiday Gift Guide 2010": "This 10-story anthology shifts from young romance to supernatural mystery to kitchen-sink drama, so there will probably be a touchstone tale for everyone."

• List: New York Magazine presents "Dan Kois's Great New Autobio Graphic Novels," including Joyce Farmer's Special Exits at #4: "The final four years in the lives of underground cartoonist Farmer’s father and stepmother, told with honesty and humor. A book that will resonate for anyone facing the loss of a loved one."

• List: At Robot 6, Chris Mautner compiles "Six x-rated comics you can read without shame," half of which are old (mostly out of print) Eros gems: Birdland by Gilbert Hernandez, Small Favors by Colleen Coover, and Nipplez 'n' Tum Tum by Mary Fleener.

• Review: "Authors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly spare no one in Destroy All Movies!!! from the moment the introduction starts. Yes, there are swear words in the book. If you appreciated your time during the 1980s this cultural reference goes beyond just scenes in movies that have punks in them. [...]  The short reviews of each flick give an honest and hilarious appraisal of each piece. I wish every movie review would be as succinct as these two authors because it would save a lot of reading and muck to wade through in a film review. [...] If you are a punk film buff, Destroy All Movies!!! is definitely worth the purchase." – William Browning, Yahoo! Movies/Associated Content

• Review: "Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly got the wild notion to write a guide to every movie that ever contained a punk in it, and the result of their labors is the loveably cumbersome Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film. ...[I]t's a treat that it exists, and we're lucky to reap the benefits from Carlson and Connolly's obsession." – Ned Lannamann, The Portland Mercury

• Review: "Among the 1,100 titles cataloged, mocked and celebrated by [Zack] Carlson and co-editor Bryan Connolly in this future coffee-table classic [Destroy All Movies!!!] are Hack-O-Lantern, Rock and Roll Mobster Girls, Revenge of the Nerds IV and Invasion of the Mindbenders, none of which you have seen, of course, but all of which you will desperately want to experience after dipping into Connolly and Carlson’s obsessive-compulsive masterwork. If you ever wondered what it would be like if the 'Psychotronic' section of sleazebag anti-classics at Movie Madness grew a brain and then threw up on you, well, here’s your chance." – Chris Stamm, Willamette Week

• Plug: "There's no shortage of scholarship about every conceivable genre of film, from film noir to Westerns to crazy-disturbing B-movie schlock. But admit it: when was the last time you found a comprehensive study of punks on film? Well, that appallingly underrepresented genre can boast its own volume: Destroy All Movies!!!: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, published by our Seattle friends, Fantagraphics Books." – Kristi Turnquist, The Oregonian

• Plugs: Also covering the Destroy All Movies!!! tour events: L.A. Weekly, The Portland Mercury, and The Oregonian

• Review: "Being free of logical constraint and internal consistency, Zippy’s daily and Sunday forays against The Norm can encompass everything from time travel, talking objects, shopping lists, radical philosophy, caricature, packaging ingredients, political and social ponderings and even purely visual or calligraphic episodes. It is weird and wonderful and not to everybody’s tastes… The collected musings of America’s most engaging Idiot-Savant have all the trappings of the perfect cult-strip and this latest volume [Ding Dong Daddy from Dingburg] finds cretin and creator on absolute top form. If you like this sort of stuff you’ll adore this enticing slice of it. Yow!" – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!  

• Review: "Fear of Comics is a wonderful book, one of the finest short-story collections the medium has ever produced. It’s laugh-out-loud funny at times, filthy at others, disgusting and poetic and black as midnight at still others. And it’s a showcase for comics’ premier naturalist to abandon that style altogether, to take his distinctive and exaggerated figurework to their absolute extremes, to tell stories that feel like neither the magic realism nor the science fiction for which he is best known but rather like fairy tales, or even myths of some creepy nihilistic religion." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Review: "Richard Sala... knows how to skillfully mix humor with horror and the grotesque. [Peculia] is a collection of short stories whose protagonist is a mysterious girl who lives in a world populated by monsters and strange creatures... Dreams are mixed with reality and the stories could go on forever, and even if the book has a conclusion, this does not answer the questions and doubts of the reader. Never mind, because the stories are still entertaining and illustrated with an original style that combines influences from gothic expressionist cinema and even a purely pop style and very fun." – Valerio Stive, Lo Spazio Bianco (translated from Italian)

• Plug: Our pals at Tiny Showcase are excited for Ray Fenwick's new book Mascots and hint that they're scheming something up for the launch

(not final cover)

• Coming Attractions: Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston notes our May 2011 publication of Lou Reed and Lorenzo Mattotti's adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven

• Commentary: At Filmicability, Dean Treadway sifts through The Complete Peanuts for references to film and moviegoing, with plentiful examples

Among the many "things to see" at Ray Fenwick's website is the series of commissioned art books "created in response to a loose idea or title supplied by a patron." They were recently featured on the Caustic Cover Critic blog, as brought to my attention by our own Jacob Covey. Just a little something to whet your appetite for Ray's soon-to-arrive new book Mascots.