I just mentioned Mome contributor Tom Kaczynski's small-press publishing concern Uncivilized Books in passing; see his wares here (from Tom and fellow artists Dan Wieken, Jon Lewis & Gabrielle Bell) and follow the Unciv blog here and even (gasp) on Twitter. (Above: Unciv mascot/spokesentity Adalbert Arcane.) Next time I see Tom at a comics fest I'm buying 'em all.

• More from the mid-aughts Arthur magazine archives: "Trauma Valley" (not to be confused with Profanity Hill) by our own Jason T. Miles and "Post-Election Funnies" from John Hankiewicz, Megan Kelso and others

• Dame Darcy started a new illustration series inspired by her new Southern-Gothic surroundings; that and more in her latest blog update

• The unpublished first version of Daniel Clowes's portrait of Bill Murray for GQ (shown on the Clowes blog alongside the final version)

• Warren Beatty as John McCabe by Jim Blanchard

• The true-life story of Bambi Bembenek as illustrated by Richard Sala for Playboy in the mid-1990s

• The volume of terrific sketches by Tom Kaczynski at his Transatlantis blog has really kicked up; there's also publishing news from his Uncivilized Books concern

• It's Johnny Ryan's poster for "Leprethon" (that's right, a St. Patrick's day marathon of Leprechaun movies) at Cinefamily

• Holy smokes it's a cavalcade of strips, sketches, illustrations and book proposals on Nate Neal's Flickr stream

• This album cover illustration by Eleanor Davis

And more Things to See from the past week:

• New sketches illustrations from Matthias Lehmann at his Bloc-Notes blog

• Vintage Mjau Mjau artwork and Audrey Hepburn film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spots (accepted and killed) on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Proportion, pages and other artwork from Frank Santoro

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

• Sketches by Mark Kalesniko (for his new graphic novel Freeway and otherwise) at his blog

• Herrimanesque sketches and another page from a Kevin Huizenga "Focus" book at his New Construction blog

• A new illustration at Mondobliquo and an older series begins at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Sketches, portraits, & updates from Steve Brodner

• Daily drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog (#125 is funny)

• Another old Chrome Fetus strip from Hans Rickheit

• Michael Kupperman is stepping up the art posts on Twitter, with the "doodle" above and an older strip with the promise of new ones to come (!)

• A couple of recent landscapey drawings by Gabrielle Bell (and they're for sale)

• An older watercolor sketch (above) and an unused character by Leslie Stein

• Album covers and undead Popeye by Tony Millionaire

And more Things to See from the past week:

• New illustrations from Matthias Lehmann at his Bloc-Notes blog

• Odds, ends, outtakes and film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spot and pieces for the Game Over IV show at GRSF on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Snapshots of recent drawings from Frank Santoro

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

• Sketches by Mark Kalesniko (for his new graphic novel Freeway and otherwise) at his blog

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

• Noah Van Sciver is heading to Australia

• Drawings, photos from Renee French (and her doctor)

• Some great dedication sketches at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Sketches, portraits, & updates from Steve Brodner

• Daily drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• An old strip and other items of note from Hans Rickheit

• Recent sketches by Tom Kaczynski at his Transatlantis blog

• Prints & sketches by Eleanor Davis at her We Be Ouija blog

• 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.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Like WWI itself, it's difficult to summarize It Was the War of the Trenches — each moment and story is precise and poignant and devastating, and they add up to far more than the sum of their parts, but they add up as a mosaic does, with each shard forming a point of color that only makes sense from a distant perspective. [...] Tardi is one of the giants of world comics, and this is one of his strongest works, a rare combination of ability, ambition, and subject. ...It Was the War of the Trenches is immediate and moving and deeply involving from page to page, showing once again the power that comics has to both illuminate dark corners of the world and to turn them into a compelling narrative accessible to nearly everyone." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Feature: At The SF Site: Nexus Graphica, Rick Klaw dubs Jacques Tardi "the Martin Scorsese of European comics" and runs down his reactions to all of our recent English reprints of Tardi's work: "Before my discovery of the French artist Jacques Tardi, how did I enjoy comics?"

• Interview (Audio): Guests Jean Schulz, Nat Gertler (The Peanuts Collection) and Kevin Fagan (Drabble) discuss the legacy of Charles M. Schulz on yesterday's episode of Southern California Public Radio's AirTalk (via Spurge)

• Interview (Audio): Tom Kaczynski is the featured guest on the new episode of The Comix Claptrap podcast

• Coming Attractions: Publishers Weekly spotlights a half dozen of our upcoming releases in their "New Graphic Novels Coming in 2011" feature: 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago; Celluloid by Dave McKean; Congress of the Animals by Jim Woodring; Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture: A Career Retrospective; Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson; and Wandering Son: Book 1 by Shimura Takako

• Jason draws R. Crumb and other memories of Angoulême 2000, plus more sketches, illustrations and film reviews at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Dash Shaw 's new zine for this year's Angoulême Festival

• Betty Boop x Eraserhead by D.J. Bryant

• After a couple of very well-received mainstream comics efforts, Roger Langridge is back in the minicomics game

• Another panel from the concluding chapter of Derek Van Gieson's Mome serial

• Tom Kaczynski's lovely tribute to the late Trish Keenan from one of my top-20 favorite bands, Broadcast

And more Things to See from the past week:

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

• Sketches by Marco Corona at his Il Canguro Pugilatore blog

• More artwork from Mark Kalesniko's forthcoming graphic novel Freeway at his blog

• More great sketches at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Drawings, sketches, photos from Renee French

• A Joe Kimball 1998 "artyfact"

• A new batch of sketches by Eleanor Davis at her We Be Ouija blog

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

Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

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.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 15-page PDF excerpt (2.4 MB) with pages from every contributor.

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

Periodic clips & strips, just under the wire (for the Pacific time zone anyway) — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources:

• From Wilfred Santiago, a cartoon drawn for our 30th anniversary back in 2006

• A glimpse of Ben Catmull's current work in progress

• From Jason: A 1981 cartoon; a couple of cover illustrations; a Mjau Mjau back cover painting; and I think "T.W." is Tom Waits

• Steven Weissman's Truman Capote strip re-redux

• Richard Sala presents selections from his Comic Art Collective offerings, including Peculia pinups and this 1991 illustration

• The last page of Marco Corona's "briganti" story

• The latest installment of Tim Lane's Belligerent Piano

• Speaking of thieves: a detail of Jim Flora's The Big Bank Robbery, circa mid-1960s

• Lilli Carré presents a still from an animated loop drawing in progress; also, she announces that her short film Head Garden is part of a film program at Chicago's Lincoln Hall tomorrow/tonight (Sept. 1)

• The fifth installment of Gabrielle Bell's San Diego Comic-Con Comicumentary features her ex Michel Gondry, nudity, and awkwardness

• More AMC Pacer studies by Mark Kalesniko for Freeway

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

• A happy/sad Lewis comic by Laura Park 

• From Renee French: mitt guy, a stage, the cover to something called Tag K

• Hans Rickheit's Ectopiary page 39

• "The Devil Doll" part 4 page 4 by Derek Van Gieson, plus another Moomin parody strip

• Tom Kaczynski draws comics scholar Isaac Cates, who returns the favor; Tom's also been writing a series of thought-provoking essays on comics on his Transatlantis blog, well worth reading

• As seen on Boing Boing, it's Jon Adams's cereal-mascot mashup; plus a new Truth Serum strip

We're still working on our official Small Press Expo announcement with our signing schedule, debut books, etc. (stay tuned!), but the programming schedule has been posted on the SPX website and features Gary Groth, Jaime Hernandez, Drew Weing, Kevin Huizenga, Roger Langridge, Tom Kaczynski, Gabrielle Bell, Frank Santoro, Jon Vermilyea, a panel about (but not including) Daniel Clowes and much more. Also note that, unless you come to our offices or one of our Bookstore events, this is your only chance this year to catch Gary Groth & Kim Thompson in the same place at the same time.