Katelan Cunningham of Soul Pancake recently interviewed Rob Walker, editor of Significant Objects, on the value of story. Significant Objects takes oddball, flea market items and writers you know and will one day know added stories to the items. Editors Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn's social experiment then sold the items for eBay with the stories and lo and behold, used and broken items went for more money once a narrative enhanced their 'meaning.' Walker describes the spark of the project, "I broke a coffee mug. It was just a nothing souvenir mug, nobody would have paid any money for it, but I was really sad when this happened, and it's because I had bought the mug on a trip with the woman I later married."

On Soul Pancake, Cunningham and Walker weighed the value of physical objects to the extreme of hoarding versus digital everything, like digi-wedding rings. Sounds interesting, right? Well, you could win this beautifully designed book with a short homework assignment! Visit the Soul Pancake interview and write a 200 word story about item in the photograph, don't worry you've seen a pair of these probably every day of your life. No research needed. Write your story in the comment section and a winner will be chosen tomorrow, December 5th. Pencils up!

Entrecomics, a Madrid-based comic book company, recently put out a call for Cannibal Fuckface Fan Art, the main fucktagonist of Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit series. Entrecomics and Fulgencio Pimentel co-edited the Spanish edition, Pudridero, that combines Books 1 and 2.  So far the response to the contest has been overwhelming, both in volume and ability. The contest winners will recieve copies of Prison Pit, other comics and it sounds like there is an exhibition or two in the works. Maybe even a print booklet?

To size up the competition and enjoy the entries, check out the work posted on Tumblr so far! The winners will be chosen THIS FRIDAY by Johnny Ryan himself. 

More than one person at Fantagraphics can read Spanish but the Google translation of the Entrecomics site is rather perfect: Johnny Ryan (Boston, 1970) is one of the authors of the most renowned American alternative scene and disgusting. So choice, Johnny would be proud.

Rob Walker, co-founder of the Significant Objects project, was a guest on today's episode of Public Radio International's Studio 360 with host Kurt Andersen (who also happens to have contributed a story). Andersen interviewed Walker on location at Vintage Thrift in Manhattan and the two chose three new Objects for listeners to assign Significance to in Studio 360's Significant Objects story contest. Listen to the segment here or embedded below:

And hey, designer extraordinaire Jacob Covey just finalized the two — yes, two! — covers for the book. That's right, because we're crazy, we're publishing the book collection with two different covers, evenly split 50/50, so you have a choice of the cow creamer above or the bunny candle below. Amazon isn't going to let you choose, so if you have a preference you'll need to either pre-order from us or pick it up from your local book shop when it comes out in June.

Head on over to the Light in the Attic Records website right now to enter to win a prize pack including Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 and the companion album Listen, Whitey! The Sounds of Black Power 1967-1974 in CD or 2xLP format!

One of the nice things about working with Light in the Attic is that they're also practitioners of the first-person preview video. Here are their "What's Inside" looks at both formats of the album:

For Valentine's Day we've teamed up with ComicsAlliance to give you a chance to win copies of two of our recent books about lovin' in its various forms: Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics and Dave McKean's erotic opus Celluloid. Contest details and your chance to enter are all over at the ComicsAlliance blog. Good luck!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: At MTV Geek, Brigid Alverson names Wandering Son by Shimura Takako one of The Best Manga Series of 2011: "Wandering Son is a delightful, quiet manga about a girly boy and a boyish girl.... This is not your typical gender-bender manga playing a gender switch for laughs (and fanservice); it's a quiet, subtle story of a boy coming to terms with himself."

• Review: "Believe it or not, music criticism was responsible for some of 2011's finest books, with Kevin Avery's impeccably researched Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson leading the pack.... Avery has done an outstanding job assembling a collection of the writer's work, fully illustrating why he was such an influential presence in his time. But, sadly, especially in our time, it also reads as something of a cautionary tale — ...you might wonder why on earth anyone would ever choose rock criticism as a career in the first place." – Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times

• Review: "I have no idea if it was part of cartoonist Johnny Ryan's overall plan for Prison Pit, but this latest book in the growing-to-classic-status series strikes me as a 'step-back' installment. This is where a series that was once less certain in the market place eschews some of the instant gratification of its first couple of books for the sake of layering in additional plot elements that look like they'll pay off further down the line. It's the kind of work that makes you think that its creator is thinking of the long-term as opposed to focusing solely on the short. Prison Pit had some of that particular swagger from the very beginning; this book seems even more settled and confident.... As was the case with the first two books, Johnny Ryan makes his case for mastery at a second, very specific genre, connected to the first through the extremes of expression involved." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Reviews (Audio): The November 20 episode of Easy Rider, the radio show for "rock, punk rock, country, power pop, garage and comics" from Radio PFM out of Arras in northern France, features Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book 3, Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 by the Hernandez Bros., and Jaime Hernandez's Esperanza among their Comics of the Week

• Interview: At Memory Is Fiction, Craig Staufenberg talks with Wilfred Santiago: "Any subject or theme can work in comics, the narrative has unique, endless breakdowns. It’s a unique prism, anything that’s seen through it is distorted in a comic book way. The author, the cartoonist, just brings to light a particular side of that prism. I try to quit comics but it keeps pulling me back."

• Interview: Network Awesome Magazine has a fun Q&A with Richard Sala about the Invisible Hands animated shorts: "They used stop-motion.  The staff would blow up my drawings onto colored paper and then cut out all the figures and  movable parts.   The pieces were then positioned on three layers of glass – to give depth – with the camera looking down.  Next, the director, Denis Morella, carefully moved the pieces around – including the mouths, to match the dialogue – for each click of the camera.  I grew up loving stop-motion – everything from Ray Harryhausen to Gumby – so, I thought doing the animation that way was pretty cool."

• Plug: Comics writer Jeff Parker reveals that Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks is at the top of his holiday wish list at Robot 6

• Contest: Over at The Beat, Heidi MacDonald is giving away her spare copy of Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler to one lucky winner

Tor.com is having a Halloween giveaway, including chances to win copies of The Hidden by Richard Sala and Beasts! Book 1! Enter to win The Hidden here and Beasts! here.

UPDATE: They've now added a contest for Beasts! Book 2 — enter here.

(click to enlarge)

We are in the final stages of assembling this mammoth collection of Bill Griffith's non-syndicated-Zippy work (i.e. from undergrounds and alternative comics), and we cannot for the life of us figure out where the story "Toadette Dignity" might have appeared (see above for the first of two pages). Bill finished it in 1975 with the intent of publishing it in Arcade but it did not in fact appear in Arcade. Bill is sure it got published somewhere eventually but has no idea where that might be.

First person to correctly identify where it was published gets a copy of Lost and Found when it is released, signed by Griffy!

Are we having sourcing yet?

Email us your answer; be sure to put "Attn: Jason Miles - Bill Griffith Source" in the subject line.

UPDATE: We have an answer and a winner! The story appeared in Apple Pie #5. Thanks everyone for your quick responses!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

The Hidden
by Richard Sala

136-page full-color 8.25" x 8.25" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-386-6

See Previews / Order Now

Is this the end of the world? How did it happen? Why did it happen? There is one man who knows...

Take a walk with the dazed survivors of a mysterious worldwide catastrophe. They are bound for a place, somewhere in the desert, where a terrible truth awaits them.

Richard Sala's books are "deliriously entertaining" (Rue Morgue Magazine), "cinematic and cheerfully over-the-top" (The New York Times Book Review), containing "brilliantly atmospheric art, full of shadows and spikes." (Booklist)

"To read a Richard Sala comic is an experience both jarring and fun. Good for a rainy day or a stormy night." – Publishers Weekly

Bonus Contest: Order The Hidden by August 31, 2011 and you'll be entered in a random drawing to win a copy of the limited-edition, signed and numbered print shown here! We ended up with one extra copy left over after we gave them away with purchase of the book at Comic-Con (where the book was a sellout), so one lucky mail-order customer will get our last one. (This includes people who pre-ordered the book.) Good luck!

ComicAttack.net are giving away a copy of Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus by R. Macherot to one lucky contest winner! Drew McCabe says "We fell in love with the book... a few weeks back. Now Fantagraphics (Sibyl-Anne’s awesome publisher here in the states) and ComicAttack.net are giving away a free copy of the book for your reading pleasure!" Entries are due by Sept. 1 — click here for all the contest rules.