Now is the perfect time to upgrade your spring wardrobe with lovely new tee shirt designs by Basil Wolverton, Jim Woodring and Jim Blanchard from Seattle-based label Americaware. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is offering a 25% discount off the $29.95 designer shirts — now only $22.50. The line features six signature creations by each cartoonist in sizes M, L and XL. Fantagraphics Bookstore is the only store on the planet to carry these amazing garments, so drop by while our limited supply lasts. Open daily at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's enchanting Georgetown arts community. Phone 206.658.0110. See you then.

Hey Robert Crumb fans: even if you can't make it to the retrospective exhibit R. Crumb: Lines Drawn On Paper, which opens next week at the Society of Illustrators in NYC, you can still buy the exhibit poster from the Society's online shop.

From Paul Karasik via Dan at TCJ.com comes word of this new product from Hex Games: Leopard Women of Venus, a role-playing game inspired by the comics of Fletcher Hanks. Wow! From the product description:

"Leopard Women of Venus is a mind-melting pulp science fiction role-playing game inspired by the works of Fletcher Hanks. Hanks wrote and drew bizarre and memorable work in the earliest days of American comic books. His work is boldly drawn, frequently ugly, and strangely fascinating. Leopard Women of Venus gives you the tools you need to recreate the magic and lunacy of a Fletcher Hanks comic with your gaming group."

If any of our readers play this game we would love a report on it.

At last! The protagonist of Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit is set to spring into the 3rd dimension and destroy all your puny He-Men, eat all your Cabbage Patch Kids and rape all your Barbies courtesy of Monster Worship. Interchangeable Slorge arm please!

Following their vinyl figurines of music/literary visionaries Bob Moog, Raymond Scott, and Allen Ginsberg, all of which were designed by Archer Prewitt, the good people at Presspop have pressed Prewitt into service again for a new figurine of dub inventor Lee "Scratch" Perry, coming this summer! Above, Archer's concept art (final product subject to change).

Speaking of Chicago, one of the city's — nay, the world's — greatest shops for comics and zines, Quimby's Bookstore, is celebrating their 20th anniversary with this limited-edition 5-color silkscreen print of Chris Ware's blueprint for the store's sign, printed by the estimable Jay Ryan's Bird Machine press. Unsigned copies are available now and Quimby's promises that signed copies will be available at some point in the future.

It's a brand new offering from Drew Friedman Fine Art Prints: Drew's Old Jewish Comedians portrait of Joe E. Ross. Even if you're not going to buy the print, it's worth checking out the compellingly louche biographical details provided by Kliph Nesteroff & Irwin Chusid.

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.)

All of the artwork from Tony Millionaire's current exhibit at Scott Eder Gallery in Brooklyn is up to see — and purchase! — online, along with the above-pictured limited-edition set of 4 silkscreen prints.

And why not also read a review of the exhibit by Jon Gorga at The Long and the Shortbox of It (via The Comics Reporter)?

I'm just going to copy & paste Gabrielle's explanation from her blog, where you can learn more, see a bigger image, and find out how to order:

"To celebrate Kevin Kinsella’s upcoming release of Poems From Childrens Island from Lightful Press, Tony has created this poster of Green Verses-which was featured here last May, as well as in The Believer."