Avatars... icons... whatever you want to call 'em, we've got a whole mess of 'em that you can save and use to represent yourself in all of your social networking, instant messaging, blogging, and other online endeavors, all right here on this page. From Blecky to Stinky to Zippy... Frank to Fritz to Fantomah... and we're happy to take your suggestions for more, so leave a comment if your favorite character or book isn't represented!

Have you ever wanted Dan Pussey on your computer screen?

Or Buddy Bradley?

Or maybe naked Hector's more your speed?

We've put together a selection of 17 downloadable desktop wallpapers in a variety of sizes for your monitor-enhancing enjoyment, and we'll be adding more as time goes on. Leave a comment here if you have any requests!

As several folks have already noticed and taken advantage of, you can now leave comments on FLOG. You must be logged in to leave comments, so if you're not registered yet, why not do it right now?

The commenting process itself is fairly self-explanatory. If there's a particularly hot discussion that you want to follow, or if you want to know if anyone responds to your trenchant observation, the comment thread of each and every FLOG post has its very own RSS feed -- the link is right at the top of the Comments section.

At this point we don't have any hard and fast rules about acceptable commenting etiquette, but we do reserve the right to remove comments at our own discretion and block any egregious repeat offenders. Comments of a commercial nature promoting artists and products not affiliated with Fantagraphics will, for the most part, not be tolerated and be treated as spam. That said, we're all pals here, so let's play nice!

If you're reading this, you know about FLOG! The Fantagraphics Blog. Here in its new incarnation, we have some new ways to navigate and find the things you want to read about.

In the right column you'll see links to the five most recent FLOG posts and links to monthly FLOG archives.

If you want to read all posts by a particular FLOG writer, simply click their name whenever it appears as a by-line link. FLOG posts are also grouped by subject using tags, so if you're reading a FLOG post about, for instance, Joe Sacco, and you want to see all posts about Joe, simply click on the "Joe Sacco" tag where it says "Filed under". You can also click on the "tags" link at the top of the white section of the page to see the "Tag Cloud," a big list of every tag used on FLOG.

One of the main drawbacks of the old version of FLOG was that posts were not archived individually, making it inelegant to share "permalinks" to individual FLOG posts. With this new incarnation, it's easy: each post has its own page, and the title of each post is the permalink!

At the top of the main middle section of the page, you'll see a row of links. "FLOG!" will take you back to the main FLOG page. The "tags" link will take you to a page with the "cloud" of all tags. Clicking "search" will take you (surprise!) to the FLOG search page, where you can look for FLOG posts by keyword, author, or tag. And you can subscribe to FLOG via RSS using the "feed" link. Here's where it gets a little tricky, because the "feed" link is different depending on what FLOG category you're looking at.

If you're looking at FLOG posts by tag, the "feed" link will subscribe you only to FLOG posts with that particular tag. So, if you want a special feed for FLOG posts tagged with "Robert Crumb," click the "Robert Crumb" tag and then use the "feed" link at the top of that page. Likewise, if you want a special feed for any particular FLOG author, simply click their by-line link and use the "feed" link at the top of that page. We've also highlighted a few of the most useful feed links on our RSS Feeds page. 

I hope this info has been helpful! Stay tuned for the next installment of New Website Feature of the Day.

After a longer time in the making than I care to think about, we are extremely pleased to bring you the debut of the new Fantagraphics.com website!

Settle in and have a look around. You'll notice lots of new features, which we will be introducing you to here on Flog day by day with a feature handily titled "New Website Feature of the Day." You can follow these posts via the "meta" tag (Flog tags will be the subject of a future installment).

We'll start with a two-fer. The first thing you're going to want to do is register -- registered users get access to all kinds of exclusive benefits, including members-only special offers, online comics from our most popular cartoonists, previews of upcoming titles from your favorite artists, Flog commenting privileges, and stuff we haven't even thought of yet. Once you register and log in, links to these features will appear under the "My Account" menu item. Membership is free and spam-free, so sign up today!

Second: see that tab at the top of the page that says "Open Specials Panel"? Give it a click. That banner that slides its way down is telling you the truth:

FREE STANDARD SHIPPING TO THE U.S. ON ALL ONLINE ORDERS (and 50% OFF Air Mail to the rest of the world) THROUGH JANUARY 31, 2008!

Just select the "FREE Standard" or USPS "50% OFF" shipping option when you go through our shopping cart. We'll be running periodic specials like this, so keep checking that Specials Panel from time to time. (And don't forget to click "Close Specials Panel" when you're done looking at it.)

See you again soon with another New Website Feature of the Day!