The third anniversary celebration for Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, December 12 promises to be an unforgettable affair. The event features appearances by an international cadre of compelling cartoonists and artists as well as the world premier of PORTABLE GRINDHOUSE with editor Jacques Boyreau.

Guest stars include the lovely Femke Hiemstra (ROCK CANDY) from Amsterdam, Paul Hornschemeier (ALL & SUNDRY) and Jay Ryan (BEASTS!) from Chicago, Portland's Dame Darcy (MEAT CAKE), and Seattle's own Peter Bagge (HATE), Jim Woodring (FRANK) and - just added - Jim Blanchard (TRUCKER FAGS IN DENIAL.)

Musical entertainment will be provided by Bagge's pop combo CAN YOU IMAGINE? featuring Steve Fisk and an opening set by the enchanting DAME DARCY. Art, comix, music, movies, and more!

Watch this space for updates on the holiday season's wildest party on Saturday, December 12, 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle.

Look, it's a teeny weeny Jaime Hernandez drawing of Santa Claus at the beginning of the new Bob Dylan video "Must Be Santa"! (Embedding is disabled, so click to watch.) Jaime sez: "Not a bad song either."

Wrapping up another week's worth of Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Bookmark: Presenting the newly redesigned BobFingerman.com

• Feature: At the Washington Post blog Double X, Sasha Watson recounts the emergence of female underground and alternative cartoonists, talking to Trina Robbins, Carol Tyler, and others, with an accompanying slideshow featuring Tyler, Jessica Abel, Lilli Carré and 10 more

• Review: "I really love comics. Reading a collection like Joe Daly's Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, I'm reminded of just why. ... It's drawn like a combination of Tintin, Dilbert, and King of the Hill. It's hilarious, both in terms of the plot and the one-liners. So, like so many other great comics, it's sui generis. ... Daly's plots move at a breezy pace, but his art is sharply detailed, and drawn expertly from a variety of perspective points. The palette is vibrant and fun. ...[T]his is some seriously funny shit." – Byron Kerman, PLAYBACK:stl

• Review: "Rickheit’s artwork [in The Squirrel Machine] is stunning, from the beautifully disgusting instruments to the ornate architecture. It’s like steampunk crossed with the animal-appropriating art of Damien Hirst or Ebony Andrews, with complicated machines adorned with the heads and torsos of unfortunate livestock." – Garrett Martin, The Boston Herald

• Review: "It's like a great adaptation of an old 1990s straight-to-video erotic thriller made unpredictable with a touch of magical realism. Hernandez's strength remains his depictions of women; like Love and Rockets, the female leads of The Troublemakers are both strong and believable, no matter how atypical their situations and dimensions may seem. – Garrett Martin, The Boston Herald (same link as above)

• Review...?: "Prison Pit is un-reviewable; it is what it is... [Johnny] Ryan is one crazy motherfucker, man — and I mean that in the nicest possible way." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Plug: Cartoonist Mike Lynch ogles the photos of Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons and shares a delightful Wilson anecdote

• Interview: Graphic Novel Reporter's John Hogan talks to Greg Sadowski, editor of Supermen! and our upcoming series of Golden Age reprints: "Any comic I want to read I can borrow from one of the collectors I know. I don’t need to own them. As you get older, you realize the folly of having too many possessions."

• Interview: Graphic Novel Reporter's John Hogan talks to Pulitzer Prize-winning author and well-known Love and Rockets fan Junot Díaz about his favorite comics; of course, L&R comes up

• Things to buy: The new Robert Pollard DVD, The Devil Went Home and Puked (a compilation of Guided by Voices and Pollard solo footage) is now available for pre-order

• Things to see: Tim Lane's "complete classic five Temptations" cut-outs

• Things to see: Sherlock Holmes vs. Moriarty by Kevin Huizenga

The lovely and talented Dame Darcy will be gracing the fair city of Seattle for the Seattle International Cabaret Festival. Come enjoy music, a reading of Meat Cake, cabaret, and short films. Details follow, and check Dame Darcy's blog for all her latest news.

Can Can Presents Seattle International Cabaret Festival
Dame Darcy featured at Pensione Nichols (a Victorian Bed and Breakfast where we are doing parlour shows) 1923 1st Ave. downtown Near Pike Place market. These shows are early in the evening because the Cabaret shows are later at a selection of Related Venues.

"Poe's Peculiar Parlour" shows will begin at 7p.m. with Tarot and tea... followed by film, literature and live musical performances! Victorian Parlour style... dress up reccommended but not neccesary.

Saturday Nov 14th
Vinsantos (SF)
hosted by: Diva Le Deviant
6:00 Dame Darcy Films & Book Signing Meat Cake (Fantagraphics Books)
Book reading and More!
7:00 Palm reading at by Dame Darcy
short film by Miss Oblivious

Sunday Nov 15th
6:30 Lonesome Shack (Seattle)
8:00 Death By Doll (music): Dame Darcy's ElectRococo/ VamPirate band
Maureen O' donnell (author of "Scar Flowers")
short surprise film screenings

Left: Ajax Wood IS Ardent Vein IS Cannibal Fuckface. Right: man of the hour Johnny Ryan. Saturday night will definitely go down as one of the most memorable events in the history of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery thanks to Ardent Vein's incredible performance/reading of Chapter 1 of Johnny's Prison Pit Book 1. If you weren't one of the lucky people who witnessed it in person, behold, we've put it on YouTube in two parts!

Lots more photos in our Flickr set here.

An action packed evening of comix craziness with Johnny Ryan is in store this Saturday, October 10 at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. A show of original art from Ryan’s wild new graphic novel Prison Pit will be on display, along with colorful silkscreen prints and figurines.

The event will feature a Ryan-inspired performance piece by Fantagraphics’ own Ardent Vein in full Prison Pit character. (Yeah, we can’t wait to see this either.) So join us this Saturday from 6:00 and 9:00 PM for beverages and meet the extraordinary artist behind Angry Youth Comix, Blecky Yuckerella and other unforgettable comics. This promises to be great fun, and coincides with the Georgetown Art Attack featuring festive arts events throughout the historic cultural community.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) only minutes south of downtown. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone (206) 658-0110. See you soon.

Most regular Flog readers are already familiar with Al Columbia's massive talent as a visual artist. But he's also an equally talented musician and filmmaker. I met Al when we were both 23 year-old punks who'd just scored jobs at Fantagraphics in 1994. We became fast pals, and I distinctly remember the first time he played for me a cassette tape of some of his musical recordings in my car as we were taking a ride somewhere. They blew me away, and I've been inspired by his music (not to mention his art) ever since. Thankfully, he's started putting a lot of his music up on his blog for others to hear, as well, and more recently has been creating videos for some of his tunes. I highly recommended you surf around his site. Here's a couple of direct video links:

Satan's Children

P.O.V.

I should mention that the snake in the first video was maimed by Al's cat and not harmed for the purposes of the video.

Lots of Online Commentary & Diversions today:

• Review: "The graphic novel, it turns out, is a form especially well-suited to the noir genre. Maybe this isn’t surprising — comics have always run the gamut of moods from goofy to autobiographical to just plain smutty. But it still gives a shiver of pleasure to stumble upon a graphic novel that captures the hardboiled tone of classic noir as perfectly as West Coast Blues, Jacques Tardi’s adaptation of a 1976 crime novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette. ... The plot includes bursts of bruality, dark realizations, alluring women and grizzled observations from its antihero — all the best conventions of noir, in other words, preserved and reborn in a fresh new medium. File it next to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler." – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Review: "...[West Coast Blues is] a well-crafted piece of genre entertainment. I dug it." – Sandy Bilus, I Love Rob Liefeld

• Review: "I had a significant crush on The Death Of Speedy Ortiz the summer I was 20 years old, reading and re-reading the serialized story with a passion I had never brought to a single comic story before then. ... I thought it was wonderful that summer I read it 10,000 times, and I remain convinced it's a special story every time I've picked it up since." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "One of the many, many things I like about Kevin Huizenga's work is that a lot of his comics are about things that are not likely candidates for visual representation, and he manages to make them fascinating to look at anyway. Most of [Ganges #3] is about the process of perceiving one's own consciousness--the sort of hyperconsciousness of your own mind that happens when you're trying to get to sleep and can't--which is potentially the least interesting thing anybody could draw. And it looks fantastic..." – Douglas Wolk, The Savage Critics

• Review: "[Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938] is gorgeous. ... [Hal] Foster is frequently cited as an influence on other great cartoonists, and part of it is his precise line and the way he builds a convincing world from authentic architecture, clothing and armaments. That's part of the appeal, but Foster also excels at staging. ... Unlike daily strip collections, the full, weekly Prince Valiant page ends up a brisk, headlong read... Prince Valiant is something I picked up expecting to admire. I had no idea I would love it. – Christopher Allen, Comic Book Galaxy

• Review: "Although far from all the artists represented in the new anthology From Wonderland with Love are so experimental with form and content that you must ask yourself if this can really still be termed comics, it is truly the cream of the crop who are assembled here. This collection offers a great perspective on how broad and versatile the talent pool is in Denmark." – Torben Rølmer Bille, Kulturkapellet (translated from Danish)

• Review: "Charles M. Schulz is my favorite cartoonist, so I was excited to see that the 12th volume in the [Complete Peanuts] series has an introduction by the legendary Billie Jean King... This is a important series of books which I give an ‘A Plus’ and I think it would be the ultimate part of a Peanuts fan’s collection!" – The Catgirl Critics' Media Mewsings

• Interview: At Largehearted Boy, author Jami Attenberg talks to Ellen Forney, saying "This mixture of openness and strength makes her work... extremely powerful and relatable, and probably very necessary for your bookshelf." From Ellen: "Sometimes I have to reflect and remind myself that I do have many more skills and more experience in my repertoire at this point, and to appreciate that the challenges don't freak me out so much. Still, some challenges are exhilarating and some are a pain in the ass."

• Commentary: At Comics Comics, Dash Shaw comments on and posts a transcript of a panel he was on at TCAF earlier this year

• Things to see: Coffee shop sketchbookery by Robert Goodin

• Things to see and buy: Puzzle paintings by Tim Hensley for sale via Buenaventura. I got one of an earlier edition from Tim at Comic-Con for a steal and it is a glorious thing

• Things to see and buy: The 2010 Jim Flora calendars are in

• Tunes: At Stereogum, "How Wrong You Are," the new song and video from Robert Pollard's Boston Spaceships

Cripes, September is over already? Here's your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book makes for pleasant midday reading, maybe perched somewhere outdoors in the sun with a glass of ginger ale at your side. Read it in a lazy mood, identify with the slacker characters, and speculate on whether you could solve demented mysteries as well as they could. (Answer: probably not.)" – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Interview: Making his second appearance on the Inkstuds radio programme, Mr. Tony Millionaire

• Plug: "Man, if that Crumb book weren't coming out [Prison Pit: Book 1] would easily be my main pick for the week. Johnny Ryan does straight on fantasy/action, with no tongue in cheek, but without forsaking a single ounce of blood or guts. In fact, this may be even more gory and gruesome than his humor stuff... but those with strong stomachs will thrill to Ryan's grotesque and truly imaginative fight fest." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Things to see: Dolls! DVDs! It's your Dame Darcy update

• Things to see: Fantastic Four #9, page 10 by Anders Nilsen

• Tunes: The latest entry in the Inkstuds Mixtape series of cartoonist-curated playlists is from Noah Van Sciver

• Staff: “Language is Hell and Other Concrete Poetry from Nico Vassilakis” at Pilot Books in Seattle

Though the office is in a state of mourning at losing our Scottish Connection (code name LAN Formatique), we can console ourselves with his music, which was inspired by the comics of Fletcher Hanks: