Solipsistic stories for stoned slackers.

Another tabloid newspaper chock-a-block with fun coimcs from all over has arrived.  This one starts out with a (first ever?) front cover fold-in by thecreator of the form, the venerable Al Jaffee. The first six pages of this issue provide a window on the work of the relatively unheralded cartoonist, Anthony Ballard, who passed away in 2008.  The full color center spread is devoted to a full color, 48 panel comics "trip" by Jesse Jacobs.  Marc Bell gets three full pages and there's plenty more.  And, we're offering it at a special price!  

The long dry spell has ended.  Matt Furie's pæan to roomfulls of young men out of their minds on drugs has at last been collected into this compact softcover edition.  Keeping the dimensions of the original comic books in which these stories originally appeared, this Fantagraphics edition prints the strips in a multicolored series of monochrome pages, the color changes between which serve to demarcate their divisions.  The opening intro and closing outro pages are printed in green; the first section (which we are thinking corresponds to the first issue of the series, but can no longer recall -- anyone know for sure?) is printed in blue; the second in a mustard sienna; and the third in plum mahogany (no black & white here!).  176 pages of non-stop stoner-funnies in all.  In comics lineage, the Boy's Club comics are more or less the link between the Ben Jones / Paper Rad BJ and tha Dogs-era work and Simon Hanselmann's Megg, Mogg & Owl strips that are defining our present disaffection (but you already knew that).

BACK IN STOCK!

Weighing in at bonus-sized 44 pages, this issue is the most jam-packed yet! Interviews with Matt Furie, Josh Pettinger and Archer Prewitt miongle with original comics by Cam Del Rosario, Mike Olson, Greg Steele and others.  There is a review of Simon Hanselmann's Bad Gateway exhibit at the Bellevue Arts Museum – the first we've seen – by Tyler Meese; a review of Yokoyama's Outdoors by Jef ALford; an article on Shigeru Suigura by James Bradshaw; as well as the standard features, "Comics You Should Read," and "Comics in my Mailbox"  and "Letter to Bubbles."  Still only $6!