If you’re the type of comics fan who occasionally likes to peruse the newsstand (and bless you if you do), it should be duly noted that this week’s issue of The New Yorker is their annual “Cartoon Issue,” with Steve Brodner talking about how he sees McCain and Obama everywhere; editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich counting down the ways he’ll miss about Dubya; a cute two-page spread by Bruce McCall; a smattering of gag strips pertaining to current events; reviews of Tamara Drewe, Burma Chronicles and Bat-Manga!; spot illustrations by Joost Swarte and — for the piece de resistance — an awesome four-page strip by Robert, Aline and Sophie Crumb about their attending a Crumb family reunion in Minnesota. Hey, Drawn and Quarterly even took out an ad for this issue!

But if you can’t find a hard copy, the magazine’s Web site has a good bit of comics-related content as well, including Cartoon Editor Robert Mankoff answering readers’ questions; an audio file of McCall dissecting his cartoon; a video of Brodner drawing and satirizing the election; and an interview with Dilbert creator Scott Adams:

C.L.: Back to the new book, “Dilbert 2.0.”—What is included?

S.A.: It’s a big, beautiful, ten-pound coffee-table book with a few thousand of my favorite comics, including the ones too naughty to get published in newspapers. It also has stories about the trouble I got into for strips that did get published. I tell the story of how I went from cubicle to cartooning, which required lots of luck and the kindness of strangers. We also include a disc that has every “Dilbert” comic published in newspapers from 1989 until we went to production

WFMU posts a great strip by Jim Ryan that originally ran in their 1996 Catalog of Curiosities. (hat tip: The Ephemerist.)

Having explored the seamier (and steamier) side of the cartoon world with his book Clean Cartoonists’ Dirty Drawings, Craig Yoe is taking a decidedly different tack with his upcoming book The Great Anti-War Cartoons, to be published by Fantagraphics in Spring 2009. Featuring work by folks like Francisco Goya, Robert Crumb and Art Young, the book will present “the ultimate collection of anti-war cartoons.” Yoe has a small preview of the book up at the second link.

Like when I came across this editorial cartoon by one Gordon Campbell, which compared Colin Powell to Benedict Arnold. Why? Because of the former Secretary of State’s recent endorsement of Barack Obama. Because, of course, Powell would never in a million years endorse Obama because of his policies. It has to be about race. Here, let Campbell tell you himself:

“The only reasonable explanation for such a public political “about-face” in the midst of this important election is that Colin Powell, perhaps understandably, wishes to see someone who looks like himself in the White House,” Campbell said.

“It’s my opinion that General Powell has based his endorsement of Barack Obama on the color of his skin, not his qualifications, his experience or the content of his character.”

Understandably, a number of editorial cartoonists and other folk have come out decrying the cartoon. Matt Bors goes so far as to dub it “top ten worst political cartoons ever created. Since time began. Hands down.”

Alan Gardner at The Daily Cartoonist (the first link) has more choice quotes, along with reactions by the blogosphere at large.

– The marketing juggernaut continues: Sam Thielman talks with Art Spiegelman about the latter’s new book, Breakdowns.

– The comic strip Rhymes With Orange has a new Web site.

– Chris Arrant profiles Faith Erin Hicks and her new comic The War at Ellsmere.

– Eddie Campbell guides you through Comic Book Morality 101.

– Todd Allen looks at some of the new Webcomic offerings from Shadowline, Liquid and Marvel, and smells trouble … for them.

– Chip Zdarsky shares his ideas for Marvel Comics and it’s totally NSFW (hat tip: Heidi).

– Brigid Alverson writes about plans for the upcoming Haruhi Suzumiya manga.

– Spurious has an interesting essay on Charles Crumb, Robert’s late, tragic older brother.

– Erin Finnegan looks at Tokyopop’s release of Otsuichi’s Goth novel and manga.

– Richard O’Connor blogs about working on an animated They Might Be Giants video with Kim Deitch.

– The Lego enthusiast known as oxcrew has decided to retell the origin of Two-Face using … well, you figure it out. (hat tip: The Ephemerist)

– So Time Magazine is doing gag cartoons now? That’s interesting.

– David Welsh examines Jiro Taniguchi’s The Quest for the Missing Girl.

– Paul Hornschmeier has an amusing new T-shirt available for puchase.

– DJ Coffman and Scott Kurtz go at it on the Internet, and everyone wins.

– Spot the Frog creator Mark Heath has a new Web site up, promoting his gag cartoons.

– I Live Here, the new book from Mia Kirshner, which features comics by Joe Sacco and Phoebe Gloeckner, has its own blog now.

– I rather like this feature over at The Washington Post, where readers get to vote on a four editorial cartoons, picking which one delivered the sharpest satire.

– Over at the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon interviews French Milk author Lucy Kinsley.

– I really enjoyed this highly amusing take on Galactus by Phil McAndrew

– Eddie Campbell uses the new Joker graphic novel as a jumping off point to talk about why comic book artists can’t seem to draw clothes properly:

Note that the Joker’s coat folds right over left in the universal manner of women’s coats instead of that of menswear, left over right. I apologise for picking on this artist, but I see the same problem all over the place. It can happen because the artist is looking in a mirror, but the overwhelming reason in the last twenty years is that comic book artists generally speaking, though there are a few fashion plates to give exception to the rule, are the worst dressed people in the world who mostly get around in t-shirts and draw people in leotards.

– John Jakala notes that his daughter’s day care has banned all superhero-related material from the premises, and wonders whether how harmful they may actually be to young children.

– David Bowie sketches!

– Here are some one-sentence comic synopses. (synopsises?)

It was good to be Gerard Scarfe (best known for his work on Pink Floyd The Wall and the Disney’s Hercules movie) this week as the political caricaturist was awarded a CBE (otherwise known as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for the 40 years he’s spent making fun of people:

Describing one of his most memorable images Scarfe said: “When I made my drawings for Private Eye they were shocking at the time, but by today’s standards they probably wouldn’t be.

“I did a drawing of Macmillan, the Prime Minister at the time, in the pose of Christine Keeler, the prostitute who brought down the Government, on the chair.

“And Private Eye put it on the cover of their annual and WH Smith wouldn’t (stock) it, they sent them all back because of that one drawing.”

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Lionsgate has released another poster for Frank Miller’s adaptation of Will Eisner’s The Spirit — this one focusing on Denny Colt himself. Or at least actor Gabriel Macht.

The Spirit opens on Christmas.

Every weekday from now until the release of the second volume, Fanta will be posting a Rocky strip by Martin Kellerman.

Extremely popular in its home country of Sweden, Rocky follows the hilarious adventures of its ne’er do well titular character, a twentysomething slacker whose bad luck with the ladies is rivaled only by his equally bad luck with money and success in general.

It’s a really funny strip, and one that deserves a wider American audience, so be sure and give it a chance, OK?

– 20 things Every Superhero Comic Collection Needs.

– Laura Hudson talks to Brian Azzarello about his upcoming Joker graphic novel.

– Seth is curating a series of films from the National Film Board of Canada. Drawn! has the details.

– The Mindless Ones look at the work of ero-guru artist Suehiro Maruo (note: some images are probably NSFW).

– Peter Sanderson looks at the new edition of Patrick Rosenkranz’s seminal history of underground comix, Rebel Visions.

– Fantasy.fr has an interview with Devilman creator and manga-ka Go Nagai.

– Judith Rosen checks out the Comics and Classics store in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

– Craig Fischer has a short interview with alt-cartoonist Ben Towle.

– Evie Nagy looks at all the political comics coming out this month.

– Ooooo, I’m a Johnny Storm!

– Noah Berlatsky did not like David Heatley’s new book. Like, at all.

If you’re a regular reader of Patrick McDonnell’s comic strip Mutts, you’ve probably noticed a number of characters/animals asking people to vote on something called “Proposition 2.” What exactly is Proposition 2? The Oregonian and the LA Times, among several other papers, offer an explanation:

Patrick McDonnell devotes his strip this week to messages he hopes will sway voters to vote “yes” on Proposition 2, which sets size standards for cages housing hens, veal calves and breeding pigs. The New Jersey artist is on the board of the Humane Society of the United States, the major backer of the proposition.

The eight-day series depicts chickens, calves and pigs going door to door. In the opening strip, a chicken asks a man for “some sun and a little piece of Earth.”

Over at The California Majority Report, McDonnell talks about why he’s stumping:

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– Tom Spurgeon interviews Bill Schelly, who’s new biography of Joe Kubert, Man of Rock, should be out in stores any day now.

– In more depressing newspaper news: Acclaimed editorial cartoonist Chip Bok is taking a buyout and leaving The Akron Beacon-Journal. The number of full-time, on-staff cartoonists at daily papers gets smaller and smaller. Of course, so does the number of editors, reporters, photographers …

– On the BBC, they’re talking about comics.

– The Daily Cross Hatch begins a multi-part interview with Art Spiegelman.

– Go! Comi are so excited about their new 07-GHOST series that they’ve set up a whole Web site for it.

– Cool things to bookmark: Elizabeth Conley, Elena Diaz, Pancha Diaz, Andrew Farago, Shaenon Garrity, Konstantin Pogorelov, Jason Thompson, and Leia Weathington have formed a new group blog, titled The Couscous Collective.

– Steven De Souza, who wrote the screenplay for the 1987 Spirit TV-movie (remember that?) offers his thoughts on the upcoming Frank Miller film.

In an interview with Melissa Block on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, Berkeley Breathed talked about ending his current Sunday-only strip:

Breathed says that he’s not usually sentimental about his characters. Still, he found himself “unrealistically emotional” about drawing the final strip, taking pains to make sure the penguin’s last pose was perfect.

Creating Opus for the last time, says Breathed, was like experiencing the passing of his kids’ childhood: “As I drew him finally at the very end, I knew that that was the end — [Opus'] childhood was gone. … It took me a few minutes. I had to pull myself back together again and face the fire.”

Breathed also talks about his upcoming children’s book, Pete & Pickles, which is about a lonely pig who befriends a circus elephant.

Goof Button presents some great Whitney Darrow Jr. cartoons from the book Sex and the Single Child by one Sam Levenson.

As Americans brace themselves for tonight’s presidential debate, it’s fitting that tomorrow marks the release of IDW Publishing’s heavily promoted biographies of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama.

In a similar vein, Wednesday also will see After 9/11: America’s War on Terror, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon’s follow-up to their celebrated adaptation of the 9/11 Report.

But if politics and war — and the politics of war — aren’t your bag, you’ll also find the first issue of the new Marvel Zombies miniseries, the third installment of Grady Klein’s The Lost Colony series, oversized editions of Hellboy and I Luv Halloween, and an Owly collection. Those are just for starters, though.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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There’s been a lot of speculation and pondering, but now it’s official. The Washington Post Writers Group has announced that Berkeley Breathed’s Sunday-only comic strip Opus will draw to a close on Nov. 2.

Readers with good long-term memories will recall that Breathed’s return to the comics pages after wrapping up Outland way back in 1995 was hailed as one of the last-chance hopes for a flailing newspaper industry. Though it performed reasonably well (Tom Spurgeon says it stayed in the 200-client range), it never duplicated the success of Breathed’s original strip, Bloom County.

Breathed is ending the strip by asking readers to determine the final fate of its titular character. The Daily Cartoonist has information on the contest as well as a pulled quote from the artist himself:

30 years of cartooning to end. I’m destroying the village to save it. Opus would inevitably become a ranting mouthpiece in the coming wicked days, and I respect the other parts of him too much to see that happen. The Michael Moore part of me would kill the part of him that was important to his fans.

The contest officially begins on Oct. 12.

• Invincible Iron Man writer Matt Fraction contrasts the love lives of Tony Stark and … Captain America? “… I would love to write a story about Tony Stark’s complicated love life. It’s an aspect of his character, that’s for sure. [It's like] in the movie, when he goes to bed with the angry reporter from Berkeley; you can imagine that same reporter with a similar line of questioning with Captain America, but you can’t imagine Captain America seducing her later. But with Tony, you can, so we should absolutely take advantage of it.” [The Washington Post]

• Cartoonist Bill Griffith discusses Zippy the Pinhead as a cottage industry, and the financial impact of his website: “Over the years, income from the Zippy website has gone from about a third of my annual income to about a half — in other words, the website has doubled my income. Most of my Web income is from sales of Zippy originals — the original artwork of the daily strips — as well as signed prints of strips and original art from my underground days.” [The Hartford Courant]

• Ignatz nominee MK Reed talks about the collaboration process: “It’s been very different from working on my own, and there was definitely a learning curve figuring out how Jonathan [Hill] was most likely to work out different parts. I’ve been working with him for over a year now, so we’ve kind of gotten things together by this point, and there’s a lot less arguing about how certain things should look or what needs to be corrected. Jonathan is insanely talented and I know he car handle pretty much anything I throw at him. Because he’s a more talented artist than I am, I can actually make up completely crazy detailed things like crowd scenes in a supermarket, and know they’ll look awesome.” [New York Daily News]

• Alex Irvine, author of The Vertigo Encyclopedia, considers the influence of the DC Comics imprint: “… I think it’s probably safe to say that the success of Vertigo had a lot to do with DC and Marvel being willing to take their regular universe books in more mature directions. Also, the Sandman phenomenon brought so much attention to comics in general that it created a huge new appetite for comics with a certain kind of attitude. This in turn meant that people who had worked primarily in indie and underground comics — David Lapham comes to mind, or Paul Pope — had a chance to put their work in front of new audiences.” [Omnivoracious]

– The new blog Comix Claptrap has a podcast interview with cartoonist Vanessa Davis.

– The blog Disorder & Its Opposite suggests 10 Ideal Books to Introduce Readers to Comics.

– Ger Apeldoorn shares some more Harvey Kurtzman strips.

– Chris Sims looks at Tom Spurgeon’s top 50 list and comes up with his own:

22. A Comic Where Somebody Punches Hitler

Because seriously, fuck that guy.

– Feel like a free Warren Craghead mini comic? Here you go.

– Seriously, what’s up with Hi & Lois anyway?

As we skid into October, I find myself having a bit of an off week, at least comics-wise. I just don’t see much that catches my eye.

Chris Mautner, on the other hand, has spied a veritable treasure trove, from a Baby Huey collection to Batman #680 a Complete Peanuts box set.

So, maybe it’s just me.

Wednesday also sees the Dark Tower: The Long Road Home hardcover, the debut of Steve Niles’ future-noir City of Dust, and a one-shot dedicated Bruce Campbell’s My Name Is Bruce movie.

To see what other titles Chris and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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