This is great stuff, from a review of Eddie Campbell's Lovely Horrible Stuff, at Publishers Weekly.

"Campbell is one graphic novelist who has the potential—both creative and intellectual—to reach beyond the typical audience and into the wider world of essayists traditionally inhabited by the likes of Bill Bryson or Christopher Hitchens. Coupled with personable artwork that often seems like it’s torn straight out of a sketchbook, Campbell’s erudition comes off as comforting and familiar, with a conversational presentation of heady topics that brings it all down to earth."

In the current issue of the New York Times Book Review, Neil Gaiman gives Eddie Campbell big love for Alec and From Hell.

NYTBR: "What’s the best comic book you’ve ever read? Graphic novel?"

GAIMAN: "Ow. That’s hard. I think I love Eddie Campbell’s ALEC: The Years Have Pants best of everything, but it’s a hard call."

Um, yeah... that's pretty cool.

• And this just in! Jennifer Hayden Art on a T-Shirt!

FROM JENNIFER HERSELF:
Today Comic Strip Tees introduced a t-shirt with my comic on it! This site just launched and offers a comic by a different artist each day, available on t-shirts you can buy for the next seven days... So you've only got a week to order mine! Oh my God! Available in classic black-on-white.

Last weekend I got out of the house to go to the Museum of Cartoon and Comic Arts Festival in Manhattan, where I got a chance to speak on a panel about memoir, but otherwise I've been pretty much under a rock. I'm on page 220 of my graphic novel, with 117 more to go, and I'm posting my monthly webcomic S'CRAPBOOK at Trip City, and my daily diary comic RUSHES (new this year) on its own blog. Today RUSHES was spotlighted in the "Go, Look" column at Comics Reporter.

And just this month, Underwire got this nice review.

Feel free to drop by my blog if you want to follow my adventures. And thank the Goddess for my friends!

All the best,

Jennifer

Jeffrey Brown talks about Darth Vader and Son, over at io9.

Chronicle has a pretty fifty page on their website just for this awesome book!

Stumptown Comics Fest and MoCCA are both this weekend, and Top Shelf will be representing at BOTH! Come see us if you can. Jeff Lemire and Nate Powell will be guests of the show at Stumtptown. I'm stoked to have these cats gracing us with their presence right here in my hometown. (My 7-year old son Carter — a budding capitalist — will also be present here in Portland, selling action figures from his collection at our booth as well. Good stuff, too!)

If you can't make it to Portland or New York, it so happens that we're having a bitchin' digital comics sale across multiple platforms too… so don't gimme no excuses, come get your Top Shelf on!

Oh, and David Chelsea [one of comics' foremost formalists and an outright excellent cartoonist] will be at Stumptown as well. Here is a link to his Stumptown Preview 2012.

If you want to check out just how smart and cool his comics are, buy his Top Shelf book, 24 x 2!

Hi kids! Bartender Brett here... it's been pretty crazy around these parts. A $15 part on one of my toilets sprang a leak on Monday, and when i got home from a day of working on the Veeps movie score with our sound designer, Drew, and my collaborators Mike and Wayne, i found my basement flooded, and upwards of $30,000 of damage done to my house. Whoo hoo! That said, besides the (fairly major) disruption, no one was hurt, and none of my vast libraries of books and movies, or computer or widescreen HD tv or anything else was damaged. Only stuff that needs replaced are structural: floors, walls, ceilings, paint etc.

• Moving right along. As our Director of Digital Programming Chris Ross readies himself for his nuptials this weekend, let me show off a terrific collaboration between him, Jeff Lemire and myself. I'm kind of a nut-job as an art director, and when the time seems appropriate, i like to see some funky designs. Case in point, something as minor as the indicia page (where all the fine-print credits and copyright information goes) for Jeff's forthcoming graphic novel, Underwater Welder. I wasn't happy with a straight-up version, given Chris Ross' otherwise fancy book design, so i asked Jeff to whip up some illustrations of bubbles and water ripples.

After a little back & forth with Mr. Ross this is the result. Sweet. (And wait until y'all read the book! It's outstanding.)

• Meanwhile, former Top Shelf intern and force of nature, Hazel Newlevant is rocking her (metaphorical) balls off at SVA this year. Check THIS shit out!...

Announcing the release of INK Spring 2012 issue
Founded and edited by cartooning students at the School of Visual Arts
Bringing SVA's comics community to the forefront of digital comics!

New York, NY– April 12, 2012 – INK, an entirely student-run digital comics magazine, is proud to present you with our Spring 2012 issue, now available online and on all iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch). The magazine has been designed for the new iPad’s high resolution Retina display, allowing the content within INK to come to life on the screen. Published by the cartooning students at the School of Visual Arts, INK has established itself as a place for emerging artists to showcase their work and connect with the SVA comics community at large.

The magazine has placed itself at the forefront of the comics industry by embracing digital publishing and new technologies. The current issue features a selection of work by SVA students and alumni, along with interviews with Christopher Hastings (Dr. McNinja), Drew Friedman (Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental), and an article focusing on WFMU's Lowest Common Denominator magazine.

Follow us on Twitter: @SVA_INK, or on Facebook: http://facebook.com/svaink

INK from INK on Vimeo.