Holidays

Fall is in the air, bringing a crisp step and the crunch of leaves under foot, and the inevitable—perhaps inescapable—presence of Pumpkin Spice everything all around us! Yes, it's time for 31 Days of Halloween, The Beat's annual tribute to our MOST FAVORITEST TIME OF YEAR. And let's get things going with probably the most obvious link possible...but I have ever written about painter/cartoonist/musician Menton3 on The Beat before so here goes! Based in Chicago, Menton3—aka Menton J Matthews III—is a painter of atmospheric and disturbing images. While you can find a lot of his work at his website, he's probably best known these days as a partner in 44Flood, a publishing company that has teamed with IDW to put out art books and comics. Along with fellow artists Kasra Ghanbari, Ben Templesmith and Nick Idell, 44Flood has put out Tome, an artbook which was mostly Kickstarted, Templesmith's The Squidder, the comic Monocyte, which you see on this page, and Libretto, an anthology of eerieness centering on vampirism. A new volume of Tome is on its way or already here (I couldn't find a lot of solid news about the bunch.)

Yes, Summer officially started last Friday.  You're probably haven't even done your grocery shopping for the Fourth of July cookout!  Or started packing for...

Everyone has milestone events which they remember (or wish to forget).  Some are small memories, like a first kiss, while others can be momentous...

Here for the moment, on the Google homepage you'll find a lovely animation by Eleanor Davis celebrating the first day of Spring. Of course it's barely scraping 40°F as I type this. Hurry, Spring, hurry!

Above art by Jill Bauman, a World Fantasy Award nominated artist who specializes in horror and fantasy. Bauman has a whole set of cat holiday paintings in the link. Confession: back in the day I had a bunch of these prints hanging up in my office at Vertigo. Bauman is an accomplished artist but I find these cats a bit more disturbing than endearing! I'm not sure if that was the intent or not, but one thing is certain: YOU CAN'T LOOK AWAY.

Let's start out this late St. Patricks Day roundup with Shaenon Garrity on two webcomics that adapt Irish Mythology:

Because nothing says love like Armstrong. Hope you're having day with your loved one, and if you don't have a Valentine...remember, love yourself and...

fear

BAD FOR YOU is a new book by Scott Cunningham and Kevin Pyle that illustrates extremes of, well, overprotectiveness, the nanny state and people...

To Celebrate the season, our own Steve Morris is running a series called Love Sucks at his own Comics Vanguard site. If you'[re going...

This is a teaser for an upcoming book called Weird Love, edited by Craig Yoe about which you will learn more today, I believe,

Five Days of Valentines supplemental: Jeffrey Brown's two Star Wars cartoon books—Darth Vader and Son, and Vader's Little Princess—have been huge sellers so to no...