The latest and greatest issue – at least size-wise, for sure (and here by a considerable margin) – of Comics Blogger has arrived.  3/4 of this 108-page (!) issue is devoted Frank Santoro’s Destination Dealers Con (DDC) that was held here in Pittsburgh (well, technically, just outside of it) on Sunday, November 22, 2025.  Comics Blogger writer, editor & publisher, Thomas Campbell came up from North Carolina with the aim of documenting the show in a series of interviews with the exhibitors and shares with us here the fruits of his labor.  He also managed to find time to score an amazing selection of great comics (that he enumerates here) that lend credence to DDC’s premise of being an old school show that also features new school comics.

Here’s a list of the DDC interviewees*: Frank Santoro, Sammy Harkham, Kevin Huizenga, Tom Scioli, Jim Rugg, John Kelly, Nate McDonough, Audra Stang, Cameron Arthur, Brain Baynes, Chris Pitzer, Mike Seamans, Bill Boichel, and Bill Wyman (sic; actually it’s Bill Wehmann, of Doomed Planet Comics fame… it would have been interesting if it had been Bill Wyman, tho’…).  There’s plenty of personality and history (along with some myth-making) on hand in these interviews; much to glean. The interview with Sammy Harkham is a particular stand out.  One of the best interviews with him that we’ve come across; full of insights and empathy.  And then DDC organizer (and cover artist), Frank Santoro gets a chance to stretch out a bit in a fairly lengthy interview.

This issue also features a whoppin’ twenty pages of incisive reviews of recent comics followed by host of “Incidental Announcements” of upcoming publications and events that will keep readers in the know and bring them up to speed in the world of small press and self-published comics.

Plus “Monkeys,” a new, two-page comic by Sara Lautman!

BACK IN STOCK!

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* It is worth noting that these interviews were conducted in a room full of other conversations going on simultaneously in the background.  As a result, there are transcription errors and lacunae scattered through many – but not all – of the interviews. So, readers should be prepared to encounter the occasional “of” that should be a “for”(and vice versa) along with similar quasi-homophonic errors, as well as, here and there, a missing word that will have to be inferred by a best guess.  Also, the conversational tone of the on-the-fly, informal interviews collected here, which make them engaging reads, goes hand in hand with the hesitations, reversals and switched lanes of thought of conversations conducted amidst a crowd.  So, again, be prepared to encounter inadvertent transpositions and double-negatives that may momentarily cloud meaning, but will take only a moment of  contextual interpretation to clarify; “gems in the rough,” so to speak.

It took a minute, but Fielder #4, the latest from Kevin Huizenga, is now in stock at Copacetic!  This is a comics magazine with artistic and intellectual heft to it;  as well as physical – the cover and paper stocks are both sturdier and stronger than the norm, which is a good call, as this is a work that is likely to be subjected to repeated reads.

This issue is primarily focused on – and is particularly strong in –  observational cartooning.  No one turns the mind inside out and shows the mechanics of its inner workings in comics form better than Huizenga.  The ongoing chatter and endless micro-decisions that make up our day-to-day inner lives are depicted in situ as our hero, Glenn Ganges ponders the nature of reality, debates various routes and shortcuts, remembers choices made and the processes employed, all while he strolls, meanders, and otherwise directs his feet along the pathways and byways of the mythical midwestern pen & ink locale of Fielder, Michiana. 

In the climactic central sequence, Huizenga proves once again the unique expressive and communicative power of comics by pithily conveying how truly apt the thought cloud symbol is, revealing the parallels in structure and dynamics between the meanderings of thought in the mind and the meanderings and condensations of moisture in the atmosphere.  Something that is well worth pondering – and in so doing, creating thought clouds of one's own.

The issue concludes with an affectionate homage to the (somewhat esoteric) world of fast pitch softball and the continuing saga of... Bona!

Fielder #4 is a work worth savoring, and to return to again and again... and you can get started now, by visiting this preview we posted on the Copacetic Tumbler.