• IDW announced over the weekend that it will be collecting the Sunday strips from the Cliff Sterrett classic Polly and Her Pals. The first volume, encapsulating 1925-27, will be in stores this coming August.

The strip began in 1912, but it was in the 20s that Sterrett's art really took off. Influenced by the modernist art movements, he started incorporating abstract and surrealists motifs into his Sunday pages, and many historians and critics have compared this period favorably to strips like Krazy Kat.

Kitchen Sink attempted to publish these strips back in the 90s before going under but they were only able to get two volumes out the door. Having managed to find those books in a back issue bin years ago and devoured them several times since then, let me say this is fabulous news and I'm really looking forward to seeing this release.

• IDW also posted about their intention to publish a four-issue mini-series about the Weekly World News' Bat Boy, which I imagine will be quite different from Polly and Her Pals.

• Writer Clifford Meth reports on his blog that Marvel will be publishing The Invincible Gene Colan in February 2010. The 128 page book will feature art work by the master as well as appreciations by folks like Stan Lee, Marv Wolfman and John Romita Sr.

• Apparently Erik Larsen (and his Savage Dragon) is featured in the latest edition of McSweeney's newspaper. That's kinda cool.

• Jim Woodring says he's finished Weathercraft, his first Frank story in several years and is already hard at work on a new one.

• Bluewater Productions has entered into an agreement with famed young adult author S.E. Hinton. The company will adapt several of Hinton's books into comics, with Taming of the Star Runner being the first. Hinton will also create a new title for Bluewater that will see print next summer.

• Here's the cover for Dash Shaw's upcoming BodyWorld book from Pantheon.

• Noah van Sciver is letting it be known the fifth issue of his comic, Blammo, is out.

• And, in case you haven't seen it yet, Kiel Phegley gets the dope on just about everything there is to know (at least for now) about the upcoming revamp of The Comics Journal.