My socks have toes, my coat is thicker, and my avoid-the-tourist dance has become more pronounced, which can only mean one thing…Winter in NYC has officially arrived! I attempted to complain to a creator in Austin about how chilly it is today in our office only to be told it was 31 degrees there. 31 degrees?! In Texas?! Surely Austin hasn’t looked at a map lately and remembered it’s way down there and required to be a sunny place I can dream about when I am working with mittens on.

Luckily there’s a lot of love going around here keeping us all toasty and here’s a little something to warm you up with a smile this chilly season: A one-off comic by creator Ben Hatke starring Zita, everyone’s favorite spacegirl, who has an :01 book of her own coming out next year. This one makes me laugh quite hard.

Figured those of you out there who survived or are currently surviving the swine flu, tofu flu, pescetarian flu, or whatever they are calling it nowadays would particularly appreciate this one. You may remember Zita from the FLIGHT anthologies, but now she has her own full length story on the way. Here’s little page of character studies Ben did a while back. Click on it for a larger version.

I almost wish I had plumbing problems so I could quote the “ALL TROLLS IS AFEARED OF THE PLUNGAH!” line more often. Tried working it into normal conversations and I found it surprisingly difficult.

One more sneak peek for you guys because it is the holidays. This one features both a pin-up page from George O’Connor’s OLYMPIANS series, as well as our newest employee, T-Rex from DINOSAUR COMICS. Leave it up to George O’Connor to find a way to make Medusa completely sexy! And leave it up to Ryan North and our favorite internet comics shop TopatoCo to make a HUGE (and I mean HUGE) carnivorous monster so deliriously fun to hug. T-Rex sure complains a lot, but he’s not really a bad designer for a stuffed inanimate dinosaur.