If you've never had the pleasure of attending a comic book convention, you should strongly consider it in the very near future, if for no other reason than to have the opportunity to catch a rare glimpse of your favorite cartoonist at work sketching something spontaneously that you'll never see published anywhere.

I've had the unique pleasure, in my former life on the convention circuit doing a little bit of everything over the years for my pal Chris Staros of Top Shelf Productions (never a henchman or minion, however), of watching the many artists in the Top Shelf stable sketch for fans and, on rare occasion, for me. Being a man of too many words who'd prefer to say more with less, I am forever envious of talented people who can capture the pictures in their heads on paper.

Hopefully, you'll savor that same kind of experience at least once a week in this space under the moniker The Comics Page, a place to find buried art treasures on the Web and elsewhere from cartoonists whose names you already know, along with a few whose names you should...

This week's stop is my pal Craig Thompson's awesome Doot Doot Garden Blog. There, you'll see your first glimpses of his next beautiful graphic novel, Habibi, pages from his sketchbook and his love for the indy rockers of Menomena. Below is a promotional poster for a concert date with Menomena and Tracker, the group who produced one of the few soundtracks ever created for a graphic novel, in this case Craig's wonderful Blankets.

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