It’s time for a jam-packed weekend dispatch, filled with web comic recommendations, feel-good and thought-provoking articles, and a few ways to fill your day with comics.

First though, we need to say congratulations to Tom Devlin and “Peg” at Drawn & Quarterly. They just gave birth to baby Dagwood Devlin, or Woody for short. With a name like that, someone should be writing a comic strip about him.

Now, I’ve been meaning to beef up on the webcomics recommendations for the Daily Cross Hatch, but I find that I’m constantly swimming around in so much great stuff that it’s hard to choose. I finally narrowed it down to a few that made me happy this week:

• Bellen by Brian/Box Brown features Ben and Ellen, a couple of adorable, but batty, nose-chomping philosophers. Our graphic today is from Bellen!
• Jason Little’s further adventures of Bee (of Shutterbug Follies) continue in Motel Art Improvement Services. There’s just so much there. You might as well not leave the house for the weekend.
• Dan Goldman’s neon-splashed Kelly is a twisted and hilarious story about a seemingly mild-manner young man. It was so racy it was rejected by Nerve.com.

After going through this week’s comic news, I realized comics are pissing off tons of people, including…

• World leaders: Iran accuses Hollywood of ‘psychological warfare.’
• Ethnic groups: South Korean publisher pulls comic book blaming Jews for 9/11
• Pro-censorship conservatives: …controversial books returned to shelves. Refering to Craig Thompson’s Blankets and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. See an older feature all about the wonderful Marshall library. (Too legit. Can’t touch this. Da dun na na…)
• Comic critics: Happiness is an Unhappy Hipster. This two-year old article was recently brought up again in a rebuttal by Matthias Wivel of Metabunker.
• Newspaper editors: Killed Cartoons. Not really news, but this compilation was reviewed by Hour magazine.

The dispatch would also like to direct you to a couple of neat exhibits:

• “Seeing Things: The Art of Jim Woodring”
  @ Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle, WA, from March 24 - May 15, 2007
• “R. Crumb’s Underground”
  @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA, from March 17- July 8 2007

Happy St. Patty’s day everyone!

-Elizabeth Chou