Larry Marder has an advance copy of Book 3 in his hands!.

Should be in stores in just a few more weeks, finally continuing the story after 16 years.

Big Beanworld week, as BEANWORLD BOOK 2: A GIFT COMES should be reaching comic book stores, with the balance of the original 21 issues reprinted, some for the first time ever, and starting the countdown to REMEMBER HERE WHEN YOU ARE THERE.

And for those going to the San Diego Comic Con, here’s a selection of some stuff you can see and buy at Larry Marder’s table.

Oh, and I think MYSPACE DARK HORSE PRESENTS v3 will have the first print publication of this story, but I’m not 100% certain.

Leigh Boerner has a review of the recent BEANWORLD reprints in a recent issue of the journal SCIENCE. Read Larry Marder’s account of how it came about here and find a link to the review over here.

As mentioned a few days back, one of Dark Horse’s offerings for Free Comic Book Day 2009 was a sampler with four stories. One side is some Star Wars thing, and if you flip it over, you get some Beans, with Beanworld characters all over the cover (along with Usagi Yojimbo, Indiana Jones and Emily the Strange). A few more Beans decorate the table of contents, and then there’s a 2-page primer on the Beanworld, introducing the main characters and quickly running through the basics of a Chow Raid.

Nothing much new for the old hands at the Beanworld concept, but hopefully it’ll be enough to spur on the curiosity of a few of the people who see it and haven’t heard of the book before.

Well, this one is a bit of a surprise. Larry Marder announces that Beanworld will be a part of Dark Horse’s 2009 Free Comic Book Day giveaway comic, available March 2 in participating stores. There are beans all over the cover, along with Usagi Yojimbo and others. Hopefully I’ll have a post about it up this weekend.

I have to admit, I had more than a few doubts when Marder announced Dark Horse as the publishing home of Beanworld, but they seem to have really gotten behind it with efforts like this and the MySpace comic, and WAHOOLAZUMA looks spectacular, and really seems to be getting out there. By the way, December 15, 2009, mark your calendars.

A cute passing reference to Beanworld appeared recently in James Kochalka’s American Elf daily sketchbook comic strip.

Click here for the full strip, and thanks as always to expert Bean-spotter Shield Bonnichsen for the heads-up.

Okay, for real this time, Larry Marder’s BEANWORLD BOOK 1: WAHOOLAZUMA! is out today from Dark Horse. Check out your favourite comic shop or order from your preferred on-line vendor. And out in a few months is A GIFT COMES!, finishing up the original 21 issue run, including several never reprinted stories, prior to a whole new book on track for later this year.

[Oops, posted too quickly, apparently running a week or two late, the book should be out by the end of the month]

Larry Marder’s BEANWORLD BOOK 1: WAHOOLAZUMA! is out today from Dark Horse. Check out your favourite comic shop or order from your preferred on-line vendor. And out in a few months is A GIFT COMES!, finishing up the original 21 issue run, including several never reprinted stories.

THE BEANWORLD HOLIDAY SPECIAL should be available in better comic book stores today. And while you’re there, let them know if you’re interested in the upcoming collection WAHOOLAZUMA!, scheduled for February 11, 2009.

And now I has it and it is good! Check out the official Hoo-Hoo-HAs & a Hoka-Hoka-HEY! letter column type thing for the 21st century for more.

This page of Beanish and his then-unnamed muse Dreamishness, along with a bio of Marder and offer for a free comic (offer presumably no longer valid, certainly the address is way out of date) appeared in THE INDEPENDENT COMIC BOOK SAMPLER #2 [1988], published during the Ninja Turtles fueled black and white boom of the era, as you can see from the cover below, and including several dozen other cartoonists of the era.

Thanks, as usual, to Shield Bonnichsen for providing the scan and the publishing info for this hard-to-find book.