Wilhelm Staehle’s Silhouette Masterpiece Theater (silhouettemasterpiecetheater.com) is the rare Web comic that deserves to be printed. Each panel in the popular weekly strip features a painstakingly detailed etching carved from a beautiful painting; the results are gorgeous and very funny. T

hese two postcard books feature some of Staehle’s finest work. Hugs and Misses is a terrific Valentine’s Day gift, full of lovelorn ladies, roguish gentlemen, renegade Cupids, and indecent proposals. Stars and Swipes offers a hilarious vision of classic Americana, with farcical frontiersmen, prattling presidents, and other all-American oddities.

WILHELM STAEHLE is the pseudonym of Will Staehle, a Seattle-based artist and designer. A former art director for HarperCollins, he has designed and illustrated numerous jackets for Michael Chabon, Michael Crichton, and a host of best-selling authors. Print magazine named him one of the Top 20 Under 30 New Visual Artists, and he exhibited a solo show of work at the Type Directors Club.