Fantagraphics Blog Eric Reynolds

Flog readers, here's the official word on our big Comicon news…   FANTAGRAPHICS TO PUBLISH ERNIE BUSHMILLER'S NANCY As announced at last week's Comic-Con International, Fantagraphics Books – the leading publisher of classic strip reprints including The Complete Peanuts, Popeye, Krazy & Ignatz, Prince Valiant, Captain Easy, Dennis the Menace, Zippy the Pinhead and others – has acquired the rights from United Media to publish Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller, beginning in Spring 2010. According to Co-Publisher Gary Groth, who inked the deal, Fantagraphics has contracted to publish the first 24 years of Nancy dailies, beginning in 1938 (when Nancy took…

Gary Groth just emailed me some copy regarding the forthcoming 300th issue of The Comics Journal and I simply want to run it verbatim, because it sounds pretty damn great:  We paired established, influential creators with rising stars and asked them to talk about the changes the comics medium has been going through during the eventful 33 years of the Journal's existence. Among the intergenerational dialogues to be overheard: alt wiz Kevin Huizenga and reigning Maus king Art Spiegelman; the most convention-shattering cartoonist/publishers of their respective hemispheres Kramers Ergot's Sammy Harkham and L'Association's Jean-Christophe Menu; celebrated Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons and award-winning…

 "COMICS SAVANTS" EXHIBITION OPENING AUGUST 8 — FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKSTORE & GALLERY CELEBRATES SEATTLE ALTERNATIVE CARTOONISTS July 29, 2009 – SEATTLE, WA. Since relocating to Seattle from Southern California 20 years ago, Fantagraphics Books has remained committed to nurturing and promoting the diverse practitioners of alternative comics in the Northwest. The country's most successful purveyor of challenging comics routinely employs local cartoonists and publishes the work of regional artists which has contributed to Seattle's international reputation as the unrivaled center of alternative comics. To celebrate this association, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery presents "Comics Savants: A Survey of Seattle Alternative Cartoonists" opening…

I've seen a few bloggers link to my comicon post yesterday and say it's a huge red flag for the future of indie comics at the con. Re-reading my post, it probably sounds more dire than it could have. We actually had a pretty successful show. Not our best ever, but a solid one. I think last year was our most successful ever, and you simply can't repeat that every year. I had been steeling myself in advance for a major downturn this year given the economy and it simply didn't happen. We saw a minor dip, and although the economy likely played a…

Every year when much of the staff heads down to San Diego, there are always a few poor souls who have to stay behind and (theoretically) hold down the fort, answer phones, get books out the door to printers, etc. But how much work really gets done? This year we installed hidden cameras and decided to monitor the emails of those who stuck around. It's not pretty: If you see a sudden surge in sloppily produced books from Fanta in about three months, you'll know it was because the entire art dept (including Adam Grano, above) worked drunk during Comicon…

Between Mike Baehr's excellent tweeting all weekend, and Mike and Jason Miles' most excellent collection of photos from the weekend (which I'm sure you'll be seeing as the week unfolds), I don't feel compelled to write a proper con "report" but I do have a few observations. Although we had a good show and I personally had a pretty good time, this was the first year I felt the weight of Hollywood's cult of celebrity encroaching not only on the exhibit hall but also the sales of at least the independent publisher area we inhabited. The pre-show hype of advance…