Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Now in stock in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Cinema Panopticum (Softcover Ed.) by Thomas Ott 104-page black & white 6.5" x 9.25" softcover • $16.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-485-6 See Previews / Order Now T. Ott plunges into the darkness with five graphic horror novelettes: "The Hotel," "The Champion," "The Experiment," "The Prophet," and the story which frames it all, "The Girl," each executed in his hallucinatory and hyper-detailed scratchboard style. The first story in the book introduces the other four: A little girl visits an amusement park. She looks fascinated, but finds everything too expensive. Finally,…

I gotta say, Drew Friedman can do no wrong in my book, but there's something about this portrait of blues legend Muddy Waters that is especially electrifying. The expression, the black and muted green pallette, the evocative landscape… well done, Drew. And you can own it in the form of a limited-edition archival print. [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "The Complete Crumb Comics Volume One: The Early Years of Bitter Struggle, a 1987 book now republished in an expanded edition, gathers together the earliest surviving examples of the great cartoonist’s juvenilia taking him from age 14 or 15 to 18 years old. The high school scribbler that we meet in these pages is a very callow Crumb indeed: Crumb before he had sex, Crumb before he dropped acid, Crumb before he was adopted as a hero of the counterculture, Crumb before he honed his satirical stance on modern life, Crumb before he…

The list of nominees for the 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was announced yesterday and we are pleased to report that our artists and publications received a total of 10 nominations in 8 categories: Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga: • Best Single Issue Freeway by Mark Kalesniko: • Best Graphic Album – New Prince Valiant Vol. 3: 1941-1942 and Vol. 4: 1943-1944 by Hal Foster, edited by Kim Thompson: • Best Archival Collection/Project – Strips Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley & Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island (also available in the Vols. 1-2 Box…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions — now up to date! • Review: "The Locas grow up. Collecting material from Love and Rockets‘ second volume (previously found in Ghost of Hoppers and The Education of Hopey Glass), the latest in Fantagraphics’ perfectly executed series of L&R digests [Esperanza] finds Maggie, Hopey, Izzy, and Ray D. coming to terms with no longer being the life of the party and the heart of their scene — at least not without exhausting effort…. But if there’s one thing Jaime’s Locas stories in general, and this volume in particular, tell us, it’s that sometimes you…

Oh, this is so delightful I can barely stand it! A young reader of 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago sent this illustrated thank-you note to Wilfred's partner & editor Sanlida Cheng, who shares it via the 21 Facebook page.

At HiLobrow, Significant Objects co-editor Joshua Glenn gives you your first glimpses of the interiors of the book, presenting three two-page spreads as designed by good ol' Jacob Covey and giving a few more details about the book along the way. The excitement is building!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Every one of Giandelli’s surfaces — walls, windows, bedspreads, books — seems alive. Her colors almost wriggle. The darkness she draws is so black it’s wet. She approaches long corridors like David Lynch does in his films: not something you walk down, but something you’re swallowed by. Interiorae is engulfing…. In restored and essential color, this collected edition gives the mood the necessary space to simmer and boil — just like poetry has the white of the page around it to slow you down and give it weight. Even before you notice the…

Hans Rickheit has launched a new blog — or rather, his associate Christian Berntsen has — which is your new HQ for all things Hans, including notification of updates to his ongoing webcomics Ectopiary, Cochlea & Eustachia, and, now being serialized online, his debut 2001 self-published graphic novel Chloe. And of course there will be updates pertaining to the imminent release of Hans's new collection Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion. Hans fans new and old, lock your computers to these coordinates.