Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Playing a little loosey goosey with our schedule but still bringing you the new Nicolas Mahler Angelman page and another classic Up All Night strip from Michael Kupperman's vaults: — Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size): Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size):

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Perhaps confusion is the probable reaction upon finding the complete works of a great cartoonist taking up such a small package, but the likely thought after finishing Is That All There Is? is absentmindedly wondering why there haven’t been more like Swarte, cartoonists who said their bit in no more than a few pages at a time. And of course, there have been. But… Swarte stands alone as the one who pulled off an entire fantastic career in something the length of a film screenplay or a longer novella. This book is a…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (8th Printing) by Daniel Clowes 144-page black & white 7.5" x 11" softcover • $19.95ISBN: 978-1-56097-116-0 See Previews / Order Now Like a Velvet Glove… collects all 10 chapters of Eightball's terrifying and fascinating journey into madness that makes Twin Peaks look like Teletubbies. As Clay Loudermilk attempts to unravel the mysteries behind a snuff film, he finds himself involved with an increasingly bizarre cast of characters, including a pair of sadistic cops who carve a strange symbol into the…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • History: If you'd like to know more about the late Dale Yarger's tenure as Fantagraphics Art Director, this tribute by another erstwhile Fanta staffer Robert Boyd is a great place to start • Review: "Bill Griffith, the one prominent figure of underground comix to reach the daily comic page mainstream, has delivered again with a phone book-sized volume both odd and pleasing…. Griffith, with his Zippy the Pinhead cartoon, which has been carried in dozens of daily newspapers since 1984, has had numerous reprint books, but none so exhaustive as Lost and Found. Day…

While I personally wish we were putting out Gabrielle Bell's forthcoming collection The Voyeurs, I also couldn't be happier that it's coming out from her fellow Mome contributor Tom Kaczynski's Uncivilized Books. Get a closer look at the announcement on Gabrielle's blog.

We like the way the Cottesloe Theatre (the smallest of the 3 stages in London's National Theatre) labels their rechargable batteries with the names of Love and Rockets, Hate, Angry Youth Comix and Ghost World characters. Instagram photo (via Twitter) by Mike Winship, who informs us "Sadly, Maggie & Luba have been lost to the great battery dump in the sky*… (*ground)."

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Michel Gagné… worked with Fantagraphics to produce this beautiful volume [Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics]…. Clearly, Simon and Kirby tried to bring as much excitement to primarily psychological and interpersonal goings on as to punching and flying, but the action can’t help but be more grounded and, therefore, limited. It’s impressive that any of the stories manage to sweep one up, and a few do, pulling the reader in rather than leaving him/her assessing art and writing from an appreciative distance. The variety on display here is impressive…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 1: The Early Years of Bitter Struggle (Expanded Softcover Ed.) by Robert Crumb 208-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-558-7 See Previews / Order Now This long out-of-print first volume of the multiple Harvey and Eisner award- winning Complete Crumb Comics series has been one of our most demanded reprints. Now, this landmark volume of Robert Crumb’s formative years not only returns, but also boasts a major discovery not included in prior editions: a never-before-published, 60 page “home-made”…