Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

The Small Press Expo announced officially today that Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez will be special guests at this year's show on September 15-16 in Bethesda, Maryland! This will be the Hernandez brothers' ONLY East Coast comics-fest appearance on their Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary itinerary, and, as the announcement points out: "In addition to celebrating the anniversary of their works, this will mark the first time in the 21st century that previously announced guests Chris Ware and Dan Clowes will be at an event with Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez." I don't think we need to tell you, in September…

It gives us great pleasure to reveal that Celluloid by Dave McKean and Congress of the Animals by Jim Woodring are two of the five finalists for the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes in the Graphic Novels category. (It's Jim's second nomination in a row, following last year's for Weathercraft, for those of you keeping score.) Congratulations Dave and Jim! This is a high honor for these two bold, visionary and coincidentally wordless books. See the complete list of finalists here. (Additional congrats to Mome contributor Joseph Lambert for his nomination for his debut collection I Will Bite You!)…

Cinema Panopticum (Softcover Ed.) by Thomas Ott 104-page black & white 6.5" x 9.25" softcover • $16.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-485-6 Ships in: March 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-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, behind the rollercoaster she eyeballs a small booth with…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Barks's output has been reprinted often but either piecemeal in flimsy monthly comics or in high-priced collector's editions. [Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes], covering the years 1948-49, is the first in a planned 30-volume Barks library that will reprint his entire duck oeuvre in durable, affordable hardcovers…. Above all, Barks's Duckburg rings true because of his cynical world view. He rarely plastered on the sentimentality that dogs other Disney creations…. Although there are moral values in Barks's stories, he was never didactic and never wrote down to his readers. In…

The DHL driver dropped off advance copies of a few of our April books today: Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental (new hardcover ed.) by Drew Friedman & Josh Alan Friedman… …Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez… …and Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion by Hans Rickheit! Three great books, three long titles. Look for more & better photos and our video flip-through previews in the coming weeks (and about 5 other previews before that — gettin' hectic around here!).

We've got our new Nicolas Mahler Angelman page for you! And in lieu of a new Up All Night strip Michael Kupperman has provided a rarity from his vaults. And a note on a change here: I've greatly enjoyed bringing you weekly roundups of comics by our artists from elsewhere around the web, but putting them together here on Flog has proven to be labor-intensive, so from now on I'll be posting those strips on our Tumblr blog when appropriate, because that's easier. Of course I strongly encourage you to go through previous posts, link through to the sources of…

Thanks to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse series co-editor David Gerstein for passing along these links I missed the first time 'round: • Review: "Fantagraphics' second volume of Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse daily strip delves into the imagination of the cartoonist… Floyd Gottfredson is one of the most truly talented individuals that is finally getting his day in the sun. His contributions to the character and development of Mickey Mouse and newspaper storytelling are nothing short of revolutionary. Mickey Mouse Volume 2: Trapped on Treasure Island stands as second and essential tome in one of the most richly visionary and creative…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "[Swarte's] comic pages are playful symphonies, composed to the smallest detail. Though his style is static in nature, he is a master of panel layouts, organising the contents of each panel in such a way that movement erupts by the way he’s leading the eye across the page…. For those wanting to familiarize themselves with the comics of Joost Swarte, Is That All There Is? is a nice baptism into his specific world vision full of retro architecture and absurd happenings." – Bart Croonenborghs, Broken Frontier • Review: "It is not very often…

(final cover may vary) Last week Joe Daly let us know that Dungeon Quest Book 3 (coming this summer), already planned to be double the length of the previous two volumes of the series, has turned out to be even longer and more epic, fattening up from 240 to 288 pages! (This also means we're raising the price by a buck.) If you're not already on board this Angoulême Jury Prize-winning and Ignatz Award-nominated series, which is jam-packed with outrageous action, hilarious stoner humor, nutty characters and eye-popping settings, for goodness sake order our money-saving bundle of Books 1 &…