Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Interview: Dan Wagstaff, a.k.a. The Casual Optimist, has a Q&A with Jason: "I have ideas in my brain, just lying there, that I sometimes think about. This can last years. Then suddenly I can get ideas for dialogues. I write this down. It’s maybe four or five pages. I can start working on those, and at the same time think about what’s going to happen next. I don’t write a full script. It’s based on improvisation. I write pieces of dialogue. Or sometimes I sketch out the pages first, the images, and write the…

Jim Woodring has recently relaunched his official website with a completely new design and architecture. You can browse galleries of his artwork and comics; download and share various media; purchase artwork, prints, toys, signed-and-drawn-in books (such as below), and other merch in the revamped Jimland Novelties store; and more. So much to explore! So much to enjoy! So much to buy! And that new layout is so clean and inviting. 'At's-a good website! (Update: I just noticed there's a semi-secret adventure starring Pupshaw & Pushpaw as you explore the site — pay attention!) (Updated again to credit Plexipixel with the…

Bryan Connolly, co-author of Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, co-directed (with Tommy Swenson) this super-fun music video for "Down with Netflix" by the Charles Edward Cheese Band. Support your local video store!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Graphic novelist Richard Sala cures the zombie apocalypse malaise with a new book that takes the basic set-up of those tales and turns it into an artsy, comical, downright weird exercise in terror that brings together several slices of the horror genre… into something modern and surprising. Equally, Sala’s art style helps the story ride high — his dark cartoons manage to suck you into the narrative while still highlighting the meta quality of the story. This is a story about horror as much as it is a horror story, examining the themes…

Tony Millionaire drew these portraits of Occupy Wall Street protester Manissa Maharawal and ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer for Frank Rich's column at New York magazine. Tony's 500 Portraits is coming soon. (The numbers here are bullshit, since we cut a few dozen images from the book and there have probably been more in the intervening time, but it made for a great headline, didn't it?) [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots of new Things to See every day.]

You can add one more posthumous laurel to Hal Foster's already-impressive pile of achievements: New York Times Best Selling Author. Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 shows up at #8 on this week's Hardcover Graphic Books top 10 list. It comes as no surprise to us: we've been selling out multiple printings of the series as fans old and new have been snapping the books up. What else would you expect from one of the greatest comics of the last (or any) century? UPDATE: Well shut my mouth, it was #1 last week!

I'm not sure where webcomic creator Mark Stokes dug up this close-up image of Charles M. Schulz art for a 1951 Peanuts strip (as collected in this lovely hardcover volume) but it's pretty great to see how Schulz tried out some alternate poses for Patty and Charlie Brown in the pencil stage. (Via The Daily Cartoonist.) [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots of new Things to See every day.]

Now that this title has been released to comic book shops, we are pleased to also make it available to our mail-order customers: Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga 32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" comic book, with jacket • $7.95Part of the Ignatz Series See Previews / Order Now Can you make an exciting comic out of insomnia? Kevin Huizenga rises to the challenge as he depicts his alter ego Glenn Ganges wrestling with sleeplessness, trying to trick it by reading a particularly abstruse book, obsessively breaking his past, present and future life down to ever more hallucinatory, complex grids, and…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship for our mail-order customers: Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin AveryForeword by Nick ToschesCover illustration by Jeff Wong 512-page 6" x 9" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-475-7 See Previews / Order Now What happened to Paul Nelson? In the '60s, he pioneered rock & roll criticism with a first-person style of writing that would later be popularized by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer as "New Journalism." As co-founding editor of The Little Sandy Review and managing editor of Sing Out!, he'd already…

David B. "My Story – My Stories" Exhibit Print – Signed 16" x 20.5" two-color silkscreen print • $20.00 Order Now! The signed, limited-edition 2-color silkscreen print for David B.'s August, 2008 exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery features imagery from his short story "The Armed Garden," collected in 2011 in The Armed Garden and Other Stories. Signed by the artist, in an edition of 75. We are pleased to now offer this item to our mail-order customers! Printed in black and metallic bronze on white heavy bond paper. Designed by Adam Grano; printed by Art Garcia in Seattle, WA….