Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Interested in reading several decades of the best interviews, criticism and commentary about comics and graphic novels available in the English language, but don't want to store hundreds of magazines? Or are you missing some out-of-print, impossible-to-find back issues from your collection? For just $30, get a 1-year subscription to The Comics Journal Archive at TCJ.com. Previously only available to subscribers of the print magazine, this all-access pass lets you read TCJ back issues online in their entirety (including all the articles, columns, illustrations, sketchbooks, comics sections, "Blood & Thunder" letter columns… even the ads) to your heart's content for one…

Shipping now from our mail-order department: Prison Pit Book 5 by Johnny Ryan 124-page black & white 6.5" x 8.5" softcover • $12.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-700-0 See Previews / Order Now Prison Pit is Johnny (Angry Youth Comix) Ryan's ongoing taboo-busting sci-fi-prison-planet-body-mutation-splatterfest epic extravaganza, beloved by everyone from the legendary Gary Panter ("GLOREGEFULL!") to Booklist ("Not to be missed"). In the latest installment, our hero Cannibal Fuckface still isn't dead, so the Prison Boss plays what may be his last card: The Holocaust Brothers. But before CF battles the Ho-Bros he's got to destroy his arch-enemy, the seemingly indestructible Slitt, who happens to…

Shipping now from our mail-order department: Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko / 放浪息子) Vol. 6 by Shimura Takako 220-page black & white (with some color) 7" x 9.5" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-707-9 See Previews /Order Now SPECIAL OFFER: Add Wandering Son Vol. 7 (coming Summer 2014) or Vols. 7 & 8 (coming Winter 2014/2015) to your order for just $19.99 each, a savings of at least $5 off the cover price! Use the option menu on the product page to make your selection. Shimura Takako’s sensitive and charming series about two middle-schoolers wrestling with their gender identities continues. In Volume 6 of Wandering Son, our protagonists are riffing…

Currently warming up on deck, Batter Up, Charlie Brown! is almost ready to step into the batter's box. This spiffy little gift book is corked with over 50 classic Charles M. Schulz Peanuts strips on the subject of baseball, documenting Charlie Brown's anxieties, defeats, and eternal hopes in spite of the failings of himself and his teammates. Don't be a goat and miss this catch; get out your Neet's Foot Oil and pre-order now!

Tony Millionaire's modern all-ages masterpiece finally gets the comprehensive deluxe collection it deserves in Sock Monkey Treasury, coming in March. All of the gorgeous, hilarious, and heartbreaking adventures (to date) of Mr. Crow, Uncle Gabby, and their other animate friends, both toy and animal, are gathered in this pretty, pretty hardcover designed by Jacob Covey. Pre-order now; then take all your old Sock Monkey trades and storybooks, put them in the attic or hand them off to your nieces and nephews, and make a place of pride on your bookshelf for this definitive volume.

Spring is the time for new love, and like the first crocus poking through the snow, our advance copies of Young Romance 2: The Early Simon & Kirby Romance Comics, the sequel to the Eisner Award-nominated first volume, have arrived to portend the book's March release. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (whom everyone knows from their superpower-driven work) not only invented the romance comics genre, they mastered it right out of the gate, as shown in these compelling, dramatic, dynamically-illustrated tales from 1947-1949. And they've never looked better: all the sighs, swoons, kisses, heartbreak, and tears are lovingly restored in reconstructed…

Are you ready for our biggest (by weight and total page acreage if not by height and width) single-volume book ever? Are you ready to have your brain drop-kicked through the goal posts of comic art nirvana by hundreds and hundreds of amazing, rare, and amazingly rare images by a who's-who of comic artists? Are you ready for… The Blighted Eye? Well get ready, because über-collector extraordinaire Glenn Bray is about to share his legendary collection of original artwork with you in a massive, deluxe art book that belongs on the coffee table of everyone who calls themselves aficionados of comic…

Charlie Brown's tribulations on the pitcher's mound, in the batter's box, and in the dugout are the stuff of myth (Sisyphus, to be precise). For all fans of America's Pastime, we've collected three of Charles M. Schulz's classic Peanuts baseball storylines into one spiffy little gift book, Batter Up, Charlie Brown! In our downloadable excerpt, Chuck's role as team manager leads to frustration as his players vex him with their idiosyncratic habits. The book should be out about midway through Spring Training — pre-order now for delivery by opening day!

Our first Spring 2014 book is ahead of schedule?? Shut up! No, you shut up! Henry has plenty to say as he makes the jump from his silent newspaper strip created by Carl Anderson to his talky full-color comic book adventures by John Liney in Henry Speaks for Himself, on our schedule for February release. Smart, funny, well-crafted, classic kids' comics, carefully restored and presented in a reader-friendly softcover… 'nuff said! See more previews and pre-order right here.

  2013 was declared by many (especially us) as the Year of Gilbert Hernandez, and this spring the spotlight swings back onto his brother Jaime as we present The Love Bunglers, the collected edition of Jaime's universally-hosanna'd work from issues 3 and 4 of Love and Rockets: New Stories. Maggie's past, present, and future collide in devastating fashion and the emotional arc of 3 decades of storytelling comes to a climax and denouement that will leave you stunned and blubbering. (There's also apparently a lot of plaid.) And jeez, check out that striking cover design by Jacob Covey. Stay tuned for more about this absolute…