Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web: — Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size): Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size): And elsewhere: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit: Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim: Maakies by Tony Millionaire: Mugwhump the Great by Roger Langridge (at Act-i-vate): Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

Online Commentary & Diversions returns after a rare link-free day yesterday: • Review: "I’ve read many gentle, nostalgic manga about school and growing up, and in many ways Wandering Son is not so different from the best of them… On another level, the very fact that it can be so quiet and casual and natural, and say all the things that it says, makes it a deeply impressive work. What Wandering Son says, above all, is that the kids are alright. Maybe they don’t believe it themselves right now. But they’ll make it through." – Shaenon Garrity, The Comics Journal…

Peggy Burns said it first and best: "Talk about a rare opportunity! It seems that Mr. Ware has graciously donated a piece of original artwork from the acclaimed Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, to benefit the Intercultural Montessori Language School in Oak Park, Illinois. And not only that, Chris will sign and personalize it to the lucky winning bidder. The ebay auction is going on for nine days and right now it is already at $809." Up to $1,525 now!

For Salon's "Saved by Pop Culture" series of personal essays, Salon editor Adele Melander-Dayton writes "How Ghost World Made Me Brave": "[Enid] might be miserable, sometimes, but she's still capable of seeing the world on her own terms, marveling at the strangeness of what she sees. Still, most of Enid's responses to being young and in pain are not 'healthy.' She doesn't throw herself with manic dedication into stage-managing the high school production of South Pacific, volunteer for wilderness trail maintenance, take up knitting, or see a shrink, all things I tried during my senior year in efforts to distract…

Here's your first look at the final cover art for Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman, which we just sent off to the printer for a September release! (We may need to adjust the color of the cloth binding in the image once we see printed samples, but it should be pretty close.) Earlier today our own Eric Reynolds tweeted: "A funnier book you will not read this year. I think the old coot would approve." Back cover too? Sure, why not:

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson 288-page black & white/color 10.5" x 8.75" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-441-2 See Previews / Order Now Today's America knows Mickey Mouse as a gentle do-gooder. But in his 1930s heyday, Mickey rose to fame as an epic hero — a bold, adventurous scrapper battling mobsters, kidnappers, and spies! And Mickey’s greatest feats of derring-do took place in his daily comic strip, crafted by one of history's greatest cartoonists — Floyd Gottfredson. For 25 years, Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse was…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Congress of the Animals by Jim Woodring 104-page black & white 7.25" x 9.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-437-5 See Previews / Order Now Readers of the “Frank” stories know that the Unifactor is in control of everything that happens to the characters that abide there, and that however extreme the experiences they undergo may be, in the end nothing really changes. That goes treble for Frank himself, who is kept in a state of total ineducability by the unseen forces of that haunted realm. And so the question arises: what would…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Celluloid by Dave McKean 282-page full-color 7" x 9.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-440-5 See Previews / Order Now A woman arrives at an apartment, but her partner can’t get away from work. She is disappointed and settles in for a night alone, but finds a film projector with a reel of film loaded. The film is scratched and blurry, but she can make out a couple making love. When the film burns out, a door is revealed which leads to a misty town square… and a series of fantastical sexual encounters….

Comics Alliance's Andy Khouri shares a bunch of gorgeous images from Dave McKean's Celluloid and offers some commentary and links related to the book: "On sale soon from Fantagraphics, Celluloid is the story of a woman who, during a moment of sexual frustration, discovers a film projector and reel of film that depicts a couple having sex. In a twist familiar to fans of McKean's work with Neil Gaiman, this woman finds herself traveling from our world into a dreamlike realm of sexual fantasies that's presented in the artist's trademarked style(s). As the story progresses, so too does the form…