Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery — due out this November from Fantagraphic Books — is an absolutely riveting and (I think) important read. …I'm only halfway through the book at the moment, but I can tell you that Avery has done an absolutely smashing job of research and that there's a lot to chew on here about all sorts of issues… I'll have more to say about it later in the year, when it's actually in print, but rest assured that this would be…

Concerning the progress of Dash's Kickstarter campaign for his film The Ruined Cast.

Thomas Rehhoff passes along another fun piece from his collection of original Hernandez Bros. art: this 1994 New Yorker illustration by Jaime illustrating the good ol' Kirk vs. Picard debate, presumably for the magazine's review of Star Trek: Generations — whatta stinker that movie was.

Publishers Weekly's Ada Price actually found some SFW pages from Dave McKean's new erotic graphic novel Celluloid to share on the PW website! The sample shows just one of the many diverse styles McKean employs throughout the book.

Here's your first look at the final cover design for Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954, the first comprehensive collection of the great graphic storyteller's work from the era. Editor Greg Sadowski is wrapping up his meticulous restoration of the pages and we're looking at a July/August release for this 416-page full-color tome. (Everything's coming up Toth today: at TCJ.com, Dan Nadel posted his interview with Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell about their mammoth upcoming Toth monograph Genius, Isolated.)

• I didn't know Tony Millionaire has been doing portraits for The Chiseler, like this one of 1930s character actor Allen Jenkins • "Dead Mickey" and "Walking the Dog," plus reviews of Michael Caine movies by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog • Lilli Carré covers the Chicago Reader, plus a new animated drawing • Laura Park has been busy drawing spot illos for an 826 Chicago project (like Joey & Johnny Ramone buying $20 worth of Brussels sprouts, above) and rescuing cats with fellow cartoonist Julia Wertz — it's all documented on her Flickr page • Renee French…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Exuberantly expressive…, Santiago imbues his biography of famed Puerto Rican baseballer Roberto Clemente [21] with the furious energy of a Clemente triple. […] Santiago evokes the world Clemente lived in, from the dusty Puerto Rican streets where he played baseball with bottle caps and tree branches to his years as a perennial All-Star. The art is scratchy and abstract when it’s dealing with home and homesickness, and then hardens into the stuff of superhero comics whenever Clemente steps to the plate." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club • Review: "…The Complete Peanuts: 1979-1980……

It's safe to say that Fantagraphics, and indeed the entire comics landscape, would not exist as we know it today without the efforts of comics scholar and archivist Bill Blackbeard. I never had the honor of interacting with the man, but his importance and influence reverberates throughout everything we do here, and not just the projects we had the good fortune to work on directly with him, such as the Krazy & Ignatz series he spearheaded. We are saddened by the loss and will strive to be worthy of his legacy. He is memorialized at The Comics Journal by R.C….

Details are slightly sketchy at this time, but there appears to be a new "Stinckers" (those vinyl stickers that Steven Weissman & Mats?! do) design or series of designs by Daniel Clowes for Meltdown Comics in L.A. Get down there and buy some — they're sure to go fast!

A great vintage photo of Peter Bagge & an unknown co-conspirator perpetrating some street art, shared by Kaz on Pete's Facebook wall. Pete, you scofflaw!