Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Blake Bell revealed the full title of The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1 and mentioned a bit about what you can expect in the volume on his blog last night. The title will be… Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1 Blake is cranking away on the book in order to have it debut at Comic-Con in San Diego this summer. He promises to reveal the title to Vol. 2 later today, so stay tuned!

On Tuesday, February 22, 2011, at 7 PM, Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ and the ASU Art Museum present underground comic artist Joyce Farmer and her book Special Exits, which R. Crumb calls “one of the best long-narrative comics I’ve ever read, right up there with Gen of Hiroshima and Maus.” Local artist and ASU intermedia instructor Jon Haddock, co-founder of the Comic Book Creators Support Group, leads a discussion and Q&A with the author. More info here.

A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio has been nominated for Best New One-Shot Manga in the 2011 About.com Manga Readers' Choice Awards! Voting continues through midnight ET, Tuesday, March 8, 2011. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Mome Vol. 21 – Winter 2011 by various artists; edited by Eric Reynolds 112-page full-color 7" x 9" softcover • $14.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-394-1 Previews & Ordering Info Our acclaimed art-comics anthology forges into its 6th year with another diverse and wonderful volume full of returning favorites and a few surprises. On the cover, a detail from Sara Edward-Corbett's haunting, Gorey-esque tale of nocturnally animate objects. Also in this issue: Steven "Ribs" Weissman's freewheeling, sometimes-satirical, sometimes-deeply-weird webcomic "Barack Hussein Obama" (starring the President of the United States and his associates) makes its print…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Working in frenetic black and white, Eisner-award-winning Italian cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti illustrates screenwriter Claudio Piersanti’s Stigmata with powerful art that drives a timeless fable of existential dreams. […] Thanks to Piersanti’s workable script, Stigmata comes across as naturalistic and modernist in an old-school Hemingway style. […] It’s an old story, but the heart that Mattotti and Piersanti bring to their comic keeps the work interesting.Mattotti’s character designs are as incredibly idiosyncratic as they are intense — their bodies are hulking masses, with exaggerated proportions and faces that don’t feel drawn so much as…

Last September, Blake Bell, author of Fire & Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics, appeared in Toronto for a book launch event with Everett's daughter Wendy to discuss Bill and his career. The full audio of the talk is now available as a 70MB MP3 download courtesy of Jamie Coville, and Blake offers commentary about the event on his blog.

If you read Destroy All Movies!!! and thought "these guys are hilarious — I wish they'd make a movie of their own," then we have good news for you: Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly, editors of the book, have written a horror-comedy screenplay titled (funnily enough) Destroy about a would-be vampire hunter in a world with no vampires and it's headed into production with director Michael Stephenson (Best Worst Movie) on board. The Hollywood Reporter reports, Cinematical talks to Zack and Michael about the film, and Wired adds their commentary.

The University of Toronto Arts Council presents Joe Sacco as part of the UofT Arts Council 2011 Speakers Series on Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 8pm at Innis Town Hall. Joe Sacco, the second speaker in the UofT Arts Council 2011 Speakers Series, is one of the world's premier comic book artists and is widely recognized as a central figure in bringing graphic novels and sequential art into the cultural mainstream. Sacco's work is frequently featured on university syllabi, in programs ranging from English to Political Science to Peace and Conflict Studies. A Guggenheim fellow, Sacco's work has been profiled…

This fascinating-looking exhibit which originated at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco last summer is now traveling to Toronto. From the announcement: Graphic Details is a groundbreaking touring exhibition, providing the first in-depth look at a unique and prolific niche of graphic storytelling — Jewish women's autobiographical comics. While the influential role of Jews in cartooning has long been acknowledged, the role of Jewish women in shaping the medium is largely unexplored. This exhibition of original drawings, full comic books and graphic novels, presents the powerful work of eighteen Canadian and international artists whose intimate, confessional work has influenced…

Steven Brower, author of From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin , is the subject of a retrospective exhibit of his acclaimed design work at The Art Institute of California — Inland Empire in San Bernardino, March 17 through April 30, 2011. There will be an opening reception and lecture March 17. Via Steven's blog .