Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Prince Valiant Vol. 3: 1941-1942 by Hal Foster 112-page full-color 10.25" x 14" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-407-8 Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now With this volume, Foster reaches (by common critical consensus) the peak of his drawing and storytelling prowess – a peak at which he will remain for most of the run of this glorious strip. Almost the entirety of 1941’s strips feature a single ten-month epic entitled “Fights for the Singing Sword,” a globetrotting adventure fueled by Valiant’s obsessive search for his bride-to-be Aleta throughout Northern Africa, with stops in Jerusalem, the Arabic deserts,…

Via Tony Millionaire comes this news story of a drunken owl detained by the authorities in Germany — it's like some kind of real-life mashup of Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird and a Maakies strip.

Aw man, the title of the video gives away the punchline! It's Wednesday which means it's time for another new animated Yikes! cartoon from Steven Weissman and his talent-soaked pals. I like how Li'l Bloody is singing the Casiotone demo song. UPDATE: Ah, Steven has changed the title to a non-spoiler now!

Another page from Athos in America (coming late 2011) from Jason on his blog. This has text from the French translation. In English: "Hey! Don't forget your fucking slut magazines! What will you do if you don't know who's fucking Paris Hilton this week?!" Ouch, bad breakup! Jason also posted the thumbnail breakdowns for this and several surrounding pages.

Here's the package with the final 20 pages from Jim Woodring's forthcoming Congress of the Animals which we teased you about yesterday. Jim just came by to pick them up and dropped a bit of news on us: his next graphic novel after Congress of the Animals will be titled (drum roll)… Poochytown!

FYI: Our warehouse is doing inventory today and tomorrow. This shouldn't disrupt our normal shipping operations too much, although rush orders placed during this time will be delayed slightly, so please keep that in mind when placing an order. Thanks!

Filmmaker Gary VandenBergh is plowing through a revised round of fundraising via Kickstarter to complete Chicken Fat, his in-progress documentary on his late father-in-law Will Elder. As we've previously noted, Gary was a great help to us when we were putting together our book Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art, and we've been helping with the documentary by supplying digital images. Gary Groth vouches for VandenBergh as "a generally great guy." The additional funds will enable the filmmakers to travel to California for more interviews (Hugh Hefner, Joe Dante, Daniel Clowes, William Stout) and to complete the editing. Pledge…

If you enjoyed Paul Hornschemeier's "Life with Mr. Dangerous" serial in the pages of Mome, the collected edition is coming this spring from Villard and Paul is now offering Limited and Ultra Limited collectible editions (the latter includes a page of original art and a hand-sculpted character figurine — what!). Hit Paul's blog for all the details.

We made a startling discovery in our recently-relocated warehouse not too long ago: a cache of signed, limited-edition bookplates that somehow never got used! These things date back around 10 years or so. Good grief! Now that they're all present and accounted for, you can have 'em — get one FREE with purchase of their respective books while supplies last! We're running this just like our more recent bonus signed bookplates, which encompasses dozens of recent books — see the full selection and more info here. Caricature by Daniel Clowes Dicks and Deedees by Jaime Hernandez • Fear of Comics…

Popeye Vol. 5: "Wha's a Jeep?" by E.C. Segar 168-page black & white/color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-404-7 Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Remember last volume’s cliffhanger? The penultimate installment of this acclaimed reprinting of E.C. Segar’s masterpiece begins with “Popeye’s Ark: Part Two,” the tale of Popeye’s eventful reign over Spinachovia — a bleak island populated only by men and lacking all “femininity” — even as Olive Oyl controls the country of Olivia (not to mention the men of Spinachovia). Then in “War Clouds,” the two monarchies come tumbling down in a…