Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Progress update from Jim at The Woodring Monitor: it's painted!

The Oslo Comics Expo has announced 3 Fantagraphics artists as special guests for the 2011 show taking place May 27-28: Dave Cooper, Tony Millionaire, and Dash Shaw. Also on hand: our own Kim Thompson, whose activities at the Expo (beyond smuggling beer for Tony) are TBD.

It's that time of year, and as with past years for your browsing and shopping reference we have created a handy page of 2010 Critics' Picks, listing books that are being selected by critics, fellow artists, readers and other comics professionals as the Best of 2010. (See also the 2008 and 2009 lists — these lists can also be found under "Award Winners" in our "Browse Shop" navigation tab.) This page will continue expanding as the year winds down and more lists appear. And of course we're noting the critics' selections here in our "Daily OCD" posts on Flog —…

We're proud to be a sponsor of the WXPFL (World Extreme Pencil Fighting League) Championships tonight at the Rendezvous JewelBox Theater in Seattle. It's extreme! It's fighting! With pencils!

Drew Friedman sent along this delightful illustration of Bob Dylan which ran in today's Wall Street Journal.

As you hopefully know, many of our books are available with exclusive signed bookplates as a free bonus when you order direct from us — there's a whole great big list here, and we're currently adding and replenishing plates for many titles, including (in no particular order): • 8 different titles by Jason • Buddy Does Seattle and Buddy Does Jersey by Peter Bagge• Temperance by Cathy Malkasian• Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso• The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw• Zippy: Ding Dong Daddy from Dingburg by Bill Griffith• The Search for Smilin' Ed and Deitch's…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "A snapshot of Jason's career from 1997-2001, the stories in What I Did are also loosely thematically collected, circling around guilt as their central emotion. […] There are many pleasures to be had from Jason's work, among them a wealth of clever cartoon metaphors and a impressively economic storytelling tricks. […] At his best, Jason pieces together representations of complex thoughts and emotions through simple visual building blocks." – David Michelitch, Comics Alliance • Review: "Somebody up there likes us. You need Destroy All Movies!!! in your life. It’s heartening to know that…

Ray Fenwick offers this image, available as a print-quality download, via his Flickr page. Merry oblivion, everyone!

Jim Woodring provides another glimpse of Congress of the Animals (Spring 2011) at The Woodring Monitor.

Today' Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Flashlight Worthy polls various online critics for The Best Graphic Novels of 2010: "Moto Hagio is to shojo manga what Will Eisner is to American comics, a seminal creator whose distinctive style and sensibility profoundly changed the medium. Though Hagio has been actively publishing stories since the late 1960s, very little of her work has been translated into English. A Drunken Dream, published by Fantagraphics, is an excellent corrective — a handsomely produced, meticulously edited collection of Hagio's short stories that span her career from 1970 to 2007." – Katherine Dacey (The Manga…