Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Peter Bagge collectors! People who like fun! Get yerself some merch from Peter's band Can You Imagine? in the Can You Imagine? merch shop! T-shirts! Buttons! Mugs! 'N' more!

Mark your calendars and buy your advance tickets now: The Book Table presents an evening with Charles Burns & Chris Ware on Tuesday, November 2nd at 7:30 PM at the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. Click here for all the details and to pre-order tickets. (Hat tip to Sandy Bilus.)

We all knew it, but now it's official! Congratulations to Jim Woodring for being awarded this year's Stranger Genius Award in Literature. Announcing the award on The Stranger's blog Slog, Paul Constant says "Woodring is the first Stranger Genius of Literature who has been published by local publisher Fantagraphics Books (they've been ardent promoters of Woodring's work from the very beginning of his career). Quite simply, that's insane: They're the best comics publisher in the world. They publish geniuses on a regular basis, and many would argue that Woodring is the greatest cartooning genius on the Fantagraphics roster. We agree…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Set to Sea by Drew Weing 144-page black & white 5.5" x 6.25" hardcover • $16.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-368-2 Add to Cart • More Info & Previews The central character is a big lug and an aspiring poet who runs up tabs at the local bars by day and haunts the docks by night, writing paeans to the seafaring life. When he gets shanghaied aboard a clipper bound for Hong Kong, he finds the sailor’s life a bit rougher than his romantic nautical fantasies. He helps rebuff a pirate assault, survives a gunshot…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: The Artist Himself: A Rand Holmes Retrospective by Patrick Rosenkranz 328-page full-color 8" x 10" softcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-170-1 Add to Cart • More Info & Previews Rand Holmes was Canada’s most revolutionary artist in his heyday, the star cartoonist at the Georgia Straight newspaper in British Columbia during the 1970s. His hippie hero, Harold Hedd, became the spokesman of the emerging counterculture as he avoided work, explored free love, and flouted drug laws. The Adventures of Harold Hedd spread across the globe in the wave of underground comix and newspapers…

Two items which are due to arrive in this week's shipment to comic shops were not published by us but are of interest, one of which we are distributing and the other of which comes from one of the "big two": Chloeby Hans Rickheit 136-page black & white 5.5" x 8.5" softcover • $10.95 Contrary to what is being reported, this is not a new printing of Hans Rickheit's Xeric-winning 2002 graphic novella which preceded The Squirrel Machine: this is the original self-published edition, which we are distributing to the Direct Market for the first time (via Adult Previews, due…

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Unlike current shojo manga, Hagio's sentiment is more restrained, recounting a calmer account of destructive sibling rivalry, a quieter portrayal of a romance destined for failure, a subtle unraveling of a young woman in mourning. Her craftsmanship reflects wisdom and exercises the creative strength necessary to unravel and tie together the range of narrative threads that make up the tragedies and slow recoveries of life. … A Drunken Dream collects stories by Hagio from her beginning, middle, and current career. The consistency of her work is evidence of why she's finally being translated into…

We only just found out about this and it started at 2:30 PT, but you can still stream the program in its entirety: Jaime Hernandez & Todd Hignite appear on KCRW's Politics of Culture to discuss The Art of Jaime Hernandez with host Eric J. Lawrence today.

We have a programming change for the presentation Gary Groth is giving at the GRAPHIC festival in Sydney this weekend. The following is a mix of Gary's words and mine: Gary was asked to speak about the history of The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics (as it says in the event description on the GRAPHIC website) but decided that that was too aggrandizing even for us, so he decided to weave those two subjects into a broader history of alternative and independent comics from the '70s to present; don't worry, though, he promises that it'll still be megalomaniacal enough to posit…

My picture-taking fell off on the last day of Comic-Con as things got even more hectic with last-minute wheeling & dealing, including our Sunday-only 20%-off-everything sale. Here are a few things I managed to capture: Peter Bagge chats with Scott McCloud (while our own Eric Reynolds and D&Q 's Jessica Campbell watch from a distance)… …and with Jeffrey Brown, visiting from the neighboring Top Shelf booth (while our own Jason T. Miles confers with Sparkplug's Dylan Williams in the background). Pete keeps his Inkpot trophy handy while Stephen DeStefano diligently signs and sketches. Carol Tyler's rad handmade Nancy brooch. Above,…