Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

This week's strips, normally posted on Fridays (we'll probably be late with them next week too): Start your day with a nutritious breakfast in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan… …and a White House g-g-g-ghost in this week's Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman.

Once again we're teaming up with Things from Another World to participate in their second annual Autograph Card/Auction event to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Fantagraphics artists will be contributing original sketches to the benefit auction, and each sketch is printed up as a free limited-edition autograph card that will be given away at our booth and at the TFAW booth. Our first participating artist to be announced is Peter Bagge — stay tuned for future announcements!

Prince Valiant Vol. 2: 1939-1940 by Hal Foster 112-page full-color 10.25" x 14" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-348-4 Ships in: June 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now For 35 years, Hal Foster created epic adventure and romantic fantasy in his legendary Sunday strip, Prince Valiant. Realistic in its visual execution and noble in its subject, depicting a time in which the fabled warriors of history and legends fought together for the greater good, it remains one of the great masterpieces of the medium. In this second volume, Prince Valiant helps his father reclaim his throne in the kingdom of Thule,…

From our pal (and Hotwire contributor) David Lasky comes the following announcement: This is an announcement for a benefit show I've been putting together — a fundraiser for ZAPP, Seattle's zine archive. Come see readings by Jim Woodring (Weathercraft), Megan Kelso (Artichoke Tales), Lucy Morehouse (Ong Ong), Greg Stump (Dwarf Attack), Zach Mandeville (Funwater Awesome), Max Clotfelter and Kelly Froh (Stewbrew), Raleigh Briggs and Julia Lipscomb. Live music by Helen Parson! [Ed. note: our own Jason T. Miles will also be there with his Profanity Hill zine distro!] Buy your tickets now for this June 15 event!

[We're pleased to present the following report and photos from Rebel Visions author Partrick Rosenkranz. – Ed.]

I heard last winter that Crumb 's Genesis artwork was coming to the Portland Art Museum but I didn't see anything in the local press about it until just recently. When I received a letter inviting me to attend the opening night reception on Thursday, June 10th I eagerly accepted, and not just for the food and open bar. I wanted to examine the pages up close — how much whiteout did he use (not much); the size of the originals (just a bit bigger than the printed pages); how the museum would display them (on partitions painted different colors organized by chapters with portraits of the main characters above); and what would staid Portland supporters of culture think about having one of the world's most sexually obsessed artists hanging in their museum (some claimed to be unaware of all that hanky panky in the Bible).

Of course I was totally blown away by his superb draftsmanship and mastery of human anatomy, animals, landscapes, and architecture. I bought and read the book when it came out, but that crisp black ink on white art boards looked so much more precise than their reproduction onto printed pages. Even the crosshatching and shadowing was revealed in all its convoluted entirety. On the other hand I was a little disappointed that he didn't give Genesis the down and dirty Crumb treatment we've come to expect and love, but I'm consoled by some of the other drawings he's released here and there showing what he might have done, like this Adam and Eve strip that appeared in the Crumb Handbook.

The exhibit is up until September 19th.

– Patrick Rosenkranz

[More photos after the jump – Ed.]

No-longer-daily clips & strips (we'll probably be posting these twice a week for the foreseeable future) — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • Presspop's limited-edition poster featuring the artwork from the slipcase of their Japanese edition of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware — it's an all-new strip! • Gary Panter has reconfigured and updated his website; details via his blog • Life Imitates Comics Dept: Andrei Molotiu discovers "The first abstract comics candy bar" (it does look remarkably like one of his own strips) • From Steven Weissman, two new Post-It Show previews,…

Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: "A new, superb Frank book called Weathercraft came out a few weeks ago, but I treasured Frank as a periodical, and I'd love to sit down with a few hundred issues of it when I'm an old man. … I think it's healthy for adolescent boys to have access to well-written, well-drawn comics about war, as long as the comics in question [like Blazing Combat] constantly pound home the message that war is futile, stupid and contemptible." – Douglas Wolk, "Ten Comics That Should Run Forever," TIME/Techland • Review: "If you are in search…

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…[O]ne of the collection’s great strengths [is that] it offers an extremely wide range of writing produced over eight years. … While there’s a great deal to be learned by reading any such collection, Schwartz’s editorial approach makes The Best American Comics Criticism far more entertaining than I would have thought a collection of criticism could be." – Ken Parille, Blog Flume • Review: "Giraffes [in My Hair]… is a personal lesson in history, love, redemption and all that other crap we look for in a good story — all that, and it's a…

This t-shirt design by Paul Hornschemeier made its debut on shirt.woot! yesterday and is still available as of right now. To celebrate its release, Paul has put all of the shirts in his own Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop on sale for a limited time. More info on Paul's News and Head Lice blog. Go! Buy!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Temperance by Cathy Malkasian 240-page two-color 8" x 10" hardcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-323-1 Add to Cart • More Info & Previews Do ideas of war and enemies hold a people together? Is a culture of conflict too seductive not to be irresistible? These are the questions Cathy Malkasian explores in her second graphic novel, Temperance. Malkasian creates, as she did in the critically acclaimed Percy Gloom, a fully realized, multi-layered world, inhabited by vividly realized characters. After a brutal injury in battle, Lester has no memory of his prior life. For…