Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Oh boy! Join Mickey and his pals (and foes) for his most colorful adventures from the pen of the great Floyd Gottfredson in Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Color Sundays Vol. 2: Robin Hood Rides Again and the slipcased set of Volumes 1-2! Packed with carefully restored strips in crisp remastered color and overflowing with extra features, including Gottfredson's later non-Mickey strips for Disney (starring the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and more!) along with the usual historical essays and rare artwork, it's a peerless package of Mouse-y mirth and mischief! These items are on their way for a late October-early November release…

"A detail-rich account of an unfathomably awesome childhood in the epicenter of 1960s – 1970s New York culture, and further evidence of the magnificence of the Friedman genes." – Daniel Clowes "I always wanted to know what it would be like to grow up with a famous dad. It sounds as awesome as i feared. I really enjoyed reading Kipp Friedman's stories and hating him for having dinner at Groucho Marx's house." – Joel Stein, Time magazine columnist "Barracuda in the Attic is a poignant and crackling good memoir… and this is coming from someone who doesn't like memoirs." —Ted…

Maria M. Book 1 is the sensational story of a woman who runs from a shady past in Latin America, only to fall in with American gangsters and a new world of drugs, violence and sleaze. It is also a retelling of the classic Love and Rockets story "Poison River," adapted as a b-movie starring the protagonist's own daughter, Fritz (and presented in comics format, in two parts, with Book 2 due in 2015). It is also part of a larger narrative tapestry which has been unfolding for years and continues in the upcoming Love and Rockets: New Stories #6. This…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Barracuda in the Attic by Kipp Friedman; cover illustration by Drew Friedman 208-page black & white 6" x 8.5" hardcover • $26.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-650-8 See More Previews / Order Now Whether shooting pool with the mobster Crazy Joey Gallo, attending a dinner party hosted by an aged but remarkably spry Groucho Marx, or simply playing doctor with a classmate in the former estate of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kipp Friedman led a colorful childhood. The youngest son of celebrated writer and satirist Bruce Jay Friedman, Kipp looks back fondly on the amusing and sometimes confusing…

“Wandering Son… is a lovely, tactile-y rich object, but it’s also a sweet book in terms of content…. The characters are pleasant to spend time with, the art is emotive and expressive (embarrassment comes up a lot), and there is a gentleness to the whole project that is welcome.” – Hillary Brown, Paste “[Wandering Son] is a measured, sensible and sensitive series…. Part of Wandering Son’s hook is a distanced view at discomfort with one’s own body. The manga is written to evoke the feeling of being ill at ease in one’s own skin, such that everyone who has went through…

Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko / 放浪息子) Vol. 5 by Shimura Takako 228-page black & white (with some color) 7" x 9.5" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-647-8 See More Previews / Order Now In this volume of the acclaimed series about transgendered kids exploring their unfolding identities, we’ve reached a big event; the junior high school entrance ceremony. The boys wear black uniforms with stand-up collars based on mid-19th century European military uniforms and the girls wear navy blazers, tan skirts, and red ribbon neckties. Enter our heroes; Nitori-kun is forced to wear a boy’s uniform while Takatsuki-san has to wear a girl's!…

Marvel Comics would probably prefer that their origins go unremembered, but comics historians Blake Bell and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo are here to rain on that parade with their new book The Secret History of Marvel Comics, which traces Marvel's roots in the sordid, exploitative pulp publishing empire of Martin Goodman. You'll also be treated to a bounty of rare, never-before-reprinted artwork by such comics legends as Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, Alex Schomburg, Bill Everett, Al Jaffee, and Dan DeCarlo, plus top-tier pulp artists, including Norman Saunders, John Walter Scott, Hans Wesso, and L.F. Bjorklund. This essential exposé on early comics history…

This blurb just in:  "A beautiful compilation of the finest work of a uniquely talented artist." – Bob Costas See for yourself!  (Correction: Oops, "yessss" is Marv Albert, not Costas. Sorry Bob.) 

Peter Bagge pays tribute to "the World's Greatest Comics Publishers" (ahem, us) on the cover of last week's Seattle Weekly, where you can also find a "Fantagraphics 101" style profile in advance to our big hoo-hah at Bumbershoot. We're a little tardy posting this (our pals at D&Q even scooped us) because, well, that last panel has the resounding ring of truth. 

We're pleased to present this 18-page preview of Sketching Guantanamo: Court Sketches of the Military Tribunals, 2006-2013 by Janet Hamlin. Hamlin's drawings are the only complete visual journalistic record of the military tribunal hearings of suspected terrorists at GTMO, and this historic book is the first place they're gathered all together. In this excerpt you'll be able to browse the Table of Contents; read Hamlin's background on her assignment, getting to the base, and her process; and see her sketches of the GTMO compound and her first tribunals. This fascinating volume is due to hit shelves in October and can be…