Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

"Al Feldstein [was] the mastermind of EC's horror and science fiction comics…" – Time "All of these books are essential purchases for comics fans… These are the books that best show off how EC took genre stories seriously, striving to create comics that didn’t treat readers as naive or ignorant." – Noel Murray, Los Angeles Times "It's fitting that Fantagraphics — long-time champion of the rights and importance of comics creators, and re-issuer important historical comics — would arrange a publishing line this way. Even though it may not be surprising, it's still a commendable decision. It's also an important…

Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)by Johnny Craig 208-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-658-4 See More Previews / Order Now Surrounded by the ornate, retro, proto-splatter horror graphics of Jack Davis and Graham Ingels and the slick, futuristic sci-fi stylings of Wally Wood and Al Williamson, EC Comics superstar Johnny Craig stood out in the 1950s with his elegant, crisp, contemporary graphic style. And nowhere did this style work more beautifully than in the dozens of superb crime and horror comics he wrote and drew for EC, mostly for the two…

Child of Tomorrow and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) by Al Feldstein 216-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-659-1 See More Previews / Order Now Al Feldstein is best known as the main writer/editor of the EC comics line during the first half of the 1950s — and then the editor of Mad Magazine for the first three decades of its existence. But what many don’t know or remember is that Feldstein was also an accomplished and distinctive cartoonist, whose comics (which he both wrote and drew, a relative rarity in those days) adorned the pages…

Arrived last week, now signed by the author and shipping out from our mail-order department: In Case We Die by Danny Bland; illustrated with photos by Lance Mercer 248-page black & white 6" x 8.5" hardcover • $26.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-675-1 See Previews / Order Now EXCLUSIVE OFFER: If you order the book direct from Fantagraphics by Monday, August 26, 2013, on August 27 you'll receive a code for a FREE download of the audiobook via email from Local 638 Records, with chapters read by a mind-blowing all-star lineup of music and cultural luminaries. See the full lineup here. It wasn’t the pounding headache…

We're Friedman fans through and through: we've published several books by Drew, including work in collaboration with his brother Josh, and we're great admirers of their dad Bruce Jay. Now we finally bring the youngest sibling, Kipp, into the fold with Barracuda in the Attic, a memoir of growing up in a family of, and surrounded by, literati, artists, and pop-culture titans, not to mention other colorful characters. Anecdotes ahoy! We've baited our hook with the complete first chapter for you to read and download for free! The book lands on shelves next month and you can pre-order right here.

Charles Rodrigues took morbid humor to new highs (or lows) in the pages of the National Lampoon and elsewhere, and Ray and Joe: The Story of a Man and His Dead Friend collects his comics for the first time. In addition to the titular serial about post-mortem pals, the "Other Classic Comics" referred to in the subtitle star conjoined twins The Aesop Brothers (seen above); Sam DeGroot, the private eye in an iron lung; the mind-shatteringly ugly Deirdre Callahan; and other saps and miscreants. If you equate "outrageous" and "offensive" with "delightful," these comics will poke you right in your joy…

It's back-to-school time for Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san and they are both in awe of their new classmate. She's pretty, cool, daring, and OK, maybe a little unstable. You'll meet her and reunite with the rest of the gang in the first chapter of Shimura Takako's Wandering Son Vol. 5, which you can read for free and download! This new volume will be arriving in just a few weeks — if you haven't already pre-ordered or taken advantage of our discounted 3-volume subscription, do it now to be among the first to read it!

Hey, dummies! Some of you didn't listen the first time around, so Peter Bagge is back with the answers again in a new, expanded hardcover edition of 2009's sold-out, Eisner-nominated Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations. Pete brings his sharp wit and curmudgeonly perspective to such topics as "Stupid War," "Stupid Sex," "Stupid Arts," "Stupid Business," "Stupid Boondoggles," "Stupid Tragedy," "Stupid Politics," "Stupid Country," and "Stupid Biography," gathered mostly from the pages of Reason magazine. This new hardback includes everything in the previous softcover, plus 20 new pages of material! Look for the book to grace shelves next…

Editor Blake Bell has collected more rousing vintage stories from one of the all-time greats, who already set himself apart with this early Golden Age work: Bill Everett, creator of the Sub-Mariner and co-creator of Daredevil! In Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 2, you'll thrill to the exploits of Amazing Man, Skyrocket Steele and Hydroman; gasp at Everett's chilling horror shockers; and delight at his rare humor and romance work! All with Bell's insightful introductory essays. We've excerpted 3 full Skyrocket Steele stories, along with the Table of Contents and more, for you to read and download. The…

Aw yeah! We got our advance copies of Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree in the house and it looks dope! OK, I feel like a dope using old hip hop slang. But c'mon, check it! I should've put something next to it for scale because this book is BIG — 9" x 13" big.  Piskor chronicles the rise of hip hop with the obsessiveness of a crate-digger, and this first volume takes it back to the beginning on the streets of the Bronx. He's got cartooning chops to spare and he's packaged the book to resemble a late-1970s Marvel comic for…