Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Above: cover of Amazing Heroes #117, published by Fantagraphics Books, May 1987 (artwork by Tom Yeates, I think; scan from Comic Collectors Live). Below: MJ strip by Paul Hornschemeier from the Wall Street Journal, 2008, as collected in the forthcoming book All and Sundry. Yes, Jackson's cultural influence extends all the way to Fantagraphics.

I just stumbled across this on Flickr today. Devlin Thompson says "I scanned this for possible inclusion in the book, but it didn't make it. You should buy the book anyway." Click for larger.

A quiet day for Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "There's always a touch of melancholy in everything that Jason writes, but there's a bleakness in some of these stories [in Low Moon] that I haven't seen since Hey, Wait…. All told, this is still a book every Jason fan should read…" – Rob Clough • Plug: "Buy [Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1]! It's amazingly good." – Jackson Publick (co-creator, The Venture Bros.) • News: Robot 6 reports that Michael Kupperman will provide the cover for the 2009 Best American Comics volume edited by Charles Burns • Sincerest form…

Ellen Forney makes a triumphant return to the pages of our hometown newsweekly The Stranger in the new annual "Queer Issue" with the full-page strip "How to Have a Mind-Blowing, Decadent, All-Day Threesome!" They've made it available as a downloadable PDF file, enabling you to print out one copy to laminate for future reference and one to insert with her other "how-to" strips in your copy of I Love Led Zeppelin.

Mome contributor Ollie Schrauwen posts intriguing images on his blog. (Hat tip: Spurge)

From Jim Flora archivist & doyen Irwin Chusid comes the following announcement: Jim Flora Art has released a limited-edition fine art print of a hyperactive 1960s painting entitled THE BIG BANK ROBBERY. This three-tiered tableau depicts characteristic Flora mayhem: inscrutable monsters with misshapen features, Lego architecture, bug-eyed buildings, gumdrop color fills, and — yes — a bank robbery. http://tinyurl.com/flora-bankrobbery Only thirty (30) prints of Big Bank Robbery were produced for this edition, and the first five (5) are available at a launch price of $165 each. Prices will increase for subsequent prints as the edition depletes. Produced by Flora archivist…

From Journalista: Now online for subscribers — and available soon in better bookstore and comics shop shelves nationwide — The Comics Journal #298, chock full of all the comicky goodness you need to get through the summer. Check it out: Diego Assis presents a full-length interview with breakout comic-book stars Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, who discuss their self-publishing apprenticeship in Brazil, their entry into the North American comics scene, their work on such titles as Casanova and The Umbrella Academy, and exactly who does what on their various projects. Shaennon Garrity sits down for a chat with Perry Bible…

A double batch of Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Bdzoom reports that l'Association des Critiques et journalistes de Bande Dessinée (ACBD) has placed Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw on their summer reading shortlist (there's Tardi on there too) • Review: "Nell Brinkley was an icon for several generations of women… The art [in The Brinkley Girls] has been beautifully restored, a task that must have been pure torture given the density of Brinkley's drawings and that sophisticated color work. My hat's off to whoever did that fabulous job." – Allan Holtz, Stripper's Guide • Review: "At one point…

Our head honchos and "the best known good cop/bad cop team in comics today" Gary Groth & Kim Thompson appeared on Bob Andelman's "Mr. Media" interview show on Blog Talk Radio Monday night to talk about all things Fantagraphics. Needless to say, if you have any interest in the history and current state of comics and the comics industry, it’s a must-listen. Listen in streaming audio in the embedded player below or, if you don't roll that way, click the link above.

Don't make me say "tunes & 'toons"! Tonight at 8 PM at Union Pool in Brooklyn, Gabrielle Bell, Michael Kupperman & R. Sikoryak appear alongside 3 bands for a night of interdisciplinary fun: