Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

We brought back a couple of doorstops from San Diego — Eisner Awards for Pogo Vol. 2: Bona Fide Balderdash by Walt Kelly, named Best Archival Collection/Project — Strips, and "Moon 69" by Michael Kupperman from Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 (and the Vol. 2 collection), named Best Short Story! You can catch Kupperman at the SPX-plosion in Baltimore and as a special guest at SPX in Bethesda. Maybe you’ll get a copy with those special Eisner stickers on them! (We'll be forwarding the statuettes to Michael and Pogo editor Carolyn Kelly as soon as we get bored with spinning the little globes around.) Hurrah and congratulations!

“In an era overloaded with angry voices and such involved statistical analysis it makes my head ache, we need Willard Mullin. Rather than shout and scowl, Willard drew playful, appealing images that made you smile. The iconic Brooklyn Bum. The huge but childlike New York Giant. Willard not only was a great artist — he understood that sports are supposed to be fun and joyful. And he made them more so.” — Jim Caple, ESPN.com Senior Writer “If you want to learn everything worth knowing about baseball history from the 1930s through the ’60s, you’ve got a couple of options. You can…

Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972 by Willard Mullin; edited by Hal Bock and Michael Powers 240-page black & white/color 9.25" x 12.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-639-3 Ships next week! Pre-Order Now In Fantagraphics' ceaseless effort to rediscover every world-class cartoonist in the history of the medium, we turn your attention to a neglected part of the art form — sports cartooning — and to its greatest practitioner — Willard Mullin. The years 1930-1970 were the Golden Age of both American sports and American comic strips, when giants strode their respective fields — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Hank…

Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has the scoop on three new publishing projects we're undertaking in stories which have rolled out during this first half of Comic-Con International: First up, details about Sock Monkey Treasury: A"Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey" Collection, collecting the material released in comic book, trade, and storybook form by Dark Horse in a big fancy hardcover, and confirmation that it will be followed by an all-new original Sock Monkey story, Sock Monkey in the Deep, Deep Woods. Second, the announcement of an as-yet-untitled collection of comics work by Eleanor Davis, compiling her stories from Mome and comics posted online along…

2013 Lambda Literary Award WinnerFeaturing an introduction by Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas) “… A definitive collection of the greatest LGBT comics created over the last four decades.” — The Advocate “… A useful, combative and frequently moving chronicle of a culture in perpetual transition; to read it is to watch as an insular demimonde transforms itself, in painful fits and joyful starts, and steps out into a wider monde.” — The New York Times Book Review “… A striking example of how entwined the history and literature of the gay rights movement have been since the early days of…

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics (Softcover Ed.)by various artists; edited by Justin Hall 328-page black & white/color 7.5" x 10" softcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-718-5 Ships in: July 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Queer cartooning encompasses some of the best and most interesting comics of the last four decades, with creators tackling complex issues of identity and a changing society with intelligence, humor, and imagination. This book celebrates this vibrant artistic underground by gathering together a collection of excellent stories that can be enjoyed by all. No Straight Lines showcases major names such as Alison Bechdel…

   For those of us sitting out Comic-Con this year (boo hoo), it means missing out on some special deals on the convention showroom floor. Well, us stay-at-homes should get to have a little fun too! Now until Comic-Con ends on Sunday, July 21, an assortment of our already-discounted gift sets of sequential or related books are marked down EVEN MORE, at least an extra 10% off and up to 1/3 off! And after the sale, some of these sets won't be offered anymore, so this may be your LAST CHANCE to get them at a discount! Your choices (while supplies…

The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) edited by Marc Sobel & Kristy Valenti 368-page black & white/color 7.5" x 9.25" jacketed softcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-579-2 See More Previews / Order Now The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) contains three incredibly in-depth and candid interviews with creators Gilbert, Jaime and Mario Hernandez: one conducted by writer Neil Gaiman (Coraline); one conducted some six years into the comic’s run by longtime L&R publisher Gary Groth; and one conducted by the book’s author, spanning Gilbert’s, Jaime’s and Mario’s careers, and looking to the future of the ongoing…

"…Jason is quite effective in modulating emotion from story to story, going from gags to violence to tragedy, sometimes all in the same story. Jason is in total control of all aspects of his storytelling, and, even after a decade straight of ambitious publishing, it seems as if he’s just getting warmed up." – Rob Clough, The Comics Journal "Any new work from Norwegian cartoonist Jason is worthy of a comics fan’s full attention…" – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club "…[F]antastic stuff for sad bastards and the people who love them." – David Berry, National Post Lost Catby Jason; translated by…

"It’s an impressively thick tribute to L&R, featuring three lengthy interviews with the cartoonists, a complete list of characters in both Jaime’s Locas series and Gilbert’s Palomar saga, a timeline of the stories, an issue checklist and even a selection of highlights from the letter columns. In short, it’s the perfect scrapbook to some of the best comics ever made." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6 The Love and Rockets Companion: 30 Years (and Counting) edited by Marc Sobel & Kristy Valenti 368-page black & white/color 7.5" x 9.25" jacketed softcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-579-2 Available Now! http://www.fantagraphics.com/lrcompanion