Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:  Castle Waiting Vol. 2: Definitive Edition by Linda Medley 472-page black & white 5.75" x 8.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-633-1 See Previews / Order Now BARGAIN COMBO: Castle Waiting Vols. 1-2 Definitive Gift Set Price: $59.94 $47.95 With its long-awaited second volume, Linda Medley's witty and sublimely drawn fantasy eases into a relaxed comedy of manners as Lady Jain settles into her new life in Castle Waiting. Unexpected visitors result in the discovery and exploration of a secret passageway, not to mention an epic bowling tournament. A quest for ladies' underpants, the…

The End by Anders Nilsen 80-page two-color (with 16pp. full color) 7.25" x 10.5" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-635-5 Ships in: May 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Assembled from work done in Anders Nilsen’s sketchbooks over the course of the year following the death of his fiancée in 2005, The End is a collection of short strips about loss, paralysis, waiting, and transformation. It is a concept album in different styles, a meditation on paying attention, an abstracted autobiography and a travelogue, reflecting the progress of his struggle to reconcile the great upheaval of a death, and finding a new life on the…

Barnaby Vol. 1 by Crockett Johnson Edited by Eric Reynolds & Philip Nel; Introduction by Chris Ware; art direction by Daniel Clowes 320-page black & white (with some color) 11" x 6.75" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-522-8 The beloved comic strip is finally given the Fantagraphics treatment. Barnaby’s deft balance of fantasy, political commentary, sophisticated wit, and elegantly spare images expanded our sense of what comic strips can do. Due to arrive in about 4-6 weeks. Click the thumbnails for larger versions; get more info, see more previews and pre-order your copy here: http://www.fantagraphics.com/barnaby1

Barnaby Vol. 1 by Crockett Johnson Edited by Eric Reynolds & Philip Nel; Introduction by Chris Ware; art direction by Daniel Clowes 320-page black & white (with some color) 11" x 6.75" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-522-8 Ships in: May 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Before authoring one of the most beloved children’s book series of all time — Harold and the Purple Crayon — cartoonist Crockett Johnson created the comic strip Barnaby for over ten years (1942 to 1952). Its subtle ironies and playful allusions never won a broad following, but the adventures of 5-year-old Barnaby Baxter and his fairy godfather Jackeen…

Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust (translated by Kim Thompson) 464-page two-color 6.75" x 9" softcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-557-0 A long, dense, sensitive, and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece recalling the summer of 1984, when the artist, a rebellious, punked-out 17-year-old, hitchhiked her way across Italy. 2011 Angoulême prize winner. Due to arrive in about 4-6 weeks. Click the thumbnails for larger versions; get more info, see more previews and pre-order your copy here: http://www.fantagraphics.com/todayisthelastday

It's the end of the fucking week — and what a fucking week it's been, especially in Chuck Forsman's home state of Massachusetts. We swear it's only coincidence that on our schedule for today is this sneak peek at the final cover art and an excerpt of an upcoming graphic novel about a pair of lawless young people walking a violent path together. Our collection of Chuck's acclaimed minicomic The End of the Fucking World (a.k.a. the more bookstore-friendly TEOTFW) is due out in July. In its serialized form, TEOTFW was named to multiple Best of 2012 lists and earned praise like this: "The…

Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust (translated by Kim Thompson) 464-page two-color 6.75" x 9" softcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-557-0 Ships in: May 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Back in 1984, a rebellious, 17-year-old, punked-out Ulli Lust set out for a wild hitchhiking trip across Italy, from Naples through Verona and Rome and ending up in Sicily. Twenty-five years later, this talented Austrian cartoonist has looked back at that tumultuous summer and delivered a long, dense, sensitive, and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece. Miraculously combining a perfect memory for both emotional and physical detail…

At the printer now for release in July, The Daniel Clowes Reader: A Critical Edition of Ghost World and Other Stories, with Essays, Interviews, and Annotations shines a whole new light on one of the greatest, most beloved graphic novels of all time along with several other classic Eightball stories and Clowes rarities. Editor Ken Parille has brought together a stable of great minds, including Clowes himself, for a plethora of fascinating and highly readable essays and other material, with topics like "Enid's Bookshelf," "Enid's Record Player," "The Rise of the Zine," "Against Groovy," and "Urban Romanticism, Mad Magazine, and the…

Good Dog by Graham Chaffee 96-page black & white 8.25” x 10.25” hardcover • $16.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-653-9 Here are a few pretty pictures of the book, which should be unleashed (GET IT?) and on shelves in about 4 weeks; click the thumbnails for larger versions. Get more info, see more previews and pre-order your copy here: http://www.fantagraphics.com/gooddog

Soar on drunken wings of joy! The new Maakies book is almost here! Green Eggs and Maakies is on the menu for June with another two years of strips by comics' biggest rapscallion, Tony Millionaire, presented once again in widescreen hardcover format. Drinky Crow, Uncle Gabby and the whole gang are back for more shipboard ultraviolence, more drunk driving calamities, more unnatural fornication, more vomit, more poetry, more dubious remedies, more putting things in their mouths that don't belong there, and more laughs, all in Tony's beautiful, peerless penwork. Name a better comic strip this century. You can't do it! Dig into…