Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

We've put the entirety of Gary Groth's introduction to Explainers, the forthcoming collection of Jules Feiffer's Village Voice strips (due in June), here on the website for your reading pleasure. The feature includes a sideshow preview of 11 strips selected by Groth as standouts from the collection. Read it now!

Aw, shucks! The top response (with 37.1% of 170 votes) to our poll question "What was the primary reason you registered on Fantagraphics.com?" was "Just because I love you." See the full results here. Thanks for the outpouring of affection. Starting today there's a brand new poll which you can find at the bottom of the right column here on FLOG and on various other pages of our site (including the homepage): Which part of our product listings do you find most useful or persuasive? The results will help us make the website an even better shopping experience, so vote…

We made brief mention of this a few posts back, but here's the full announcement:  By popular demand — by which we mean “endless nagging from people on the TCJ.com message board” — The Comics Journal is pleased to announce that online-only subscriptions are now available, at over half off the print-subscription price. Choose from five-issue and ten-issue subscriptions to the subscriber section of the TCJ website, where you can not only read the current issue over the Internet, but every issue from TCJ #278 to present as well! Details at the links. But wait, there’s more! We realize that…

It was a lively scene down at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday evening for our special Friends of the Nib Comics Jam with special guest of honor Kim Deitch and emcee Jim Woodring. We've got lotsa more photos right here at this link. A happenin' crowd:   Kim signs books:  Presenting a world premiere preview slideshow of Deitch's Pictorama:  "Dial M for Monster"!  

This installment of Steven Weissman's "Chocolate Cheeks" comes to you slightly tardy and in glorious black and white! In this week's strip: the perils of fame. (Remember, you must be registered and logged in to read.)

Look what arrived at our offices yesterday: advance copies of The Complete Peanuts 1967-1968. It's due in stores in late April; we should have it available to order here on the website a couple of weeks before that. Stay tuned! You sure are, Snoopy, you sure are. 

The latest specimen in our ongoing series of Mome interview web reprints is Andrice Arp, in a discussion with Gary Groth conducted in May 2006 and originally printed in Mome Vol. 5; read it in its entirety right here. Previously: Paul Hornschemeier, Gabrielle Bell, Kurt Wolfgang and Jonathan Bennett. Next up: Tim Hensley.

This week's free preview is a downloadable 20-page sampler from Comic Arf, the newest volume of editor Craig Yoe's century-spanning Arf anthology series. (Above: R. Crumb vs. Milt Gross!) These previews are exclusive to registered Fantagraphics.com users, so sign up and/or sign in to view. (As a reminder, 20/20 Club members receive these previews two weeks before we post them on the website, just one of many great reasons to join up…)