Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

If you're reading this, you know about FLOG! The Fantagraphics Blog. Here in its new incarnation, we have some new ways to navigate and find the things you want to read about. In the right column you'll see links to the five most recent FLOG posts and links to monthly FLOG archives. If you want to read all posts by a particular FLOG writer, simply click their name whenever it appears as a by-line link. FLOG posts are also grouped by subject using tags, so if you’re reading a FLOG post about, for instance, Joe Sacco, and you want to…

After a longer time in the making than I care to think about, we are extremely pleased to bring you the debut of the new Fantagraphics.com website! Settle in and have a look around. You'll notice lots of new features, which we will be introducing you to here on Flog day by day with a feature handily titled "New Website Feature of the Day." You can follow these posts via the "meta" tag (Flog tags will be the subject of a future installment). We'll start with a two-fer. The first thing you're going to want to do is register —…

Our FLOG! podcast feature, Flogcast, will be launching soon — stay tuned! This feature will bring you exclusive audio interviews (both new and from the archives) as well as other sounds of Fantagraphics. Can’t wait? No problem — we have some audio features ready for your listening and downloading pleasure right now: an interview with Joe Sacco and the Terr'ble Thompson musical.

…in January 2009, according to an [adult swim] promo I just saw during a DVR'ed episode of Metalocalypse. 2009!

Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace Box Set 1955-1958By Hank Ketcham A swell custom-designed case containing the third and fourth volumes of Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace with strips from the years 1955 through 1958. (Sorry, case is not peanut butter or root beer resistant.) two 672-page B&W 5.5" x 6.25" hardcovers with custom box $39.95Order Now!

Acme Novelty Library #18By Chris Ware In keeping with his athletic goal of issuing a volume of his occasionally lauded ACME series once every new autumn, volume 18 finds cartoonist Chris Ware abandoning the engaging serialization of his "Rusty Brown" and instead focusing upon his ongoing and more experimentally grim narrative , "Building Stories." Collecting pages unseen except in obscure alternative weekly periodicals and sophisticated expensive coffee table magazines, The ACME Novelty Library #18 re-introduces the characters which New York Times readers found "dry" and "deeply depressing" when one chapter of the work (not included here) was presented in its…

Insomnia #3By Matt Broersma In the conclusion to Matt Broersma's noir triptych… Miles Anderson lives in a safe, predictable world defined by his job as an L.A. television producer, his affairs with girls from the office and the shopping trips of his beautiful wife, Elena. Then, one evening, Elena disappears. Is she off on another trip? With a man? In mortal danger? As the days pass, and the suspense mounts, Miles Anderson's search for answers leads him instead deeper and deeper into an abyss of mystery, until at last he's forced to confront the unthinkable… Part of the Ignatz Series….

The Last MusketeerBy Jason After his existential thriller (Why Are You Doing This?), his Parisian famous-writers crime caper (The Left Bank Gang), and his time-travel story (I Killed Adolf Hitler), Jason's fourth full-color album may feature his loopiest premise yet. Set in the present time, The Last Musketeer stars the by-now centuries old musketeer Athos, who has been reduced to a suavely dressed but useless near-panhandler trading on his now almost extinct fame. All this changes when one day the Martians attack Earth. Suddenly there is a need for swashes to be buckled, and Athos leaps back into the fray…

MOME Winter/Spring 2008 (Vol. 10)By various artists; edited by Gary Groth & Eric Reynolds Critically acclaimed for its compilation of dynamic young cartoonists, this volume of Mome showcases the vibrant newbies and a few of the more established artistes. Mome Vol. 10 features the 20 page conclusion to the Jim Woodring graphic novella, "The Lute String." This story, previously published only in Japan, features Woodring's signature characters — Frank, Pupshaw, and Pushpaw — in a universe-bending saga that finds the trio in a very unexpected world of flying, shrieking demons and bulbous-faced monsters. Also featuring the work of Tom Kaczynski…

Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads from Seattle's The StrangerBy Ellen Forney Ellen Forney's follow-up to her wildly popular I Love Led Zeppelin is a collection of cartoons celebrating the sometimes stunningly crude, sometimes surprisingly sweet online world of personal classifieds. Forney has for several years been illustrating the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger's "Lustlab" classified ads by interpreting the most interesting, outrageous, or idiosyncratic ad in that week's paper. To cap it off, the collection includes frank, revealing interviews with some of the advertisers conducted by Forney, plus an introduction by the notorious sex advice columnist and novelist (and Stranger editor),…