Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about it (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. Blacklung by Chris Wright 128-page black & white 9.25" x 12.25" hardcover • $24.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-587-7 "…Chris Wright’s oversize debut graphic novel [is] a bloody seafaring tale about a man determined to do what it takes to meet his dead wife in hell. Wright’s first book, the short story collection…

Steven Weissman's Barack Hussein Obama has been about as enthusiastic about his campaign as Walt Kelly's Pogo, seen here learning of his first Presidential nomination in 1952 (in our 2nd Pogo volume, Bona Fide Balderdash, coming soon): Pogo was a favorite write-in candidate during Kelly's run on the strip; we couldn't find data on his standing in the 2008 election. However, according to one source, Mickey Mouse received 11 votes last time around (and found himself in executive office under unusual circumstances in the 1938 "Monarch of Medioka" storyline included in Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 4: House of the…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Walt Disney's Donald Duck: A Christmas for Shacktown by Carl Barks 240-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 See Previews / Order Now The third volume of Fantagraphics’ reprinting of Carl Barks’s classic Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge work, like the previous volume Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man, focuses on the early 1950s, universally considered one of Barks’s very peak periods. Originally published in 1951, "A Christmas for Shacktown" is one of Barks's masterpieces: A rare 32-pager that stays within the confines of Duckburg, featuring a storyline…

One of our most avidly anticipated books of the season, Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas is an unquestioned manga masterpiece and a foundational work of the shounen-ai (boys' romance) genre. It's our great pleasure to collect this magnificent graphic novel into a single, massive, beautifully-designed hardcover, expertly translated by Matt Thorn (whose exemplary work translating Hagio-sensei can also be seen in the acclaimed previous volume A Drunken Dream and Other Stories). The book is expected for a January release; read a 23-page excerpt comprising the full first chapter (further previews are forthcoming) and pre-order a copy right here.

Hey, want to get some holiday gift shopping out of the way early and make a big impact without breaking the bank? How about limited, signed edition books (some with exclusive prints) by some of the greatest comics creators around? How about HALF PRICE? That's right, get the following books at 50% off now through next Thursday, Nov. 8! Conceptual Realism by Robert Williams — A catalog of the Fall 2009 solo exhibition of paintings and sculptures by the groundbreaking master of "lowbrow" art, with essays on each piece by the artist, sketches and other supplemental material. Hardcover edition with…

What's new around our mail-order operation in the past month? Oh, just FOURTEEN new books. (Actually sixteen, but two of them snuck onto last month's recap.) We've got Mickey Mouse! We've got Charlie Brown! We've got Cannibal F***face! Our eagerly-awaited first EC Comics Library volumes have arrived, along with 3 major books by cutting-edge talents, the final volume of a masterful memoir series, the start of a wonderful fantasy-adventure series from one of the greats, and some bold experimental books for those of you interested in the various ways literature and images can intersect. (Remember, our New Releases page always…

If you've ever wished you could get a glimpse into Jim Woodring's sketchbooks — and why wouldn't you? — your desires are soon to be fulfilled in spades as we present Problematic, a curated assortment of about 300 of the thousands of pages Jim has filled over the last 8 years or so in his pocket-sized Moleskine notebooks. Printed at larger than actual size in a chunky hardcover cleverly disguised as an actual sketchbook (complete with trompe l'oeil stickers on the covers), these drawings provide a previously unseen view into the creative mind of one of comics' great visionaries. Look…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 4: House of the Seven Haunts by Floyd Gottfredson 280-page black & white/color 10.5" x 8.75" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-575-4 See Previews / Order Now Who says dead men tell no tales? When grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize, they’ll find fearless Mickey all ready to rumble — as soon as he’s done fighting gangsters, bandits, and international men of mystery, that is! From Africa to Eastern Europe, our favorite big cheese is in for terrifying thrills — and he’s bringing Goofy, Donald Duck, and…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking by Charles M. Schulz 56-page three-color 5.75" x 5.75" hardcover • $9.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-624-9 See Previews / Order Now During his fifty-year career, ninety-nine percent of Charles Schulz's creative energies went into the daily Peanuts comic strip. But once in a while he would create a special something else on the side, and this adorable little package collects two of his best "extras" from the 1960s: two Christmas-themed stories written and drawn for national magazines. Created in 1963 (two years before the Charlie Brown Christmas TV special) as…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Prison Pit Book 4 by Johnny Ryan 116-page black & white 6.5" x 8.5" softcover • $12.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-591-4 See Previews / Order Now Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last. BARGAIN COMBO: Prison Pit: Books 1 – 4 Price: $51.96 $38.97 As always, a plot summary of the latest installment of Johnny (Angry Youth Comix) Ryan’s hugely popular sci-fi-prison-planet-gore-fest-slugfest-a-thon serial must, in order to be presentable to normal, decent human beings, be cut…