Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

If you like erudite and sharp-witted cultural criticism you'll want to get your hands on this forthcoming collection of essays by Alexander Theroux, titled The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics, when it's released in January. Covering a century of pop music from Ira Gershwin to Ghostface Killah, Theroux deconstructs and evaluates the very nature of the pop song. We're just putting on the finishing touches and packing it off to the printer and, by gum, it's 160 pages longer than when we first announced it. And why yes, that is a vintage Robert Crumb…

Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946-1948 by Ernie Bushmiller 336-page black & white 8.5" x 8.5" flexibound softcover • $26.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-599-0 Ships in: November 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now BARGAIN COMBO: Nancy Is Happy + Nancy Likes Christmas Gift Set Price: $51.98 $41.59 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. It's three more full years of Ernie Bushmiller's beloved comic strip, featuring nearly one thousand meticulously restored daily strips from its post-World-War II graphic high point — superbly crafted but…

Drew Friedman continues to pay tribute to the Legends of Comics with this wonderful new portrait of the great Al Jaffee, which is now available as a limited-edition print. Does not ship folded.

Vapor, the long-awaited new graphic novel by Spanish master of surrealist comics Max, comes out next week in his home country from our fine colleagues at La Cúpula (in Spanish and Catalan editions, shown above), and our English-language edition is now rescheduled for June of next year. To celebrate (and promote) the book's arrival, Max has started a new blog exploring the creative process of the book, posting developmental artwork, inspirations, and other behind-the-scenes info. It's all in Spanish but Google Translate does a pretty fair job with it if you're not multilingual.

Prison Pit Book 4 by Johnny Ryan 116-page black & white 6.5" x 8.5" softcover • $12.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-591-4 Ships in: November 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-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 into fine Belgian lace….

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. As TCJ.com's Joe McCulloch notes in his "Conflict of Interest Reservoir," "Oh wait, we’ve still got $100+ of good-looking Fantagraphics books to cover." Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman 112-page full-color 7.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-623-2 "When it comes to splurging, I’m going to be topical: Steven Weissman’s surreal,…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: You'll Never Know Book 3: Soldier's Heart by C. Tyler 128-page full-color 12" x 10.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-548-8 See Previews / Order Now BARGAIN COMBO: You'll Never Know Books 1-3: The Complete Trilogy Price: $74.97 $59.98 In one of the most eagerly-anticipated graphic novels of 2012, Soldier’s Heart concludes the story of Carol Tyler and her delving into her father’s war experiences in a way that is both surprising and devastating — and rather than trying to summarize this episode and thus possibly spoil it for readers, we prefer to…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Ralph Azham Vol. 1: Why Would You Lie to Someone You Love? by Lewis Trondheim 96-page full-color 8.5" x 6.625" hardcover • $14.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-593-8 See Previews / Order Now Within his tiny village, Ralph Azham is considered an insolent good-for-nothing layabout, a virtual pariah — particularly since he was supposed to be a Chosen One. (Things didn’t work out.) Yet his odd azure coloration and a few unique abilities (he can predict births and deaths) suggest that there may be more to him than meets the eye. And when the terrifying…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: The Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here: Images from the Graphic Novel by Malcolm McNeill 168-page full-color 10.25" x 13.25" hardcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-445-0 See Previews / Order Now BARGAIN COMBO: Order this book with its companion volume and save 20%! The Lost Art of Ah Pook + Observed While Falling – Gift Set Price: $69.98 $55.98 In 1970, William S. Burroughs and artist Malcolm McNeill began a small collaborative project on a comic entitled The Unspeakable Mr. Hart, which appeared in the first four issues of Cyclops, England’s first…

Heads or Tails by Lilli Carré 200-page full-color 7" x 9" softcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-597-6 Ships in: November 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now SPECIAL OFFER: Add Lilli Carré's acclaimed debut The Lagoon to your order for just $9.99 ($5 off)! Use the option menu when ordering. The creator of 2008’s acclaimed graphic novel The Lagoon — named to many annual critics’ lists including Publishers Weekly and USA Today’s Pop Candy — is back with a stunningly designed and packaged collection of some of the most poetic and confident short fiction being produced in comics today. These stories, created…