Fantagraphics Blog Mike Baehr

The Crackle of the Frost by Lorenzo Mattotti & Jorge Zentner 120-page full-color 8" x 10" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-543-3 Ships in: September 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now When confronted with his girlfriend’s request that they have a child together, Samuel fled that relationship. But now, a year later, when he receives a letter from Alice announcing she is expecting a baby, old emotions flare up and he embarks on a long journey to see Alice again — to re-open, or perhaps close forever, that important chapter of his life. The Crackle of the Frost is the story…

Buz Sawyer Vol. 2: Sultry's Tiger by Roy Crane 228-page black & white/color 9.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-499-3 Ships in: September 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now BARGAIN COMBO: Buz Sawyer Vols. 1 + 2 Gift Set Price: $70.00 $56.00 Add to Cart World War II has ended, and with so many pilots mustered out at the end of the war, jobs for pilots are hard to find, and Buz’s record as a “hot-shot” pilot does not recommend him to commercial airlines. While looking for a job, Buz visits his old alma mater and spends time with…

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. No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics by various artists; edited by Justin Hall (cover art by Maurice Vellekoop) 328-page black & white/color 7.75" x 10.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-506-8 "No Straight Lines: 4 Decades of Queer Comics features work by Alison Bechdel, Maurice Vellkoop, Dan Savage, Howard Cruse,…

The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln by Noah Van Sciver 192-page black & white 7.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-619-5 Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last. The debut graphic novel from Noah Van Sciver follows the twentysomething Abraham Lincoln as he loses everything, long before becoming our most beloved president. Lincoln is a rising Whig in the state’s legislature as he arrives in Springfield, IL to practice law. With…

Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter 220-page black & white 16.25" x 6.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-56097-886-2 Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Gary Panter began imagining Dal Tokyo, a future Mars that is terraformed by Texan and Japanese workers, as far back as 1972, appropriating a friend’s idea about “cultural and temporal collision” (the “Dal” is short for Dallas). Why Texan and Japanese? Panter says, “Because they are trapped in Texas, Texans are self-mythologizing. Because I was trapped in Texas at the time, I needed to believe that the broken tractor out back was a car…

The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 (Vol. 18) by Charles M. Schulz 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-572-3 Ships in: August 2012 — Available to order upon its arrival in our mail-order warehouse. Peanuts reaches the middle of the go-go 1980s in this book, which covers 1985 and 1986: a time of hanging out at the mall, “punkers” (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Snoopy with a Mohawk), killer bees, airbags, and Halley’s Comet. And in a surprisingly sharp satirical sequence, Schulz pokes fun at runaway licensing with the introduction of the insufferably merchandisable “Tapioca Pudding.” Also…

Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur edited by Jacques Boyreau & Peter Van Horne 96-page full-color 10.75" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-553-2 Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Sexytime is the book that pornoisseurs all over the world have anxiously been waiting for. Not that grade drooler, the porn addict, mind you, but the porn aesthete, the porn classicist who knows his stag film history and lives by the credo, Veni ergo sum. An oversized coffee table book celebrating the art of the 1970s porn movie poster, Sexytime collects over a hundred of the…

Shipments of advance copies of more of our September books have been pouring into the office over the last couple of weeks and I've plunked them down on my desk here in our glamorous offices and taken a few snapshots for you: Barack Hussein Obama, Steven Weissman's acclaimed webcomic now collected in this lavish hardcover! Part absurdist satire, part old-fashioned gag strip, part Lovecraftian horror, part thinly-veiled autobiography, all amazing! Naked Cartoonists: Drawers Drawing Themselves Without Drawers — a hilarious and revealing collection of self-portraits of over 70 world-famous cartoonists in the buff, from the collection of Mark J. Cohen…

While we were at Comic-Con and then I was on vacation a gazillion of our books came out in comic shops because of course they did! Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying these latest releases about  (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez 96-page 7.75" x 7.75" black & white hardcover • $9.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-540-2 "I think children's comics benefit from stand-alone collection more than most because it enables you to get on the wavelength being…

Hey, look what came out while we were at Comic-Con! It's in comic shops now and available from our mail-order operation: Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 by Michael Kupperman 32-page full-color 6.75" x 9.5" comic book • $4.95 See Previews / Order Now BARGAIN COMBO: Tales Designed to Thrizzle – Thoroughly Thrizzled Pack Price: $44.34 $35.47 Add to Cart Break out your crayons as Red Warren, "America's Grandpa," brings you his highly educational "Train & Bus Coloring Book." The guests at a sophisticated weekend party sure get nervous when a certain mystery writer shows up on her goat. Learn the…