Fantagraphics Blog Jen Vaughn

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. Pirates in the Heartland: The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson Volume 1 by S. Clay Wilson, edited by Patrick Rosenkranz 232 page color and black & white 8" x 11.25" hardcover • $34.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-747-5 "Part biography, part retrospective, part collected chronicles of a comic legend, this is a huge undertaking that pays off…

This July, the talented and incredible Eleanor Davis and Esther Pearl Watson will descend upon the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery with the fury of a thousand suns, scorching earth and people in their paths. During the Georgetown Garden Walk on Sunday, July 13th, Eleanor and Esther will have a reception and signing from  3:00 to 5:00 PM. We'll have brand, spanking new copies of How to Be Happy and Unlovable 3 for you (feel free to bring your other EPW and Davis books from your shelves)       The original art exhibition continues through September 10, 2014. This events coincides, as we mentioned, with the festive Georgetown Garden Walk…

  Ron Regé, Jr has the esteemed pleasure of being named the Cinders Gallery Artist of the Month! Cinders interviews Regé all about his comics creative process, his band Lavender Diamond, magick and even the last good movie he saw (a 1981 animated film, Ferherlofia aka Son of the White Mare). You'll notice that Rege is also sporting a very UNIQUE pair of leggings made from his Cartoon Utopia cover. The leggings are almost as hypnotizing as the book! Think you have all the Regé books and what not out there? Cinders also has a limited edition print available on their site, there are only…

From the Eric Reynolds archives: Kim Thompson hanging out with Eric, Rhea Patton, and Gary Groth, all celebrating Groth's 50th birthday. Kim passed away one year ago today. He still is and will always be missed by his family, friends, co-workers and the comics community. 

  In one of the cooler videos to hit the internet lately, comics enthusiast and scholar Allen Rubenstein created a video of the 1000 Greatest Comics of all Time AND set it to "Wipe Out" by the Sufaris (so already won a place in our hearts). At home on Comics Juice, Rubenstein's video contains some great heavyweights like Maus, Blankets and bunch of Fantagraphics' titles from Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller to the newer Eisner-nominated Good Dog by Graham Chaffee.    Think you were able to see all the comics, like the Fanta-ones? Check the list and see if you won this game! And is there anything more…

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.  witzend by Wallace Wood and various artists 656-page black & white/color 9" x 12.5" x 2.75" two-volume slipcased hardcover set • $125.00  ISBN: 978-1-60699-744-4  "Boxed together in a deluxe two-volume set, here are the irascible voices of a medium far more outré than Hollywood blockbuster movies." –Carlo McCormick, Art News   Bomb Run and Other…

Last month we found out one of our founders, Gary Groth, was up for a Genius Award in Literature from local and cool-as-hell alt-weekly paper, The Stranger. This week articles about all the nominees  appeared online and in the print version so you can get to know them and their genius.   Gary's acerbic rage-writings of the 80s and 90s are referenced in the article by Paul Constant. Constant asked Gary if he was less angry now but since Fantagraphics started making the comics he wanted to read and are at most bookstores…Constant wrote it best. "that there was always more work…

  Black is the Color of the radio airwaves this week! Julia Gfrörer and Portland's Ellery Harvey are collaborators in bringing the art of comics off the page and into the performance space, and they're the guests tomorrow Thursday morning (June 12th) from 11:30 to noon on Words & Pictures.   From Words & Pictures: The gothic sensibility of Julia's pen and ink artwork and spare archaic dialogue, in such graphic novels as Black is the Color, bring together historical, mythical, and sensual themes. Lambhouse Letterpress founder Ellery, who has toured the Pacific Northwest with Julia, backs up her artwork with musical soundscapes at such events…

The Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco has featured artwork by many of our caroonists from Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez to a future M.K. Brown show. Currently on exhibit is Pretty In Ink: The Trina Robbins Collection from now until August 24th, 2014 (postcard pictured above). We pulled Andrew Farago, curator at CAM, aside for a few quick questions about the process of getting a show ready.  What do you look for when choosing works from a singular artist/cartoonist? Is it a plan to arrange them visually by era or area (like if they did paintings, cel animation, comics)? "It depends" is my basic answer…

Cartoonist and all around badass, Lane Milburn, will be appearing at Quimby's Bookstore in August for his Twelve Gems launch party. August 30th at 7pm, you better have your intergalatic party hats on or ELSE.    Somewhere in the outer cosmos, beyond reckoning or observation, the mysterious Dr. Z has enlisted three space heroes, Furz, Venus, and Dogstar, to search the galaxy for the fabled Twelve Gems of Power. Milburn's book is is full of wall-to-wall humor and action for science fiction fans, adventure-lovers and connoisseurs of the undergroun comix aesthetic. You do not want to miss this rad cartoonist or his debut Fantagraphics graphic novel!   Quimby's…