Fantagraphics Blog Jen Vaughn

In this January's issue of Booklist you can find a review of our recent releases, excerpted below: Heads or Tails by Lilli Carré: "Most of these stories are concerned with alternatives—overlapping realities, different explanations of a single phenomenon, evolving contradictions. . . As a graphic artist, Carré carries forward the design tradition that stems from the gossamer surrealism of Cocteau; as a verbal artist, she may be the most successful prose poet going. . . Her Wanda Gag-meets-Gene Deitch drawing style and new-weirdness literary bent make her work acutely interesting to both read and scrutinize." — Ray Olson (Starred Review)

The Love and Rockets shirts have been on sale since summer and people are popping up all over the world, looking AWESOME. Friend, cartoonist and puppeteer Andy Warner works on his collaborative puppet show, Frown Town, while rockin' the chocolate and cream dream shirt. What do you do while you wear your Love and Rockets shirt? (We sit behind our desks and read books) Email us pictures and we'll share them next week! Also, Seattlites, the Hernandez Brothers are in town this Saturday for a party, party, party at our Fantagraphics store. Wear your Love and Rockets shirt there for…

The most symmetrical cake slice of Online Commentaries & Diversions:     • Review: Publishers Weekly occasionally lets smart and famous people recommend books. Jeopardy Master Ken Jennings "skipped the obvious Marjane Satrapi and Alison Bechdel entries in favor of this lesser-known three-volume masterpiece, about Tyler’s complicated relationship with her distant dad, a World War II vet. With her playful, fluid brush line and busy patchwork of watercolor woodgrain, Tyler’s art looks like the past feels." Carol Tyler's complete series You'll Never Know is available. • Review: Booklist Online cooks up a review from some Pogo (The Complete Syndicated Comic…

Looking for that special something to give to special someone you love? (In my case, that would be me.) Order a commission directly from an artist! Josh Simmons of The Furry Trap, House and Jessica Farm is one of the many artists offering his service to you. Simmons said he is very flexible and can tailor things to peoples' budget, or something like the Witch-King of the Nazgul painting above is the most time-consuming, would go for the highest price. When I asked if the highest price was money, the soul or a bucket of blood, he agreed any of…

Today is Wednesday, you know what that means! Michael Kupperman is back with Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 available to download on to your iPad, smartphone and e-readers thanks to comiXology. Fans and comedy cognoscenti alike have made Thrizzle the smash hit humor comic of the decade. The first FOUR issues of non-stop sur-reality plus new pages! These tales are more thrizzling than ever! What are tales designed to thrizzle? Tales designed to thrizzle are about evil girls and their owls. They are about Jesus' half-brother Pagus, Dick Crazy, scary snakes, delicious bacon, Private Eye Johnny Silhouette, Murder She…

 Cartoonist, animator and story teller Dash Shaw's animated music video for band Sigur Ros entitled "Seraph" will be shown at next year's Sundance Film Festival. This six and half minute film will appear in the animated short section of the festival. For those of you not attending, feel free to watch it here from home in your jam-jams. Shaw's book graphic novel and comic New School and 3 New Stories are scheduled to come out next March.

  Katelan Cunningham of Soul Pancake recently interviewed Rob Walker, editor of Significant Objects, on the value of story. Significant Objects takes oddball, flea market items and writers you know and will one day know added stories to the items. Editors Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn's social experiment then sold the items for eBay with the stories and lo and behold, used and broken items went for more money once a narrative enhanced their 'meaning.' Walker describes the spark of the project, "I broke a coffee mug. It was just a nothing souvenir mug, nobody would have paid any money…

Last night, director Terry Zwigoff appeared at Central Cinema's sold-out showing of Bad Santa, produced/toured/small printed by The A.V. Club's Cult Canon Tour. The 2003 hit resonated with the parents, malcontents and former elves in the audience (thank you, Dallas Northpark Mall, for that hellish winter month). A charmingly nasal and articulate Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club moderated the Q&A while Zwigoff opened with a slide show of amazing parodies, criminal copy cats and a slew of Santa photos through the ages, too amazing to not share at least one.  Zwigoff went into detail about looking for the perfect…

The first snowflake of Online Commentaries & Diversions:  • Review: Publishers Weekly enjoys Naked Cartoonists, edited by Gary Groth. "The litmus test for any collective work based on the idea of one page per artist is whether the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. . . [Naked Cartoonists] no trouble achieving that goal. . . Dan Piraro (Bizarro) deserves kudos for his strategically-located likeness of Garfield . . ."  • Plug: Elliot Bay Book Company shows off a copy of Naked Cartoonists from their store and Dave states, "Hilarious. Scary. Weird. And just plain bawdy. If…

The luckiest Powerball ticket of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Review: Drawn's John Martz is ready for Heads or Tails. "Lilli Carré is one of those cartoonists who has been putting out plenty of great work. . . She’s a master of short stories, so this collection is a welcome addition to my bookshelves. Rainbow Moment, a smartly-crafted story of nested memories all told in different colour palettes is the stand out work, and worth the price of admission alone." • Review: John Martz of Drawn looks at Barack Hussein Obama. "Steven Weissman has been posting his odd comic strip,…