Fantagraphics Blog Jen Vaughn

This week it is time for terror in an uncomfortable way what only Hans Rickheit can create. All 161 pages of Folly: Consequences of Indiscretion is now available via comiXology to haunt you. This volume is a steam punk descendent of the counterculture comics of the '60s, and is as wildly imaginative and richly artistic as it is subversively sexual and violent.  This digital edition includes an exclusive story, "Sigmund Freud," a tribute to Jack Kirby which does not appear in the print edition! Originally distributed into the world as Xeroxed pamphlets, these "underground comix" reflect the true nature of…

 The freshiest, just cleaned kitten of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Plug: TIME Magazine talks about You'll Never Know Book Three: Soldier's Heart by C. Tyler. "The book is as much about empty spaces–in history and on the page–as it is about the details she can fill in." See it in print next week! • Review: Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter is listed in The Times of UK as one of the essential books for Chris Ware. Ware says "Gary Panter is the William Blake of comics; a true poet who sees and feels what the rest of us can't,…

  Cartoonist Jem Eaton is messing with our minds in a creepy way! With his Cartoon Jumbles, Eaton is mashing up all of the best comic characters for an upcoming APOPALYPTIC AMERICA show as we mentioned before but this time, its personal. Jim Woodring personal! To quote Jem, "Woodring’s enigmatic Frank is reborn into the boneyard skin of EC Comics’ The Crypt Keeper, the transcendent meeting the corporal, the material decay of the parochial burial tradition finding itself at odds with the ephemeral grace of the Unifactor, where the notion of 'end' and 'beginning' walk arm-in-arm along fate’s mystical path,…

Buried in one of the longest threads on TCJ (this year), our commander-at-the-helm Gary Groth released the list of stories to be included in our fourth Carl Barks Library publication. Currently, it clocks in around 240 pages, full-color splendor and as always, a perfect gift book for Disney fans The next Barks book will be titled “The Old Castle’s Secret” and will contain the following stories: “The Old Castle’s Secret” (natch) “In Darkest Africa” “Wintertime Wager” “Watching the Watchman” “Wired” “Going Ape” “Spoil The Rod” “Bird Watching” “Horseshoe Luck” “Bean Taken” “Rocket Race to the Moon” “Donald of the Coast…

Johnny Ryan and Monster Worship are proud fathers of these new GLOW-IN-THE-DARK figurines based on Prison Pit characters. These sweet-but-mostly-sour vinyl figures are coming out this weekend at NYCC. Now you can scare yourself at night when you stumble to the bathroom as a luminescent Cannibal Fuckface or Rottweiler Herpes (above) greets you. Want to read the fan-fucking-tastic adventures of CFF and RH? Check out Prison Pit in print or as ebooks via comiXology.

The weekend's newest Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Plug: The best footnote IN THE WORLD? appeared on Grantland's excerpt of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story written by Sean Howe. It refers to Marvel's idea of hiring Gary Groth. . . Look for footnote 7. •Review: Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit: Book 4 is reviewed on Nick Gazin's Comic Book Love in #73 and Mr. Ryan himself is interviewed. . . via text. "There's no point in trying to explain Prison Pit. You can only experience it to understand it. Start buy buying all of them at once if you haven't yet….

  Ready to horrify Tom Spurgeon and many other people, Josh Simmons's short film, The Leader, is out for a frightful October. We couldn't even make this post at night, we were worried about the repercussions of night-time viewing. Don't say we didn't warn you.

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed two recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below: The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln by Noah Van Sciver Lincoln’s forlorn early years as a struggling lawyer and neophyte politician are sympathetically depicted in this graphic novel. Arriving in Springfield in 1837, the 28-year-old Lincoln starts a law practice . . . and becomes engaged to Mary Todd against her wealthy family’s wishes. But following a series of setbacks—his legal practice collapses, his debts accumulate . . . the melancholia, insecurity, and loneliness that had long plagued Lincoln spiral into a life-threatening nervous breakdown. Lincoln’s…

In the third series of comics to be released digitally after Love and Rockets going digital, Johnny Ryan's favorite thing to draw in a public restroom critically-acclaimed humor series Angry Youth Comix #8-10 are now available to download via comiXology joining the previous issues from last week. Ryan's work is too hot to handle for iTunes so use your comiXology apps on whatever retina-burning device you prefer. $1.99 can't even buy good laxatives to put in your friend's beer but it can purchase you some excellent comics. $2.99 gets you gut-and-butt-busting issue 10 with 52 pages! Battling butlers and cover-to-cover,…

 The cleanest guest towel of Online Commentaries & Diversions:   • Review: The Savage Critic podcast, episode 100, reviewed Lorenzo Mattotti and Jorge Zentner's The Crackle of the Frost. • Plug: This is Halloween, HALLOWEEN, Halloween Month. Check out your local comic bookstore and see if they have the stuff you want and need for Halloween Comicsfest: namely the Jack Davis' Tales From the Crypt and Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk.  • Plug: Unbored recently highlighed Gary Panter's drawing tips. Excellent suggestions from a master cartoonist, Dal Tokyo being his latest publication. "Make [a sketchbook] into your little painful pal. The pain…