Fantagraphics Blog Jen Vaughn

 Friday, Sept. 14 • Politics & Prose, Washington, D.C. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 15 & 16 • SPX, Bethesda, MD Tuesday, Sept. 18 • Atomic Books, Baltimore, MD Wednesday, Sept. 19 • Philadelphia Free Library, Philadelphia, PA Friday, Sept. 21 • The Rock Shop, Brooklyn, NY Sunday, Sept. 23rd • Brooklyn Book Festival, Brooklyn, NY September 14th-23, the seminal Love and Rockets creators Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez will tour from Washington D.C. to Brooklyn as part of the 30th Anniversary of Love and Rockets. Signings and readings await the Northeast this fall. First stop on the Love and Rockets train…

The sweetest smelling Online Commentaries & Diversions:   •Review: Partially and fully-reviewed on Em & Lo and SUNfiltered respectively is new book Significant Objects by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. Em and Lo said, "The book also organizes the stories and objects into groups that will be more familiar to thrift-store shoppers, based on the items’ original intended use: novelty items, figurines, kitsch, toys, etc." •Plug: Significant Objects editor Joshua Glenn showed up on Benjamin Walker's WFMU show "Too Much Information" as a correspondant. As if you needed another reason to listen to TMI. •Plug: Bookstore of our dreams, Powells,…

  A near duel is what let Denver cartoonist Noah Van Sciver to the trail of a book that eventually became the graphic novel, The Hypo. This week Van Sciver writes about his creative process and findings at Forbidden Planet. Van Sciver writes,"Most books I would find on the bookstore shelves flew through Lincoln’s bachelor years on their way to the Civil War. I gathered as much as I could from the first few chapters of as many books as I could find, but most told the same anecdotes over and over again offering me only slightly different wording. The…

The latest two issues of Michael Kupperman's critically-acclaimed series Tales Designed to Thrizzle hit the digital stand today thanks to a handshake and wink between Fantagraphics and comiXology. Enjoy issues #7 and #8 featuring comics with the Haminal and of course, beloved "Train & Bus Coloring Book." Has Mars mania grabbed ahold of you? Originally serialized in the Washington City Paper and online at Fantagraphics.com, the true story of the first lunar mission, "Moon 69," also graces the pages of issue number 8. More Kupperman is coming, keep watching the stars. "No one does giddy surrealism quite like Kupperman…" –…

 The hottest, sweatiest Online Commentaries & Diversions:    •Review: Ray Olson continues the reading journey of Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest Vol. 3 and reviews it on Booklist Online:  "For at times, the yarn becomes seriously exciting, especially during the travel and fight scenes when everybody clams up. . . Because of Daly’s cartooning chops, nonpareil entertainment." •Plug: Comics Reporter only needs 140 characters sometimes, especially when talking about Joe Daly's work. Tom Spurgeon says on Twitter, "Dungeon Quest Vol. 3 is so good at one point 1000 copies danced around my bed like in an old Warner Brothers cartoon." •Review:…

The newest (and one old one*) Online Commentaries & Diversions:   •Review: The Hypo by Noah Van Sciver gets the Boing-Boing treatment. Brian Heater states,"The Hypo's relatively limited scope afford the cartoonist the ability to approach the historical giant as a human, offering an empathetic examination of a troubled individual destined for greatness."   •Review: Heidi MacDonald is excited about The Hypo as well. On The Beat she thinks,"This could be one of the sleeper books of the fall."     •Review: NPR gives Jaime Hernandez's God and Science the run-around and Glen Weldon states, ". . .a book that…

  In December of 2006, the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery opened its doors. Several hundred signings, shows and new comic Wednesdays later, alt-weekly comic The Seattle Weekly awarded this Georgetown storefront as the Best Comic-Book Store in this year's "BEST OF SEATTLE" issue. Above, the Best of Seattle mascot reads Love and Rocket: New Stories #1 as comic book store curator and impresario Larry Reid looks on in the  fantastic photo popping from the newsprint. Gwendolyn Elliot says, "With current and vintage titles at times political, whimsical, or just downright dirty, this isn't some geeky, grimy comic book store—it's a…

The book might not be out until October but you can peruse the table of contents of The Best American Comics 2012, edited by Françoise Mouly, now! Created by series editors, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, this year's Best American Comics honors many Fantagraphics authors. Not only is there a Gary Panter cover but the inclusion of Jimbo, Joyce Farmer's Special Exits, Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals, Jaime Hernandez's Love Bunglers from Love and Rockets, Michael Kupperman as well as Charles Burns, Blab's Nora Krug, Hotwire's David Sandlin, Jordan Crane, Jonathan Bennett, Renee French, David Collier and Chris Ware.