Fantagraphics Blog Blog

{mosimage}Jordan Crane grew up in Long Beach, CA. Warning signs of his renaissance-man abilities were evident in his sojourn at his college newspaper, the Daily Trojan, at the University of Southern California, where he functioned at various times as a cartoonist, art director and columnist (not to mention his engineering studies). Crane went on to publish both his own and other people’s comics through his press, Red Ink, and edit and design the ambitious anthology NON (which won several AIGA 365 awards), among other projects (which included silk-screening and a record label). His current Fantagraphics work consists of the semi-regular…

Mark Bodé was born in Utica, New York. He is the son of the legendary cartoonist Vaughn Bodé. Bodé attended The Art School in Oakland, California. His first professional job was for Heavy Metal Magazine when he was asked to color his father’s black and white strip “Zooks, the First Lizard in Orbit” when he was fifteen. He was a fine arts major at The School of Visual Arts in New York City and studied animation and etching at San Francisco State University. His publications include Gyro Comics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Cobalt 60, the graphic novel. Mark’s work…

{mosimage}Max Andersson was born 1962 in Karesuando, Sweden. He studied graphic design in Stockholm (1982-84), then film production at New York University. After directing and producing a number of short films, for which he was awarded prizes at the Berlin, Melbourne and Los Angeles Film Festivals, he turned to the comics medium in the late ’80s. His work has been translated to eight languages, and his drawings as well as paintings, objects and installations have been exhibited in Sweden, Germany, the U.S.A., France, the United Kingdom, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Slovenia. Max Andersson currently lives and works in…

LOVE AND ROCKETS MOVES TO ANNUAL, BOOK-SIZE FORMAT IN 2008 Seattle, WA — After 25 years of being published in a traditional saddle-stitched magazine format released three or more times a year — first in the magazine-sized VOLUME I (50 issues, 1982-1996) and then in the comic book sized VOLUME II (20 issues, 2000-2007) — the award-winning LOVE AND ROCKETS comic book series will go on hiatus effective immediately and return next summer in its third incarnation, as a series of all-original, graphic novel-length releases. Each annual volume will comprise at least 100 pages of all-new comics, split evenly between…

{mosimage}Jessica Abel (Chicago, 1969) started making comics in college, at the University of Chicago. Her early efforts appeared in the student anthology Breakdown. After college, in 1992, she won the infamous “Stinky Date” contest in Peter Bagge’s Hate comics, and, since she had arranged to meet the artist at the Chicago Comics Convention, she decided to put together a sampler of her comics to show him and his publisher, Fantagraphics. She printed 50 copies of Artbabe #1, but Fantagraphics editor Gary Groth, who claims not to remember this encounter, didn’t take the bait. Four issues (and four years) later, she…

I’ve been putting together Peter Bagge‘s next Hate Annual (#7) which contains ten pages of his Weekly World News “Bat Boy” strips. The strips are some of my favorite work from Pete and I was curious about how he came to do a comic strip for the notoriously bizarre supermarket tabloid. So for the fans here’s some quick Q&A: {mosimage} JC: With Weekly World News now out of business is there any chance of more Bat Boy stories? It’s fun to see the anthropomorphic side of your work. Your style lends itself so strongly to that world. PB: There’s no…

{mosimage} Fantagraphics Books is celebrating national Classic Comic Strip Month in November with a 20% discount on all strip reprint titles. Now is the time to explore the delightful works of timeless artists like Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland), E. C Segar (Popeye), Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace), George Herriman (Krazy Kat), and the incomparable Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts), among countless others. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle will feature these and other titles all month long at 20% off our already bargain prices. Look for similar promotions at your local shop and pick up a copy of the…

It’s Steve Ditko’s 80th birthday today, and we’d like to take the opportunity to make the following announcement: COMING IN JUNE 2008… STRANGE & STRANGER: THE WORLD OF STEVE DITKO {mosimage} Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the June 2008 release of the first critical retrospective of Steve Ditko, the co-creator and original artist of the Amazing Spider-Man. In the wake of the astonishing success of Sam Raimi’s three Spider-Man movies, Steve Ditko’s status as a driving force behind the pop culture icon has been revealed to an audience the world over. But, in the context of Steve Ditko’s 50-year…

{mosimage} We are truly living in a Golden Age of classic comics strip collections, and as such we’re collaborating with CHECKER PUBLISHING (Flash Gordon, Little Nemo, Steve Canyon), DRAWN AND QUARTERLY (Moomin, Oh Skin-nay!, Walt and Skeezix), and IDW (Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates) to produce a cool, oversized promotional sampler that will be available in participating comic shops throughout November 2007 (while supplies last). This full-color 11" x 17" tabloid is a spectacular showcase of some of the finest comics art of the last century and a collector’s item in the making! Designed like an old-time classic newspaper…