Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

"I love Hate, particularly the increasingly oddball Buddy Bradley stories…. Every comics fan should have the vast majority of whatever Peter Bagge has in print…" – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter "…Bagge’s vivid caricatures animate the most routine of actions, effectively suggesting how cozily, in this life, the mundane cohabits with the outrageous." – Rich Kreiner, The Comics Journal "…Bagge truly pulls out all the stops in depicting extreme familial weirdness. His dialogue is as sharp as ever, his line is quite lively and his uncanny ability to depict the creeping weirdness of suburbia is even more disturbing than in…

The San Francisco library is currently hosting an exhibit based on Pretty in Ink: American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, the ultimate collection of female comic herstory! Featuring photos, letters, original artwork, toys, comic books and other ephemera, this exhibition captures women cartoonists from the late 19th century to now! And on Thursday, March 27th, author Trina Robbins will discuss her work, and sign copies of the book in the main library, at 6:00 PM in the  Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room on the lower level. Come see and hear all the pretty at the main library of the San Francisco Public Library…

This Saturday, March 29th the new Appleseed Comic Con is sponsoring a screening of Ghost World, the Terry Zwigoff-directed film adaptation of the Daniel Clowes comic! Join the gang at 8pm at the Fort Wayne Cinema Center for a pre-show drink & draw (complete with artist alley) followed by the fim at 9:30pm. Only $7 to see this Oscar-nominated classic with Thora Birch, Scarlett Johannson and the incredible Steve Buscemi.   And don't forget to buy your tickets now for Appleseed Comic Con! It's coming up in MAY and special guests include Peter Bagge and Ed Piskor. Ghost World  Fort…

We got the green light from our esteemed colleagues over at Disney to start the presses running on the next volume of Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse strips! Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 5: Outwits the Phantom Blot is at the printer getting ready for its debut in June. As usual, it'll be stuffed full with two years of crisply-reproduced daily strips starring Mickey and his menagerie of pals and foes in their thrilling, funny, and masterfully-told adventures, along with loads of bonus essays and related artwork. Reserve your copy now!

Get through detention with Unlovable! Loosely based on a teenager's diary from the 1980s found in a gas-station bathroom, Unlovable is the remarkable story of Tammy Pierce, as filtered through the pen of Los Angeles artist Esther Pearl Watson. Since serialized from the pages of Bust magazine, you'll laugh so hard you'll cry at the sometimes ordinary, sometimes humiliating, often poignant and frequently hilarious exploits of '80s teen underdog Tammy Pierce: big hair, boogers, boys and other high school pitfalls. Only $4.99 for 100 pages of fun in Unlovable Book 1 #1 "Another Crappy Day" to read on your digital…

The Love Bunglersby Jaime Hernandez 112-page black & white 9" x 11.25" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-729-1 Ships in: April 2014 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now "There are certain things about my family Mom always preferred to keep hush hush." The suppression of family history is the initial thread that ties together The Love Bunglers, featuring Hernandez's longtime Love and Rockets heroine Maggie. Because these secrets can't be dealt with openly, their lingering effect is even more powerful. But Maggie's ability to navigate and find meaning in her life — despite losing her culture, her brother, her profession, and her…

Last week, our newest manga also made the NY Times Best Seller list for at #6 for Manga. Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano is the dark and rewarding tale for fans of suspense, horror and mysteries. We even had our Umpteenth Millionaire club create some discussion questions for you and your book club! Check it out today.

Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 1 just enjoyed its first week on the NY Times Best Seller's list for paperback graphic novels at #7. This book is practically sold out of its second printing, the third is on its way so better preorder Volume 2 now! "The beginnings of hip-hop music and its surrounding culture are lovingly told with a 1970s Marvel Comics house style in this collection." –NY Times

We got our advance shipment of Hip Hop Family Tree Two-in-One and it is looking gooood. This Ed Piskor joint drops on Free Comic Book Day, May 3, 2014, exclusively at participating comic shops worldwide. This sampler of material from the first two volumes includes some exclusive guest pinups by Alexis Ziritt, Toby Cypress, Natalie Andrewson, Jasen Lex, and Johnny Negron, plus some other special touches and surprises courtesy of Jim Rugg. All at the cost to you the consumer of zip, zero, zilch, nada. Ed himself will be on hand to launch the comic at a certain "beguiling" comic…

Next month's issue of Booklist will include two reviews of a recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below: Stranger Than Life: Cartoons and Comics, 1970-2013 by MK Brown "Brown's cartoons were a mainstay of National Lampoon during its salad days of the 1970s… Remarkably, this is the first comprehensive collection of her distinctively daffy work. Although the visual and conceptual non sequiturs of her singlepanel cartoons are clever and diverting, it's her comic strips where Brown's unique brilliance really shines…Brown's drawings, with their bulbous figures and ornate rendering, are every bitas unmistakable and memorable as her humor."–Gordon Flagg  Nijigahara Holograph…