Umpteen Millionaire Club: Jim Woodring’s Fran

[The Umpteen Millionaire Club is our series which puts forth book club discussion questions for Fantagraphics titles. The Comics Journal interns Keith Baralato, Eli Powell, and Evans Winters put together this set of questions. – Ed.] Written by Keith Barbalato, Lillian Beaty, and Sonya Selbach Rendered in vivid black and white (though it evokes psychedelia), Fran: The Preceding and Continuing Congress of the Animals depicts a story of love, loss, and healing – all in wordless panels. From one page to the next, Woodring builds a fantastical world Frank readers will be familiar with: the Unifactor is the landscape against which Fran…

COUCH TAG RELEASE PARTY at DESERT ISLAND

Join Jesse Reklaw, Desert Island's Gabe Fowler and and friends tonight at Desert Island for a rockin' good time. From 7 to 9pm, Reklaw will be signing copies of his new graphic novel, Couch Tag, just for you! Let him know which of his 13 cats was your favorite.   He'll also be signing at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle on December 14th while gracing the shelves of Portland's Floating World on December 19th! See you at every single location!    

New Comics Day 12.4.13

This week's comic shop shipment included the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.   Black is the Color by Julia Gfrörer 72-page black & white 6" x 9" softcover • $14.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-717-8 "Beautiful. Gfrörer has a light touch in finding the yearning and humor amongst life's hard luck and even harder truths. A genuinely romantic and sensitive book." –Sammy Harkham  "Gfrörer's most moving comic to date, Black Is the Color…

Spring-Summer 2014 Pre-Order Parade

Now that our Kickstarter campaign has wrapped up, we're starting to offer our Spring-Summer 2014 books as plain old regular pre-orders. Our first batch is listed below, and more will become available as they're built into our bookkeeping system (which can be an irregular process). We've also set up a few discounted gift sets to help you save some bucks while building your collection. Be among the first to reserve your copies — hit those links to learn more about each title and start building your shopping cart! The Complete Peanuts 1991-1992 (Vol. 21)  by Charles M. Schulzforeword by Tom Tomorrow…

Celebrated Summer by Charles Forsman – Now in Stock

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:  Celebrated Summer by Charles Forsman 68-page 7.75" x 10.25" black & white flexibound softcover • $16.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-685-0 See Previews / Order Now This original graphic novella is a funny and moving story of escalating humor and tension between two disaffected teens, Mike and Wolf, who take a spontaneous summer road trip after dropping acid. As the stark black and white of Forsman's cartooning indicates, however, this is not a psychedelic, Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby kind of trip. Instead of the escapism they crave from their fragile home lives, the LSD only heightens…

Spring-Summer 2014, part 20: The Thrizzling Conclusion – Plus Vapor & Fog in Fall

Over the last 4 weeks we've been spotlighting the books in our upcoming Spring-Summer 2014 season, which are being made possible by the generous support of people like you who have backed our Kickstarter campaign. Now we've reached the final title in the catalog, and as a bonus we're revealing two titles for our Fall-Winter 2014 season! These books were already scheduled for previous seasons but were left in limbo after Kim Thompson's illness and passing earlier this year. We can now confirm that they are coming next year, thanks to everyone who helped us reach our first Kickstarter stretch goal! (Please…

This Week in Fantagraphics Events: 12/2-12/9

Thursday, December 5th • New York City, NY:  Editor Hal Bock is steppin' up to the plate at Bergino Baseball Clubhouse with our beautiful collection Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972! Makes a great Christmas gift for the sports fan in your life! (more info) Friday, December 6th • Brooklyn, NY:  Well, will it? You better stop by the Scott Eder Gallery for the opening reception of the Kim Deitch exhibit to find out! 6-9 PM, with signings, AND the exclusive debut of this beautiful t-shirt below (barring any unforeseen events). (more info) • Seattle, WA:  What do…

Spring-Summer 2014, part 19: Black Light, Film Noir

Our campaign to support our Spring-Summer 2014 season on Kickstarter is ongoing, and we're continuing to spotlight the books in question, a couple at a time. We've also put our season catalog online for you to browse. (Please note that all artwork, contents, prices, specs, and release dates are preliminary and subject to change.) Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole by L.B. Cole; introduction by Bill Schelly 272-page full-color 9.25" x 13.25" flexibound softcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-762-8  L.B. Cole created some of the most bizarre, proto-psychedelic, eye-popping comic book covers of all time, yet remarkably this is the first retrospective of his career,…

Kickstarter: A free digital comic available to all!

Our digital comics partner-in-crime, comiXology, has given us the gift of digital comics for the Kickstarter campaign! Any backer who spends over $10 on our Kickstarter will receive a download code for Richard Sala's newest comic, VIOLENZIA, and a coupon for 50% off any Fantagraphics title available on comiXology. New to digital comics? Don't be afraid. Violenzia's path of destruction is strictly virtual, we assure you, although when viewed through comiXology's high-def technology, it might be hard to believe.    There are still plenty of book to pre-order and some older ones that have been signed have just being added! Everything from Jaime Hernandez's…

Celebrated Summer by Charles Forsman – Photoset Preview

"Isolated and longing to connect, Chuck Forsman's Wolf reminds me of other great characters like Charlie Brown and Holden Caulfield. Celebrated Summer is a primal scream drawn in a casual, hypnotic monotone. Few comics are this soulful. Few cartoonists can make work this assured." – James Sturm "I love the spare elegance of Chuck’s storytelling style. I also love, in this book in particular, his relaxed approach to examining the lives of his characters." – Chester Brown "…Forsman is one of the strongest and most vital young cartoonists currently putting pen to paper — not to mention one of the…