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“In an era overloaded with angry voices and such involved statistical analysis it makes my head ache, we need Willard Mullin. Rather than shout and scowl, Willard drew playful, appealing images that made you smile. The iconic Brooklyn Bum. The huge but childlike New York Giant. Willard not only was a great artist — he understood that sports are supposed to be fun and joyful. And he made them more so.” — Jim Caple, ESPN.com Senior Writer “If you want to learn everything worth knowing about baseball history from the 1930s through the ’60s, you’ve got a couple of options. You can…

Johnny Ryan will be whippin' it out with a solo art show, Johnny Ryan's Chicks With Dicks, opening this Saturday, July 27th at Мишка in Los Angeles! Johnny Ryan's Chicks With Dicks will feature over sixty illustrations based on Jack Chick religious pamphlets from the 1960s onward. Our friends at Мишка explain: "For those who aren't historians on religious propaganda from fifty years ago, Jack Chick was an artist who published wild fire and brimstone comics about everyone going to hell for pretty much any minor offense. The comics read as a something an Evangelical Sunday school teacher might create,…

San Diego, CA 7/20/2013 — Fantagraphics is excited to announce the acquisition of the first book by acclaimed Australian cartoonist Simon Hanselmann, to be released in the summer of 2014. Megahex will be a deluxe hardcover featuring over 200 pages of Hanselmann's beloved Megg, Mogg, and Owl comics, including over 70 never before seen pages. Hanselmann's Tumblr site Girl Mountain has already propelled Megg, Mogg, Owl & Co. to Internet infamy, and Megahex will be the solid collection those fans have long been waiting for. Megg (a green-skinned witch), Mogg (a black cat), and Owl (an anthropomorphic owl) are a trio of…

Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972 by Willard Mullin; edited by Hal Bock and Michael Powers 240-page black & white/color 9.25" x 12.25" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-639-3 Ships next week! Pre-Order Now In Fantagraphics' ceaseless effort to rediscover every world-class cartoonist in the history of the medium, we turn your attention to a neglected part of the art form — sports cartooning — and to its greatest practitioner — Willard Mullin. The years 1930-1970 were the Golden Age of both American sports and American comic strips, when giants strode their respective fields — Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Hank…

Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has the scoop on three new publishing projects we're undertaking in stories which have rolled out during this first half of Comic-Con International: First up, details about Sock Monkey Treasury: A"Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey" Collection, collecting the material released in comic book, trade, and storybook form by Dark Horse in a big fancy hardcover, and confirmation that it will be followed by an all-new original Sock Monkey story, Sock Monkey in the Deep, Deep Woods. Second, the announcement of an as-yet-untitled collection of comics work by Eleanor Davis, compiling her stories from Mome and comics posted online along…

2013 Lambda Literary Award WinnerFeaturing an introduction by Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas) “… A definitive collection of the greatest LGBT comics created over the last four decades.” — The Advocate “… A useful, combative and frequently moving chronicle of a culture in perpetual transition; to read it is to watch as an insular demimonde transforms itself, in painful fits and joyful starts, and steps out into a wider monde.” — The New York Times Book Review “… A striking example of how entwined the history and literature of the gay rights movement have been since the early days of…

To take in the action in Georgetown this weekend you may have to navigate a detour. Exit 162 off I-5 is closed for repairs. Use Albro Place exit 161, public transportation or surface street options.   This is the last weekend to visit the temporary Sub Pop Mega Mart across the street from the bookstore. Catch a free DJ set by Shabazz Palaces on Friday evening from 5:00 to 8:00 PM.  Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery commemorates the occasion by giving away a free bottle of Sub Pop Soda Pop with every purchase all day long. And don't miss the delightful photography exhibition CP25/SP25…

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics (Softcover Ed.)by various artists; edited by Justin Hall 328-page black & white/color 7.5" x 10" softcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-718-5 Ships in: July 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Queer cartooning encompasses some of the best and most interesting comics of the last four decades, with creators tackling complex issues of identity and a changing society with intelligence, humor, and imagination. This book celebrates this vibrant artistic underground by gathering together a collection of excellent stories that can be enjoyed by all. No Straight Lines showcases major names such as Alison Bechdel…

You may recall, our own Jim Woodring has teamed up with local beer experts Elysian Brewing Company for a new line of flavors dubbed the Oddland Series!  Here's how the collaboration works: Elysian comes up with a kooky flavor, runs it past Jim who sketches an idea; the recipe is tweaked, ingredients secured, and we're off to Oddland! For the second flavor in the series, the brewers at Elysian present the Oddland Spiced Pear Ale, brewed with pears, Northwest premium 2-row and German Cara-hell malts, bittered with German Northern Brewer and finished with Yakima Cascade and Czech Saaz hops. Cumin…

  Our hands are hot from unpacking this straight-from-the-presses debut books and meeting all you nice people during Preview Night!   If the table's a rockin'….please grab it because its groaning from the weight of our books! Kristy Valenti holds one of her most recent books Love and Rockets Companion  (co-edited by Marc Sobel)  Abrams ComicsArts' editor Carol Burrell laughs and makes Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon guffaw at the booth. Wired's Graeme McMillan and Douglas Wolk go ape shit over Cathy Malkasian's Wake Up, Percy Gloom.   Scott McCloud came to oooohhh and ahhh over books and ask the most difficult question:…