Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

An evening celebrating the great cartoonist, writer, and editor Harvey Kurtzman? Awesome. An evening celebrating Kurtzman with fellow amazing cartoonists Drew Friedman, Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth, and Robert Grossman? Even more awesome!!! Join these legendary artists tomorrow Tuesday, March 19th as they  discuss the life and works of Harvey Kurtzman in a panel moderated by Peter Kuper. The discussion runs from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the Society of Illustrators [ 128 East 63rd Street ]. It's all part of that extraordinary retrospective exhibit The Art of Harvey Kurtzman, which runs through Saturday, May 11th. And UPDATE! We've just got…

We're galloping up on Free Comic Book Day and we just got advance copies of our special FCBD comic featuring Hal Foster's Prince Valiant! This swell 32-pager contains 2 sequences of Foster's strip from 1950, reformatted and edited for the comic book format. (You'll be able to find the original strips in all their glory in Prince Valiant Vol. 7, coming this Summer!) Check out a PDF preview of the first 7 pages, courtesy the fine FCBD folks. You'll be able to pick up your FREE copy of this special comic exclusively at participating comic shops on Saturday, May 4, 2013. Lots of shops have sales…

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund continues to bless objects with Jaime Hernandez's artwork. They have taken his Libby image from the Membership Card seen below (and shirts and hoodies) to make gorgeous limited edition prints. Utilizing the press at Aardvark Letterpress and help from CBLDF Member Store The Secret Headquarters in LA this 11 x 14 inch print is available to people pledging at the DEFENDER Level ($250) and higher. Here Jaime is approving the design by cartoonist Malachi Ward to accompany his own artwork. Deputy Director Alex Cox states, "Mr. Hernandez was involved in the design process, and as you…

Are you ready to get Groove-y? Our new, redesigned, remastered paperback edition of the great Gene Deitch's The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove is just a couple months away and we have advance copies in house to show off. Collecting Deitch's jazz illustrations and cartoons from The Record Changer magazine 1945-1951 in an oversized coffee table book, it's a jazz fiend's, vinyl collector's, midcentury illustration lover's, retro-phile's dream! Right now you can groove on an 18-page excerpt and pre-order a copy (at 30% off through March 18 as part of our Art & Illustration sale!) right here.

We've just uploaded a 16-page excerpt (comprising the entire first chapter) of Goddamn This War! by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Pierre Verney for your perusal. This section of Tardi's second WWI masterwork covers 1914, the first year of the war, told from the somewhat jaundiced (though not completely despairing yet) point of view of a French infantry soldier, illustrated in Tardi's loose-yet-precise pen and striking watercolors. View the preview in the embedded reader here or get the PDF directly. We've just approved the printer's proofs which means the book should be hitting shelves in June or so — you can get it a little sooner if…

We're having a sale on books in our Art & Illustration category! Save at least 30% on art books, illustration collections, exhibit catalogs, sketchbooks, pin-ups and more. Featuring artists such as Nell Brinkley, Jack Cole, Al Columbia, Dave Cooper, R. Crumb, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Jim Flora, Drew Friedman, Paul Hornschemeier, Lorenzo Mattotti, Malcolm McNeill, Tony Millionaire, Robert Williams, Gahan Wilson, Barry Windsor-Smith, Basil Wolverton, Jim Woodring and many more; anthologies like Arf, Beasts!, Blab! and more; and much much more spanning vintage classics and cutting-edge contemporary work — save on dozens of our best and most beautiful books! It runs 4…

Ed Piskor: Brain Rot presents original pen and ink drawings by Piskor which comprised many of his latest comics publications. These original drawings will be up at the Columbus Museum of Art from March 15, 2013 until June 2, 2013. The exhibition includes more than thirty original pages from Hip Hop Family Tree due out from Fantagraphics October 2013. Hip Hop Family Tree tracks the evolution of hip hop from its beginnings in the 1970s as a niche local subculture into the global phenomenon it quickly became. On March 24th, 2013 at 2pm Piskor will speak about his creative process with interviewer, comics writer,…

  Thank you so much to everyone who came out this past weekend for our signing with the wonderful Geneviève Castrée, whose debut graphic novel Susceptible is out now from our friends at Drawn & Quarterly! She gave a wonderful and spirited slideshow presentation, and at one point she had to don her husband's glasses in order to see the slides herself!  I learned so much from her talk that even though I was halfway through reading the book, when I got home, I started over again with all this new, fascinating information in mind!   And huge kudos to…

Janet Hamlin Uncovers the Humanity Hidden Within Guantanamo's Walls in Sketching Guantanamo (not final cover art) Sketching Guantanamo: Court Sketches of the Military Tribunals, 2006-2013 by Janet Hamlin In the wake of 9-11, alleged terrorists were housed on a U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba. While there, these terrorist suspects were confined in "indefinite detention," off the American mainland, unaccountable to the U.S. judicial system, nameless and faceless to the world. At the military trials of Guantanamo, which started in 2006, no photographs were permitted in the courtroom. Only one person was allowed to cover the trials, not with a…

Callin' out to Percy Gloom fans! While we all eagerly await Cathy Malkasian's follow-up Wake Up, Percy Gloom (due out next month), we can dial up this great Percy iPhone cover from RedBubble.com. Wake Up, indeed — it's for you!