Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

Cate McGehee attended the 30th Anniversary party for Love and Rockets held at the Fantagraphics Bookstore and wrote about it in The Stranger. Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez were in attendance in addition to hundreds of people ready to see the brothers during their auspicious celebration. Flanked by a gorgeous wall of original art, punk show posters (draw by the brothers) and alt-weekly covers, curated by Larry Reid and editor Kristy Valenti, the room held more wonder than of those in The Mask of the Red Death! Nearly thirty years of work is laid out on prismatic display (more not pictured)….

Meet Ellen Forney and pick up a signed copy of her sensational New York Times bestseller Marbles, this Saturday, December 22 from 1:00 to 2:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. The perfect occasion to complete your last minute holiday shopping. Add new meaning to "stocking stuffer" with a signed copy of Ellen's lovely Lust collection (though we're unsure ourselves what that new meaning might be.) We have exquisite gifts for everyone in every price range — many under $20! While you're at the store, you can view our colorful exhibition celebrating 30 Years of Love & Rockets and check…

The last peanut of a day of Online Commentaries & Diversions aka the news you missed while present shopping, latke eating and flying: • Review: The Comics Journal and Rucker crack the two books focusing on Malcom McNeill and William S. Burrough's artistic collaboration, Observed While Falling (the memoir) and The Lost Art of Ah Pook is Here. (the art book) "The art is awesome, the memoir is engaging. . .Ah Pook is in a characteristic style of Burroughs’s middle period.  He mixes a true-adventure story with bitter anti-establishment scenarios, gay sexual fantasies, science-fictional visualizations of chimerical mutants, and apocalyptic…

The Comics Journal #302 edited by Mike Dean & Kristy Valenti; Gary Groth, Executive Editor 672-page black & white/color 7" x 8.5" softcoverISBN: 978-1-60699-603-4 Ships in: February 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now The newly formatted, 600+ page Comics Journal proved a resounding success with 2011’s edition. 2012’s Volume 302 is sure to prove just as essential and exciting to comics readers worldwide. This edition’s cover feature is a long, intimate interview-portrait with and of Maurice Sendak, the greatest and most successful children’s book author of the 20th — and 21st — century, the author of Where the Wild Things…

If you are a fan of Significant Objects the book, you will want this lovely and delightful print now being offered through 20×200: "Significant Objects" by artist Kate Bingaman-Burt, created in association with the Significant Objects project with proceeds benefitting Girls Write Now. Available framed for easy gift-giving to the significant persons in your life.

Is this happy-go-lucky holiday season getting on your nerves? Are increasingly sentimental anthropomorphic animals for the flippin' birds? Johnny Ryan is here to serve you. This week comiXology and Fantagraphics released Angry Youth Comix issues #11-14 for you to enjoy in the midst of madness. In addition to the sex, violence and scatological filth on display, Angry Youth Comix delivers equal opportunity antagonism toward every race, gender, sexual orientation, political persuasion and religion, as well as jokes about international and humanitarian tragedies, in abundance. That being said, it is only available via the filthy filthy web so buy it and…

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include 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. "Oh man, so much great stuff to splurge on this week. Let's start withSpacehawk, Basil Wolverton's fabulous, fantabulous astronaut superhero from the alleged Golden Age. Lots of bizarre aliens and shifty-eyed villains in this one. Then there's the second volume of Ernie Bushmiller'sNancy (which I praised… the other week), and the second volume…

End the year in style with a trip to Georgetown on Sunday, December 30 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM as Fantagraphics Bookstore welcomes Brooklyn, NY cartoonist Nathan Bulmer back to his home town of Seattle. Bulmer will sign copies of his new comix collection, Eat More Bikes, from Canada's adventurous Koyama Press. A recent graduate of New York's storied School of Visual Art, Bulmer made an immediate impact with his daily Eat More Bikes comix art blog. He returns to Seattle with a new anthology of these strips, as well as a handful of hilarious self-published minicomics. The festivities include music by Zachary David Jammin' and…

It can be hard being a touring band on the road! When we couldn't manage to schedule a signing at the store with Ron Regé, Jr., we brought the books to him at last week's Lavender Diamond show in Seattle. And while supplies last, you can get one of those autographed copies of The Cartoon Utopia exclusively at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! It's a joyous holiday gift! The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.

Get ready to party it up like there's no tomorrow — 'cause there isn't! This Thursday, December 20th, it's the final event in the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series, our collaboration with Elysian Brewing Company! And when we say final, we mean FINAL, 'cause y'know… apocalypse. "Doom" has never tasted as good as this Golden Treacle Pale, available on draft, and in exclusive 22 oz. bottles with labels featuring the artwork of the great Charles Burns from his weirdly apocalyptic Black Hole series. The official tapping begins at 6:00 PM, followed by Bryan's very last survival demo. At 8:30…