We need a hero for Bill Everett’s Heroic Tales!

Work on Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 2 is nearing completion but we have two missing pieces of the puzzle and editor Blake Bell is putting out the call to all Golden Age collectors! We're looking for the following two stories:  Silver Streak Comics #20 (Apr '42) – Rex Reed 8-page storyTarget Comics v1 #8 (Sep '40) – Chameleon 6-page story If you have copies of either of these comics, click here to find out how to contact Blake and what the next steps will be after that. Contributors will get a free copy of the book and credit in the acknowledgments!

Femke Hiemstra at Roq La Rue Seattle Friday!

Who knows what the devil will wear to the opening reception for Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra's latest exhibit at Roq La Rue, this Friday, December 7th! "Let the Devil Wear Black" is a collection of meticulously tight, jewel-like mixed media paintings and exquisitely-rendered black and white drawings, homes to a dark fairytale land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal neighbors. The painting below is titled "OMG," for very, very obvious reasons! Femke will be joined by artist Ryan Heshka, cover artist for Blab #18! His own collection "Disasterama" debuts that night, as well. Both artists will…

Terry Zwigoff’s Packed Santa Sack (of a theater)

Last night, director Terry Zwigoff appeared at Central Cinema's sold-out showing of Bad Santa, produced/toured/small printed by The A.V. Club's Cult Canon Tour. The 2003 hit resonated with the parents, malcontents and former elves in the audience (thank you, Dallas Northpark Mall, for that hellish winter month). A charmingly nasal and articulate Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club moderated the Q&A while Zwigoff opened with a slide show of amazing parodies, criminal copy cats and a slew of Santa photos through the ages, too amazing to not share at least one.  Zwigoff went into detail about looking for the perfect…

Daily OCD 11/29/12

The first snowflake of Online Commentaries & Diversions:  • Review: Publishers Weekly enjoys Naked Cartoonists, edited by Gary Groth. "The litmus test for any collective work based on the idea of one page per artist is whether the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. . . [Naked Cartoonists] no trouble achieving that goal. . . Dan Piraro (Bizarro) deserves kudos for his strategically-located likeness of Garfield . . ."  • Plug: Elliot Bay Book Company shows off a copy of Naked Cartoonists from their store and Dave states, "Hilarious. Scary. Weird. And just plain bawdy. If…

Problematic: Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2012 by Jim Woodring – Previews, Pre-Order

Problematic: Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2012 by Jim Woodring 364-page black & white 5.25" x 8" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-594-5 Ships in: December 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last. If you are one of the fortunate thousands who enjoy untangling the enigmatic images that fill Jim Woodring's comics and drawings, Problematic is just the book for you to put under your pillow and dream on. Woodring is a devotee of the pocket-sized Moleskine sketchbook and has filled at…

Terry Zwigoff at Central Cinema in Seattle Tonight!

Do I even need to say who's who in this pic? As we mentioned earlier this week with the release of Larry's 1995 interview with him, Terry Zwigoff is making a rare Seattle appearance tonight, Thursday, November 29th at Central Cinema! He'll be screening his 2003 film Bad Santa, but he'll also be doing a Q&A afterwards where you can ask him about his work on Ghost World or Crumb.  Fantagraphics will be on site with copies of his screenplay for you to get signed! Central Cinema is located at 1411 21 Avenue, in Seattle's Central District neighborhood at 21st…

Fantagraphics en Français in Seattle This Saturday!

The Seattle-based French cultural organization the Alliance Française is having a Christmas market and you're invited! Fantagraphics will have a table there selling our French translations (Tardi, Trondheim, David B., etc.) but we will also have a big pile of non-Fantagraphics editions of French and Belgian classics such as Tintin, Asterix, the Smurfs, and Lucky Luke, and several boxes full of french comics IN THE ORIGINAL FRENCH that have not previously been made available in our store. The Alliance Française is a great organization and this should be a fun time for Francophiles in general even above and beyond Fantagraphics'…

Daily OCD 11/28/12

The luckiest Powerball ticket of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Review: Drawn's John Martz is ready for Heads or Tails. "Lilli Carré is one of those cartoonists who has been putting out plenty of great work. . . She’s a master of short stories, so this collection is a welcome addition to my bookshelves. Rainbow Moment, a smartly-crafted story of nested memories all told in different colour palettes is the stand out work, and worth the price of admission alone." • Review: John Martz of Drawn looks at Barack Hussein Obama. "Steven Weissman has been posting his odd comic strip,…

NY Times Bestseller’s List > $500,000,000 Powerball

In a cheeky cameo, cartoonist Rich Tommaso magically appears next to FOX news reporter Denise Dillon when she grabs a copy of The Cavalier Mr. Thompson off the bookshelf. Tommaso has a better chance "of writing a NY Times Best Seller than winning the Powerball," currently at $500,000,000. While we distribute Tommaso's lastest graphic novel and have published a few NY Times Best Sellers, we cannot guarantee that a photogenic creator will appear next to you the next time you thumb through their work in a public space. But be warned: they might. Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports |…

First Look: The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics by Alexander Theroux

January will bring another of our occasional non-comics books, a unique work of cultural and music criticism from the prolific mind of Alexander Theroux: The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics is a scathing and hilarious examination of stupid rhymes, dud lines, silly titles, and multifarious other aspects of popular recordings of the past century (with examples of quality included for contrast), from ABBA to Zappa. On the jacket, more fine work by designer Emory Liu (featuring a vintage Robert Crumb drawing) — and wait until you see the endpapers. Get a taste with a…