Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed a recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below:  Ralph Azham Volume 1: "Why Lie to Someone You Love." by Lewis Trondheim Ian Chipman writes, ". . . Now, English readers can dig into another fantasy series populated by [Trondheim's] distinctive anthropomorphized animals and distinguished by equal parts cutting humor and bizarre plot twists. . . What seems like a good, old-fashioned unlikely-hero tale in the making actually turns out to be more complex and slippery, as Ralph’s past gets sliced in bit by bit as we gradually learn about the world he inhabits, all…

One of many appealing aspects of David Lasky and Frank M. Young's new graphic biography of The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song is the CD of the Carters performing live on border radio, playing songs featured in the comix. It has the ethereal effect of transporting readers back in time. A big attraction at the reception for Lasky and Noah Van Sciver this Friday, November 2 at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is a music performance by Dennis Driscoll. He contributed a sweet version of "Bury Me Beneath the Weeping Willow" to America Salutes The Carter Family cassette-only release. Another…

During APE weekend, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, CA launched the exhibit: Love and Rockets: A 30th Anniversary Celebration. This career-spanning retrospective features more than 50 pieces of original artwork from the groundbreaking comic. People teased me & Mike about how excited we were to see the exhibit ("Don't you see their originals all the time at the office?"), but it really did give me goosebumps to see these 30-year-old pages in person. When Mike & I got back to the hotel, he tweeted this: Yup, pretty much. The opening reception was packed from the beginning of the…

Oh, THE HORROR! Earlier this month, the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery launched the exhibit “The Horror: From the EC Comics Library.” And after today, it will be GONE forever! Oh, what a world! The exhibition celebrated the publication of the first two titles in the EC Comics Library series: Corpse on the Imjin! and Other Stories by Harvey Kurtzman and Came the Dawn and Other Stories by Wallace Wood. If you're in the Seattle area, stop by the store for your last look at the show! Larry might even have some tricks-and-treats in the form of our Tales From the…

Walt Disney's Donald Duck: A Christmas for Shacktown by Carl Barks 240-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-574-7 Ships in: November 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now The third volume of Fantagraphics’ reprinting of Carl Barks’s classic Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge work, like the previous volume Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man, focuses on the early 1950s, universally considered one of Barks’s very peak periods. Originally published in 1951, "A Christmas for Shacktown" is one of Barks's masterpieces: A rare 32-pager that stays within the confines of Duckburg, featuring a storyline in which the Duck…

The cuddliest cat at the shelter of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Review: Body Literature reviews The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 edited by Nico Vassilakis & Crag Hill. Stephan Delbos writes "The Last Vispo Anthology is strange. It is also challenging, eclectic, confounding, erudite, punchy, and, by turns, beautiful. . .overall there is an elegiac note to this anthology, which extends from the title to the feeling, put forth by several of the essays, that visual poetry is facing a turning point.. .visual poetry is the bastard hermaphrodite of arts and letters. In a good way." • Review:…

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. "This is a super-strong week for the Seattle-based alt-comics mainstay publishing house. In fact, that would be a strong season for a lot of publishers." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter Came the Dawn and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)Illustrated by Wallace Wood; written by Al Feldstein et al.;…

Wednesday, October 31st • Seattle, WA: It's your last chance to see our exhibit The Horror: from the EC Comics Library at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! I wrote myself a note about this in my calendar that just read "The Horror Ends," which cracked up my friend who saw it out of this context. (more info) Thursday, November 1st • Seattle, WA: Our own Jason T. Miles is just one of many awesome local artists in the show Handbound: Exploring the Process of Short Run Small Press Fest Exhibitors at SOIL Gallery. This group show explores the creative process…

The nice folks at Comic Strip Tees promise "every week new comic, every week new shirt," and last week, that shirt featured the artwork of our very own Hans Rickheit! Might as well wear Cochlea & Eustachia while you're reading about them in Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion! His work might make you feel uncomfortable, but at least your clothes won't be…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Blacklung by Chris Wright 128-page black & white 9.25" x 12.25" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-587-7 See Previews / Order Now Chris Wright’s Blacklung is unquestionably one of the most impressive graphic novel debuts in recent years, a sweeping, magisterially conceived, visually startling tale of violence, amorality, fortitude, and redemption, one part Melville, one part Peckinpah. Blacklung is a story that lives up to the term graphic novel, that could only exist in sequential pictures — densely textured, highly stylized, delicately and boldly rendered drawings that is, taken together, wholly original. In…