Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "The sad, forgotten beauty of the in-between moments of daily life: playing a board game at a kitchen table just cleared from a family dinner; listening to music having just slipped off your shoes; daydreaming while doing the dishes. What would it be like if a series of graphic novellas tried to capture these moments? What if it also featured an omnipresent, invisible rabbit that could change sizes and a dark, cloud-shaped creature ('the Big Blind') living in the basement of an apartment building that fed on the memories, dreams, and nightmares of…
Johnny Ryan declares War + Penis
1-2-3-4, Johnny Ryan declares a penis war! Johnny's frenemy-bromance with French cartoonist Frédéric Fleury has blossomed into a book, War + Penis: The Great Online Comics Insult War, out now from Italy's The Milan Review. Johnny and Fred spent months dumping on each other's Facebook walls with dozens and dozens of disgusting and hilarious insult cartoons, and now here they are collected between two alternate covers, a "France wins" version and an "America wins" version. You can order the latter direct from Johnny. Get a room you guys!
Tardi on the big screen!
Wouldn't you like to see a full-length steampunk animated feature designed by Jacques Tardi? Yeah, so would we. Here's a teaser trailer for just such a thing currently in development, from the studio that brought you PERSEPOLIS, called LE MONDE TRUQUÉ (co-written by Tardi's COCKROACH KILLER writer Benjamin Legrand, for good measure). In English, yet. Enjoy!
Behold The FantaMenace!
The FantaMenace is our entry in Hazardfactory's annual Power Tool Races at the Georgetown Carnival next Saturday. Powered by a Makita disc sander and built by Close Enough Engineering on a concept by Larry and Bella, this tool is wicked quick. We plan a triumphant return to the podium this year after our 2010 victory in the Georgetown Chainsaw Massacre. Don't miss Joe Sacco, Girl Trouble, Bubble Man and so much more. Free fun all day long. Listen to Fantgraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid discuss the Carnival with Marco Collins on Tuesday at 3:30 PM on Jet City Streamradio.
Out of the Shadows by Mort Meskin – Previews, Now in Stock
Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Out of the Shadows by Mort Meskin; edited by Steven Brower 200-page full-color 7.5" x 10.5" softcover • $26.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-532-7 See Previews / Order Now One of the greatest visual storytellers in the history of comics. That was Mort Meskin, famed Golden Age artist whose name belongs in the first rank of comics storytellers: Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko. See for yourself why Meskin earned the admiration and respect of his peers (as well as contemporary critics and historians) for his atmospherically charged work, his masterful…
Tim Kreider Lecture at the Dallas Museum of Art!
Twilight descends upon Texas on Friday, July 20th as cartoonist and essayist Tim Kreider makes a special appearance at the Dallas Museum of Art! He'll be giving a lecture on political cartooning, particularly German artist George Grosz, as part of the "Late Nights at the Museum" series, and in celebration of the summer exhibition Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas. The event runs from 6:00 PM to midnight, with the talk scheduled to begin at 9:00 PM. The Dallas Museum of Art is located at 1717 North Harwood Street, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood.
Daily OCD: 6/1/12
Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Preview/Interview: At Print Magazine, Michael Dooley presents a bunch of pages of The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s Mad-Inspired Satirical Comics and has a quick Q&A with editor John Benson: "When Isaac Asimov edited his massive Before the Golden Age anthology of 1930s science fiction… he relied entirely on his memories of reading the stories when they first appeared, and that's how he made his selections. Similarly, Jules Feiffer largely relied on his memories of the stories from his original reading when making selections for his seminal The Great Comic Book Heroes…
Prince Valiant Vol. 5: 1945-1946 by Hal Foster – Now in Stock
Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Prince Valiant Vol. 5: 1945-1946 by Hal Foster 112-page full-color 10.5" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-484-9 See Previews / Order Now Fully half of this latest volume of Hal Foster’s epic masterpiece — again scanned from superb syndicate proofs — is devoted to the remaining chapters of “The Winning of Aleta,” a 20-month (!) epic in which Valiant obsessively pursues his bride to be. Not surprisingly this is followed by a sequence called “Matrimony,” which ends with a newly wed queen adjusting to the luxurious, exciting…
The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons – Previews, Now in Stock
Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons 140-page full-color 8.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-536-5 See Previews / Order Now Graphic novelist Josh Simmons (House) returns with a harrowing and genre-bending collection of modern horror short stories that could curl the toes of a corpse in a state of rigor mortis. Simmons’ disturbing, uncomfortable and even confrontational stories often work on multiple levels: straight, uncompromising horror; blackly humorous, satirical riffs on the genre; or as vicious assaults against the political correctness that rules so much of our…
Daily OCD: 5/29-5/31/12
The latest Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Josh Simmons' book The Furry Trap is truly disturbing in its depravity. Makes Ultra Gash Inferno look cute. An inspiring & exhilarating read! How many comics can you honestly say made you sick or upset when you read them? Furry Trap made me question the First Amendment at times." – Sammy Harkham • Review: "By this point, the reader will know if [Dungeon Quest] is their cup of tea; anyone who enjoys alt-comics takes on fantasy and/or stoner humor will find this a sheer delight. I'd say the sheer level of craftsmanship…
