We had a swell time at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland this past weekend and the big news for us there was that Jaime Hernandez received the Stumptown Comic Arts Award for Best Cartoonist! Festival special guest and our longtime pal Stan Sakai picked up the award for Best Letterer, and our newest hire, Jen Vaughn, shares the award for Best Anthology as co-editor of Lies Grown-ups Told Me. Congrats to all!
Moto Hagio receives Japan Medal of Honor
We were extremely pleased to learn over the weekend that Moto Hagio (creator of A Drunken Dream and Other Stories and the forthcoming The Heart of Thomas, among many other works) has been awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal of Honor by the government of Japan for her contributions to the arts. "Hagio is the 14th manga creator and the first female manga-ka to receive this award," reports Deb Aoki at About.com Manga, who has the complete story and background courtesy our own manga editor/translator, Matt Thorn (pictured below with Hagio-sensei at the Japan Cartoonist Association award ceremony last June).
Joe Sacco at Duke U.: A Special Report
Attn: Flog Faithful… posting might lessen a bit this week as we continue to navigate the brutal, nine-day convention gauntlet that is Stumptown, MoCCA and TCAF. To ease your cravings, we bring you an exclusive Flog! report from our Tobacco Road Correspondent Rob Clough. — Ed. Joe Sacco gave a lecture and Q&A to an audience of about a hundred at Duke University on 4/24/2012. He said that this was probably the last time he was going to give this particular lecture on Comics Journalism. If you haven't seen it, Sacco gives an account of his working method by talking…
Is It Wrong of Me to Gloat?
Three things I've read recently that you haven't: (1) The first 42 pages of Jacques Tardi's next graphic novel, which looks like it's going to be one of his absolute masterpieces. (2) All of Carol Tyler's astonishing, heartbreaking final installment of You'll Never Know. (3) All of Jaime Hernandez's contribution to Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 (a.k.a. "What on Earth He Does for an Encore"). Sometimes it is good to be the publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists. Everyone have a great weekend envying me!
Friday Follies
Interns Anna and Madisen model the latest in temporary tat fashion, courtesy of the desk drawer.
Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli – Previews, Pre-Order
Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli 144-page full-color 7.75" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-559-4 Ships in: May 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now A high-rise apartment building in an unnamed European city. Its inhabitants come and go, meet each other, talk, dream, regret, hope… in short, live. A ghostly, shape-shifting anthropomorphic white rabbit roams from apartment to apartment, surveying and keeping track of all this humanity… and at the end of every night, he floats down to the basement where he delivers his report to the "great dark one." Lushly delineated in penciled halftones, this moody graphic novel was orig-…
Daily OCD: 4/26/12
Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Profile: Esteemed underground comix historian Patrick Rosenkranz at The Comics Journal: "Spain Rodriguez acknowledges that age hasn’t necessarily brought wisdom, but it does help him appreciate his youthful adventures more, especially the unique experience of growing up in Buffalo, New York in the 1950s, which he portrays in his latest book, Cruisin' with the Hound…. This new volume from Fantagraphics Books tells more about his childhood, the guys and girls in his neighborhood, early encounters with sex, religion, and science fiction, and the birth of rock and roll." Sample quote from Spain: "Each moment…
Jimmy Corrigan and the world’s dumbest criminal
Last night's episode of popular cop show Law & Order SVU contained an unlikely Chris Ware reference. A misguided comic shop clerk (uh-oh) prowled the streets dressed as a superhero to protect the public from a SoHo serial rapist. Turns out [SPOILER ALERT –Ed.] superclerk was the perp all along. His heroics were a misguided attempt to spark a romance with an unsuspecting female customer. During his climactic rooftop arrest, he confesses that on her first visit to the comics shop he attempted to lure the woman with a copy of Jimmy Corrigan. Right. That always works.
Daily OCD: 4/24-4/25/12
A quiet couple of days for Online Commentary & Diversions: • Plug: "I very much like Tom Spurgeon’s 'Before Before Watchmen There Was Spain Rodriguez' campaign. Rodriguez is one the of great, lively cartoonists of the last 40 years who should be enjoying comfortable golden years based on his body of work. And he’s still working, turning out good work. He has a new book out called, improbably, Cruisin’ With the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote. Go buy a copy." – Heidi MacDonald, The Beat • Interview (Audio): Listen to Monday night's episode of Too Much Information…
Fantagraphics Bookstore Celebrates Free Comic Book Day On May 5 with Classic Collectible Comix!
Don’t miss Free Comic Book Day at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. On Saturday, May 5, the Georgetown shop will be giving away free copies of specially produced comic books by master cartoonists like Carl Barks, Crockett Johnson and, while supplies last, the coveted Unseen Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Celebrating its 10th year in 2012, the annual Free Comic Book Day promotion is a national effort on the part of publishers and retailers to attract new readers to the medium as well as show appreciation to loyal customers. Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books offers two new titles for Free Comic…
