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Squa Tront #13 edited by John Benson 48-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $9.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-571-6 Ships in: May 2012 (subject to change) – This item will be available to order simultaneous with its release to comic shops. Five years in the making and meticulously edited by John Benson, Squa Tront returns with a profusion of rare and interesting features from the EC era: the story behind Basil Wolverton’s first EC art; Howard Nostrand’s last interview; art from the unpublished third issue of Flip; Jack Davis’s WWII cartoons; plus EC era art by Wallace Wood, John and Marie…

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. Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez 136-page black & white 7.5" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-461-0 "…[T]here are a lot of good books out this week, mostly from Fantagraphics. My first pick would be Cruisin’ with the Hound, a collection of…

To celebrate the re-release of Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, Josh Alan Friedman presents a behind-the-scenes look at one of the strips from the book, discussing his creative process with his brother Drew, with rare art not included in the book, seldom-seen photos and his full typewritten script for the strip. You can read the article two ways: in an embedded magazine-style layout or in a standard blog format. Either way it's a must-read slice of comics history!

  We've written too many obituaries on Flog already this year. I'm saddened to contribute another. We learned this morning that Josep Maria Berenguer, founder of the legendary Spanish comics publishing house Ediciones La Cúpula , passed away last night after a battle with lung cancer. We have lost a friend here at Fantagraphics, and a colleague with whom we've had a very fruitful relationship with for over 20 years. I first met Josep Maria Berenguer in, I believe, 1995 or 1996 on a trip to Barcelona with my good pal Peter Bagge . We were there for the Barcelona Comics Festival…

Fantagraphics is rockin' the convention scene from coast to coast this coming weekend, and you can also find us at the 9th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon! Drop by the Oregon Convention Center this Saturday, April 28th and Sunday, April 29th! This year's special guests include the great Peter Bagge and the also-great Stan Sakai!  And we'll be bringing some of those deeply-discounted-dent-and-ding'ed copies of the Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition deluxe, slipcased two-volume hardcover set, so make our table your very first stop! You can find us at Booth 101, right near the entrance to the lobby,…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Since its 1996 Olio Press inception with The Curse of Brambly Hedge, writer/artist Linda Medley’s sweetly Grimm magnum opus has sometimes appeared fitfully, and this week, Castle Waiting Vol. II #16 continues that trend. More specifically, as her publishers note in a one-page introduction, three years have passed since last the black-and-white Fantagraphics Books neofable graced comics shops. Still, those same publishers — Gary Groth and Kim Thompson, not exactly gentlemen known for lavishing praise profligately — also characterize the series as 'one of the greatest and most beautifully drawn fantasy comic books…

Fantagraphics is heading over to the mighty 2012 MoCCA Fest this weekend, with so much awesomeness in store for you all! Visit us this Saturday, April 28th and Sunday, April 29th at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City! First off, take a look at all the debuts we're bringing! Many of these books won't be in stores for several more months, and copies are limited, so make our table your first stop:     • Angelman: Fallen Angel by Nicolas Mahler • Dungeon Quest 3 by Joe Daly• The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons    • God and…

Like the poster above says, it's "the International comics event of the century"! How often is it you'll find Norwegian cartoonist Jason, Austrian artist Nicolas Mahler, and Belgian cartoonist Olivier Schrauwen, all in the same room with Montreal's Matt Forsythe and Scotland's Tom Gauld?  This Friday, April 27th is your chance! Join them all at Desert Island, starting at 8:00 PM. Get books signed, and delight in their various accents! Desert Island is located at 540 Metropolitan in Brooklyn. And you can visit all those guys at the MoCCA fest that weekend!

Fantagraphics is thrilled to announce that the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City will host an evening with award-winning Austrian cartoonist and animator Nicolas Mahler this Thursday, April 26th! Join Nicolas at 6:30 PM as he chats with fellow Austrian, author and journalist JM Stim, about his work, including his brand new book Angelman, his first book to be released in English in six years!  This book will be making its worldwide debut at the event, so come by and purchase a copy for Nicolas to sign for you! This event is free and open to the public, but…

photo credit: Jacob Covey Join Joe Sacco tomorrow, Tuesday, April 24th, for a discussion on "Comics and Journalism" at Duke University in Durham, NC! He'll be speaking starting at 5:00 PM in Duke's East Campus in the White Lecture Hall, 107. This event is free and open to the public.