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* Other People's Publications** Yeah, You Know Me. Hey, it's the very first 2012 edition of "Down With OPP," our occasional column where we spotlight books from other publishers that you can find at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle!  And I was thrilled to get to the store this past weekend to find the latest volume of the celebrated Kramers Ergot anthology, from our friends at PictureBox. It's chock-full of Fantagraphics artists: It opens with a great "Jimbo" strip from Gary Panter. There's also a wonderfully-drawn one-page gag from Tim Hensley. Kevin Huizenga re-draws a sci-fi story originally…

  Saturday, February 4th • Seattle, WA: The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery kicks off Black History Month with the debut of two diverse books. Seattle-based music scholar Pat Thomas, author of Listen, Whitey!: The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965 – 1975, will be joined by Seattle authors Mark Long and Jim Demonakos, who together with cartoonist Nate Powell created the graphic novel The Silence of Our Friends. (more info)

Big, exciting news on a Sunday: Congress of the Animals (Frank et le congrès des bêtes) by Jim Woodring has been awarded the Prix Spécial du jury at the Festival international de la bande dessinée d’Angoulême! Congratulations and well deserved Jim! We're also happy to see that a volume of Carl Barks Donald Duck comics from our colleagues at Glénat received the Prix du Patrimoine. The full list of winners is reported by BoDoï; hat tip to The Comics Reporter.

Our weekly strips from Mahler & Weissman (Kupperman's taking another week off), plus links to other strips from around the web: — Black Classroom by Steven Weissman (view at original size): Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size): And elsewhere: The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Forming by Jesse Moynihan: Humblug by Arnold Roth: Keeping Two by Jordan Crane: Maakies by Tony Millionaire (via The Rumpus this week): The Pain — When Will It End? by Tim Kreider: Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim (animated!): Truth Serum by Jon…

The Big Town by Monte Schulz 440-page hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-503-7 Ships in: March 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now A novel of the Jazz Age, The Big Town is the story of a failed businessman whose dreams of prosperity hinge on the secret proposition of a millionaire industrialist and a dangerous relationship he finds with a poor orphan girl chasing love in the great American metropolis. Harry Hennesey’s hopes of success, both in his household and the world, have driven him to sell his home in an Illinois small town and take his chances in the big city….

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics by Jack Kirby & Joe Simon; edited by Michel Gagné 208-page full-color 7.75" x 10" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-502-0 See Previews / Order Now Together, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created such classic two-fisted comic series as Captain America, Boys' Ranch, The Newsboy Legion, and The Boy Commandos. But few people realize that one of their greatest successes — from 1947, when they singlehandedly created the genre, to the end of the 1950s — was… romance comics!…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat by Robert Crumb 96-page black & white 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-480-1 See Previews / Order Now “I can express something [with animals] that is different from what I put into my work about humans… I can put more nonsense, more satire and fantasy into the animals…” — R. Crumb Created by an adolescent R. Crumb in the late 1950s, Fritz the Cat rose to fame — along with his creator — during the underground comix revolution…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "This collection of strips [The Frank Book] doesn’t have much of a thread running through it, apart from the characters and their surroundings. Like classic cartoons and newspaper strips, they are there to have situations inflicted upon them. In his afterword, Woodring suggests that each strip is intended to be a mystery but that one concept runs through each one, like a sort of moral or statement. Finding these can, at times, be challenging, but this obscurity and strangeness is a large part of what gives the book it’s charm." – Grovel •…

FUNNY VALENTINES: A TRIBUTE TO JACK DAVISGroup art exhibition opens February 11 at Fantagraphics Bookstore Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery celebrates the legacy of legendary artist Jack Davis with a group exhibition "Funny Valentines: A Tribute to Jack Davis" opening Saturday, February 11 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Davis is among the most influential American artists of his time. He created comics art for the seminal EC imprint and contributed to subversive magazines like MAD, as well as illustrating popular record albums, memorable movie posters, trading cards, mainstream magazines, and advertising campaigns. Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books recently published the career retrospective Jack…

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 1: The Early Years of Bitter Struggle (Expanded Softcover Ed.) by Robert Crumb 208-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-558-7 Ships in: March 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now This long out-of-print first volume of the multiple Harvey and Eisner award- winning Complete Crumb Comics series has been one of our most demanded reprints. Now, this landmark volume of Robert Crumb’s formative years not only returns, but also boasts a major discovery not included in prior editions: a never-before-published, 60 page “home-made” Arcade comic from 1962. Growing up, Robert and…