Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Sala creates stories in which brightly colored, cartoony art and characters who speak in casual idiom tell of events that aren’t so much humorous or casual as provocative and scary. In [The Hidden], he combines motifs of a postapocalyptic landscape, wanderers, some vampiric businessmen, and, ultimately, Dr. Frankenstein. The stew works perfectly: readers have no chance to engage in incredulity… Characters are introduced at a steady but manageable pace, and it is only at story’s end that the opening pages become horrifyingly clear. Sala works with a full palette of beautiful, gemlike hues…
Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 by Hal Foster – Now in Stock
Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 by Hal Foster 112-page full-color 10.25" x 14" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-455-9 See Previews / Order Now As this fourth volume begins, Prince Valiant, haunted by the lovely Aleta, seeks Merlin’s wise counsel. This brief episode segues into one of Hal Foster’s patented epics, “The Long Voyage to Thule,” which ran for seven straight months and featured Valiant’s return to his birthplace and reunion with his father. Of course, Foster’s astonishingly detailed and evocative depictions of Val’s home- land contribute greatly to…
Nuts by Gahan Wilson – Now in Stock
Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Nuts by Gahan Wilson 144-page black & white 8" x 8" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-454-2 See Previews / Order Now In this thematically and narratively linked series of one-page stories originally published in the National Lampoon’s “Funny Pages” section throughout the 1970s, the master of the macabre eschewed his usual ghouls, vampires, and end-of-the-world scenarios for a wry, pointed look at growing up normal in the real, yet endlessly weird world. Watch as our stoic, hunting-cap-wearing protagonist (known only as “The Kid”) copes with illness, disappointment, strange…
The Cabbie Vol. 1 by Martí – Now in Stock
Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: The Cabbie Vol. 1 by Martí 80-page black & white 9" x 11.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-450-4 See Previews / Order Now Sergio Leone’s retooling of classic westerns for his “spaghetti westerns”… Stieg Larsson’s striking take on the serial killer/mystery thriller in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo… And for that matter ABBA’s fiendishly catchy appropriation of American pop music. Sometimes it takes Europeans to make gold of tuckered-out American tropes. Add to those instances of inspired global cross-pollination the Spanish cartoonist Martí’s eye-popping The Cabbie, which…
Thanks Peter Serafinowicz! (Therafinowicz.)
Another day, another celebrity supporter plugging Michael Kupperman's new book Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 on Twitter — this time it's hilarious and wonderful British writer/actor/director Peter Serafinowicz! (Pardon the censored link… directing Flog readers to a certain online mega-retailer is verboten…)
Daily OCD: 9/28/11
Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "This is hugely imaginative, exultantly silly, gag-a-minute writing that manages to comment on the popular culture of the last century while willfully wallowing in it — Python with a wry dose of Pynchon…. Were you, dear reader, to ask me if the brevity of [Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010]'s chronologically arranged but narratively stand-alone chapters made it an ideal book for bathroom reading, I would call you a coarse, disgusting pig-person, demand that you leave my office, and wipe down the chair you'd been sitting in. … But, yes." – Glen Weldon, NPR Monkey…
Fantagraphics at APE 2011!
We've got a gorilla-sized weekend coming up at APE: the Alternative Press Expo in beautiful San Francisco, CA! Come see us on Saturday, October 1st and Sunday, October 2nd at the Concourse Exhibition Center, and be among the first to get your mitts on these hot numbers: • Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks• Pogo, Vol. 1 of the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: "Through the Wild Blue Wonder" by Walt Kelly• Oil & Water written by Steve Duin; art by Shannon Wheeler [ WE TOLD YOU SO!!! ] • Nuts by Gahan Wilson•…
Leslie Stein at The Escapist THIS Friday!
We've got our eye set on this majestic event: Leslie Stein will be signing this Friday, September 30th at The Escapist in Berkeley, CA! We're teaming up with our friends at PictureBox to present this pre-party for APE: the Alternative Press Expo. Leslie will be signing copies of her latest Eye of the Majestic Creature, and she'll be joined by Matthew Thurber, signing the collected 1-800-MICE! Meet them both, starting at 7:00 PM at The Escapist Comic Bookstore [ 3090 Claremont Ave. in Berkeley ], and say hi to our old intern, Sophie!
New Comics Day 9/28/11: Love and Rockets
This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about it (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 by the Hernandez Brothers 104-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-490-0 "I have now had multiple friends contact me to tell me that they'd just finished the conclusion of Jaime Hernandez's story 'The Love Bunglers' in this issue and had…
Daily OCD: 9/27/11
Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Interview: Brian Heater's conversation with Drew Friedman at The Daily Cross Hatch continues: "Another reason I want to quit these books is that there’s always younger comedians coming up, and I just can’t keep up. Howard Stern’s gonna be an old guy in a couple of years…. I’m not crazy about some of them, and I just don’t want to think about drawing Adam Sandler when he’s an old man, or Ben Stiller, or even Jerry Seinfeld. It just doesn’t appeal to me." • Commentary: Divine Decision reports on our Moto Hagio The Heart…
