Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

The Taking Punk to the Masses Northwest tour wraps up this Thursday, September 22nd at the University Book Store in Tacoma… a city where apparently this happened: From the pages of Taking Punk to the Masses Holy crap, do they mean shoegazer band Lush? With Nirvana? For $5? Less if you brought canned foods? This is the kind-of amazing paraphernalia of the grunge-era that you can only find in Taking Punk to the Masses: From Nowhere to Nevermind! Join EMP Senior Curator/editor Jacob McMurray at 5:30 PM for a reading and discussion. The University Bookstore is located at 1754 Pacific…

I can't remember when I first heard the "Shut Up, Little Man" tapes, but it was almost certainly a cartoonist who introduced me to them, specifically either J.R. Williams, Jim Blanchard or Peter Bagge, all of whom were connoisseurs of the "prank call" genre and sated my growing appetite for same in the early 1990s by making me mix tapes (including the also-essential "Tube Bar" recordings that catapulted "Red the Bartender" into infamy as the inspiration for The Simpsons' Moe Szyslak). The "Shut Up Little Man" tapes weren't phone pranks, per se; they were better! Two hateful drunks chewing each other…

(click to enlarge) We are in the final stages of assembling this mammoth collection of Bill Griffith's non-syndicated-Zippy work (i.e. from undergrounds and alternative comics), and we cannot for the life of us figure out where the story "Toadette Dignity" might have appeared (see above for the first of two pages). Bill finished it in 1975 with the intent of publishing it in Arcade but it did not in fact appear in Arcade. Bill is sure it got published somewhere eventually but has no idea where that might be. First person to correctly identify where it was published gets a…

Our own Ian Burns has joined me in the exclusive "Theme Sketchbook of Frank Oz Puppet Characters Club" with his own super-impressive book of Animal from The Muppet Show (my personal second-favorite member of The Electric Mayhem, after Zoot), which is giving my Yoda collection a serious run for its money. Here are some Fantagraphics-relevant entries as posted by Ian on the Versus the Moon blog (where he posts 2 new ones a week, so keep checking back): Gahan Wilson Gilbert Hernandez Jim Rugg Johnny Ryan Peter Bagge Jim Woodring Megan Kelso

The list of nominees continues to grow for American Library Association/Young Adult Library Services Association "2012 Great Graphic Novels for Teens" list. Joining the already-announced Wandering Son Vol. 1 among the nominees are: 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago Yeah! by Peter Bagge & Gilbert Hernandez Isle of 100,000 Graves by Jason & Fabien Vehlmann Nominees will continue to accumulate throughout the year, and will be winnowed down to the final list to be announced by the ALA in January.

Philip Nel, co-editor of our forthcoming collections of Crockett Johnson's Barnaby, has revealed details about the first volume of the series (coming in June 2012) by posting the relevant pages from our Spring-Summer 2012 catalog on his blog. (Note that the cover design shown is not Daniel Clowes's actual design for the book.) We're still planning on revealing more info about our complete Spring/Summer 2012 lineup in the near future — stay tuned!

Some original Gil Jordan (Gil Jourdan) pages by Maurice Tillieux are currently on exhibit at the Maison de la Bande Dessinée in Brussels — Wim Lockefeer has a report and more photos at the Forbidden Planet International Blog Log. These originals are impeccable and Tillieux's artwork is beautiful in black & white.

This is the artwork Jordan Crane has donated to The Divine Invasion, the ongoing efforts to defray the late Dylan Williams's medical expenses through the sale of original art, much of which with a Philip K. Dick theme. It's looking at you, it can read your mind. You have less than a day to cast your bid.

• Paul Hornschemeier's rendition of the Ice King, from Zack Smith's enviable collection of Adventure Time-themed sketches • Paul Hornschemeier is beginning to post teasers of his forthcoming Forlorn Funnies #1 along with the sketches at his The Daily Forlorn blog • This drawing by Steven Weissman appears to be related to the current Barack Hussein Obama strip; plus his latest "I, Anonymous" spot • Celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day with Dame Darcy as she pays tribute to Adam Ant x 2 (plus Darryl Hannah in Splash) — this and more in her new blog update • Sketches…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "As journalist Avery documents in this cohesive biography-cum-first anthology of the onetime Rolling Stone record review editor’s oeuvre [Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson], Nelson was a gifted early practitioner of new journalism and, though a child of the Sixties folk and rock counterculture, one of its most vocal critics…. Reading his inconceivably insightful profiles of Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Warren Zevon, and Rod Stewart helps make sense of a needlessly guilt- and disappointment-laden life — here was a ­hyper-romantic Midwesterner by birth but a New Yorker by…