First Look: Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954

Here's your first look at the final cover design for Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954, the first comprehensive collection of the great graphic storyteller's work from the era. Editor Greg Sadowski is wrapping up his meticulous restoration of the pages and we're looking at a July/August release for this 416-page full-color tome. (Everything's coming up Toth today: at TCJ.com, Dan Nadel posted his interview with Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell about their mammoth upcoming Toth monograph Genius, Isolated.)

Adventures in translation

Between my own (ahem) vast accumulated knowledge and the marvels of the internet, it's rare that I find myself genuinely stumped by a line in a book I'm translating, but when I came across this particular panel in the Joost Swarte book Is That All There Is? that will (yes, it will!) be coming out later this year, I was mystified: Jopo de Pojo is trying to slip out of a movie theatre midshow, and while the latter two patrons' comments are are self-evident enough (an irate "hush!" and a complaint about Jopo's trademark quiff, mistaken for a hat), the…

Things to See: 4/25/11 Roundup

• I didn't know Tony Millionaire has been doing portraits for The Chiseler, like this one of 1930s character actor Allen Jenkins • "Dead Mickey" and "Walking the Dog," plus reviews of Michael Caine movies by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog • Lilli Carré covers the Chicago Reader, plus a new animated drawing • Laura Park has been busy drawing spot illos for an 826 Chicago project (like Joey & Johnny Ramone buying $20 worth of Brussels sprouts, above) and rescuing cats with fellow cartoonist Julia Wertz — it's all documented on her Flickr page • Renee French…

Daily OCD: 4/25/11

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Exuberantly expressive…, Santiago imbues his biography of famed Puerto Rican baseballer Roberto Clemente [21] with the furious energy of a Clemente triple. […] Santiago evokes the world Clemente lived in, from the dusty Puerto Rican streets where he played baseball with bottle caps and tree branches to his years as a perennial All-Star. The art is scratchy and abstract when it’s dealing with home and homesickness, and then hardens into the stuff of superhero comics whenever Clemente steps to the plate." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club • Review: "…The Complete Peanuts: 1979-1980……

Bill Blackbeard, 1926-2011

It's safe to say that Fantagraphics, and indeed the entire comics landscape, would not exist as we know it today without the efforts of comics scholar and archivist Bill Blackbeard. I never had the honor of interacting with the man, but his importance and influence reverberates throughout everything we do here, and not just the projects we had the good fortune to work on directly with him, such as the Krazy & Ignatz series he spearheaded. We are saddened by the loss and will strive to be worthy of his legacy. He is memorialized at The Comics Journal by R.C….

Clowes Stinckers!

Details are slightly sketchy at this time, but there appears to be a new "Stinckers" (those vinyl stickers that Steven Weissman & Mats?! do) design or series of designs by Daniel Clowes for Meltdown Comics in L.A. Get down there and buy some — they're sure to go fast!

Down with OPP*: Mister Wonderful

* Other People's Publications** Yeah, You Know Me.  It's sub-titled "A Love Story," but somehow Mister Wonderful still managed to depress the heck outta me. Such is the power of the one and only Daniel Clowes! Mister Wonderful was originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine back in 2007-8, and it was such an exhilirating weekly ride, that I'm glad someone collected it into a nice little hardbound book, complete with extra bonus material. If you didn't read the online strips a few years ago (I can't even imagine…), the "Mister Wonderful" in question is Marshall, an unemployed divorcé,…

Four Color Fear preview at Previews

The second printing of our smash hit Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s is in stores now, and the fine folks at Diamond Comics Distributors have posted 9 delightfuly grisly pages from the book on their Previews website. Grab a snack and check it out!