Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

Peter Bagge has a hilarious new strip in the new issue of the Belgian comics anthology El Rios — dig it here. (Via The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log.)

Ho, ho, ho. One week to go. And you have yet to buy a single gift for anybody? If you live in the Northwest, you're in luck. Simply drop by Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle and we'll set you up quick. Skip the manic mall crowds and parking problems. We've got exquisite gifts to suit everyone on your list. If you're on a tight budget, we recommend the dozen books below, all under $20 — many below $10! Check ‘em out. For the love of your life: LOVE & ROCKETS! We suggest MAGGIE THE MECHANIC, where it all started….

Here are some photos (and a video) I took at our 4th Anniversary party last Saturday night. See a whole bunch more (including photos of the entire "Medieval Thinkers" art exhibit) over on our Flickr page. It was packed shoulder-to-shoulder! Jim Woodring & Zak Sally greet their public. Larry Reid chats with Grammy-winning musician and Jim Woodring collaborator Bill Frisell Jim signs copies of Weathercraft Mark Pickerel (ex-Screaming Trees) performs a solo set Zak performs songs from his album Fear of Song accompanied by his 4-track cassette recorder Watch Zak play his final song of the evening, "My Secret World"…

It's not exactly a huge surprise, but welcome news nonetheless: Blake Bell has announced on his blog that following his biography of Bill Everett Fire & Water (seen above), we'll be publishing a series of Bill Everett Archives books that he'll be editing, in an exact repeat of his Steve Ditko bio Strange & Stranger and subsequent volumes of The Steve Ditko Archives. The first Everett Archives volume will be out in the second half of 2011 and Blake needs your help coming up with a title for it! Just as the first two volumes of The Steve Ditko Archives…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: "King of the Flies: 1. Hallorave manages to combine dystopia and partying in one particularly morose suburban nabe. Artist Pascal 'Mezzo' Mesenburg’s crisp scenes of druggy costume soirées and bowling-alley liaisons deftly complement writer Michel Pirus’s slyly interlocking tales of depraved jollies in suburbia." – R.C. Baker, Village Voice "2010's Best Comics and Graphic Novels" • List: Kelly Thompson of Comic Book Resources names Linda Medley one of her Favorite Female Comic Creators of 2010, saying "…Castle Waiting Volume 2 is easily one of the best fiction books I've read this year and…

Uptight #4 by Jordan Crane 36-page black & white comic book • $3.95 Ships in: January 2011 (subject to change) — this item will be available for order simultaneous with its release to comic shops. Stay tuned for updates. Jordan Crane continues to display his mastery of adult drama and rollicking all-ages adventure equally in this issue of his acclaimed comic book series. This issue features the second chapters of Jordan's currently-ongoing, as-yet-untitled (as far as we know) stories introduced in the last issue. "Chapter 2: Trash Night" returns to the troubled relationship of Dee and Leo. Tensions continue to…

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about our release this week, check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 2 by Steve Ditko; edited by Blake Bell 240-page full-color 7.25" x 10" hardcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-380-4 "The second volume of Fantagraphics' Blake Bell-edited reprints of Ditko's early material collects the pieces he banged out for Charlton Comics in 1957, and I do mean banged out: that year alone, he drew…

Our pals at Presspop just announced that they will be reprinting Tank Tankuro, a classic pre-war manga by Gajo Sakamoto which prefigures Astro Boy, translated into English, and they got Chris Ware to design the cover. Nice!

A few recent updates over at the Repaneled blog I've been sitting on: • Alex Robinson's take on Eightball #8 • Nick Pendleton and David Patrick do Fletcher Hanks Hit the links for the side-by-sides.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: On WFMU's Beware of the Blog, WFMU DJ Nat Roe's multi-media Top 15 includes Jim Woodring's Weathercraft at #5: "Stick a straw in my brain and suck until there's nothing left but that gurgling sound of air, the remnants of carbonation gathered like patrons in a bar on a Tuesday night 'last call' at the other end of the straw; that's how Jim Woodring makes me feel." • List: Drawn contrubutor John Martz picks 3 of our titles among his Favourite Books of 2010: "Bent is the latest coffee-table art book from Canadian…