Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Guide: At Time's Techland blog, Douglas Wolk tells you "Where to Start with Love and Rockets": "Fantagraphics actually has a guide to navigating the various overlapping reprints of the three Love and Rockets series (and assorted associated projects) to date, since everything's been repackaged and reformatted so many times. That's useful if you want to read everything in chronological order – but I'd actually suggest that you don't." • Review: "The solid blacks and blocky grotesquerie of The Lagoon strongly recall Charles Burns’ Black Hole, a story in which adulthood is equated with monstrosity. In…

Due to arrive in comic shops this week (read on for more info and new-release commentary from the comics blogs): Krazy & Ignatz 1916-1918: Love in a Kestle or Love in a Hut by George Herriman 160-page black & white/color 9" x 12" softcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-316-3 Comics Comics' Joe McCulloch describes it thusly: "This is a new Fantagraphics softcover collecting the earliest Krazy Kat Sunday pages, thus looping this most venerable Golden Age of Reprints project around to material Eclipse covered one year at a time back in the late ’80s (the Fanta effort began with 1925, where Eclipse…

Residents of California will soon be able to have a beagle doing a happy dance on their bumpers. The State of California, United Media, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and the California Association of Museums have teamed up to create this Snoopy license plate, with proceeds going toward supporting California museums. You can get more info, and California drivers can pre-register, at snoopyplate.com.

Daily clips & strips — click for additional/improved viewing at the sources: • It's the new episode of The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE • "You Shouldn't Speak Your Wish" is another Steven Weissman piece in the Butter and Blood art show at GR2 • More foggy, mysterious panels from Frank Santoro • An untitled, possibly previously unseen, and undeniably awesome mid-1960s painting by Jim Flora • A 5-page story by Noah Van Sciver • Cover art for The Lovely Sparrows' Languages Were Lost EP and another "Devil Doll" glimpse by Derek Van Gieson

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Plug: In his coverage of Free Comic Book Day Paul Constant of The Stranger calls Weathercraft and Other Unusual Tales by Jim Woodring "the best comic for adults" and adds "The Fantagraphics Store is an amazing, beautiful bookstore…" • Plug: Thought Balloonists' Charles Hatfield says of Weathercraft and Other Unusual Tales "Crikey, the best FCBD publication I've gotten since [2006]."

The Best Show on WFMU host Tom Scharpling welcomes Tales Designed to Thrizzle creator Michael Kupperman as a guest on tonight's show (along with Dave Willis and Dana Snyder of Aqua Teen Hunger Force), airing 8-11 PM Eastern time on 91.1 FM in New York and 90.1 FM in the Hudson Valley and streaming online at WFMU.org. Tune in for hilarity! We'll post a link to the archived audio when it's available.

Daily clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing at the sources: • From Jim Woodring, a glimpse at his next book following Weathercraft, Congress of the Animals • The genius of Johnny Ryan brings you "Tron of Finland" • What Things Do begins serialization of Kevin Huizenga's Rumbling • Gabrielle Bell continues and concludes reporting from her Stockholm trip • Renee French does hilarious and alarming with equal aplomb • Hans Rickheit presents Ectopiary page 22 and his description of this illustration is priceless • Recent illustrations by Marco Corona: Sports! Magic! • Character sketches from Mail Order Bride…

Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "This extraordinary collection of World War I tales offers perhaps the finest work from the lauded Tardi. Each story, based on actual accounts from French soldiers, relates the often-horrific realities of trench-warfare. Disturbing yet compelling images abound: a dead, mangled horse hanging from a tree serves as a warning; rats feasting on corpses; amputations; executions; countless dead. Far more memorable are the impassioned stories themselves. Betrayal, deceit, mistrust, murder, hope, and even humor run throughout these tales. Painstakingly researched, the amazing Tardi perfectly captures the everyday despair of the World War I trench soldier….

ICv2 has an exclusive 6-page preview from Dungeon Quest Book 1 by Joe Daly. Observe as our heroes Millennium Boy and Steve take a wrong turn into an epic confrontation!

The Book of Mr. Natural (Hardcover Ed.) by Robert Crumb 128-page black & white 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-352-1 Ships in: June 2010 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now This collection features over 120 pages of vintage Crumb comics starring the white-bearded, diminutive sage-cum-charlatan, ranging from charming, free-wheeling early '70s stories to the disturbing, controversial '90s stories (as seen in the Crumb movie), including the entire 40-page "Mr. Natural and Devil Girl" saga from Hup! (collected here for the first time in book form). Crumb's Mr. Natural is probably the most famous underground character of all (topping even…