Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

Lots of excitement in the office today: Gary Groth has earned the Glengarry leads, closing the deal with Alec Baldwin to write the Introduction to The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14), coming Fall 2010. The title of this post comes from Gary's interoffice email, and Ted Jouflas replied with the above image. (I'm more of a 30 Rock man myself.) UPDATE: Baldwin-mania continues as Kim Thompson confirms, in an email titled "Everybody loves my Schweddy balls," that Peppermint Patty is the cover star of that volume.

More info + music video.

TONIGHT sees the opening of a joint solo show from Femke Hiemstra and Junko Mizuno. See the Roq site for more info. If I understand the Roq blog correctly it appears that Femke's work is already sold out. Show runs through January 30th.

When we were putting together our current holiday catalog, somehow Sam's Strip: The Comic About Comics ended up being accidentally left out. This innovative strip is a clever and funny slice of comics history which deserves its place in our roster and on your bookshelf — read more about it here, and for the next week (through next Friday) you can order it at 20% off! Plus read more about the strip and the rest of co-creator Mort Walker's storied career in The Comics Journal #297 from earlier this year, also on sale at 20% off through next week!

Have we got a great offer for you! Be one of the next 15 people to order the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Petey & Pussy by John Kerschbaum and you will receive an amazing bonus pack put together by John that includes: All 3 issues of John's great self-published comic The Wiggly Reader… … this amazing poster John drew for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC (more about which here — and by the way, it's available from the Met gift shop as a jigsaw puzzle now!)… …and a unique signed bookplate, each one with a different quote hand-lettered by…

Starting with today's Online Commentary & Diversions, some minor formatting changes to hopefully make it easier to scan all that text: • Review: "Published in the oversize Sunday page format ala the Fantagraphics’ Popeye collection (also, brilliant), Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 collects the earliest of Foster’s tales of the exiled Prince of Thule. … The colors are warm and vibrant, and the line art pristine. The stories themselves are a delight. … The art is consistently stunning… each page is spectacular to behold. … The strips in Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 are merely the first installment of a…

Two more overdue video & photo slideshows to share with you today: the first for Locas II: Maggie, Hopey & Ray, the new hardcover Love and Rockets omnibus from Jaime Hernandez; and the second for Love and Rockets: New Stories #2, with the newest work from Jaime & Gilbert. Hit those links to view the slideshows at higher res than they’re embedded here.

We hope that in all the excitement over the 3rd Anniversary Party this Saturday at Fantagraphics Bookstore — for which we have assembled the most amazing group of cartoonists ever — you don't overlook the equally auspicious Portable Grindhouse panel discussion on Sunday, December 13 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM. It promises to be both entertaining and enlightening. Participants include artist Lisa Petrucci of Something Weird, the world's premier purveyor of psychotronic film (and the subject of a new art book KICKASS KUTIES from Dark Horse); cartoonist Marc Palm of the exalted Scarecrow Video; Seattle Times pop culture correspondent Mark…

Don't forget, if you want your order shipped by our Standard shipping option within the U.S. to arrive before Christmas, tomorrow (Friday, December 11) is the deadline to get your order in! (If you're shipping to a P.O. box, you'll want to select First Class or Priority Mail shipping rather than Standard.) After that, you'll have until Monday for USPS Priority Mail delivery and until next Friday for 2nd Day UPS. We'll post reminders for those deadlines as well. If you need some gift suggestions, check out our handy Holiday Gift Guide with lots of ideas for every interest and…

Chock full o' Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: The Village Voice 's R.C. Baker names 2009's Best Comics and Graphic Novels. Among the choices: "A lucid nightmare, Al Columbia's dazzlingly well-drawn Pim & Francie features vignettes of its young protagonists menaced by creepy relatives or starring in exceedingly grim fairy tales. These inky visions seem unearthed from the deepest vaults of Uncle Walt's id. … Anything but Victorian, Nell Brinkley (1886–1944) celebrated the Roaring '20s with sinuous lines and colors as lurid as William Randolph Hearst's presses could muster. Author Trina Robbins notes, in the lavishly oversize The Brinkley…