Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

(click image to enlarge) See part 1 for more info about the book.

At his blog, Hans Rickheit presents a first look at his next couple of comics projects. Above: a teaser of a teaser.

Feast your peepers on this amazing window display for Rock Candy: The Artwork of Femke Hiemstra at the American Book Center in Amsterdam featuring just some of Femke's collection of creepy/cute toys and figurines (more of which can be seen in the book). The book launch for Rock Candy takes place at the ABC on Saturday — Halloween day, appropriately.

The first volume of Mezzo and Pirus's extraordinary suburban horror trilogy, KING OF THE FLIES, will be released early next year. As an advance teaser, we're serializing the first chapter, "Hallorave" (which is also the title of the book) right here, a page a day. Since it takes place on Halloween, it seems appropriate to run it this week. This is the first foreign book of ours in a while I didn't translate, control freak that I am; fortunately I found Helge Dascher and John Kadlecek to pick up the slack, and they did a superb job on it. Volume…

Some Online Commentary & Diversions to wrap up your week: • Review: "Artist Carol Swain brings a sober British reserve to her husband Bruce Paley's tales of hippie and punk excess for a nostalgic feel with the winning Giraffes In My Hair: A Rock ‘n' Roll Life. …[F]rom the late ‘60s through the early ‘80s, his peripatetic adventures with drugs, women, and punker Johnny Thunders make for a series of fun, roguish vignettes. … Swain uses pencil to understated effect, and works up a lyrical, nostalgic vibe. Her simple scenes arrange a loose chronological narrative into a warm experience conveyed…

Short notice: Tomorrow night at Big Brain Comics in Minneapolis there's a book release party for Zak Sally's Like a Dog and John Porcellino's Map of My Heart (from D&Q). Festivities start at 5 PM – more info at the La Mano blog. Twin Cities comics fans, this is a Must Do!

It's a Very Important Friday webcomics update! First, an inspirational, and uncomfortably titillating, message in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan…. … Steven Weissman says of this week's strip "THIS COMIC WILL CHANGE AMERICA FOREVER!" and I cannot disagree! The President earns his Nobel Peace Prize right here!… …and this week concludes our run of Monday-Friday Rocky strips by Martin Kellerman, wrapping up our presentation of the strips from Rocky Vol. 2: Strictly Business. Debuting next week, a new weekly feature: "The House of No" by Derek Van Gieson!

Today only (we think… it's not entirely clear), you can download Paul Hornschemeier's short prose story "The Spoils of the Fair" (which originally ran in Mome and is now collected in All and Sundry) to your "smart phone" for free at cellstories.net. Paul has a bit more info at his blog.

Poppin’ fresh Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock ‘N' Roll Life… is deeply personal but doesn't get bogged down with self service or making a Titan out of a man. I love that here we have a view of some of the seedier sides of counterculture that doesn't have an agenda beyond the act of sharing…of storytelling. It feels like a recounting, almost a journalistic telling of the facts of his personal history. But it also feels like you're having a great dinner with an old friend. … As a graphic novel it is…

Via Mike Lynch, by way of The Comics Reporter, comes this rare vintage radio interview (presented on YouTube in edited form, with an image montage) with Charles M. Schulz by host Dennis Daily.