Fantagraphics Blog FantaBlog

New sketchbook pages from Anders Nilsen. Above: the devil.

MOME contributor Jonathan Bennett has a fantastic, classic Sunday-style comic strip called "Beat of the Traps" in the new Kramers Ergot. John is a fantastic cartoonist whose work exhibits the craftsmanship of a master jeweler, but also has an existential soul a la Glenn Ganges or King Cat that its quotidian trappings often belie. He's really good. It turns out he also completed an additional page for Kramers of B&W dailies leading up to the Sunday payoff that the editor, Sammy Harkham, mercilessly rejected from the book. I like to picture Sammy laughing, with a cigar, as he gave Bennett the news. Anyway, luckily for us, Bennett has rescued the…

We get a lot of random magazines in the office, and one is Adult Video News, a kind of Variety/Publishers Weekly for the sex industry. From today's front page:  That's some choice copy, but they neglected to mention it could also double as a toy for H.R. Pufnstuff fetishists. 

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is pleased to announce the wildly popular BEASTS exhibition will be extended though February 4. Inclement weather prevented many from making the trek to Georgetown during the first weeks of the show. This extension will allow everyone to enjoy this delightfully ambitious display. Organized by Jacob Covey, this exhibition includes a diverse collection of colorful artwork by over 50 accomplished artists. (Click here for more information about the exibit.) Paul Constant’s enthusiastic review in The Stranger observes, “The broad array of talent is impressive… I could go on for hours.” In a comprehensive feature in the…

We've been posting these as we've found them, but here's a (slightly OCD) alphabetical list of Fantagraphics titles and whose year-end lists that they've appeared on, for your handy reference. (Links will continue to be added as we find them.) Rankings appear in parentheses; no number means the list was unranked: Abandoned Cars by Tim Lane• Mark Athitakis' American Fiction Notes, "Favorite Books of 2008"• Alan David Doane, "Debut of the Year"• Inland Empire Weekly• Publishers Weekly "Comics Week's Third Annual Critic's Poll" (Honorable Mention)• Frank Santoro, "Top 9 of '08" (#2)• Marc Sobel (#2)• St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Best Books of…

  The Times Online seems to think so. Thanks to our neighbors at the Stranger for the link.  Next thing you know, someone's going to try to tell me that Batman and Robin are gay. As if!  

• Review: Matthew Brady looks at Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by the Hernandez Brothers • Review: ComicMix calls Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw "one of the best and most accomplished graphic novels of 2008"

Good grief, I forgot to post this yesterday! I'll have today's batch later today. • Paul Gravett names Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell and Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes two of the Best Books About Comics of 2008 • The editors at Amazon put Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw at #4 on their list of "Top 10 Books: Comics & Graphic Novels" • The Inkstuds radio programme presents a conversation with Mome contributor Robert Goodin • The Village Voice casts a favorable eye on Beasts! Book 2 •…

Check out Joseph Remnant's cartoon appreciation of Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 by Patrick Rosenkranz, as published in the July 2008 issue of Arthur magazine, now available to read online.