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Get your glitter and your cowboy boots, Esther Pearl Watson is a-coming home to Texas. Specifically, the spacious Webb Gallery in Waxahachie (remember when we visited a few years ago?). Esther's got a whole new line of paintings created just for this show and the opening reception is Sunday, June 1st from 4-7pm. She'll also be signing copies of her brand-spanking-new book Unlovable 3 starring the most endearing Tammy Pierce. Live in Dallas or Austin? Waxahachie is one sweet easy road trip away.  Can't make the signing? Contact Julie at Webb Gallery ahead of time to order your copy of a sketched-in and signed Unlovable 3!…

Time to unveil your first glimpse of a finished bound copy of the new paperback edition of Joyce Farmer's acclaimed, award-winning graphic memoir Special Exits. A moving, uncompromisingly realistic look at the declining health and impending death of the author's parents, Special Exits was a true labor of love for Farmer, and we're pleased to make it available in this accessible softcover format. Arrival is expected in late July with in-store availability by early August. Read an excerpt and pre-order your copy right here.

"The minute you looked at his artwork you knew you were looking at a John Severin illustration; it could be no one else. Besides his inimitable style, there was a feeling of total authenticity to whatever he drew, whether it was a Western, a crime story, a superhero saga or a science fiction yarn." – Stan Lee "All of these books are essential purchases for comics fans… These are the books that best show off how EC took genre stories seriously, striving to create comics that didn't treat readers as naive or ignorant." – Los Angeles Times "Fantagraphics' current series…

The great Carol Swain is back with a new solo graphic novel due out in August. Gast is her longest story to date and continues the body of work that led Time Out to dub her "the Raymond Carver of British comics." In our downloadable excerpt, which consists of 3 brief chapters, a young woman in the Welsh countryside observes swallows building a nest in the eaves of a barn and returns home for dinner, where she learns of the suicide of a "rare bird" at a neighboring farm. Being an avid birdwatcher, she makes plans to investigate the mystery….

Jim Vadeboncoeur is one of our greatest comics historians and archivists, a mean publisher, whose ImageS magazine is a monument of good taste and curatorial excellence for the past 13 years, and a friend to Fantagraphics and consultant and contributor to many of our books, including Four Color Fear, Alex Toth's Setting the Standard, The Sincerest Form of Parody, Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture, and the gigantic George Carlson retrospective Perfect Nonsense. He is currently running a Kickstarter to print Issue #13, a full color one, and is less than $2,000 from his goal! So as Gary Groth would say, "He's…

It may be Spring but we have Autumn holidays on the mind, as we're putting the final touches on two new seasonal Peanuts gift books. Waiting for the Great Pumpkin presents some of Linus's greatest Halloween hopes and humiliations in the ol' pumpkin patch, and Snoopy's Thanksgiving finds everyone's favorite beagle and his feathered pal Woodstock facing the holiday with different degrees of disappointment and dread. Both books are comprised of classic strips by Charles M. Schulz in spiffy little square hardcovers. Look for Great Pumpkin in stores in September and Thanksgiving in October, or just pre-order now so you…

This week's offerings from the digital realm of comics. Richard Sala's DIGITAL exclusive comic, Violenzia, is now on sale along with his other available titles in the Sala Bundle on comiXology. You get Delphine, The Hidden, Peculia, Peculia and the Groon Grove Vampires, and The Grave Robber's Daughter for only $24.99 saving you a total of 56%. That sounds like some dark magic but it's worth your time if the grim and gory are your kind of story. The two Fantagraphics titles from Free Comic Book Day HAVE ARRIVED. More like Hip Hop Family FREE! This two-in-one comic by Ed Piskor was a hot…

Publisher Gary Groth was the happy recipient of a chocolate cake this week as alt-weekly paper, The Stranger, let him know he is on a very short list of nominees for the Genius Award in Seattle. Gary's up against some fierce local competition in the literature category but he's held a guiding light for Fantagraphics and comics long enough for us to know he's a genius (read: crazy, mad genius). Fantagraphics' cartoonists Jim Woodring and Ellen Forney have had the privilege of being on the short list as well (Woodring won!) so Gary will have some good company no matter what. To find out who the genius…

  Friday, May 16th Seattle, WA: Join Fantagraphic's own Jen Vaughn, and a score of other local talents (Ulises Farinas, Simon Roy, Damon Gentry, + more) for the first part of a weeklong celebration of the 10 year anniversary for Arcane Comics! Festivities begin at 7 pm PST. (More details )   Saturday, May 17 Fort Wayne, IN: Featured special guests at the Appleseed Comicon happening this weekend are the masters Peter Bagge  (Buddy Buys a Dump), and Ed Piskor  (NYT Bestseller, Hip-Hop Family Tree)! They'll be signing, and Piskor will be on a panel about Comics and Hip Hop. Convention begins at…

Cork High and Bottle Deepby Virgil Partch 184-page black & white/color 6.75" x 6.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-716-1 Ships in: June 2014 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Hot on the heels of last year’s Vip: The Mad World of Virgil Partch comes this brand new collection of intoxicated insanity! Virgil Partch, tutor to the tanked, scholar of the sloshed, professor to the plastered, and endowed with a scholarship from the School of Advanced Study of Alcoholic Endeavor, flung himself into months-long research of the most arduous kind in order to produce — for our collective betterment — this report…