Fantagraphics Blog

Here's a cool Frank King postcard from 1943 that I picked up so long ago I know longer remember where:

  Holy Crap, J.R. Williams has a new webcomic, "Felyna."  

  Learn all about Gene Deitch 's Terrytoons days, including his reflections on a young Ralph Bakshi ("a minor cel painter, and not a very good one"), over on his site dedicated to "How to Succeed in Animation." Above is an obscure 1957 CBS promotional photograph of Gene drawing Tom Terrific (or Terr'ble Thompson if you use your imagination) with his young sons Kim and Simon. Wotta family!

Courtesy David Collier. This one requires a bit of explanation, it refers to a somewhat notorious comix house, referred to as "the Green House" (a.k.a. "Rathutch" and "Crabbpot") occupied at one point or another by folks including myself, Jeremy Eaton, J.R. Williams, Pat Moriarity, Al Columbia, and others. At one point, rumor had it that the house was going to be razed, and I told this to Dave Collier just as I was asking him to draw in my book. Dave had stayed at the house several times (it was a major crashpad) and was fond of it. The house never…

Courtesy Jeremy Eaton:

One of many bands with ties to Fantagraphics, Fox Hollow features Eric Reynolds (the third arm to Gary and Kim) and his wife, Rhea (who used to do a lot around here but now does other things), Adam Grano (Art Director of TCJ, etc.), Kaela Graham, and Kevin Schlosser (both of whom have always had better things to do than work here). Fox Hollow just put their slick demo online. Check it out, totally free and exciting. Foxy Trivia: Let's Go! is no love song. "I know you're a busy man but I need your attention" is the subject line…

  Remember the good ol' days? When a gun was never out of reach of any child's finger and bullets were still considered toys? I slept through the night in those days.  

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery’s resident curator Larry Reid presented a very engaging and informative slide lecture on the topic “WEIRDOS: Seattle’s Alternative Comics Culture in the Context of R. Crumb’s Underground” at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle last night. Stay tuned — we'll be adapting Larry's presentation into an online feature here on the website in the near future.

It's time for your weekly installment of Steven Weissman's "Chocolate Cheeks"! In this week's strip: Spence, smacked, with a shiner and smashed specs! (Remember, you must be registered and logged in to read.)

I attended David Hajdu's excellent event at Town Hall last night, which featured (or so I gathered) a significantly different lecture from those given on the rest of his book tour. The lecture was to promote The 10 Cent Plague, Hajdu's excellent history of the crackdown on horror and crime comics of the 1950s, which promoted the Kefauver Senate Subcommittee hearings on juvenile deliquency and led to the formation of the Comics Code Authority. This event was put on by Nextbook, a non-profit organization that serves as a locus for Jewish literature, culture, and ideas; as such, Hajdu tailored his…