Fantagraphics Blog

Apparently in the alternate universe known as Sweden cartoonists are given their own glossy entertainment magazine and hang around with Fiddy and his G-Unit crew. (Photo supplied to Kim Thompson by Häkon Strand of Strand Comics.) This seems like a good time to remind you to stay tuned for daily Rocky strips in English here on Fantagraphics.com starting in the near future!

  Ray Fenwick's amazing first book, The Hall of Best Knowledge, hits stores any day now from Fantagraphics and the publicity is just starting to come in.  Today there's a great feature on Ray in The National Post of Canada.  Meanwhile, the May 1 issue of Booklist features a starred review of Hall of Best Knowledge. "This is a life-passage story that reveals itself as such so slyly that the joy and loving humilty it evokes at the end are breathtaking," writes Ray Olson. Couldn't agree more.   

We recently received a large package of original art from Al Jaffee for our upcoming complete Humbug collection. Here's just one amazing example — click the image above to see a high-res version, and click here for a set with close-up detail photos. Also, if you haven't seen it already, see our nifty feature detailing the production process of restoring a Humbug page.

My good friend, Jeremy Eaton, has launched a blog, and you must read it now, immediately, if only for the current post, "How the Hulk Almost Got Me Laid," which is easily the greatest comics-related blog post I've read in ages. And I have no doubt this is just the tip of the iceberg. Bookmark now.

Publishers Weekly has the scoop on a number of original graphic novels coming this fall and winter from from Fantagraphics Books. Read it here!

Have a look at (and inside) a real-life copy of the upcoming book Explainers – The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956-66) by Jules Feiffer. For a Flickr slideshow, click here, or to browse manually, click here. (And don't forget you can read the Introduction, and preview more strips, here; and registered users can download yet another preview excerpt here.)

Congratulations to all of the nominees for the 2008 Eisner Awards. We're celebrating our 11 nominations (plus a few for some of our favorite artists) by putting all of our nominated titles on sale for 20% off through May 15, 2008! The full list of nominations is below; click here to browse all of the sale items. Best Short Story"At Loose Ends" by Lewis Trondheim, in Mome Vol. 8 "Whatever Happened to Fletcher Hanks?" by Paul Karasik, in I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! "Young Americans" by Emile Bravo, in Mome Vol. 8 Best AnthologyMome (Vols. 6-9) Best Graphic…

Petey & Pussy, courtesy John Kerschbaum. Look for the Petey & Pussy graphic novel in late 2008 from Fanta — you heard it here first!

  Another new interview with Leah Hayes, this time with Christopher Mautner of Newsarama, on the eve of the release of Funeral of the Heart.   

… haven't been to enough comics events in Seattle lately, I'm participating in this at Hugo House tonight:  The Hugo House InPrint Series presents: Why Publish With an Independent or Small Press?An Evening with Northwest Independent Press Publishers Tuesday, April 15th, 2008, 7:00 – 9:00                            Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave. SeattleAdmission $3 members/$5 non-members Why Publish With an Independent or Small Press? The Northwest features a handful of excellent independent press publishers who are producing interesting work and attracting positive critical attention and awards.  Tonight editors and publishers from several publishers will be on hand to explain…