Fantagraphics Blog

DREW FRIEDMAN AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS: MORE OLD JEWISH COMEDIANS • MARCH 29th WITH BEN SCHWARTZ, ANDY KINDLER & MORE SPECIAL GUESTS WHO: Drew Friedman WHAT: Discussion, Q&A and book signing WHERE: Skylight Books 1818 N. Vermont Ave. • Los Angeles, CA 90027 • 323.660.1175 tel. WHEN: Saturday, March 29, 5PM “Drew Friedman isn't just a brilliant artist. He takes you to a place. He takes you back in time. He makes you smell the stale cigarettes and cold brisket and you say thank you for the pleasure.” — Sarah Silverman Join cartoonist DREW FRIEDMAN along with BEN SCHWARTZ and more…

It's Photo Friday on Flog! First, "The Fun Never Stops!" with Drew Friedman at our storefront last night. Below, the exhibit pre-opening:  Below, the crowd gathers. That's Drew second from left. Extreme close-up! Lots more photos in our Flickr stream, in regular and fancy slideshow formats. Don't forget, Drew appears at Skylight Books in L.A. tomorrow with guests Ben Schwartz and comedian Andy Kindler. Details here.  

No sooner has our own Matt Silvie posted Flickr photos of Ruth Bellthomaz's house than the city has won out on forcing her to beautify her property. Anyone who's ever visited the Fantagraphics Books, Inc., headquarters surely remembers her house, brimming with chaotic art and a constantly evolving landscape. My desk here at the office looks out on Ruth's property. I've frequently seen her out there securing the wall of window frames that she has nailed to her house. The squirrels and stray cats love climbing on the scaffolding-like structure, but Matt tells me that she has all those seemingly…

Seattle's lively industrial arts district continues its monthly celebration of creative diversity with the April installment of the Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack. This colorful community event includes more than 30 galleries, studios, boutiques, cafes and nightclubs featuring dozens of local, regional and international artists working in a variety of disciplines. The public of all ages is welcome and admission is free. Festivities commence at 6:00 PM on Saturday, April 12. Among the many highlights: An exhibition of mixed media works by Georgetown artist Sherri Scott at George; "Internal Guidance Systems," an installation of visionary art from the collection of…

  We interrupt your normal Fantagraphics flogging to tell you that our main man Peter Bagge's Apocalypse Nerd collection is out now from Dark Horse! We officially sanction the purchase of this excellent collection, even though we didn't publish it. 

  The "Hopeful Beasts" pool at Flickr now has over 120 works for you to enjoy. Alessa Kreger above. More strangeness at her blog, including a, uh, werevagina?

  "Some of these lessons make me smile and some of them make me laugh outloud and every one of them amazes me further at what a talent Ray is…I don’t think anyone could argue that he's not a true master at hand-lettering." (UPDATE: Completists please note that the artist himself submitted that cover design above. A Flog Exclusive!)

Here are some more Krazy Kat strips drawn by seven-to-eleven-year old bambini, courtesy of their teacher Alessandro Santi. (See yesterday's FLOG! for the first batch.) More to come tomorrow! By the way, we just got in the new, second edition of the KRAZY KAT book THE KAT WHO WALKS IN BEAUTY, now with a different colored spine (yes, collectors, this is meant to drive you crazy). If you DON'T have this book yet and were cursing yourself for missing it when it went out of print… well, there you go. (Click images below for larger sizes on Flickr.)

This week's free preview is a downloadable 25-page excerpt from Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956-66), the first volume in a major archival project collecting the entirety of Jules Feiffer's strip for the venerable New York City weekly paper. These previews are exclusive to registered Fantagraphics.com users, so sign up and/or sign in to view. As a reminder, Gary Groth's Introduction to the book is reprinted here on the Fantagraphics website (with a slideshow of 11 strips selected by Groth) and can be read by the general public, no registration required. A parenthetical aside on the panel above: I…

Safe Area Gorazde (New Printing) By Joe Sacco Praised by The New York Times, Brill's Content and Publisher's Weekly, Safe Area Gorazde is the long-awaited and highly sought after 240-page look at war in the former Yugoslavia. Sacco (the critically-acclaimed author of Palestine) spent five months in Bosnia in 1996, immersing himself in the human side of life during wartime, researching stories that are rarely found in conventional news coverage. The book focuses on the Muslim-held enclave of Gorazde, which was besieged by Bosnian Serbs during the war. Sacco lived for a month in Gorazde, entering before the Muslims trapped…