Fantagraphics Blog

Jeannie Schulz on her husband's biography.

On behalf of everyone at Fantagraphics I'd like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to our good pals Jessica Abel and Matt Madden on the birth of their daughter, Aldara Abel Madden. Wahoo!

The Drinky Crow Show pilot is re-running on Jan. 1 at 11:15pm on the Cartoon Network. Not New Year's Eve but the night after. If you missed it the first time around, don't let that happen again, it's a riot. And looks so much better on the boob tube than the clips you've possibly seen on YouTube. Help us boost those ratings and ensure that the CN orders a slew of new episodes for 2008! In the meantime, Drinky Crow Christmas!

Charles E. Petit, known to the Fantagraphics offices as the longtime lawyer of Harlan Ellison, has been disbarred. Petit was found guilty of poor ethics by defrauding the family of author John Steinbeck. His defense honestly seems to have been that he's driven crazy by migraines that lead him to forget events that transpire at the time of the headaches and stuff like that. Specifically, he has been suspended for the following: Count I, the Respondent repeatedly and knowingly made false statements to his client Nancy Steinbeck. Count II, we find that the Respondent engaged in dishonest and deceitful conduct,…

Seattle's Crocodile Cafe unceremoniously closed down this weekend, the latest in a slew of old school Seattle venues going the way of Fallout Records & Comix and the old Rendezvous. The Croc was the best rock club in Seattle in the 1990s – just off the top of my head I can recall seeing a slew of pretty huge bands in its not-so-huge confines: Guided By Voices, Nirvana, Built To Spill, Cheap Trick, Yo La Tengo, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam (opening for Cheap Trick), Sebadoh, Dead Moon, The Shins, The Go-Betweens, Mike Watt, Jonathan Richman, Iron & Wine, Low, etc.

The club was always good to Fantagraphics – we put on several events there over the years, including a Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit with Neil Gaiman in 1997 or so that was one of the most successful regional fundraisers the Fund had ever done at the time and even garnered a Seattle city award for "Best Fundraiser (Under $200,000 category)" of the year, which I accepted from the Mayor in a gigantic gala ball. In 2000, the Croc lent us its space to put on a special Built To Spill concert to raise money for a serious debt we were in when our then-distributor went out of business owing us $80,000 – the event raised almost $10,000 and literally may have been the difference in keeping us in business at that moment. We helped organize a series of "ATM art shows" at the Croc in the 1990s (named so because every piece was an ATM-friendly $40, with pieces from Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge — you name it) with then art school student Kirsten Anderson, an experience which she parlayed into opening Roq La Rue, one of the most vital galleries in Seattle for going on a decade now. The club's booker at that time, Peter English, was also my next door neighbor for a few years and became one of my best pals, so there was a personal connection, as well. We took care of each others' cats when the other traveled.

One of our most anticipated 2008 releases, Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by Bill Mauldin, is now available for pre-order, and we've put together a special feature loaded with information on the book and Mauldin's work, including an excerpt of an interview with Mauldin. Click here for all the scoop!

Jacob: "Did Norman Mailer really call Laura Warholic "brilliantly written?" Eric: "He did! Very shortly before he died. Much like Vonnegut did with Fletcher Hanks. We're killing America's greatest writers."

WNYC went to Ohio last week for their election special and got Harvey Pekar and Nick Bertozzi to make a strip out of Harvey's meeting with WNYC host John Hockenberry. Read it HERE.