Fantagraphics Blog

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Pogo – The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 3: "Evidence to the Contrary"by Walt Kelly 368-page black & white with color 11.25" x 9.25" hard/soft/cover • $45.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-694-2 See Previews / Order Now It’s in this volume (featuring another two years' worth of Pogo strips) that we meet one of Walt Kelly's boldest political caricatures. Folks across America had little trouble equating the insidious wildcat Simple J. Malarkey with the ascendant anti-Communist senator, Joseph McCarthy. The subject was sensitive enough that by the following year a Providence, Rhode Island newspaper threatened…

Unless you happen to be in the inner circle of Fantagraphics you might not know that our publisher's son, Conrad Groth, spent the summer interning at MAD Magazine in NYC. In the latest issue of MAD, they wrote a little thank you to Conrad (on the left) and the other summer intern. He's working his way up, up, up! We're happy to have Conrad back on the West Coast though, with the knowledge he gained over the summer. There was also a nice shout out to Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 2 by Ed Piskor so basically it's just a stellar issue all…

The next long-awaited graphic novel by artist Dylan Horrocks, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen, sports this lovely cover design, and we're proud to show it off for you now. Starring its titular protagonist, a cartoonist who hasn't drawn in years, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen explores the pleasures, dangers, and moral consequences of fantasy, as Sam is thrown headlong into a fantastic journey after discovering a mysterious old comic book. You can read up more about this eagerly anticipated book over on our book page, as well as place your pre-order. We expect the book to be out…

Enter the brilliantly luminscent, high-contrast world of L.B. Cole! Our 19-page excerpt of Black Light: The World of L.B. Cole includes the introduction and first eight pages of Cole's biography, written by Bill Schelly and studded throughout with photographs, illustrations, and cover art. Check out the gorgeous artwork in our full downloadable excerpt, then head over to our book page for more info and to pre-order a copy of this magnificent, oversized art book!

  On Sunday, November 2nd, join the punk illiterati and connoisseurs of low art for a book signing with Jacques Boyreau at Elliott Bay Book Company. Boyreau's new book, SuperTrash celebrates the vague, fuzzy line between high art and lowly trash. Would a Picasso by any other name look as sweet? Boyreau will give you a lesson in taxonomy and a tour through his curation of SuperTrash: Hermaphro Chic, Movie Fetish, 21st Century Anxiety. Part psychedelic psychotronic, part poster book, part album cover book, part paperback pulp book: interdisciplinary, quantal, and polyglottal, SuperTrash is surrealism for the 21st century.   So head on over to Elliott…

Oh, that Charlie Brown. What a sigh! A Valentine for Charlie Brown is here, a bright pink square contrasted against Seattle's current fall gloom. Our next holiday-themed Peanuts gift book collects Charles M. Schulz's strips detailing our ever-optimistic round-headed hero, waiting so patiently for the valentine that he just knows will show up at his mailbox. Then, there's Sally Brown's continued pursuit of her reluctant "Sweet Baboo," Linus. This book makes for a great gift, whether or not you celebrate February 14th, and you can pre-order it now for a December delivery!

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vols. 1 & 2 Gift Box Setby Don Rosa 424-page full color 8.5" x 11" hardcover • $49.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-781-9 Ships in: October 2014 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now To commemorate the first time Don Rosa's legendary and internationally acclaimed Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories have been comprehensively reprinted in America, we have produced a stunning two-volume boxed set collecting the first two books in the 10-volume series. These two volumes contain over 30 of Rosa's ingeniously plotted, meticulously rendered, and kinetically vital Duck stories — from "A…

"The frighteningly hilarious world of Rickheit's is a deranged cabinet of curiosities… It would all be too oppressive if Rickheit's sense of humor weren’t so addictive…" – Publishers Weekly "With a drawing style that resembles Jason Lutes and Charles Burns, and a storytelling style similar to Jim Woodring and Al Columbia, Rickheit excels in making nightmares lucid." – The A.V. Club Cochlea & Eustachiaby Hans Rickheit 80-page full color 8” x 10” softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-801-4 Due to arrive in 2-4 weeks. Click the thumbnails for larger versions; get more info, see more previews, and pre-order your copy here: http://www.fantagraphics.com/cochleaandeustachia

Tim Lane, master of the intense and dense comics page is back at his hometown store for a book signing this Saturday, November 1st at 7pm. Lane continues his exploration of the Great American Mythological Drama that began with his first book, the critically acclaimed Abandoned Cars. This collection of stories is broadly linked together by the experience of wandering – both literally and figuratively. With compelling verisimilitude, the lives of his characters are depicted by way of rich mixtures of obscure myths and documented facts, dreams and reality, belief and disbelief, throughout a haunted landscape populated by the ghosts…

We told you about some shows opening in the last few weeks and NOW we have some sweet photographic proof, c'mon, you believed us, right?! Above, M.K. Brown stands outside of the Cartoon Art Museum at Saa Francisco, CA. Her show runs from August 30th until February 15th, 2015. It collects comics and single panel gag cartoons featured in her collection Stranger Than Life (published by Fantagraphics!).  Bill Griffiths of Zippy the Pinhead lists the things he looks for in an amazing cartoonist on the CAM site."- Chronicles the times we live in, but does so in a way that doesn't 'date.'–…