Fantagraphics Blog

Visitors to Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery are invariably greeted with a delightfully esoteric soundtrack courtesy of our retail partners at Georgetown Records. For seven and a half years, they've cheerfully accommodated our nerdy comix parties, panels, and presentations. Come celebrate their 10th anniversary this Saturday, May 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, coinciding with Peter Bagge's Buddy Buys a Dump exhibition and book signing.  Over the course of the last decade, Georgetown Records has earned a reputation as one of the region's premier purveyors of vintage vinyl, specializing in punk, prog, goth, garage, psychedelic, international, and other rare recordings. It's a popular stop for both local…

The acclaimed exhibit Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes continues its travels across the country with a stay at the Wexner Center for the Arts, opening Saturday, May 17th! And Dan himself will be there to kick off the show, in conversation with comics scholar Hillary Chute, starting at 7:00 PM in the Mershon Auditorium!  This special event is FREE thanks to Art Museum Day, a nationwide initiative of the Association of Art Museum Directors. Not only will Dan discuss his extensive bibliography, but he'll provide some insight into the accompanying exhibit Eye of the Cartoonist: Daniel Clowes’s Selections…

Just stumbled across this picture I took at Comic-Con circa 2000-2001, of Al Feldstein and Dan Clowes signing in our booth.

We're deep in production on The Complete Eightball box set and there's a piece of the puzzle missing: We want to reproduce this cover, to Eightball #7, scanned from the original, but we can't track down the owner of the piece. (This low-res scan was found online, but was uploaded over 10 years ago and the source is MIA.) Any and all tips are appreciated — see the danielclowes.com blog for all the details. 

This Saturday and Sunday, Fantagraphics is proud to table at Toronto Comic Arts Festival. TCAF is held at the Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street) on Saturday May 10th – 9am-5pm, Sunday May 11th – 11am-5pm. Presented by the Toronto Public Library and The Beguiling comic store, this show is FREE to attend saving you those loonies and toonies to pay for great comics. We'll be at tables 119-120 down the main aisle of the library (or if you prefer, the first people to greet you as you prom-walk slowly down the steps from the atrium level). Signing ScheduleSaturday May, 10th10-12 Lane…

In this month's Diamond Previews, editorial associate Kristy Valenti is asked a few questions about being a comics editor. Check it out for yourself at your local comic book store! You can also enjoy many a book that Valenti has edited include the Wandering Son series by Shimura Takako, Pretty in Ink by Trina Robbins, Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano or her Eisner-nominated The Love and Rockets Companion (co-edited by Marc Sobel). GO KRISTY!

TCAF'ers! On Thursday, May 8th, noted herstorian Trina Robbins presents the lecture The Brinkley Girls, World War I and American Patriotism in Women’s Comics at Ryerson University! For anyone who hasn't checked out Trina's Eisner AND Harvey Award-nominated collection, The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons 1913-1940, cartoonist Nell Brinkley had a fascinating career spanning four decades, where she shrewdly used her work to encode political messages, sympathizing with working women and making a series about First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. (Trina gave a talk about Nell Brinkley at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery back in 2011, and it…

witzendby Wallace Wood and various artists 656-page black & white/color 9" x 12.5" x 2.75" two-volume slipcased hardcover set • $125.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-744-4 Ships in: June 2014 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now When the formulaic constraints, censorious nature, and onerous lack of creator's rights in mainstream comics got to be too much for the brilliant cartoonist Wallace Wood in 1966, he struck out on his own with the self-published witzend. It became a haven for Wood and his fellow professional cartoonist friends where they could produce the kind of personal work that they wanted to do, without regard to commercial…

The Rhode Island School for Design is happy to have Janet Hamlin a guest speaker on Wednesday, May 7th in Providence, RI. Hamlin will be talking about her time as the official courtroom artists at the military tribunal of Guantanamo Bay, from 2006 until NOW. RISD is one of the premiere art schools on the East Coast and Hamlin will not only be speaking but giving a drawing demo the next day for the students. Published in a book called Sketching Guantanamo, Hamlin's drawings and her accompanying text provide rare insight into the military courts of Guantanamo. Guantanamo Bay is one of the most…

New digital comics are out and available to download via comiXology and Sequential! Chill out, download some comics and enjoy them on the go, be you on the way to the beach, the bus home or freaking out at the dentist's office (which you can afford now that you don't have to spend as MUCH money on bookshelves). Buddy Bradley's back in Buddy Buys a Dumpnbsp;from Peter Bagge! Now in his 30s and married with child, onetime slacker hero Buddy Bradley gets a "real" job, shaves his head, dons an eyepatch, quits his "real" job and buys the local dump – because what…