Fantagraphics Blog

That's right! Chapel Hill Comics are gonna funk you right on up with a signing of Hip Hop Family Tree this Saturday, November 16th with the funkmaster Ed Piskor! Join in the fun from 6:00 to 9:00 PM! If you love hip hop, you will love everything about this book:  Piskor's exuberant yet controlled cartooning takes you from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late-1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail.  Chapel Hill Comics…

photo credit: Stephanie Rivers It's time for the Billy Ireland Festival of Cartoon Art, and this year, they've got even more to celebrate as the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University is moving into wonderful new, expanded facility in Sullivant Hall! All weekend long, they're breaking in the new building with comics events, including this very special evening with Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez, this Saturday, November 16th! Kicking off at 7:30 PM, join them for a freewheeling conversation between these alternative comics legends as they discuss their groundbreaking series Love & Rockets, and their ongoing stories…

Our campaign to support our Spring-Summer 2014 season on Kickstarter is ongoing, and we're continuing to spotlight the books in question, a couple at a time. We've also put our season catalog online for you to browse. (Please note that all artwork, contents, prices, specs, and release dates are preliminary and subject to change.) Unlovable Vol. 3 by Esther Pearl Watson 416-page two-color 5.75" x 5.75" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-737-6 Summer vacation is here and Tammy Pierce is back with more sometimes ordinary, often humiliating, occasionally poignant, and usually hilarious exploits! Her hopes, dreams, agonies, and defeats are brought to vivid, comedic life…

Do you like beautiful books? Do you like gorgeous illustration? Do you like fun, inventive comics? Then you will love Perfect Nonsense: The Chaotic Comics and Goofy Games of George Carlson, coming in January. Collecting Carlson's mostly youth-oriented work from the first half of the 20th century, Perfect Nonsense is brimming with clever whimsy and swoon-worthy artwork in a package so lovely we all crowded around designer Tony Ong and his pup Otis (out of frame) to congratulate him on a job well done when the first advance copies arrived. And the die-cut cover! Heeeeere's Wanda! 

Get ready to play ball! Editor Hal Bock is steppin' up to the plate in New York City with our beautiful collection Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972! Join him on Thursday, December 5th starting at 7:00 PM at the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse for a signing and discussion about the great Willard Mullin, voted "Sports Cartoonist of the Century" upon his retirement by his peers. (We're also told this talk will be filmed for a later podcast, so stay tuned!) Bergino Baseball Clubhouse is located at 67 East 11 Street in the landmark Cast Iron Building in Greenwich…

Our campaign to support our Spring-Summer 2014 season on Kickstarter is ongoing, and we're continuing to spotlight the books in question, a couple at a time. We've also put our season catalog online for you to browse. (Please note that all artwork, contents, prices, specs, and release dates are preliminary and subject to change.) SuperTrash by Jacques Boyreau 220-page full-color 8" x 8" softcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-738-3 SuperTrash is the awaited, mutagenic sequel to Trash: The Graphic Genius of Xploitation Movie Posters (2002, Chronicle), the book that became a prophecy of the lasting influence of grindhouse and a model describing the shared evolution…

If you run over to our Kickstarter page, you'll find a few new — and good — premiums. 1. Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden will collaborate on a drawing, and they will do this exactly five times before collapsing in exhaustion (the drawings will be that good). Plus, they'll throw in an original, 10" x 17" vintage syndicate proof for a week of 1960s Nancy dailies! This is the promotional part of the pitch because it primes the pump for their groundbreaking 200+ page analysis and historical monograph of Nancy, How to Read Nancy, coming up in our Fall 2014 season. All this for…

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. Hip Hop Family Tree (Vol. 1) by Ed Piskor 112-page full-color 9" x 13" Flexibound softcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-690-4 "They say the story of Jesus is the greatest ever told, but JC didn't steal a DJ mixer during the New York Blackout of '77 or bomb a subway car with Fab 5 Freddy. With…

Wednesday, November 13th • Chicago, IL:  Kipp Friedman is bringing Barracuda in the Attic to The Book Cellar! Join him for a conversation with fellow author Barry Wightman starting at 7:00 PM! (more info) • San Francisco, CA:  Join Trina Robbins from 10:00 AM to Noon for the panel "Brave Women in Comix Then & Now: San Francisco Comix Scene from 1970 to Today" at the California College of the Arts! Also on the panel will be her fellow underground comixpioneer Mary Wings, who just happens to be in our award-winning anthology No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics! …

We had to again express our thanks when at about 6am PST on Tuesday, we hit $150,000 on our Kickstarter campaign for our 2014 Spring-Summer Season. We are thankful for your support, passing on the word to your friends and taking up that coveted shelf space over the years. Making our goal within a week was an unexpected surprise.   Since we have so many books still available for pre-order and some great 'warehouse finds' like the Dave Stevens' King Kong poster, a special Richard Sala premium (announcing soon….) and more, we have decided on our (first?!) stretch goal.  If we hit 200,000…