Fantagraphics Blog

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but frankly, there aren't words strong enough to describe my excitement for this collaboration between two of my all-time favorite artists, Jim Woodring and Yo La Tengo! Their love story goes a long ways back, as we mentioned on the FLOG earlier this year when we premiered the band's most recent release Fade at the book launch party for Jim's collection Problematic: Sketchbook Drawings 2004-2012.  And now Jim has taken the artwork for Fade and interpreted it into The Tree, a set of three figurines and a DVD produced…

Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013 by Trina Robbins 180-page color/black & white 9" x 12" softcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-669-0 Ships in: November 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now With the 1896 publication of Rose O’Neill’s comic strip The Old Subscriber Calls, in Truth Magazine, American women entered the field of comics, and they never left it. But, you might not know that reading most of the comics histories out there. Trina Robbins has spent the last thirty years recording the accomplishments of a century of women cartoonists, and Pretty in Ink is her ultimate book, a revised, updated…

Fantagraphics Books Launches a Kickstarter Campaign to Help Fund Spring-Summer 2014 Comics Publishing Season FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS IS ASKING FOR READERS' SUPPORT THROUGH KICKSTARTER. HELP FINANCE OUR SPRING-SUMMER SEASON, AND BE A PART OF THE COMPANY THAT HAS PUBLISHED MORE OF THE BEST CARTOONISTS IN THE HISTORY OF COMICS THAN ANY OTHER PUBLISHER. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fantagraphicsbooks/fantagraphics-2014-spring-season-39-graphic-novels Fantagraphics Books is launching a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to help finance our Spring-Summer 2014 season of books. Earlier this Fantagraphics Co-Publisher Kim Thompson was diagnosed with cancer and died four months later, on June 19, 2013. Because Kim was such an active part of our company, his death has…

These glimpses of an advance copy of Prison Pit Book 5 by Johnny Ryan show a couple of the foes our antihero Cannibal Fuckface has to deal with: on the cover, one of the Holocaust Brothers and their death machines, unleashed by the Prison Boss to deal with C.F., and in the pages, the deadly Slitt, out for revenge. (This time, it's personal.) Can C.F. withstand the onslaught? Can the onslaught withstand C.F.? All this plus Abortion Bucket and the mystery of the Caligulon ("insert me into your urethra") in 124 gut-churning pages. Look for the book to drop like a hacked-off…

The latest issue of The Believer, published by McSweeney's, has a very sweet drawing of Barnaby on the cover! You can grab a copy of it at your nearest bookstore or from the McSweeney's website yourself! Vol. II, Issue #9 features a fun cover by J. Otto Seibold and stories on Indiana's efforts to renew urban areas, the SoCal feminist art scene and more. Wondering about Barnaby by Crockett Johnson, edited by Philip Nel and Eric Reynolds? You have come to the exact right place!  Volume one of the little tyke running around and keeping his fairy godfather out of trouble…

It seems like the last volume just came out, and already we have advance copies of Shimura Takako's Wandering Son Vol. 6 to show off to you. The series is starting to take up a nice chunk of shelf space! The emotional complexity continues to deepen for our gender-questioning junior high heroes and their quirky cast of friends, rivals, crushes, mentors, teachers, and families. Meanwhile, Vol. 5 inspired Terry Hong to write on the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center Bookdragon blog: "Sweet and gentle, with just enough angst and worry over changing bodies and emotional alliances. Creator Shimura Takako continues to share an enlightening journey…

Monday, November 4th • Pasadena, CA:  The great Jaime Hernandez comes to The Crawford Family Forum for an evening of art, books, and conversation. KPCC FM "Off-Ramp" producer Kevin Ferguson talks with Hernandez about his latest work, how it relates to Love and Rockets, and where his future's taking him. (more info) • New York City, NY: Author Pat Thomas will be spinning albums, and signing and lecturing about Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 at the appropriately-named Revolution Books at 7:00 PM. (more info) Tuesday, November 5th • Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn, you're not left out…

"Charles Schulz was an American treasure — an artist, philosopher, and keen observer of human life." — Bill Clinton "Charles Schulz was an innovative genius of American comics and also the marathon man, drawing strip after four-panel strip, batch after batch, writing the storyboards for the TV specials, year after year, creating a fantasy world that connected to kids as well as adults and all based on powerful iconic characters who express deep feelings of loneliness and resentment and despair. The feeling that everything is against us. The craving for love. An enormous earnestness about doing the right thing. There…

Peanuts Every Sunday: 1952-1955 (Vol. 1) by Charles M. Schulz 224-page full-color 13.25" x 9.5" hardcover • $49.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-692-8 Ships in: November 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Since their original publication, Peanuts Sundays have almost always been collected and reprinted in black and white, and generations of Peanuts fans have grown up enjoying this iteration of these strips. But many who read Peanuts in their original Sunday papers remain fond of the striking coloring, which makes for a surprisingly different reading experience. It is for these fans (and for Peanuts fans in general who want to experience this alternate/original version)…