Fantagraphics Blog

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.     Everybody is Stupid Except for Me (and Other Astute Observations)  by Peter Bagge   "Collecting 10 years' worth of cartoons originally done for Reason magazine, as well as a few odds and sods, [Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me] finds Bagge as sharp and irate as ever, and his art has improved…

Oh my gosh, gang, the advance copies of Peanuts Every Sunday: 1952-1955 by Charles M. Schulz are here and they are GAWRJUS. Even if you think "meh, I already have these strips in black & white in The Complete Peanuts, I don't need 'em in color," one look at this lovely, lovely book will convince you otherwise. Some lucky, lucky folks were able to pick up early copies at SPX this past weekend and we'll have a very limited amount at APE next month — everyone else will have to wait until late October or early November. Get on the early end of…

Great news for Linda Medley fans: after taking a break, she's back to the drawing board sketching out storyboards for Castle Waiting Volume 3! Publishing details are still to be determined so we don't know quite yet in what format it will be available to readers, but we sure are excited! In the meantime, to limber up, she's dug up an unfinished project from 2003 to work on: a spin-off of Castle Waiting aimed at younger readers called "Twelve Witches," which you can see as a work in progress on our Tumblr blog. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of that in…

"Fantagraphics' Crumb project advances into wilder, woolier, scarier, more fantastic, and lewder and still lewder territory… This is definitely X-rated material — make that triple-X! — but it's brilliant, scabrously hilarious, absolutely basic to understanding the 1960s American counterculture, and authentically mind-blowing." – Booklist "I guess I ought to be talking about my artwork in these introductions, but how th' hell can I talk about my own work?? What can I say about it? My pissant little fame had made my life so completely crazy by this time. Circa 1970 was such a weird time anyway…  I'd rather brag about…

On Saturday night, Ulli Lust won the Ignatz Award for Best Graphic Novel for her large work Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life. Translated by Kim Thompson, the story is set back in 1984, where a rebellious, 17-year-old, punked-out Ulli Lust sets out for a wild hitchhiking trip across Italy.    Charming and well, just plain bad-ass Lust sold out of her graphic novel earlier in the day. Thank you for your support and coming to say hi to our favorite Austrian cartoonist! Get your own copy of her book today!  

It's Peanuts! Every Sunday strip, in full color, together for the first time ever! What else do you need to know? OK, here are some other relevant facts: • Using the same archival sources as The Complete Peanuts series, the line art has been crisply restored to our usual standards. • The coloring is all-new, done by the lovely and talented Joanne Bagge (of the Seattle Bagges) and based on original tear sheets. As you can see in the excerpt, it's vibrant but slightly muted to give the same feeling as when the strips were originally printed on newsprint. • Designed by…

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 6: On the Crest of a Wave (New Printing) by Robert Crumb 156-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $19.99978-1-60699-683-6 Ships in: September 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Robert Crumb enters the '70s with this, the sixth volume in Fantagraphics Books' all-inclusive reprint series. This includes a couple of genuine rarities (some of them so obscure they didn't even make the Crumb Checklist), as well as all of Crumb's work from Big Ass #1, Zap #4 (including the legendary, much-busted, X-rated "Joe Blow" teen incest strip), the remarkably offensive Snatch #3 and Jiz…

Consensus is that 2013 is the Year of Gilbert Hernandez, and his roll continues with a brand-new original graphic novel, Maria M. Book 1, the latest in his "Fritz B-Movie" series. These books are stand-alone stories that spin off from his long-running continuity, so they can be enjoyed by new readers and longtime fans alike. This newest volume is of especial interest to old-school Love and Rockets aficionados, seeing as how it's a retelling of the classic "Poison River" story (which can be found in Beyond Palomar) as adapted into a b-movie (told in comic form). And the star of the picture just happens…

[The Umpteen Millionaire Club is our series which puts forth book club discussion questions for Fantagraphics titles. The Comics Journal interns Keith Baralato, Eli Powell, and Evans Winters put together this set of questions. – Ed.] Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life is a graphic memoir by Ulli Lust, set in the 1980s, which recounts her journey from Vienna, Austria, down through Italy, finally arriving on the island of Sicily. Seventeen-year-old “Ulli” lives on the streets, traveling with nothing but her best friend Edi, a sleeping bag, and barely enough money to buy a coffee. This rebellious…