Fantagraphics Blog

We're coming at you right over the plate around mid-Summer with a collection of baseball cartoons by the 20th century's greatest sports cartoonist (that's what his peers called him), Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972. Mullin's cartoons were read by millions of sports fans and earned him a name-drop by Charles M. Schulz in a Peanuts strip, so popular were they. Whether you remember them fondly from their appearances in the papers, you're a new generation of sports fan discovering them for the first time, or you just like masterful, dynamic cartooning and illustration, this is a book…

Fantagraphics is proud to announce Spacehawk, the whole space shebang by Basil Wolverton is available for digital delight on comiXology. Spacehawk had but one mission in life: to protect the innocent throughout the Solar System, and to punish the guilty. Every story from Spacehawk’s intergalactic debut in 1940 to his final, Nazi-crushing adventure in 1942. Basil Wolverton is one of the greatest, most idiosyncratic talents in comic book history. Though he is best known for his humorous grotesqueries in MAD magazine, it is his science-fiction character Spacehawk that Wolverton fans have most often demanded be collected. While Spacehawk is the…

The tallest seedlings of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Review: ForeWord looks at Dash Shaw's New School. "Like its predecessors, New School is unlike everything else out there.…It’s a startling, yet aptly mundane vision of one man’s future, made all the more believable by Shaw’s expressive, cartoony drawings and generally solid scripting…ultimately, it’s an entertaining and thoughtful graphic novel," writes Bill Baker. • Review: Paraphilia Magazine covers the two Malcolm McNeill books about his collaborations with William S. Burroughs. "Observed While Falling is an invaluable addition to the library of any Burroughs fan…Having shed light on a previously dark corner…

Some views of The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove, collecting Oscar-winning animator Gene Deitch's jazz cartoons and illustrations from The Record Changer magazine from 1945-1951 with the artist's commentary. This new softcover edition will be out in April. Click the images for bigger versions and see more in our Flickr set.

Want to hug a record but afraid you'll scratch it? Raffie and Foppie are for you! Chicago-based label FPE Records asked our own Ron Regé, Jr. to draw some dancing records for an ad, and once they saw the results, they wanted to hug 'em!  So, the idea for stuffed Raffie and Foppie record dolls was born. FPE currently launched a Kickstarter to get these cuties manufactured, so check it out and get yourself some huggable new friends!

What's this? Oh, just a stack of Dash Shaw original artwork from his upcoming release New School! And if you're in Brooklyn, or if you'll be in town for MoCCA, you can see this stunning artwork in person at Desert Island on Friday, April 5th! Join Dash from 7:00 to 9:00 PM for the unveiling of this exhibit of original pages, plus beat the crowds at the Armory to get a copy of New School before it's even in stores! Desert Island is located at 540 Metropolitan in Brooklyn. Dash will also be joining us at the Fantagraphics booth at…

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed a recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below:  Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein edited by Greg Sadowski "…best known for his stories for the legendary EC Comics—8 of which are included here—Krigstein also produced remarkable work…in genres ranging from crime and horror to war and westerns.… Although Krigstein was a masterful illustrator…capable of varying his style to suit the demands of the story, his genius lay in how he broke down the scripts, using multiple, subdivided panels to audaciously manipulate time.…Krigstein’s thoughtful, intelligent approach to telling a story should be…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:  Julio's Dayby Gilbert Hernandez 104-page black & white 7.5" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-606-5 See Previews / Order Now   It begins in the year 1900, with the scream of a newborn. It ends, 100 pages later, in the year 2000, with the death rattle of a 100-year-old man. The infant and the old man are both Julio, and Gilbert Hernandez’s Julio’s Day (originally serialized in Love and Rockets Vol. II but never completed until now) is his latest graphic novel, a masterpiece of elliptical, emotional storytelling that traces one life…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:  The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988 (Vol. 19) by Charles M. Schulz 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-634-8 See Previews / Order Now So what do we have for Peanuts fans this time around? An ill-considered attempt at flirting sends Charlie Brown to the school doctor… Linus's ongoing romance with the too-young "Lydia" of the many names continues… Snoopy is joined in the trenches by his brother Spike… Sally engages in a career as a playwright by penning the school Christmas play but mixes up Gabriel and Geronimo… A…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:  The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 2: Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle (New Softcover Ed.) by Robert Crumb 144-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-0-93019-362-1 See Previews / Order Now Another fascinating collection of early work from one of America's most original, trenchant, and uncompromising artists. "Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle" features several key stories from Crumb’s pre-underground, homemade comics of the early 1960s (such as Farb and Arcade), with stories featuring early Crumb characters Fritz the Cat, Jim, Mabel, and Little Billy Bean….