Fantagraphics Blog

Candy hearts? Flowers? Bleh. Let's face it, nothing says "I love you" like a Jim Blanchard t-shirt, and lucky for us, he's just launched a new design on Redbubble.com! Available in a multitude of colors and sizes, and on hoodies, girlie tees, baseball jerseys, and more.  So, this Valentine's Day, show someone you care with a psychedelic skull.

The most evolved finch of Online Commentaries & Diversions: • Review: Tom Kaczynski's Best Testing the Apocalypse is reviewed on  Bookslut. Martyn Pedler states, "Science fiction is notoriously unreliable when it comes to predicting Saturn dreams, laser beams, and 21st century sex machines. It’s fantastic, however, at taking our present reality and making it strange again. Beta Testing The Apocalypse makes us Martians to better let us see what’s happening all around us. Read it and witness the disquieting Gernsback of Now."   • Review: Beta Testing The Apocalypse is reviewed by Comics Metropolis. "…a book with an elegant and…

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. The Comics Journal #302 edited by Mike Dean & Kristy Valenti; Gary Groth, Executive Editor 672-page black & white/color 7" x 8.5" softcoverISBN: 978-1-60699-603-4 "Business as usual for a publication that was treating the cultural significance of comics as a known fact decades before graphic novels were making the bestseller list."–Noel Murray,…

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed three recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below:   Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 by Michael Kupperman Imaginations come no wonkier, no dafter than Kupperman’s. His idea of a crime-fighting, daring, dynamic duo à la Bruce and Dick (Batman and Robin) is Twain and Einstein (Mark and Albert)-that is, when it's not a snake and a strip of bacon. When he thinks Odd Couple, it's Oscar and Felix Dracula…Kupperman draws all this strangeness in a manner that derives about equally from Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), 1950s romance comics, visualpun cartoonist Glen Baxter, and…

Yesterday, Publisher Gary Groth's interview with the team from Tell Me Something I Don't Know went live on Boing Boing. Jason Lex, Jim Rugg, and Ed Piskor asked for some of Gary's Fantagraphics recommendations. Here are the quick descriptions and links to the books Gary mentioned. Good Dog by Graham Chaffee is a beautiful black and white graphic novel that chronicles the tales of stray dog, Ivan, on his search for a home, friends and more. Ivan is a good dog – if only someone would notice. Chaffee combines illustrative gravitas with cartooning verve for a richly textured, dog's-eye view…

Brooklyn, prepare to be thrizzled by the divine Michael Kupperman at the Greenlight Bookstore on Thursday, February 21st! He'll be climbing aboard the "Steamboat," their monthly literary humor event, to present his brand new collection Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2!  His fellow castaways include Saturday Night Live's Rachel Dratch and Dawn Fraser, and your host will be author and comedian Bob Powers. This free wine-addled event launches at 7:00 PM. Greenlight Bookstore is located at 686 Fulton St (at South Portland) in Brooklyn. 

Held over! We want to make sure no one who's eligible misses out on this special offer, so we are extending it through the end of February 2013. The original announcement (with updated dates) is copied below:  Like you, we recently learned that CBG is no more. We're sure that many of you are unhappy with the substitution of Antique Trader for the remaining balance of your CBG subscription, so we'd like to offer you a one-time-only money-saving alternative. At Fantagraphics, we specialize in high-quality collections of classic comics by the best writers and artists in comics history. Exquisite collections…

Surely we're having fun by now! It's our 11th (!) collection of Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead, The Dingburg Diaries, wrapping up production and going to the printer for release in May or so. With two and a half years' worth of daily and color Sunday strips under chapter headings like "Beatniks, Bowling, Laundry & Food," "Mr. The Toad," "Little Zippy," "Art, Music & Comics," "Zerbina & Other Relationships," and "God," you know it's got the good stuff you want. Plus the back cover is maybe one of the greatest Zippy drawings ever. Pour yourself a tall glass of taco sauce and…

Friday, February 15th •  Seattle, WA:  Comics collective Intruder will be launching the fifth volume of their quarterly newspaper at Cairo, featuring a cover by our very own Tony Ong, with comics inside by staffer Jason T. Miles, freelancer David Lasky, and former staffer Alexa Koenings! (more info) Saturday, February 16th •  Los Angeles, CA:  Catch a comics reading with Esther Pearl Watson at the L.A. Zine Fest Reading and Rock Spectacular at Footsies! (more info) •  Nelsonville, OH:  It's your last chance to view prints from The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 at the Nelsonville Public Library! Pay your…

Set your clocks to Sexytime at this Saturday evening at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Enjoy an awesome exhibition of silly and sexy classic porn posters, loopy post apocalyptic pop music by Poppet, free kisses from Georgetown’s Little Black Devil burlesque beauties, and so much more. Sexytime editor and pop culture archeologist Jacques Boyreau will be available to sign copies of his latest masterpiece. This event coincides with the Valentine’s edition of the lively Georgetown Art Attack, featuring visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic neighborhood. Fantagraphics Bookstore is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at the corner of Airport…