Fantagraphics Blog

In this month's issue of Booklist you can find reviews of two of our recent releases, excerpted below: Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez: "Rodriguez… had the perfect youth for reality comics. He grew up in an ethnically mixed working- and lower-middle-class neighborhood of Buffalo, and he was self-directed from early on. He went to religious instruction on his own initiative (his parents were indifferent) until a boozy priest chewed him out without hearing his story. He attended public school, discovered EC Comics, turned teenager just as R & B turned to…

Please join us at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery as we welcome two of the country’s most acclaimed contemporary cartoonists: Jeffrey Brown on Saturday, June 2 and Joe Sacco on Saturday, June 9. These remarkable artists represent the current diversity of alternative comix and their potential to impact both popular and political culture. Upon graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, Jeffrey Brown came to the attention of comix readers with works dealing with relationships and romantic misadventures. His primitive rendering style complemented his candid observations in a series of accessible graphic novels comprising the “Girlfriend Trilogy.” His recent work has…

Someone buy THIS  for me? There was a time that we had this painting in the Fanta offices for awhile, during production of the first GHOST WORLD hardcover edition in 1996 or 1997. It's much larger in person than it was ever reproduced. I loved it so much I made a full-size color xerox of it that I still have. I'll just have to get that framed, I guess. *sigh*  

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. Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli 144-page full-color 7.75" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-559-4 "…I already have the four Ignatz issues, but I won’t let that stop me from recommending Interiorae, Gabriella Giandelli’s dark and occasionally surreal look at the drab lives of various people living in an apartment complex. This…

Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin – The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpiece of Johnny Gruelleby Johnny Gruelle 128-page full-color 14" x 18" hardcover • $75.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-411-5 Ships in: May 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now From our Marschall Books imprint comes this magnificent collection of Mr. Twee Deedle, Johnny Gruelle’s masterpiece, unjustly forgotten by history and never before reprinted since its first appearance in America’s newspapers from 1911 to 1914. The title character in the Sunday color page, Mr. Twee Deedle, is a magical wood sprite who befriends the strip’s two human children, Dickie and Dolly. Gruelle depicted a…

The days are ticking down to the arrival of Ron Regé Jr.'s The Cartoon Utopia this November. If, like me, you're eagerly looking forward to the book and you're a fan of Ron's hand-lettering (seriously, he doesn't get enough credit for it), you'll be happy to see this Table of Contents Ron's just posted. I don't think the new drawing by Ron below, "The Harmony of Emptiness and Dependent Arising," is in the book — just some extra eye candy for you:

The latest Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Known to her classmates at Georgia State College for Women as 'the cartoon girl,' Flannery O'Connor provided satirical illustrations GSCW's student newspaper, The Colonnade, and other school publications while earning a social sciences degree and planning a career in journalism. Executed in the high-contrast technique of linoleum cut from the fall of 1942 until her graduation in 1945, her cartoons skewering the denizens of the Milledgeville campus — roughly drawn but formally dynamic, and often accompanied by punchy, dialogue-driven captions — are the subject of a revelatory new book by O'Connor scholar…

Monday, May 21st • Seattle, WA: Our friends at the Elysian Brewing Company will be launching the latest edition in our 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series, a collaboration featuring the artwork of the great Charles Burns from his weirdly apocalyptic Black Hole series! (more info) Friday, May 25th • DeKalb, IL:  It's your last chance to check out the exhibition “Graphic Novel Realism: Backstage at the Comics” at the Northern Illinois Unversity Art Museum, curated by our own Paul Karasik, and featuring work by Joyce Farmer, Jaime Hernandez, Mark Newgarden and Megan Montague Cash, as well as Jason Lutes,…

Author Pat Thomas at Café OTO, London // photo credit: Dave Weller Our author Pat Thomas is back home in Seattle after a whirlwind book tour through England for Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975, but you can still hear the sounds of his presentations and interviews online, thanks to the internets! UK publication The Wire recorded his presentation at Café OTO, and you can listen to it here! Part one is Pat's incredible lecture, and part two is of Pat in discussion with author Paul Gilroy, filmmaker John Akomfrah, and publisher Margaret Busby. And if…