Fantagraphics Blog

Last night's episode of popular cop show Law & Order SVU contained an unlikely Chris Ware reference. A misguided comic shop clerk (uh-oh) prowled the streets dressed as a superhero to protect the public from a SoHo serial rapist. Turns out [SPOILER ALERT –Ed.] superclerk was the perp all along. His heroics were a misguided attempt to spark a romance with an unsuspecting female customer. During his climactic rooftop arrest, he confesses that on her first visit to the comics shop he attempted to lure the woman with a copy of Jimmy Corrigan. Right. That always works.

A quiet couple of days for Online Commentary & Diversions: • Plug: "I very much like Tom Spurgeon’s 'Before Before Watchmen There Was Spain Rodriguez' campaign. Rodriguez is one the of great, lively cartoonists of the last 40 years who should be enjoying comfortable golden years based on his body of work. And he’s still working, turning out good work. He has a new book out called, improbably, Cruisin’ With the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote. Go buy a copy." – Heidi MacDonald, The Beat • Interview (Audio): Listen to Monday night's episode of Too Much Information…

Don’t miss Free Comic Book Day at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. On Saturday, May 5, the Georgetown shop will be giving away free copies of specially produced comic books by master cartoonists like Carl Barks, Crockett Johnson and, while supplies last, the coveted Unseen Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. Celebrating its 10th year in 2012, the annual Free Comic Book Day promotion is a national effort on the part of publishers and retailers to attract new readers to the medium as well as show appreciation to loyal customers. Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books offers two new titles for Free Comic…

Squa Tront #13 edited by John Benson 48-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $9.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-571-6 Ships in: May 2012 (subject to change) – This item will be available to order simultaneous with its release to comic shops. Five years in the making and meticulously edited by John Benson, Squa Tront returns with a profusion of rare and interesting features from the EC era: the story behind Basil Wolverton’s first EC art; Howard Nostrand’s last interview; art from the unpublished third issue of Flip; Jack Davis’s WWII cartoons; plus EC era art by Wallace Wood, John and Marie…

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. Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez 136-page black & white 7.5" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-461-0 "…[T]here are a lot of good books out this week, mostly from Fantagraphics. My first pick would be Cruisin’ with the Hound, a collection of…

To celebrate the re-release of Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, Josh Alan Friedman presents a behind-the-scenes look at one of the strips from the book, discussing his creative process with his brother Drew, with rare art not included in the book, seldom-seen photos and his full typewritten script for the strip. You can read the article two ways: in an embedded magazine-style layout or in a standard blog format. Either way it's a must-read slice of comics history!

  We've written too many obituaries on Flog already this year. I'm saddened to contribute another. We learned this morning that Josep Maria Berenguer, founder of the legendary Spanish comics publishing house Ediciones La Cúpula , passed away last night after a battle with lung cancer. We have lost a friend here at Fantagraphics, and a colleague with whom we've had a very fruitful relationship with for over 20 years. I first met Josep Maria Berenguer in, I believe, 1995 or 1996 on a trip to Barcelona with my good pal Peter Bagge . We were there for the Barcelona Comics Festival…

Fantagraphics is rockin' the convention scene from coast to coast this coming weekend, and you can also find us at the 9th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon! Drop by the Oregon Convention Center this Saturday, April 28th and Sunday, April 29th! This year's special guests include the great Peter Bagge and the also-great Stan Sakai!  And we'll be bringing some of those deeply-discounted-dent-and-ding'ed copies of the Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition deluxe, slipcased two-volume hardcover set, so make our table your very first stop! You can find us at Booth 101, right near the entrance to the lobby,…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Since its 1996 Olio Press inception with The Curse of Brambly Hedge, writer/artist Linda Medley’s sweetly Grimm magnum opus has sometimes appeared fitfully, and this week, Castle Waiting Vol. II #16 continues that trend. More specifically, as her publishers note in a one-page introduction, three years have passed since last the black-and-white Fantagraphics Books neofable graced comics shops. Still, those same publishers — Gary Groth and Kim Thompson, not exactly gentlemen known for lavishing praise profligately — also characterize the series as 'one of the greatest and most beautifully drawn fantasy comic books…