Fantagraphics Blog

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (8th Printing) by Daniel Clowes 144-page black & white 7.5" x 11" softcover • $19.95ISBN: 978-1-56097-116-0 See Previews / Order Now Like a Velvet Glove… collects all 10 chapters of Eightball's terrifying and fascinating journey into madness that makes Twin Peaks look like Teletubbies. As Clay Loudermilk attempts to unravel the mysteries behind a snuff film, he finds himself involved with an increasingly bizarre cast of characters, including a pair of sadistic cops who carve a strange symbol into the…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • History: If you'd like to know more about the late Dale Yarger's tenure as Fantagraphics Art Director, this tribute by another erstwhile Fanta staffer Robert Boyd is a great place to start • Review: "Bill Griffith, the one prominent figure of underground comix to reach the daily comic page mainstream, has delivered again with a phone book-sized volume both odd and pleasing…. Griffith, with his Zippy the Pinhead cartoon, which has been carried in dozens of daily newspapers since 1984, has had numerous reprint books, but none so exhaustive as Lost and Found. Day…

While I personally wish we were putting out Gabrielle Bell's forthcoming collection The Voyeurs, I also couldn't be happier that it's coming out from her fellow Mome contributor Tom Kaczynski's Uncivilized Books. Get a closer look at the announcement on Gabrielle's blog.

We like the way the Cottesloe Theatre (the smallest of the 3 stages in London's National Theatre) labels their rechargable batteries with the names of Love and Rockets, Hate, Angry Youth Comix and Ghost World characters. Instagram photo (via Twitter) by Mike Winship, who informs us "Sadly, Maggie & Luba have been lost to the great battery dump in the sky*… (*ground)."

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Michel Gagné… worked with Fantagraphics to produce this beautiful volume [Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics]…. Clearly, Simon and Kirby tried to bring as much excitement to primarily psychological and interpersonal goings on as to punching and flying, but the action can’t help but be more grounded and, therefore, limited. It’s impressive that any of the stories manage to sweep one up, and a few do, pulling the reader in rather than leaving him/her assessing art and writing from an appreciative distance. The variety on display here is impressive…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 1: The Early Years of Bitter Struggle (Expanded Softcover Ed.) by Robert Crumb 208-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-558-7 See Previews / Order Now This long out-of-print first volume of the multiple Harvey and Eisner award- winning Complete Crumb Comics series has been one of our most demanded reprints. Now, this landmark volume of Robert Crumb’s formative years not only returns, but also boasts a major discovery not included in prior editions: a never-before-published, 60 page “home-made”…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984 (Vol. 17) by Charles M. Schulz Introduction by Leonard Maltin 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-523-5 See Previews / Order Now As Peanuts reaches the mid-1980s, Charles Schulz is still creating and playing with new characters, and in this volume Snoopy’s deadpan, droopy-mustached brother Spike takes center stage: Surrounded by coyotes in the desert where he lives and who are attacking him with rubber bands, he sends a frantic message to Snoopy who launches an expedition to save…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…Athos in America… is even chunkier and more rewarding than Low Moon, which was itself a career high.… Fans will find much here to laugh at, applaud and be surprised by. If you've yet to sample the delights of Jason, there isn't a better place to start than here.… All together a wonderful compendium of Jasonia. An essential purchase for comics fans." – Peter Wild, Bookmunch • Plug: At It's Nice That, cartoonist Tom Gauld discusses some favorite books on his shelf, including Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler: "Jason is a Norwegian cartoonist…

It is with a heavy heart that we must report that Dale Yarger, a beloved and influential figure on the Seattle alternative-press and design scene with whom we had the pleasure of working for a number of years in the 1990s (he was Fantagraphics' senior designer for the first half of the decade, as well as on a later occasion), has passed away after a long, courageous battle with cancer. Dale was a man of uncommon skill, grace, and sweetness and his premature departure leaves a hole in the world and in our hearts. Our sympathy goes out to all…