Fantagraphics Blog

The Rapture is coming!!! Don't fear — it's just the second beer in our 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series, a collaboration with our friends at the Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle. This heather ale will be available on draft, and in exclusive bottles with labels featuring the artwork of the great Charles Burns! Join us on Tuesday, February 21st at 6:00 PM for the official tapping of the Rapture ale, followed by an all-important survival demo, and beer blessings til 9:00 PM, because really now, we could all use a blessing (and a beer!) in these uncertain times. And…

… FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS WANTS YOU.  We're super bummed to soon be saying goodbye to our longtime junior designer, Alexa Koenings, who is moving on to new challenges at the end of this month after several years of great work for us. We don't want her to go, but dammit, she's made up her mind. One thing this means: WE'RE HIRING. We are currently accepting applications for the Junior Designer position. This is a full-time, salaried position in our office (telecommuters need not apply). If you don't currently live in Seattle, you must be willing to relocate. SKILLS REQUIRED: • Strong layout…

Hey Hartford, CT! Zip on over to our book signing with underground comix legend Bill Griffith, and help him celebrate the release of the collection Lost and Found: Comics 1969-2003! Bill Griffith: Lost & Found collects hundreds of Griffith’s early underground comics, most of them long out of print and unavailable. Much of the work will be unfamiliar and a real revelation to those readers who only know Griffith from his long-running Zippy strip. He'll be signing and reading from this much-anticipated book on Saturday, March 3rd.  The zany fun starts at 3:00 PM, so don't miss your chance to…

In this month's issue of Booklist you can find reviews of three of our recent releases, excerpted below: Bill Griffith: Lost and Found – Comics 1969-2003: "Prefaced by Griffith’s long, anecdotal accounting of his work and including stories featuring other characters who’d eventually join the strip’s cast as well as 48 pages in full color…, this collection attests the perdurable wit, style, and smarts of one of the greatest of the 1960s San Francisco underground cartoonists." – Ray Olson (Starred Review) Athos in America by Jason: "What’s amazing is how much [Jason] can squeeze from so little. Though their emotional…

It's time to go back to school with Professor DeStefano! Our award-nominated Lucky In Love artist Stephen DeStefano is heading back to the podium at MoCCA, and this time, he'll be laying down the laws of "Drawing for Animated Cartoons" — something he knows a thing or two about, as the storyboard and design supervisor on Adult Swim's The Venture Brothers, only one of the best cartoons out there! Stephen will focus on design and composition for characters, backgrounds and storyboards — in other words, on the overall drawing process for an animated production. The course will show you how to…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Critic Rob Clough names his Top Fifteen Comic Books of 2011 on his High-Low blog, including Love & Rockets: New Stories #4 at #1… "Gilbert's stories are typically excellent in this issue, as he manages a certain luridness in one story that brings sexuality to the fore, and goes the other direction in a more oblique, subtle story. Of course, the story that got everyone buzzing was the second half of Jaime's "The Love Bunglers", which is an ending for this thirty-year cycle of stories–and one where Jaime sticks the landing with authority."…

Before there was Frank & Estelle Costanza on Seinfeld there was Leo & Sylvia Schauzer on Car 54, Where Are You?, portrayed by Charlotte Rae and Al Lewis. Car 54 aficionado Drew Friedman brings the bickering couple to life in this new illustration, available now as a signed, limited-edition print from Drew Friedman Fine Art Prints.

The Best Show on WFMU gets even better this Tuesday, February 14th, as host Tom Scharpling welcomes our own Michael Kupperman to the airwaves! WFMU streams their broadcasts online in multiple formats, so anyone can listen, from anywhere in the world — just tune in at 9:00 PM EST and await the awesome! And just so y'know, it's the WFMU 2012 Marathon through March 4th, and freeform radio is a good, good thing!

For Valentine's Day we've teamed up with ComicsAlliance to give you a chance to win copies of two of our recent books about lovin' in its various forms: Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics and Dave McKean's erotic opus Celluloid. Contest details and your chance to enter are all over at the ComicsAlliance blog. Good luck!

Wednesday, February 15th • Los Angeles, CA: It's your last chance to see the Year of the Dragon group art exhibit at Giant Robot, featuring work from Fantagraphics artists Andrice Arp, Renee French, and Steven Weissman, among many others!  (more info) Joe Sacco at the Fantagraphics office, 04/09/07 // photo credit: Jacob Covey Saturday, February 18th • Portland, OR: Come hear Joe Sacco speak at the Portland Central Library from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Tickets for this event are free, and will be available 30 minutes prior to the program. Space at programs is limited, and seating is available on…