Fantagraphics Blog

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 Ships in: February 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-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 heel of Clay's foot; a horny over-the-hill suburban…

On the occasion of our impending release of Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 by Ernie Bushmiller, our pal and colleague Ben Schwartz has penned an excellent essay on the strip for the current issue of Bookforum. Do get a copy if you can; click the scan above for a larger, legible version and we've taken the liberty of excerpting the parts where he heaps praise on the book below: "In this, the reading public has a rare opportunity. No, make that a rare challenge — to read Bushmiller without the benefit of recontextualization of any sort. The fact that…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "And now, Fantagraphics has packaged some of the best movie parodies in this ripely-colored book [The Sincerest Form of Parody]. But these aren't Mad comics. They're the imitators which popped up on newsstands in the 1950s — comic books like Whack, Nuts!, Crazy, Bughouse and Unsane…. Most of the comics in the pages of this book are understandably dated for today's web-weaned generation who may have never heard of I, Jury ('My Gun Is the Jury by Melvie Splane'), What's My Line? ('What's My Crime?'), or Come Back, Little Sheba ('Come Back Bathsheba'),…

Swarte collectors will want to buy their copy of Is That All There Is? directly from us, as every mail-order copy ordered from Fantagraphics will be accompanied by "Actually, That Wasn't All There Was," the FBI•MINI giveaway featuring a half-dozen hilarious Jurassic-era Swarte comics stories that have not been in print for over 40 years, and have never been seen in English! (Even I was totally unfamiliar with them.) I'd hate to pick favorites, but this may be the most collectible FBI•MINI of them all, showcasing Swarte's earliest, pre-Hergé-pastiche, more underground-y style. A revelation! And if you've already pre-ordered your…

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 Life and Death of Fritz the Cat by Robert Crumb 96-page black & white 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-480-1 Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics by Jack Kirby & Joe Simon; edited by Michel Gagné 208-page full-color 7.75" x 10" hardcover • $29.99ISBN:…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Is That All There Is? by Joost Swarte 144-page full-color 7" x 9.5" hardcover • $35.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-510-5 See Previews / Order Now Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last. By appropriating and subverting Tintin creator Hergé’s classic “clear line” style, Joost Swarte revitalized European alternative comics in the 1970s with a series of satirical, musically elegant, supremely beautifully drawn short stories — often featuring his innocent, magnificently-quiffed Jopo…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1 by Bill Everett; edited by Blake Bell 240-page full-color 7.25" x 10" hardcover • 39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-488-7 See Previews / Order Now The 1939 creation of the Sub-Mariner for the first issue of Marvel Comics assures Bill Everett a place in history. Co-creating Daredevil, the Man Without Fear, for Marvel Comics in 1964 gave Everett a link to one of the most popular superheroes of the past 50 years. And producing over 400 additional pages of superhero-related work in the…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Interview: At The Believer's blog, part 3 of Ross Simonini's 2008 chat with Jim Woodring: "[Frank]’s an agent representing my interests, my perspective. The world is never a settled matter to him. He’s always trying to discover what is really going on, and when he does find out, he gets a terrible jolt. Sometimes he is driven beyond the limits of sanity. As William Burroughs said: a schizophrenic is a guy who has just discovered what is really going on. That’s a paraphrase." • Review: "The Peanuts of 1981 was an utterly professional entertainment…

It's a big, big week for Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics editor Michel Gagne: not only does his labor-of-love book come out this week after years in development, he's also won the highly prestigious 2011 International Animated Film Society Annie Award ("Animation's Highest Honor") for Best Animated Video Game for his creation Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet! Congratulations Michel! (And hey, Eric Reynolds won for his work on that new Planet of the Apes movie! I didn't know you were moonlightin' in Hollywood, Eric… Oh, a different Eric Reynolds? Never mind.)

Our friends at PictureBox report, Gary Panter and longtime collaborator Joshua White are debuting their largest collaborative project to date this Friday, February 10th at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit! The Joshua White and Gary Panter’s Light Show will occupy nearly all of the Museum’s 22,000 square foot area. Oh my GOD. MoCAD illuminates (heh) the exhibit: "As intended by White and Panter, the exhibition will serve as a platform for performances by guests working in a variety of media and disciplines, including musicians, video artists, comedians and engineers, who are invited to interact with the work and activate…