Fantagraphics Blog

As part of their anniversary celebrations on Sunday, Comic Book Resources' indispensable Robot 6 blog ran exclusive previews of 3 of our upcoming releases. First up, Athos in America, the new collection of short stories by Jason. See 5 pages from the title story here.

Make it your New Year's Resolution to go out to more comics events! The Fantagraphics Flog can help! Thursday, January 5th • Portland, OR:  Floating World Comics proudly presents an art exhibit and a signing with Tony Millionaire! He'll be autographing his latest collection 500 Portraits, along with his other titles, from 6:00 to 10:00 PM. Heck, we've watched the man sign body parts before, so don't be shy! (more info) Saturday, January 7th • Seattle, WA: And it was at Tony's last signing at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery that we watched him sign someone's arm, who then headed…

Now that you've swept up all the confetti, put the empties in the recycling, and covered up whatever intoxicated indiscretions you got up to, we have one more New Year's cleanup task for you — helping us clear out our warehouse! We're pleased to announce our third annual New Year's Hangover Sale: all this week, take 20% OFF everything on our website (including our already-discounted clearance items and gift sets) Tuesday, January 3 through Monday, January 9, 2012! Just use the coupon code HANGOVER when you check out and you'll receive 20% off everything in your order. (If you prefer…

Here's another 2012 sneak peek for you — Out of the Shadows, the first-ever collection of comics by unjustly overlooked Golden Age great Mort Meskin, edited by Steven Brower, author of our 2010 Meskin bio From Shadow to Light. Steven posted this cover art over on his blog, where he also reveals a spiffy-looking compilation of Golden Age Western comics he put together for powerHouse Books. They're both coming out this Spring — we've got more info on the Meskin book here on our website, and stay tuned right here for updates!

To kick off the new year Michael Kupperman has revealed the cover for the second book collection of his smash hit comic series Tales Designed to Thrizzle! The book will be part of our Fall/Winter 2012 season, which we're currently pounding into shape. Stay tuned for updates and more info!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 lands at #4 on Comic Book Resources' Top 100 Comics of 2011, with Chris Mautner saying "The hype and acclaim surrounding Jaime Hernandez's conclusion to his 'Love Bunglers' saga has been overwhelming, and every ounce of it is deserved. This is simply a phenomenal achievement in comics. I'd be hard pressed to think of a better comic that came out this year," and Sean T. Collins saying "…[L]et's add to the chorus praising Jaime's 'The Love Bunglers' as one of the greatest comics of all time, the…

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Mahler (Weissman is on holiday hiatus), plus links to other strips from around the web: — Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size): Angelman by Nicolas Mahler (view at original size): And elsewhere: The All-New Cartoon Boy Adventure Hour by John Kerschbaum at ACT-I-VATE: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Forming by Jesse Moynihan: Humblug by Arnold Roth (3 updates this week, continuing serialization of his unpublished 1979 strip Downtown): Maakies by Tony Millionaire: Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim: What's in the Backpack by Victor Kerlow:

David Hajdu (author of The Ten-Cent Plague) reviewed Kevin Avery's Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson: for The New York Times Sunday Book Review: "Paul Nelson, a propagandist committed to some dubious values, had a gift for imbuing disreputable, even dangerous ideas with discomforting grace. You might almost say he was the Leni Riefenstahl of rock criticism…. "Still, he matters — and not only as an exemplary case of a good mind applied to wrongheaded purposes. He was on to something legitimate when, in his 20s during the early ’60s, he took the ambitions of…