Fantagraphics Blog

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: The National Post's David Berry names The Best Graphic Novels of 2011, saying of his #3 choice "This does feel somewhat like cheating, since there’s only a few sequences of proper graphic work here, but why quibble about format: Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010 is, quite simply, one of the funniest things you’ll read in any genre. Kupperman has a child’s free-ranging imagination and an aging intellectual’s dry wit… This supposed telling of Mark Twain’s 20th-century life… would be an awe-inspiring work of imagination if it wasn’t so absurdly hilarious. Somewhere between John Hodgman…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: The first part of Comic Book Resources' Top 100 Comics of 2011 countdown includes Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals at #88… "It takes a bit of daring to be willing to alter the status quo in a respected body of work and considerable talent to be able to do so in as assured manner as Woodring does here." – Chris Mautner …Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman at #87… "Through war, animal make-out sessions and film writing, Kupperman takes Twain through the ringer in a hilariously catastrophic epic that the real-life…

At last, a new page of Tim Lane's story in progress "Notes of a Second-Class Citizen (Into the Basement)." See more from his forthcoming collection Folktales here. [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]

Your must-read of the day: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon talks to our second-in-command Kim Thompson. This, from Kim's very first answer: "…[I]t was more the one-two combination of [Carl] Barks's duck stories and the acquisition of the EC material that gave me a sort of 'holy shit' moment of realizing that if you take, say, the Comics Journal's Top 100 list of yore and go down it, Fantagraphics is now so dominant it becomes almost ridiculous. I think the current Fantagraphics list is unambiguously the greatest list of cartoonists ever to be assembled under one publishing roof, period. I'm…

You have all that Xmas cash burning a hole in your pocket. We've got teetering piles of books in our warehouse. Let's make a deal! We've put together a list of titles we have too many of and we've slashed the prices on these books by 40% for 4 days only — Tuesday December 27, 2011 through Friday, December 30. (Sale not in effect at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.) This is a HUGE assortment including some primo stuff from your favorite artists: Bagge! Clowes! Cooper! Crane! Foster! Friedman! Hernandez! Herriman! Jason! Kelso! Millionaire! Ryan! Sacco! Sala! Sakai! Tyler! And many…

50 years from now, if you say "I was at the Crimestoppers Club show in the East Village Dec 27th, 2011" your grandkids may stop kicking you! –Michael Kupperman Protect your shins in the future, and be there at Luca Lounge [ 222 Avenue B, NYC ] for the latest installment in the monthly comedy series The Crime Stoppers Club, with your hosts Michael Kupperman and Kate Beaton! photo credit: Edwina Hay All sorts of mid-holiday-week merriment is in store for Tuesday, December 27th, with special guests Julia Wertz, Anthony DeVito, Mitch Magee, and Mark Twain, star of the acclaimed…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Tucker Stone counts down The Best of 2011 at comiXology. and we sure like the looks of his top 5: At #5, Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals: "Deftly exploring the individual's relationship with labor, consequence and love, Congress of the Animals might be Woodring's least nightmarish work yet. (Although there's still a decent portion of it involving face-robbed humanoids that you shouldn't leave lying open if you have junkies visiting.)" At #4, Prison Pit Book 3 by Johnny Ryan: "Back in 2009, when Ryan began Prison Pit, it was a revelation; a…

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: Amazing Facts… and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Humblug by Arnold Roth (4 updates this week, continuing serialization of his unpublished 1979 strip Downtown): Lucky by Gabrielle Bell : Maakies by Tony Millionaire: Truth Serum by Jon Adams: What's in…

  For perhaps obvious reasons, I invariably find myself re-reading Palestine this time of year. Twenty years ago, cartoonist Joe Sacco visited the biblical lands of the Middle East and reported his observations in a groundbreaking series of comic books that would help change our perceptions of the troubled occupied territories. It's a sad commentary that reading this book twenty years later, it seems like it could have been written yesterday. With every read — going on a dozen now — I find something new in Sacco's brilliant tale. I recall not long after beginning work as Fantagraphics marketing and promotions…

We were honored and delighted to have members of Seattle choral group Choir of the Sound (including Kim Thompson's lovely wife Lynn Emmert, second from right) perform Walt Kelly's Okefenokee holiday classic "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie" at the "Playing Possum: The Pogo Art of Walt Kelly" exhibit opening and book launch party for Pogo – The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 1: Through the Wild Blue Wonder (and annual Fantagraphics Bookstore anniversary/holiday party) at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery a couple of weekends ago. Turn up your speakers, grab a cup o' nog, hit "play" on the video above…