Fantagraphics Blog

Drew Friedman has a wonderful, photo-packed account of his time with the great Jack Davis in New York City a couple of weeks ago at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival, including a recap of the panel discussion with Davis he co-hosted at the festival with Gary Groth. Go, read, be delighted! (Photo by Ryan Flanders.)

We were thrilled to be able to present living legend of comics and illustration Jack Davis in conversation with Gary Groth at the Strand Book Store in NYC a couple of weeks ago, and now we can share the excitement via the Strand's video of the event posted on their YouTube account!

So, I've been in Florida for the past week visiting my wife's family for the holidays. Needless to say, I did a doubletake when I noticed this Honda parked next to our rental car outside a shopping mall in Naples: I am dying to know whose car this is. Mort Walker? Jeff Mason? The guy from CrossGen? Anyone?  

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about it (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. 500 Portraits by Tony Millionaire 192-page black & white 5.75" x 7.5" hardcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-473-3 "500 Portraits is a collection of drawings by the mighty Tony Millionaire of various people, some famous, some not so famous. I’m sure it all will be exquisitely rendered." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6…

Provocative cartoonist Tony Millionaire will appear in Seattle at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, January 7 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM for a book signing and art show. He'll be exhibiting brilliantly sedate work from his new book 500 Portraits, recently released by Fantagraphics Books. 500 Portraits collects over two decades of work by the beloved creator of Drinky Crow's Maakies, Sock Monkey and Billy Hazelnuts. Tony Millionaire's gorgeous fountain pen illustrations, which combine naturalistic detail with strong doses of the fanciful and grotesque, include the famous (Bob Dylan), the infamous (Abu Ghraib soldier/model Lynndie England), the fictional (Yoda),…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas tops Deb Aoki's list of the Most-Anticipated New Manga of 2012 at About.com Manga: "This 3-volume story from 1974 has been on many manga connoisseur's wish lists for years, so it's a real joy to see that Fantagraphics will be publishing the entire saga in English in one volume." • List/Review: Manga Worth Reading's Johanna Draper Carlson ranks Wandering Son the #2 Best New Manga of 2011 and recommends Volume 2 in her review: "Shimura Takako’s young figures are adorable. They look unspoiled, with their future ahead of…

These books have been out for a while and some low-res images have been floating around but I've been waiting, waiting, waiting for designer Paul Buckley to post them on his Flickr page in all their high-res glory and at last my patience is rewarded! Behold Ivan Brunetti's and Jordan Crane's amazing cover illustrations for the new Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions of the Roald Dahl classics Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, now available at bookstores near you. But this isn't even the half of it! There's back covers, spines and flaps too — see…

This weekend in San Francisco, get a hint of what's to come in our upcoming anthology No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall! Justin recently taught the Engage: Queer Comics Project class at the California College of the Arts, and now his students are curating an art show opening this Saturday, December 17th at the S.F. Cartoon Art Museum. The show will feature art from LGBTQ comics over the last four decades made by local creators, as well as a film composed of interviews of major figures in queer cartooning conducted by the students, and…

Back in 1973, this ad in Billboard magazine quoted renowned Rolling Stone journalist Paul Nelson in promotion for an album by musician Elliott Murphy, a singer-songwriter who Nelson helped discover. "Since Elliott Murphy and his work will be with us as long we have rock & roll, I suggest we play it now…" — Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone And Elliott Murphy will be playing that music tonight at BookCourt in Brooklyn, alongside author/editor Kevin Avery, who will be doing a signing and discussion for Everything is an Afterthought: The Life & Writings of Paul Nelson. This is a very special…