Fantagraphics Blog

I Like Comics likes Oil and Water, and this Vancouver, WA comic shop will be hosting a signing this Saturday, December 10th! Author Steve Duin, columnist for The Oregonian, and Eisner-winning artist Shannon Wheeler will be signing from 1:00 to 4:00 PM. And a personalized copy of Oil and Water would make an awesome holiday gift, y'know. I Like Comics is located at 2101 E. 4th Plain Blvd, Vancouver WA.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: 500 Portraits by Tony Millionaire 192-page black & white 5.75" x 7.5" hardcover • $22.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-473-3 See Previews / Order Now 500 Portraits collects for the first time over two decades of portrait work by the beloved and award-winning creator of Drinky Crow’s Maakies, Sock Monkey and Billy Hazelnuts. Tony Millionaire’s gorgeous fountain pen illustrations, which mingle 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), the animal kingdom (a cockroach),…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: The Austin American-Statesman's Joe Gross names Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 the best comic of 2011: "One of the wonderful things about seeing a masterpiece in the making is the mysterious feeling, the racing of the soul that takes place when it hits you that you are, in fact, seeing a masterpiece in the making…. Symphonic, tragic, revelatory, exciting and devastating as only great art can be, 'The Love Bunglers' is one of the best comics ever made." • List: Paste ranks Dave McKean's Celluloid at #5 on The 10 Best New…

All this week, Oil and Water artist Shannon Wheeler recounts his recent trip to Portugal via NYC for the "Cartoonist's Diary" column at The Comics Journal, with sketches from the trip drawn in a blank printer's-sample dummy of the Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons book. [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]

(click image to enlarge) We've got all your holiday hits at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. (Vintage Royal Guardsmen vinyl courtesy of Georgetown Records.) Please drop by and see us this Saturday, December 10 to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the store. Holiday cheer galore with "Playing Possum: The Pogo Art of Walt Kelly," music by Sawsome (a female banjo and saw duet), Christmas carolers, and complimentary seasonal refreshments.  I can scarcely believe it's been 5 years already. This wonderful experiment in promoting comix culture has been an awesome experience for me. I've always pictured myself as a kind of crossing…

See an exclusive 10-page preview (including Jimmy Breslin's Foreword) of Pogo – The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 1: Through the Wild Blue Wonder by Walt Kelly at Boing Boing, where Mark Frauenfelder says: "Presenting his characters as animals gave Kelly the ability to explore human nature without the distraction that cartoon humans would have bought along with them. His illustration style was warm, highly expressive, and detailed without looking crowded. It's hard to think of another newspaper cartoonist who equalled his talents. Kelly's daughter, Carolyn, designed and co-edited this 290-page anthology, and her love and admiration for her father…

Thanks to everyone who came by and bought books at the Fantagraphics tables at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival this past weekend! Here's a look at what events are coming up this week: Wednesday, December 7th • Los Angeles, CA: It's your last chance to see the The Art of Problem Solving at Giant Robot, a spotlight on the animated series from Ben Jones, featuring fellow Fantagraphics artists Jon Vermilyea and John Pham on staff. Make a pizza date out of it! (more info) •  Seattle, WA: It's also your last chance to see the Short Run Art Show…

… for THIS  massive Charles Burns  art show. Charles tells me he has loaned over 330 pieces (!!!) for this exhibition. Leave it to the Belgians. Preview night is this Wednesday and formal opening is on Thursday, for you lucky Belgians.  Speaking of Charles, we're currently working with him on an exciting, non-comics project that will be announced by the end of the year. Stay tuned for more details; your thirst will be quenched soon enough.  

Peter Bagge & his bandmates in Can You Imagine? took to the airwaves on Seattle's KEXP on last night's edition of their punk show Sonic Reducer — if you missed it, you can catch a re-broadcast at 11 PM tonight… that's less than an hour from now! Tune in to 90.3 FM in Seattle or kexp.org worldwide, or if you see this too late, find it in the KEXP streaming audio archive. And here's another way to get in on the Can You Imagine? fun: Pete & co. are raising funds via Kickstarter to complete their new album! Pledge now…

Read "That Sticky Machine," a charming new 7-page comic by Leslie Stein, at VICE. Flash back to the 1990s with Eye of the Majestic Creature's Larrybear! [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]