Fantagraphics Blog

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: After appearing on Amazon.com's Best Books of 2011 — Comics and Graphic Novels top 10, Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 and Pogo Vol. 1 show up on Amazon.ca's list of the same name, in the #5 and #4 positions respectively • Plug: At NPR's Monkey See, Glen Weldon recommends Pogo Vol. 1 as a "tryptophan-tastic tome" for your turkey-coma reading enjoyment: "Walt Kelly's seminal, satirical, exquisitely rendered, hugely influential (and, not for nothing, actually funny) comic strip is getting a deluxe treatment by Fantagraphics. Crisply reproduced at a generous size that makes…

"Carl Barks’ 1974 painting 'The Sport of Tycoons,' which features the iconic image of Scrooge McDuck swimming in his gold-filled vault, sold at auction last week for a record $262,900," reports Robot 6. You'll be able to buy our hardcover collection which includes the comic the painting is based on for less than 0.01% of that amount next June, in case your liquid assets aren't swimmable.  

Fantagraphics friend Csaba Mester checks in with "Beardo" — a suitable mascot for seasonal merriment. 

Kevin Avery stopped by the Vanity Fair offices recently to record an excerpt from "his colorful new anthology" Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson for their "Writers Reading" podcast. Listen with the embedded player below or on the Vanity Fair website. And see our book page for another excerpt & previews. Kevin Avery Reads from Everything Is an Afterthought by Vanity Fair

My god, that's a beautiful baby, right? His name is Elliot, and we'd like to congratulate his wonderful parents, Jonathan  and Amy Bennett , on their great fortune.  They were already one of the most talented couples I know, but this is their greatest work yet!

Forget about Black Friday. It's time to get in line for Black Monday, when Lou Reed descends upon Brooklyn on December 12th! Join Lou at BookCourt [ 163 Court Street ] at 7:00 PM.  He will be signing and discussing The Raven, his collaboration with legendary Italian illustrator and cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti, based on the work of Edgar Allen Poe. The last time Lou signed The Raven, The New Yorker was there to report: "Mattotti's illustrations, which were projected in a slide show, saturated the room with a kind of terror and despair. There was also something about the sound…

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. "It’s certainly Fantagraphics’ week, with the release of two amazing reprint volumes." – Johanna Draper Carlson, Comics Worth Reading Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes by Carl Barks 240-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-474-0 "Fantagraphics' reprinting of the complete Carl Barks duck comics, wisely, starts…

By luck I just happened to blunder across this recent commission by Peter Bagge featuring all yer favorite classic Hate characters rockin' out! See a real big version here. [Follow our Tumblr blog for lots more Things to See every day.]

If you're like Spencer Rothbell here, who tweeted this photo over the weekend, you've already received your 2012 Fantagraphics Ultimate Catalog of Comics in the mail. It's jam-packed with our 2011 releases, a few upcoming 2012 releases, and a bunch of backlist stuff. It also details our exciting FBI•MINI mail-order bonus program, which we announced yesterday. And, of course, there's a handy order form for ordering everything! If you're not already on our mailing list, contact us to request your free copy, and if you just can't wait and/or want to have it on your computer or mobile device, we've…