Fantagraphics Blog

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "This slim volume is finely edited, and its narrative tone resides on the border between fairy stories and unbowdlerized folk tales. In other words, it is suffused with equal dismay and delight at the nature of the world. The drawings, printed in two crisp colors, would be worth the price of the book if it were stripped of words. Like Craig Thompson’s Habibi (which it precedes in its original publication date, pre-translation) and Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, it has a great deal of wonder in it, which it conveys in a surprisingly matter-of-fact way….

We got a couple of early advance copies of Wandering Son Vol. 2 by Shimura Takako here at the office a couple days ago — here's a couple of quickie snaps to tide you over until we get the full previews set up. This beautifully-told story has many eager and devoted fans and we're as excited to get it into their hands as they are to read it! Have you pre-ordered your copy yet?

Short Run exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery features small press comics and art by emerging regional artists. In this age of ubiquitous digital media and gadget fatigue, it's refreshing to find a community of artists working with their hands to produce tactile works of art on paper. Such is the case with the young cartoonists in the Short Run exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. This art party on Saturday, November 12 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM follows the Short Run Small Press Fest at the Vera Project at the Seattle Center earlier that day. The Short…

Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation 2011 Poster Trailer from Eyeworks Festival on Vimeo. There's no sophomore slump for the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation, co-organized by our own Lilli Carré! Although only in its second year, it's got another impressive line-up of experimental animation of all sorts: classic films, new works, and rare masterpieces, including a piece by another Fantagraphics artist, Nicolas Mahler. Chicagoans can SEE the Eyeworks Festival for themselves this Saturday, November 5th and Sunday November 6th, at the DePaul University [ CDM Theater, 247 S. State Street, lower level ].

Pogo – Vol. 1 of the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: "Through the Wild Blue Wonder" by Walt Kelly 308-page black & white/color 11.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-56097-869-5 Ships in: November 2011 (subject to change) – Pre-Order Now Walt Kelly started his career at age 13 in Connecticut as a cartoonist and reporter for the Bridgeport Post. In 1935, he moved to Los Angeles and joined the Walt Disney Studio, where he worked on classic animated films, including Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia. Rather than take sides in a bitter labor strike, he moved back east in 1941 and began…

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. Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga 32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" comic book, with jacket • $7.95Part of the Ignatz Series "Kevin Huizenga has blessed us all with another issue of Ganges, totally unexpected and entirely wonderful. Let's not disappoint him." – Chris Butcher, The Beguiling "…Ganges #4 seems to me…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Analysis/Commentary: At The Hooded Utilitarian, Ng Suat Tong provides an illustrated and annotated (and necessarily spoiler-filled) guide to the flashbacks in Jaime Hernandez's stories in Love and Rockets: New Stories #4; Robot 6's Sean T. Collins adds his own thoughts • Travelogue: John Porcellino visited E.C. Segar’s hometown of Chester, IL and has a photo-filled report (including the possible real-life Jones Boys) at his blog

It's official! Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery will be celebrating its 5th anniversary on Saturday, December 10 with an exhibition of Walt Kelly's original Pogo artwork. Look for a dozen dailies and several Sundays along with some appropriately swampy musical entertainment. Save the date and make your way to the bookstore where you will, indeed, be "confronted with insurmountable opportunities."

Rock's Backpages ("the online library of rock writing") offers up two excerpts from Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery — a portion of Avery's biography of Nelson and Nelson's 1975 Village Voice review of Neil Young's Zuma — plus an interview with Nelson by Steven Ward that originally ran at rockcritics.com in 2000. All are free to read at the subscription-based site, though an email address is required to access the articles.