Fantagraphics Blog

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. Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 by the Hernandez Brothers 104-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-490-0 "I have now had multiple friends contact me to tell me that they'd just finished the conclusion of Jaime Hernandez's story 'The Love Bunglers' in this issue and had…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Interview: Brian Heater's conversation with Drew Friedman at The Daily Cross Hatch continues: "Another reason I want to quit these books is that there’s always younger comedians coming up, and I just can’t keep up. Howard Stern’s gonna be an old guy in a couple of years…. I’m not crazy about some of them, and I just don’t want to think about drawing Adam Sandler when he’s an old man, or Ben Stiller, or even Jerry Seinfeld. It just doesn’t appeal to me." • Commentary: Divine Decision reports on our Moto Hagio The Heart…

For over thirty years Nell Brinkley's beautiful girls pirouetted, waltzed, vamped and shimmied their way through the pages of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, captivating the American public with their innocent sexuality. Accomplished cartoonist and women's comix "herstorian" Trina Robbins examines the work of this unjustly forgotten artist in The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons from 1913 – 1940. Robbins will present the work of this remarkable illustrator with an exhibition, slide talk and book signing at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, October 8 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. A brash Nell Brinkley arrived in New York…

Here's your first gander at the final cover for our mammoth upcoming collection of Zippy creator Bill Griffith's comic book work, Lost and Found. The especially observant among you will note that the artwork is the same as the preliminary version; we just have a new title treatment. The book's running a bit behind schedule because it has expanded quite a bit from when we first announced it — the original subtitle was "Comics 1970-1994" — but it's off to the printer now for a late December release!

Here's a fine-feathered one for the Fantagraphics Fashion Files: a mustachioed duck tee from Paul Hornschemeier. Read that again. A mustachioed duck tee. Apparently, it's a character from somebody else's book. But I don't really care. 'Cause it's a duck. With a mustache. And a portion of the t-shirt sales go to Young Chicago Authors.

As Michael Kupperman reported last week on Twitter, Tales Designed to Thrizzle ain't done yet, and to prove it, he's giving New York City a sneak peek at the upcoming issue TONIGHT! Join Kupperman and kompany at Luca Bar in the East Village [ Ave. B & 13th St ], starting at 7:00 PM. He'll be giving a presentation of the new strip "Quincy, M.E." which is making its debut in Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7 (in stores this November). Kupperman tells us, he will also be dissecting the late-70's TV show, Quincy, starring Jack Klugman, and the Quincy episode…

• Lettering by Jason for Athos in America; other recent Cats Without Dogs blog posts include Woody Allen movie reviews and an R.E.M. top 5 • From Kevin Huizenga, a couple of images from an upcoming anthology contribution (the originals of which are part of the Dylan Williams benefit auctions) • Frank in the Museum of Sex, a recently-completed painting by Jim Woodring; also, Frank and the Living Rock, a drawing; Icebreaker, a drawing; and Frank in an unusual place, a photo • Aqualad action by Steven Weissman at Repaneled; also his weekly "I, Anonymous " spot • Unused (amazingly)…

If you would like your copy of Mome Vol. 22 to come with "a bunch of weird drawings on the indicia page" by Josh Simmons and Wendy Chin, you can buy such a copy from Josh here. (Josh explains his contributions and collaborations in the issue here.) Josh also has a new edition of his Cirkus New Orleans minicomic available (documenting his time in the sex circus, as chronicled in his interview in The Comics Journal #291).

Tim Lane's 5-page illustrated feature for the Riverfront Times on St. Louis's "Hopeville" homeless camp (here in Seattle our homeless camp is called "Nickelsville" after our former mayor) is now up on his blog to read. Above, the RFT cover (designed by art director Tom Carlson), which was featured as a "Cover of the Day" by the Society of Publication Designers, with a scan from Tim's sketchbook; below, the finished page based on that sketch.