Fantagraphics Blog

Today's singular Online Commentary & Diversion: • Review: "I held off buying the new hardback series collecting Hal Foster's Prince Valiant because I already have complete reprint collections of that groundbreaking comic strip. But I finally broke down and bought Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-38, and I'm glad I did. The reproduction is crisp, and the strips are presented in the size they originally ran, that of a newspaper broadsheet. This is how Foster's gorgeous artwork was meant to be seen, and I have to be careful not to drool on the pages." – Andrew A. Smith, Scripps Howard News…

There's another exclusive preview of The Comics Journal #301 to be seen at TCJ.com today: an excerpt from Tim Kreider's must-read critical essay "Irredeemable: Dave Sim's Cerebus."

Comic Book Resources' Alex Dueben rang up our fearless leader, Gary Groth, for a wide-ranging chat about the state of Fantagraphics and the comics industry in general. It's chock full of ever-so-juicy tidbits and Gary's trademark unvarnished opinions on topics like the comics market, Pogo, digital, The Comics Journal, the DC "renumbering gambit," working with Disney, copyright battles… just go read it already!

• Wilfred Santiago is making more progress on his painting of 21 subject Roberto Clemente — see the latest stages at the 21 Facebook page or on Wilfred's Flickr page • An Eleanor Davis illustration for a New York Times op-ed piece this past Saturday • Will Johnny Ryan's new comic for Vice have a happy ending? • Thanks to Steve Brodner for pointing out this cute New Yorker cover by John Cuneo (you may recall the book we did with John a few years back) — and don't miss Steve's own Istanbul sketches And more Things to See from…

Working on the weekly Things to See roundup and didn't want to overwhelm it with all this great stuff posted by Tim Lane on his blog last week: Two new pages from the story "Notes of a Second Class Citizen"… …this hard-hitting cover for the Riverfront Times… …and this spot illustration for The Nation.

Hot on the heels of Groucho comes another limited-edition print from Drew Friedman, this time a panorama of 1934 Barnum & Bailey sideshow freaks. Is it just me or does Drew just keep getting better and better?

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "…Artichoke Tales and The Squirrel Mother have established Kelso as one of the most original talents in comics. The dozen stories in Queen of the Black Black show an emerging talent, but not a fully-formed one; Kelso tries out a variety of styles here, from primitivist to expressionistic, and tries out a variety of genres too, from slice-of-life to historical fantasy. This book isn’t the best introduction to Kelso — that would be The Squirrel Mother — but it’s essential for fans…" – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club • Review: "Now collected and…

(Click to enlarge) Gary Panter's collected Dal Tokyo is on our spring list and production on the book is proceeding apace. Here, courtesy of Raymond Sohn, who is working on the book with Gary P., is a sneak peek at the new, much much improved (from the "horrible protocover" — Gary's words — that we used for our catalogs last time) cover. If we publish the first Pogo book, the Joost Swarte collection, and this one all within about six months of each other, then, dear readers, what will you have left to complain about in terms of superlate books…

The Santa Barbara Writers Conference kicked off this past weekend and runs until Thursday, June 23rd. And on Tuesday, June 21st, join Gary Groth at 4:00 pm for a special Graphic Novel Panel! He'll be joined by a powerhouse line-up of Joyce Farmer, Tim Hensley, and Sammy Harkham. The Santa Barbara Writers Conference is held at the Hotel Mar Monte [1111 East Cabrillo Boulevard, Santa Barbara, CA], which is an actual hotel, and not the fancy name for Monte Schulz's house.

Drew Weing gave an illuminating talk about his career and the creation of his debut graphic novel Set to Sea a short while ago at the behest of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book in Philadelphia after the book received the 2011 Lynd Ward Prize for Best Graphic Novel Honor Award (runner-up to the main prize) earlier this year. Watch the complete talk, with introduction and follow-up Q&A session, embedded above or on YouTube here; also, in this video, you can watch the jurors for the Lynd Ward Prize discuss their selection of the book.