Fantagraphics Blog

Back from the U.S. holiday with Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: Publishers Weekly's Laurel Maury reports that The Armed Garden and Other Stories by David B. was named one of the "Hot Fall Graphic Novels For Libraries 2011" by a panel of experts at BEA last weekend, with Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1 by Floyd Gottfredson, Wandering Son Vol. 1 by Shimura Takako, Nuts by Gahan Wilson and Congress of the Animals by Jim Woodring all receiving Honorable Mentions • Review: "Jacques Tardi is pretty awesome, y’all. But then, you already knew that…. This sucker [The Arctic Marauder] is from 1974….

Our homeboy Marc Palm created this Filmation-style Prison Pit fan art, which Johnny Ryan posted over at his blog, where you can find out the inarguable reasoning behind Marc's color choices.

Like the Patterson-Gimlin film, here is your blurry evidence of the Fantagraphics panel at this past weekend's Oslo Comics Expo, showing (left to right) Dash Shaw, Dave Cooper and Kim Thompson, uploaded by Twitter user @Iselin_Evensen. (Not pictured: fellow panelists Tony Millionaire and Jason.) You can tell from the refreshments on the table there (presumably served from the festival's on-site bar, The Drinky Crow) that this was a European festival. We're hoping to wangle a show report and some photos out of Kim for Flog, and we're keeping our eye on the OCX site for more photos & media, so…

Congratulations to Joyce Farmer , whose graphic memoir Special Exits has received the prestigious 2010 NCS Division Award for Graphic Novels! The winners in all the divisions were announced at the 65th Annual NCS Reuben Awards banquet last night in Boston, MA. Special Exits is also nominated for a 2011 Eisner Award in the category of Best Reality-Based Work.

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web: — Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size): Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size): And elsewhere: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit: Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim: Maakies by Tony Millionaire: Mugwhump the Great by Roger Langridge (at Act-i-vate): Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

Online Commentary & Diversions returns after a rare link-free day yesterday: • Review: "I’ve read many gentle, nostalgic manga about school and growing up, and in many ways Wandering Son is not so different from the best of them… On another level, the very fact that it can be so quiet and casual and natural, and say all the things that it says, makes it a deeply impressive work. What Wandering Son says, above all, is that the kids are alright. Maybe they don’t believe it themselves right now. But they’ll make it through." – Shaenon Garrity, The Comics Journal…

Peggy Burns said it first and best: "Talk about a rare opportunity! It seems that Mr. Ware has graciously donated a piece of original artwork from the acclaimed Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, to benefit the Intercultural Montessori Language School in Oak Park, Illinois. And not only that, Chris will sign and personalize it to the lucky winning bidder. The ebay auction is going on for nine days and right now it is already at $809." Up to $1,525 now!

For Salon's "Saved by Pop Culture" series of personal essays, Salon editor Adele Melander-Dayton writes "How Ghost World Made Me Brave": "[Enid] might be miserable, sometimes, but she's still capable of seeing the world on her own terms, marveling at the strangeness of what she sees. Still, most of Enid's responses to being young and in pain are not 'healthy.' She doesn't throw herself with manic dedication into stage-managing the high school production of South Pacific, volunteer for wilderness trail maintenance, take up knitting, or see a shrink, all things I tried during my senior year in efforts to distract…

A curated selection of Seattle’s finest contemporary drawing. Remarkably, artists were selected by the unjaundiced eye and not chosen because of their reputation in either the fine art or cartoon art world, ahem. Artwork was chosen by proximity, spiritual connection and contribution to the Northwest Tradition as pioneered by the likes of Morris Graves, Mark Toby, Peter Bagge and Jim Woodring. Remarkably (yes, again), the artwork featured in SKID ROAD TO FLOATING WORLD is a mixed miasma of drone drawing, figure drawing, pattern cartooning, metamorphic automatism, cartography, illustration, totem drawing and good ole rain soaked mysticism.   We will also…

Here's your first look at the final cover art for Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman, which we just sent off to the printer for a September release! (We may need to adjust the color of the cloth binding in the image once we see printed samples, but it should be pretty close.) Earlier today our own Eric Reynolds tweeted: "A funnier book you will not read this year. I think the old coot would approve." Back cover too? Sure, why not: