Fantagraphics Blog

This past week on TCJ.com: Rob Clough’s series on Comics as Poetry, Part One, Part Two. Mathhias Wivel took in the Moebius exhibit. Sean Michael Robinson interviewed Cerebus‘ Gerhard gave about craft and technique: Part One, Part Two, Part Three. R. C. Harvey on virtuosity in cartooning. Rob Clough got The Broadcast. R.C. Harvey had the poop on poop in the funny pages. Shaenon Garrity looked back at City of Glass. Kristian Williams examined a field guide for use during a zombie attack. Gavin Lees wants you to help him figure out what’s going on in a panel in Oji…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "[21: The Story of Roberto Clemente] is a reverent, yet sometimes playful look at the man and what he had to go through to get where he did. […] The scenes with the various family members remind me a bit of what Gilbert Hernandez gets up to in Love and Rockets, that same sort of close-knit relationship thing. […] Santiago’s art is cartoonish, yet expressionistic and appealingly loose. […] He does a great job, and even the best of the best often have trouble with this, of drawing baseball players that actually look…

Blake Bell revealed the full title of The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1 and mentioned a bit about what you can expect in the volume on his blog last night. The title will be… Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1 Blake is cranking away on the book in order to have it debut at Comic-Con in San Diego this summer. He promises to reveal the title to Vol. 2 later today, so stay tuned!

On Tuesday, February 22, 2011, at 7 PM, Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ and the ASU Art Museum present underground comic artist Joyce Farmer and her book Special Exits, which R. Crumb calls “one of the best long-narrative comics I’ve ever read, right up there with Gen of Hiroshima and Maus.” Local artist and ASU intermedia instructor Jon Haddock, co-founder of the Comic Book Creators Support Group, leads a discussion and Q&A with the author. More info here.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is pleased to announce "Comix Talks," a series of discussions with accomplished comix artists, writers and editors. The first installment takes place on Wednesday, February 23 at 6:30 PM featuring Aaron Renier in conversation with Jason Shiga. Future events include editor and translator Kim Thompson on Jacques Tardi, writer Monte Schulz in conversation with Fantagraphics publisher and editor Gary Groth, Wilfred Santiago on 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, and Jim Woodring on Congress of Animals. "Comix Talks" is presented in association with the fledgling Fantagraphics Book Club. Additional information on the book club will be…

A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio has been nominated for Best New One-Shot Manga in the 2011 About.com Manga Readers' Choice Awards! Voting continues through midnight ET, Tuesday, March 8, 2011. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Mome Vol. 21 – Winter 2011 by various artists; edited by Eric Reynolds 112-page full-color 7" x 9" softcover • $14.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-394-1 Previews & Ordering Info Our acclaimed art-comics anthology forges into its 6th year with another diverse and wonderful volume full of returning favorites and a few surprises. On the cover, a detail from Sara Edward-Corbett's haunting, Gorey-esque tale of nocturnally animate objects. Also in this issue: Steven "Ribs" Weissman's freewheeling, sometimes-satirical, sometimes-deeply-weird webcomic "Barack Hussein Obama" (starring the President of the United States and his associates) makes its print…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Working in frenetic black and white, Eisner-award-winning Italian cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti illustrates screenwriter Claudio Piersanti’s Stigmata with powerful art that drives a timeless fable of existential dreams. […] Thanks to Piersanti’s workable script, Stigmata comes across as naturalistic and modernist in an old-school Hemingway style. […] It’s an old story, but the heart that Mattotti and Piersanti bring to their comic keeps the work interesting.Mattotti’s character designs are as incredibly idiosyncratic as they are intense — their bodies are hulking masses, with exaggerated proportions and faces that don’t feel drawn so much as…

Last September, Blake Bell, author of Fire & Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics, appeared in Toronto for a book launch event with Everett's daughter Wendy to discuss Bill and his career. The full audio of the talk is now available as a 70MB MP3 download courtesy of Jamie Coville, and Blake offers commentary about the event on his blog.

If you read Destroy All Movies!!! and thought "these guys are hilarious — I wish they'd make a movie of their own," then we have good news for you: Zack Carlson & Bryan Connolly, editors of the book, have written a horror-comedy screenplay titled (funnily enough) Destroy about a would-be vampire hunter in a world with no vampires and it's headed into production with director Michael Stephenson (Best Worst Movie) on board. The Hollywood Reporter reports, Cinematical talks to Zack and Michael about the film, and Wired adds their commentary.