Fantagraphics Blog

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about our release this week, check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. The Strange Case of Edward Gorey (Expanded Hardcover Edition) by Alexander Theroux 168-page black & white 6.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-384-2 "Finally, your book-on-comics for the week – a newly expanded hardcover edition of Alexander Theroux’s 2000 profile of the famed author and illustrator." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics "Fantagraphics have expanded and updated The Strange…

February 2nd 2011, for one day only, it's our "Undergroundhog Day" Sale with at least 30% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by Vaughn Bodé, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer , Rand Holmes, Jack Jackson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! The sale starts tonight and it'll be over before you know it, so get ready! (Discount not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. A big tip o'the hat to our own Ted Jouflas for the sale idea!)

Our own Eric Reynolds sketched up Muno, Plex, Brobee, Toodee & Foofa as a coloring page for his adorable daughter Clem and posted it on his Flickr page so you can download a high-res version and print it out for your kids too (Eric notes you might want to white out the word bubble first). Fun!

At his blog Hans Rickheit reveals the cover artwork for his short story collection Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion, coming in early 2012 from Fantagraphics. Click through for a larger image of the wraparound.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Like WWI itself, it's difficult to summarize It Was the War of the Trenches — each moment and story is precise and poignant and devastating, and they add up to far more than the sum of their parts, but they add up as a mosaic does, with each shard forming a point of color that only makes sense from a distant perspective. […] Tardi is one of the giants of world comics, and this is one of his strongest works, a rare combination of ability, ambition, and subject. …It Was the War of…

Photos from Tony Millionaire's art opening at Scott Eder Gallery last weekend: Defacing (deheading?) Danny Hellman, via Tony's website (where you can also see Tony signing for a young Rob Lowe dead-ringer in stereo at Desert Island): Via The Beat: Pictures of Tony always make me happy.

One's a pre-teen pop star and daughter of Will Smith & Jada Pinkett-Smith, one's a Gilbert Hernandez Love and Rockets character who looks steamed that the former copped her 'do. (Together they fight crime?) Hat tip to L&R fan Paul James for sharing the photo on the Love and Rockets Facebook page.

Jaime Hernandez is part of the "Novelas, Love and Other Adventures" exhibit at Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) in San Jose, California. The exhibit is up now, with an opening reception and artists talk featuring Jaime and Rio Yanez this Friday, Feb. 4, at 7 PM. More information & RSVP on the MACLA Facebook invitation.

"Cartoon Polymaths," an exhibit featuring Richard McGuire, Saul Steinberg, Paper Rad, Mariscal, Tony Sarg and Winsor McCay opening at Parsons The New School this week looks like a must-see for NYC comics fans. Kevin Huizenga did a two-page comic for the program, the above panel from which Kevin posted on his The Balloonist blog.

L to R: Johnny Ryan, Jaime Hernandez, Ron Regé Jr., Jordan Crane, Sammy Harkham, Frank Santoro. This photo from Frank's impressive recounting of his visit to L.A. at Comics Comics has been making the rounds a bit, for obvious reasons. One of those "good thing a meteor didn't hit at that moment" moments. (Also pretty much a sausage fest, huh?)