Fantagraphics Blog

Via the indispensible Grottu Orloff's Pad (literally my favorite blog in the world).

Blake Bell (who brings us The Steve Ditko Archves and his recent bios of Ditko and Bill Everett) needs your help with his new project, The Bill Everett Archives! Blake is seeking collectors in possession of the original Golden Age comics which printed Everett's artwork so we can include scans of the stories in the books. You could get free copies of the books out of the deal (not to mention our eternal gratitude), and a portion of Blake's royalties goes to The Hero Initiative, so you'll be indirectly helping a good cause too. See Blake's blog for the list…

Freeway by Mark Kalesniko 420-page black & white 7" x 10" softcover • $28.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-356-9 Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Alex Kalienka is in an awful jam. Literally, a traffic jam — but figuratively, his whole life is a mess. A dream job turned nightmare at the biggest animation studio in the world. A love affair that is not what he imagined. And possibly someone with a life-threatening grudge against him… In his first new graphic novel since 2001’s acclaimed Mail Order Bride, Mark Kalesniko compresses an entire life into a single day as the…

Here's this week's Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web: — Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size): — And elsewhere: Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane: Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit: Lucky by Gabrielle Bell: Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List (Audio): On the Inkstuds radio programme, listen to Chris Butcher, Bill Kartalopoulos, Tucker Stone and host Robin McConnell discuss the Best of 2010, including Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 by the Hernandez Brothers — we haven't had a chance yet to listen ourselves but Robot 6 reports that Stone in particular has good comments on L&R • List: At TIME.com – Techland, Douglas Wolk lists "15 Excellent Things Happening in Comics Right Now." First on the list: Jim Woodring's Nibbus Maximus and the coming of his Congress of the Animals ("If you…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "I’d say 'you can’t make this shit up,' but you can, or Ryan can at least, and watching him frogmarch his characters through the outlandish scenarios needed to give birth to these you-gotta-be-fucking-kidding-me ideas is Guffaw City. And as I always point out, he’s a fine, fine cartoonist; …his buoyant brushwork… is what sells the childlike glee of everything that’s going on [in FUC_ __U _SS __LE]." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly • Interview: Comicdom's Tomas Papadimitropoulos talks to Richard Sala (in English after the Greek introduction): "I hesitate to reveal too much…

Dave Cooper hangs out with our Canadian counterparts at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly and signs copies of his new book Bent on Thursday, January 20th at 7:00 PM. On their 211 Bernard blog they write: "Cooper continues to obsess and fixate over his bizarre procession of milky figures as they crawl and wriggle into hidden meadows, jungles and cities." Soyez là ou vous serez carrés.

Coming up on The Comics Journal website: Marc Sobel and his Android read comics; Kristian Williams takes to the sky with Garth Ennis for an in-depth analysis of the writer's aerial war stories; Rob Clough tours Seth's Palookaville; Nathan Wilson looks at Andy Diggle's Rat Catcher and more! 

French and Belgian publishers have taken to promoting their new books with nifty semi-animated "trailers." Here is the trailer for Lewis Trondheim's new series, RALPH AZHAM, coming this March from Dupuis. I post this to distract you from the fact that I'm a bit behind schedule on finishing the translation for Lewis's APPROXIMATE CONTINUUM COMICS. It's embarrassing that Lewis draws new comics faster than we can translate his old ones.

OMfuckingG. It's Michael DeForge's entry for The New Yorker's Eustace Tilley cover contest, starring Cannibal Fuckface and friend from Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit. Eustace Fuckface! Michael DeSlorge! I could go on and on. So awesome I can barely stand it.