Fantagraphics Blog

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.

Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921: A Kind, Belevolent and Amiable Brick by George Herriman 176-page black & white 9" x 12" softcover • $24.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-364-4 Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now As Fantagraphics’ ambitious plan to reprint every single Sunday Krazy Kat page created by George Herriman for close to three decades (this being the penultimate book) careens toward the finish line, this volume features another three years’ worth of Sunday strips — over 150 little masterpieces by the greatest cartoonist of all time, featuring the greatest comic-strip love triangle of all time: “kat,” “mice” and “pupp.”…

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: iFanboy's Jason ranks Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition at #1 on the Top Collected Editions of 2010: "Fantagraphics has treated us with a 1,160-page, two volume slipcase collection that reprints the first seven trade paperbacks worth of content, as well as 50 covers and lots of never-before-seen backmatter." • List: "I don’t understand how Medley can write and draw so well. The story is entertaining and well-paced. The art is spacious, smooth with expressive lines. I have no idea why Medley hasn’t won every award everywhere. Volume two picks up where the first…

A brand new Yikes! short from Steven Weissman & co.!

[In this installment of our series of Editors Notes, Kim Thompson interviews himself (in a format he's dubbed "AutoChat") about King of the Flies Vol. 2: The Origin of the World by Mezzo & Pirus, now available to order from us and coming soon to a comics shop near you. – Ed.] Congratulations on King of the Flies Volume 1 being named one of the 10 best graphic novel releases of the year by Amazon.com. Thanks, that was a nice surprise. Not because I didn't think King of the Flies deserved it, but because I thought it had kind of…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Stigmata by Lorenzo Mattotti & Claudio Piersanti 192-page black & white 7.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-409-2 Previews & Ordering Info He lives day to day and hand to mouth, this shambling lug of a man, wrestling with his demons, picking up work where he can, and drinking himself into oblivion. Until one days his palms begin to bleed… These newfound stigmata lose him his job, and he ends up as part of a traveling carnival, where he even finds love. But his past catches up with him — violently…