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. Unexplored Worlds: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 2 by Steve Ditko; edited by Blake Bell 240-page full-color 7.25" x 10" hardcover • $39.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-380-4 "The second volume of Fantagraphics' Blake Bell-edited reprints of Ditko's early material collects the pieces he banged out for Charlton Comics in 1957, and I do mean banged out: that year alone, he drew…

Our pals at Presspop just announced that they will be reprinting Tank Tankuro, a classic pre-war manga by Gajo Sakamoto which prefigures Astro Boy, translated into English, and they got Chris Ware to design the cover. Nice!

A few recent updates over at the Repaneled blog I've been sitting on: • Alex Robinson's take on Eightball #8 • Nick Pendleton and David Patrick do Fletcher Hanks Hit the links for the side-by-sides.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: On WFMU's Beware of the Blog, WFMU DJ Nat Roe's multi-media Top 15 includes Jim Woodring's Weathercraft at #5: "Stick a straw in my brain and suck until there's nothing left but that gurgling sound of air, the remnants of carbonation gathered like patrons in a bar on a Tuesday night 'last call' at the other end of the straw; that's how Jim Woodring makes me feel." • List: Drawn contrubutor John Martz picks 3 of our titles among his Favourite Books of 2010: "Bent is the latest coffee-table art book from Canadian…

A proof of a Jim Woodring stone lithograph print in progress. See bigger at The Woodring Monitor. Jaw-dropping.

The good folks at Lincoln Butterfield Animation are having a Facebook contest: come up with a punchline for this cartoon and you could win a copy of Rip M.D.! See here for the rules. Have fun and good luck!

Johnny Ryan brings the horror in his new comic for Vice. Prepare to squeam.

Spotlighting a bit more artwork from the GRSF Post-It Show 6 (some previously seen here), among other things. • Eleanor Davis's "Es vs. Ich" Post-it series at her Doing Fine blog, with preliminary doodles on her We Be Ouija sketch blog • Anders Nilsen's Post-its at The Monologuist • Jim Blanchard's portrait of Sterling Hayden as Gen. Jack T. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove (not a Post-it) • Leslie Stein's "Murmur" from Smoke Signal plus other stuff at her Majestic Creature blog • Johnny Ryan posted a few of what look to be mostly previously unseen commissions from a few years…

At the Abstract Comics blog, Andrei Molotiu posts photos of his and other Abstract Comics: The Anthology contributors' artwork in the Party Crashers exhibit at the Arlington Arts Center.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: New York Magazine names their Top Ten Comics of 2010, including:  #10: A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio: "Ten spooky, perceptive stories of girls and ghosts in trouble from one of the masters of shojo manga, who has her work translated into English for the first time." #5: Set to Sea by Drew Weing: "He may look like a big lug, but he’s got dreams of the ocean and the heart of a poet. The hero of Weing’s salty debut sails off to adventure in this pocket-size sea-shanty of a…