Fantagraphics Blog

At About.com: Manga, Deb Aoki presents a gallery of photos of Moto Hagio taken at Comic-Con in San Diego, 12 preview pages from A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, and covers of some of Hagio's other books.

I recently had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of Charles Burns' amazing masterpiece X'ED OUT. As a fledgling art dealer 30 years ago, I mounted an exhibition of Burns' large-scale graphite drawings at my neo-Dada Rosco Louie gallery in Seattle. His imaginative portraits were strangely grotesque, yet sensuous and alluring. Burns' appeal has grown steadily from that point on, and he is rightfully considered a contemporary master of the comix medium. I can hardly wait for his slide talk, art exhibition and book signing at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, October 30. His eerie iconography is perfect…

Check out 5 images from Drew Friedman's brand new collection Too Soon? Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010 as presented at/on/in Flavorpill's Flavorwire's Daily Dose.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "This mammoth collection [What Is All This?] presents five decades of Dixon: sex, frustration, and attempts at deeper communication, mostly missed. The 62 stories evoke neuroses, delusion, banality, and everyday absurdities in deceptively simple sentences… There are echoes of Ernest Hemingway and prefigurings of Raymond Carver's lower-middle-class minimalism infusing tales of scrappers and scrapers… Usually sublime, sometimes sloppy, and occasionally bewildering, these stories are a testament to an impressive career spent too much under the radar." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) [Temporary link] • Review: "With its mix of sci-fi, romance, tragedy and…

You saw the first one in Mome Vol. 16 and The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., and the second one appears in Mome Vol. 20 next month. If you've been asking yourself things like "are these for real?" or "why?" or "huh?", Dash explains it all.

We had the honor of witnessing Jim Woodring accepting his Stranger Genius Award for Literature at the majestic Moore Theatre in Seattle on the evening of Friday, September 17. Prior to the speeches cupcakes printed with edible portraits of the winners (or representations of their work) were available (and delicious). I assumed that the ceremony was bing filmed, or else I would have taken video instead of photos, but unfortunately no footage has yet surfaced. Luckily, Jim has posted the text of his acceptance speech, which was a humdinger. Click here for more photos.

The fan tattoos are really coming out of the woodwork over at the Love and Rockets Facebook page, where Daniela Smith Brito shares this moody-looking Maggie.

Our weekly strips from the Steves: — Monday's Strip by Stephen DeStefano (view larger) Originally run as an experiment on Stephen's blog starting in 2008, Monday's Strip is re-presented here. — Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "We are witness to a man's life unfolding, unraveling, before us in a series of postcards that leave nothing — or is it everything? — to the imagination. I don't know Drew Weing, or whether he's lucky or good, but in Set to Sea , he has reminded me once again just how much story you can share in a brief flurry of comic panels, so long as you know how to trim the sails and catch the wind." – Steve Duin, The Oregonian • Review: "…Set to Sea… is so much more…

Can you tell we've been rooting around in our warehouse a lot lately? Our most recent find: vintage copies of two thought-to-be-lost issues of the seminal magazine on classic comic strips (edited by Rosebud Archives' Rick Marschall): Nemo: The Classic Comics Library #2 dates from 1983 and includes an exclusive interview with Siegel & Shuster and their early pre-Superman "Superman" story; a history of William Randolph Hearst; early Western funnies by Fred Harman; a history of superhero strips; a Caniff Terry and the Pirates tale; and a profile of Art Young. Nemo: The Classic Comics Library #30 from 1989 features…