Fantagraphics Blog

Your cautionary tale of the day, from the New York Times. Speaking of Rusty, if you're in NYC, don't miss Chris Ware's art show opening this Thursday, Sept. 16, at the Adam Baumgold Gallery. 

  Right Thing the Wrong Way: The Story of Highwater Books October 1st-October 24th Opening Reception October 1st 6-9pm Fourth Wall Project132 Brookline AveBoston, MA 02215 For seven years (and one miscounted eighth anniversary party) Highwater Books was snobby, high-concept, iconoclastic, poorly-business modeled publishing company that ran itself into the ground. Highwater published books late, promised them and never published them at all and even withheld its books from distributors on principle. The company asked its artists to fold mini-comics and stand behind convention tables and sell their wares to a public that did not know what to make of…

Drew Friedman will be signing TOO SOON? at the Ocean County Library outdoor Book Fest in New Jersey on Sat., Sept. 25th — along with John Lennon's former lover May Pang and the editors of THE ONION, among many others! Saturday, Sept. 25, 11 – 3PM Ocean County Library Toms River Branch 101 Washington St., Toms River, NJ 08753 

 

Esther Pearl Watson is participating in a number of events in the coming weeks, beginning with a discussion of her graphic novel Unlovable along with a slideshow of process, inspiration and oddities at the Houston Public Library on Saturday, September 18th at 2:30 PM as part of Graphic Novel Day. Looks like a fun event: Then, Esther will be speaking at the West Hollywood Book Fair on Sunday, September 26th at 1:30 PM. The event is free of charge and features more than 300 artists and writers and 150 exhibitors.   Last but not least, Esther has some new work available through Webb Gallery.   

We are pleased to report that Ganges by Kevin Huizenga, which was nominated for all 3 major industry awards this year (Eisner, Harvey & Ignatz), took home the Ignatz brick for Outstanding Series at the award ceremony at SPX this past weekend. (See the complete list of winners in all categories here.) Congratulations! To celebrate, all 3 issues of the series are now 20% off for a limited time! There's never been a better time to fill in the gaps in your collection or catch up on the whole series at once!

…A puppeteer in a green-screen suit with a live-action Sock Monkey puppet? With other incriminating evidence, not to mention regular Maakies strips and other messages from Tony Millionaire, at the all-new Maakies.com website? We can only confirm the latter two items.

We mentioned this in passing in the last Things to See, but it bears noting on its own: the new issue of the Oxford American includes comics stories by Drew Weing and Josh Simmons — and that's just what we know of. Who else might be in the issue? Pick up a copy and find out — and then tell us, we'd love to know…

Periodic clips & strips — click for improved/additional viewing and possible artist commentary at the sources: • Drew Friedman illustrates the latest crop of pop stars-cum-reality TV stars for Billboard (with commentary) • The cover of a new minicomic Miss Lasko-Gross is debuting at SPX (via Facebook) • From Kevin Huizenga, a new Amazing Facts and Beyond with Leon Beyond strip • Two more stages in Matthias Lehmann's scratchboard work in progress • From Jason: a 1996 anthology story page; a lizard lady; an illustration of U2; and three early cartoons • Steven Weissman drew Courtney Love for The Stranger's…

New strips from the Steves this week: — 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. This strip is seen here in color for the first time. — Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):