Fantagraphics Blog

Wrapping up another week's worth of Online Commentary & Diversions: • Bookmark: Presenting the newly redesigned BobFingerman.com • Feature: At the Washington Post blog Double X, Sasha Watson recounts the emergence of female underground and alternative cartoonists, talking to Trina Robbins, Carol Tyler, and others, with an accompanying slideshow featuring Tyler, Jessica Abel, Lilli Carré and 10 more • Review: "I really love comics. Reading a collection like Joe Daly's Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, I'm reminded of just why. … It's drawn like a combination of Tintin, Dilbert, and King of the Hill. It's hilarious, both in terms of…

Now available for preview and pre-order following its best-selling debut at APE: Sublife Vol. 2 by John Pham. Continuing the serials "221 Sycamore St." and "Deep Space" from the previous issue, this new installment of the one-man anthology also includes the post-apocalyptic action-adventure tale "The Kid" and a few other one-off short strips. Download an exclusive PDF excerpt of the first 5 pages of "The Kid" right here. This book is scheduled to be in stock and ready to ship sometime later this month and in stores approximately 4 weeks after that (subject to change). View a photo & video…

Online Commentary & Diversions, now with more Tonya Harding than ever: • Review: "Occasionally, there are works of art or literature that defy simple classification. The brain breaks upon them like waves and they give up different secrets with each tide but never all the secrets and never all at once. These creations challenge as much as they entertain and ask for obsession as toll on the road to understanding. The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit is just such an enigma. … Surreal, gorgeous, and both satisfying and confounding, The Squirrel Machine is a hypnotic, occasionally repulsive, always entertaining, and…

Back in June Fantagraphics Publisher Gary Groth and I were trouble-shooting ideas for packaging "Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons." Most of the ideas were unfeasible or enough of a gimmick that it felt distracting from the work. (Sure an iron maiden clamshell box is funny but do we really want the case to be that cumbersome?) As we axed ideas, so to speak, I kept returning to this classic gag of a man pressed under glass and was interested in how it echoed the idea that we're capturing the legacy of Gahan Wilson within this boxed set. A…

Last month I was in L.A. and visited by ol' pal Johnny Ryan and he showed me the first 30 or so pages from PRISON PIT Vol. 2. They were as sensory-assaulting as you'd expect if you've read Vol. 1. I immediately reached in my pocket for my camera, to take a few pics for Flog, only to discover that in my morning pre-coffee fog, I'd inadvertently grabbed my power plug for my laptop and put that in my pocket instead of my camera. I am an idiot. So instead of seeing a few sample pages, you'll have to whet your whistle with this:

  Portable Grindhouse editor Jacques Boyreau has a lot on his plate these days, which is good news for those of you in Pittsburgh, because this SuperTrash show he curated that is currently running at the Warhol Museum looks pretty goddamn badass.  Look for Portable Grindhouse next month:

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 Edited by Blake Bell Before the Amazing Spider-Man, before the mysterious Dr. Strange, before the black-and-white world of the Ayn Rand-inspired Mr. A, the legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko was conjuring all manners of horrors at his drawing table. In his first two years in the industry (1953 and 1954), Ditko drew tales of macabre suspense that were not yet hobbled by the imminent Comics Code Authority (adopted in Oct. 1954). These stories featured graphic bloodshed, dismemberment and blood-curdling acid baths as…

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship: Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days By Al Columbia This gorgeous grimoire is part alchemy, part art book, part storybook, part comic book, and part conceptual art from the pen of Al Columbia, a longtime fan favorite contributor to comics anthologies like Zero Zero, Blab!, and more recently, Mome. Collecting over a decade’s worth of ‘artifacts,’ excavations, comic strips, animation stills, storybook covers, and much more, this broken jigsaw puzzle of a book tells the story of Pim & Francie, a pair of childlike, male and female imps whose irresponsible…

Come down to Georgetown this Saturday, November 7 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM and welcome visionary cartoonist and visual artist Al Columbia back to Seattle. He’ll be in town to celebrate the debut of his first book, PIM & FRANCIE, with a reception, book signing and exhibition of original works . Al Columbia is widely regarded among his peers as one of the most accomplished and influential artists working in comics today. PIM & FRANCIE represents a breathtaking vision of contemporary American art. Collecting over a decade’s worth of artifacts, excavations, comic strips, storybook covers, and much more, this book…