Fantagraphics Blog

Between Mike Baehr's excellent tweeting all weekend, and Mike and Jason Miles' most excellent collection of photos from the weekend (which I'm sure you'll be seeing as the week unfolds), I don't feel compelled to write a proper con "report" but I do have a few observations. Although we had a good show and I personally had a pretty good time, this was the first year I felt the weight of Hollywood's cult of celebrity encroaching not only on the exhibit hall but also the sales of at least the independent publisher area we inhabited. The pre-show hype of advance…

Oh boy, let's start our post-Comic-Con Online Commentary & Diversions catch-up: • Comic-Con: Coverage of our con announcements and happenings from Douglas Wolk for Rolling Stone, Paul Constant at The Stranger, and Chris Mautner of Robot 6 • Review: "…Jason elevates his skewering of filmic genres to a whole new level in his latest collection, Low Moon, which sees his unique takes on film noir, westerns and screwball comedy.  All of the tales are informed by his signature clean lines, bright colors, sparse dialogue and taste for a particularly brutal brand of slapstick humor and occasional moments of dark, incisive…

No, not the one you might first think of; rather, Chicago journalist and friend of Paul Hornschemeier, who co-stars in the video (via Paul's blog):

Word comes to us that La educación de Hopey Glass, the Spanish edition of The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime Hernandez, has been awarded another Spanish festival prize, being named Best Foreign Work at the Comic Festival of Benalmádena (Málaga). Congratulations Jaime!

While we were at Comic-Con, where Irwin Chusid's brother coincidentally works and stopped by to say hi, Irwin sent the following announcement about a new Jim Flora fine art print: Jim Flora Art has released a limited edition fine art print of a 1960 tempera titled BIG EVENING. The hyperactive tableau depicts a cavalcade of misshapen, multi-eyed mutants with bonus body parts. People just like you!  Only 25 prints were produced for this edition. Details: http://tinyurl.com/big-evening Previous prints: http://jimflora.com/fineartworks.html

We'll post a complete con report sometime soon, time permitting, but if you weren't following along in real time, you can check out our Twitter posts from the floor of the con, with lots of Twitpics taken with my crummy phone camera. We had signings galore, plenty of book debuts, and some exciting visitors (Ray Bradbury!!). Whew!

San Diego hosts Comic Con International this week and every comics "insider" has an opinion about CCI and most of the opinions I hear are exasperated ones, heavy with a burned-out tone. Granted, I've only been to one year of Comic Con– 2007– but I loved it. I'm a guy who hates crowds but still I LOVE COMIC CON. Comic Con is filled wall-to-wall with people who are SO FUCKING EXCITED to be THERE. Everyone is excited just to be among comics and people who also like comics. Not that they know what to do with that energy– it's still…

C. TYLER SIGNS YOU'LL NEVER KNOW AT HISTORIC ERNIE PYLE HOME IN DANA, INDIANA AUGUST 6-8      Ernie Pyle Firemen's Festival, August 6, 7 & 8, 2009. Ernie Pyle was a newspaper writer and War Correspondent both in Europe and the Pacific during WWII. His folksy, personal writings about combat soldiers were very popular and won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1944. Sadly, he was killed that same year on the front near Okinawa. Pyle was born and raised in Dana, Indiana. His home was designated a state historic site in 1976 and each year the town celebrates with an annual festival. This…