Fantagraphics Blog

QUOCK.

Back to the Online Commentary & Diversions: • List: The Architects' Journal names "Chris Ware's Chicago" #2 on its list of "Top 10 Comic Book Cities" • Review: "[Fletcher] Hanks' groove, taken back to back like this, is unsettling… It can be downright creepy. Generally, when you talk about a comic auteur's 'issues,' you're talking page count, not whether he has his head screwed on straight. It's multiplied by Hanks' art style, which at first seems crude but is actually quite stylized and consistent. Many images, such as troupes of unfortunates flying in hurtling, screaming weightlessness, have the impact of…

Thomas Ott has a brand new website chockablock with artwork, music, photos, films, and all other things Ott, including links to shop for the European editions of his books.

Aieee! We've fallen so behind on things that we've been neglecting our weekly webcomics updates for a while now. Our apologies to our readers and to the wonderful artists who agreed so generously to let us present their work. But enough groveling, here's a brand new batch! Blecky and Wedgie learn an important physics lesson in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan (visit Johnny's website for the last few weeks' strips!)… Picking up where we left off: Chubby's horror is our horror in this week's installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 51-page story…

A lovely hand-embroidered Maggie Chascarillo by Love and Rockets fan Shannon Genova-Scudder, as seen on Flickr. Hat tip to fellow fan Patti Schiendelman for pointing it out to us on Twitter. We'd love to feature more fan art here on Flog — if you make some or find some, tell us about it via Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, or plain old email!

From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium By various artists; edited by Steffen P. Maarup In all the excitement over manga from Japan and bandes dessinées from France, it’s easy to forget that other countries have a thriving comics culture all their own. This eye-popping anthology, assembled by Danish publisher/editor/ translator Steffen P. Maarup, introduces adventurous readers to 19 exciting talents, most of whom are taking their first bow on the English-speaking stage. One centerpiece of the book is Nikoline Werdelin’s stunning “Because I Love You So Much,” a Doonesbury-style slice-of-life daily strip about a suburban Danish…

Heading into the weekend, here's your Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Carol Tyler’s You’ll Never Know [Book 1: A Good and Decent Man] mines similar territory to women graphic novelists before her — the life of her father and its relationship to her own foibles — and manages to make a work entirely her own, neither derivative nor overly familiar… with genuinely gorgeous illustration… It’s a gripping mix of biography and autobiography… There’s more for Tyler to explore in another volume, and she manages to make this one immensely satisfying on its own terms while alternately leaving you with…

You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! By Fletcher Hanks; edited & introduction by Paul Karasik Fletcher Hanks was the first great comic book auteur. That is, he wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered all of his own stories. He completed an astonishing 48 stories in three years from 1939-1941. As a one-man-cartooning-band, his work packs the wallop of a unique and unified artistic vision. He was a true comics visionary. In the earliest days of the comic book, before censorship, it was “anything goes!” — and in the tales of Fletcher Hanks, anything went! The superhero Stardust gazes down…