Fantagraphics Blog

Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 8:00pm Le Poisson Rouge158 Bleeker StreetNew York, NY

  On Saturday, July 11th at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Trina Robbins will be signing "The Brinkley Girls," following the 2:30 pm screening of Wild Rose. It should take place around 4:15.

"One of the most weirdly funny writers around." — New York Magazine   "This guy may have one of the best comedy brains on the planet right now." — Conan O'Brien "Michael Kupperman is the funniest cartoonist alive, and Tales Designed to Thrizzle is his funniest comic book." — The Seattle Stranger Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume 1 is out, and the launch party is this Friday, 7-9 at Desert Island in Williamsburg. Desert Island is at 540 Metropolitan Avenue. 

The final issue of macabre master (and birthday boy!) Richard Sala's modern-day reimagining of the Snow White story told from the "Prince Charming" point of view, Delphine #4 brings our hero into an inevitable confrontation with unspeakable evil! Italian artist Sergio Ponchione's series is becoming a cult hit in the U.S., and he returns with the eagerly-awaited Grotesque #3, containing the second half of the wildly surrealistic "Cryptic City" epic. Both titles, part of our Ignatz Series of deluxe oversized comics, are now available for pre-order! They are scheduled to be in stock and ready to ship any day now…

You're all invited to the amazing after-party following Peter Bagge's book launch event at Fantagraphics Bookstore in Seattle next Saturday, July 11. The line-up for this free show at neighboring Jules Maes Saloon includes Peter Bagge's latest power pop combo, Can You Imagine? The evening will feature a special reunion of Bagge's 1990s easy listening sensation The Action Suits whose members include current and former Fantagraphics staffers Andy Schmidt and Eric Reynolds, joined by illustrious musician and producer Steve Fisk. Also on the bill are Reynolds' Fox Hollow (featuring Fantagraphics graphics ace Adam Grano and the lovely Rhea Patton) and…

Celebrate independents this weekend at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. Drop by and browse our hot new summer reading selections. It's also your last chance to view the amazing exhibition by international comics sensation Jason. And check out Larry and Bella's badass Spongebob piñata outfitted with a suicide blast belt that'll blow him back to Bikini Bottom (in very small pieces.) The store is open 11:30 to 8:00 PM on Friday, 11:30 to 4:00 PM on Saturday the 4th, and 11:30 to 5:00 PM as usual on Sunday. Located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) only…

Online Commentary & Diversions will return Monday. Have a great holiday in the US of A. • Review: "Like many mysteries, there's something initially frustrating about the end of 'Emily Says Hello,' but it's the best by Jason for a while… it's in the new Low Moon collection… Worth it for 'Emily' alone." – Graham Linehan (The IT Crowd, Father Ted), via Twitter (part 1, part 2) • Review: "A thin line exists between [Basil] Wolverton’s jokey grotesqueries and the horrors of disfigurement and mutilation that appear in his postwar illustrations of the Book of Revelations (recently published in The…

Jim Woodring has 3 mind-flaying new posts up on his blog. I'm so excited I can only blurt: 1. New teaser images from the forthcoming Frank book Weathercraft! 2. A 3-D manifestation! 3. Hot dog immortality!

Well, not directly, or literally: Paul has been doing some fantastic packaging design and artwork for releases on the Byrne-founded Luaka Bop label (to be collected in Paul's forthcoming odds-and-sods collection All and Sundry), and the label has created an animated storybook (screenshot above) and a "memory" game (embedded below or play on Paul's blog) based on Paul's designs. Pretty dang snazzy!

Latest con report ever… And the most anticlimactic one, too.  Our last day at BEA 2009 in NYC was a fairly uneventful one, but one simple pleasure was seeing Abrams' preview of the forthcoming Art of Jaime Hernandez book, edited by Todd Hignite and designed by Jordan Crane. Here's a couple sample shots:  After the BEA, Jason Miles and I traipsed around Manhattan a bit, including a stop at two of NYC's finest bookstores, The Strand and Forbidden Planet. Was pleased to see Jason's Dead Ringer (from La Mano) proudly on display at FP: You should go buy this now. At the Strand, it was a thrill to see…