Fantagraphics Blog

• Review: PLAYBACK:stl analyzes Comics Are for Idiots! by Johnny Ryan: "Ryan's loathing of the precious, the celebrity-obsessed, the hypocritical, and so on bleeds thru the best of these sorts of cartoons… Ryan's yen for out-offending every book he's done before is really just more righteous anger dressed up as sick comedy." • Review: The Comics Reporter on Blazing Combat: "Like many of the best reprint projects… this republication of the four-issue Warren war magazine into spiffy hardcover form features work that you can't easily buy anywhere else, is historically significant and offers its buyers a lot of very good…

Mome readers take note: a page from Dash Shaw's story in Vol. 14 was accidentally printed out of sequence. Our apologies. Dash explains on his blog.

Your weekly dose of new webcomics awaits… More awesome parenting from Aunt Jiggles in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan… It's horror time in this week's installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 50-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures…. And Rocky gets into some issues of varying degrees of seriousness (from Islam to "gwifstrexes") in our current 5-day chunk of Martin Kellerman's hilarious Swedish smash-hit Rocky, updated Monday-Friday!

If you missed the Mr. Media interview with Monte Wolverton about The Wolverton Bible when it was originally broadcast, now you can listen right here thanks to the magic of this embedded player below (or click here if it's not visible):

• Interview: The Mother Jones "Mojo Audio" podcast talks to Steve Brodner (includes audio stream/download and transcript) • Preview: If you didn't receive our latest FBI Informant email newsletter yesterday but still want to check it out, the good folks at Comic Related have you covered • Things to see: Now here's a bracket I can get behind: French comics arm wrestling comics jam death match! Featuring Killoffer, Olivier Schrauwen, Lewis Trondheim and many others (via Drawn)

Every year during the baseball season, when the All-Star teams are announced, some beat writer will put together a team of non All-Stars that could potentially rival the quality of the actual All-Stars. To that end, here's my non-Eisner Nominee Fanta Heavy Hitter starting line-up for 2009, with their non-nominated 2008 books in paretheses: Gilbert Hernandez (Love & Rockets: New Stories #1) Jaime Hernandez (Love & Rockets: New Stories #1) Steve Ditko (or Blake Bell, for Strange & Stranger) Michael Kupperman (Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4) Bob Levin (Most Outrageous) E.C. Segar (Popeye V. 3) Tim Lane (Abandoned Cars) Daniel Clowes (Ghost World: Special Edition) Charles M. Schulz (Complete…

Blazing Combat By Archie Goodwin & Various Artists Written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by such luminaries as Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, John Severin, Alex Toth, Al Williamson, Russ Heath, Reed Crandall, and Gene Colan, Blazing Combat was originally published by independent comics publisher James Warren in 1965 and ’66. Following in the tradition of Harvey Kurtzman’s Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, Goodwin’s stories reflected the human realities and personal costs of war rather than exploiting the clichés of the traditional men’s adventure genre. They were among the best comics stories about war ever published. Blazing Combat ended after its…

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5 By Michael Kupperman Thrizzle #5 is the Old People's issue, dedicated to the Greatiest Generations! Aliens give an innocent man sexy woman's legs, and Twain and Einstein have many, many adventures, including a journey through multiple dreamscapes, a superhero/private eye caper, and a meeting with an enraged badger. Plus noir arts & crafts, hobo fashions, the birth of the Monkees and other old-timey favorites. 32-page duotone 6.75" x 9.5" comic book • $4.50 Add to Cart • More Info & Previews