Fantagraphics Blog

In Solidarity — Arnold Roth

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Love and Rockets Library (Palomar & Luba Book 5): Ofeliaby Gilbert Hernandez 256-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" softcover$19.99 | 978-1-60699-806-9 See Previews / Order Now In Ofelia, the sisters, the kids, and the cousins are all settled comfortably in California after leaving Palomar in Luba and Her Family. Luba and her cousin Ofelia’s relationship has always been fraught, but when Ofelia threatens to write a book about Luba, past memories, secrets, resentments, and pain resurface. Meanwhile, Luba’s children—genius Socorro, recently out-and-proud Doralís, and prickly Maricela—show that a talent for…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Saint Coleby Noah Van Sciver 116-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover$19.99 | 978-1-60699-817-5 See Previews / Order Now Saint Cole depicts four days in the life of a twenty-eight-year-old suburbanite named Joe who feels trapped working overtime at a pizza restaurant to support his girlfriend, Nicole, and their infant child. Especially when Nicole invites her troubled mother, Angela, to move into their two-bedroom apartment until she lands on her feet again. Joe reacts to this development by further retreating into alcohol. He thinks he loves Nicole but resents her at…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Inner City Romanceby Guy Colwell 200-page black & white 8" x 10" softcover$24.99 | 978-1-60699-813-7 See Previews / Order Now Guy Colwell's Inner City Romance tread new territory for underground comix, filled with stories about prison, black culture, ghetto life, the sex trade, and radical activism. It portrayed the unpleasant realities of life in the inner city, where opportunities were limited and being on the lowest end of the economic ladder meant that one's vision of the American dream was more about survival than lifestyle choices. Readers wondered who Colwell was,…

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: Sweatshopby Peter Bagge 152-page full color 6.75" x 10.25" softcover$19.99 | 978-1-60699-812-0 See Previews / Order Now Mel Bowling is the unhappy, out-of-touch creator of a very bad daily comic strip called Freddy Ferret (a cross between Dilbert and Garfield). He spends most of his time listening to Rush Limbaugh and coming up with horrible catchphrases to merchandise, while his "sweatshop" cast of studio assistants grind out all the hard work. Sweatshop is a hilarious situational comedy from acclaimed author Peter Bagge (Buddy Does Seattle, Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story) that…

Sheriff of Bullet Valley, Starring Walt Disney's Donald Duckby Carl Barks 96-page full color 7.25" x 5.5" softcover • $9.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-820-5 Ships in: March 2015 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now When a passel of extra-sneaky, extra-ornery high-tech cattle rustlers strikes the good citizens of Bullet Valley, Donald Duck bravely dons a badge to become the "Sheriff of Bullet Valley." Fortified by the know-how he's gained watching Hollywood Westerns, our ever-intrepid Duck sets out to solve the perplexing mystery of how Blacksnake McSquirt's brand keeps showing up on the cattle of the honest ranchers. Sheriff of Bullet Valley is the…

It's a beautiful day to be taking in the bright, bold coloring and clean linework of comics giant Steve Ditko. We've received our advances of the fifth volume in The Steve Ditko Archives, lovingly edited by Blake Bell. Entitled Dripping with Fear, the book features over 200 full-color pages, essays, and extras highlighting the time period when Ditko began sharing a studio with famed fetish artist and art-school colleague Eric Stanton. Dripping with Fear is due out in bookstores this coming March, and we've got lots of previews to share in the meantime! Pre-order your copy now.

I wrote to cartoonists that Fantagraphics publishes, inviting them to do a drawing responding to the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo office on January 7. The purpose is to show solidarity to our fallen comrades and to the scorched-earth tradition of cartoon satire. We would run whatever we received, uncensored. It seemed not only appropriate but imperative that Fantagraphics offer cartoonists a place to display such cartoons since we have published so much satire ourselves – from R. Crumb to Drew Friedman to Johnny Ryan to Jonah Kinigstein. There is a debate simmering as to whether or not Hebdo was…

Today's Book-A-Day Sale title is by award-winning cartoonist and animator Lilli Carré. Heads or Tails packages some of Carré's best work over a five year period. Carré’s elegant short stories read like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O’Connor or Carson McCullers, but told visually. Poetic rhythms — a coin flip, a circling ferris wheel — are punctuated by elements of melancholy fantasy pushed forward by character-driven, naturalistic dialogue. The stories in Heads or Tails display a virtuosic breadth of visual styles and color palettes, each in perfect service of the story, and range from experimental one-pagers to short masterpieces like…

Today's Book-A-Day title is a bundled gift set of fantastical, surreal work by artist and musician Leslie Stein. Eye of the Majestic Creature Vols 1 + 2 are semi-autobiographical books starring the girl Larrybear and her talking acoustic guitar Marshmallow as they travel and have adventures around the countryside. Larrybear is in a constant struggle between the desire to connect with those around her and to be left to her own devices. You get a glimpse of her past life when she visits her home town of Chicago, trying to relate to old friends who have not matured since high school, as well…