Fantagraphics Blog

Gary Groth, Kim Thompson and myself are all headed east this weekend to attend one of our favorite shows of the year:     Taking place Saturday and Sunday in Bethesda, MD, SPX is the last great East Coast show of the year, and we'll be there in full force with a slew of signings, events, debuts, etc. To wit:  FANTAGRAPHICS SPX SIGNINGS: SATURDAY 12PM: Paul Karasik & Miss Lasko-Gross1PM: Paul Karasik & Tim Krieder2PM: Dash Shaw & John Kerschbaum3PM: Dash Shaw 4PM: Lilli Carré  SUNDAY 12PM: Paul Karasik & Miss Lasko-Gross1PM: Lilli Carré2PM: John Kerschbaum & Tim Krieder3PM: Paul Karasik & Dash Shaw4PM: Dash Shaw FANTAGRAPHICS-RELATED PANELS: Sat. 1:00PM: Kim Thompson:…

Before you watch the McCain/Obama debate in a few minutes, get yourself in the right frame of mind by taking an advance look at American Presidents, our upcoming volume of Presidential portraits by master caricaturist David Levine (coming next month). Click here if the slideshow doesn't appear above.

Here are the book reviews that turned up around the web on this relatively quiet week: • The incredibly-named I Love Rob Liefeld recommends Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 for fellow L&R newbies; the more sensibly-named Read About Comics looks at the issue as well; Johnny Bacardi gives it an "A" (scroll about halfway down) • Former Fantagraphics intern Michael Jewell recommends The Complete Love and Rockets in Savannah College of Art & Design's District • Brazilian blog Quadrinhos Coquettes takes note of Mome • Comic Book Bin looks at Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by…

Go read: Gilbert Hernandez does the Simpsons!  

Time for a new installment of Steven Weissman's in-progress pages from "Blue Jay," an epic 32-page story from Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures. In this week's episode: somebody gets Rocky Roaded! (Remember, you must be registered and logged in to read.)

Good or bad, they don't make trading cards as intriguing as this anymore.

Because no one demanded it! Peter Bagge & I reunite on the Inkstuds Hour of Power to talk about our old band, The Action Suits. But not before Pete and the Inkstuds crew talk about just how fucked up America is! Above comic by Jaime Hernandez.

  This is the first time I've seen this cover large enough to make out the structure of the speech and thought balloons and it kills me. This is brilliant. I want to write an essay about the concept of this one panel as it relates to marketing this subject to the varied audience it is reaching out to in the era that it is doing so but I'm not gifted at essay writing. Dan Clowes is genius and I begrudgingly understand why my wife has a goddamn "celebrity crush" on him.

Chicagoans! You've got 2 hours to hie ye'self down to Quimby's to see a reading by Anders Nilsen at 7 PM. Sez Anders on his blog, "I'll be showing a sort of preview of the forthcoming Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes (Monologues II-Fantagraphics Books, due out in February) as well as a video-ized version of the strip Event, which first appeared in Mome, back in 2005, and was originally conceived as a video, not a comic strip. Which explains why it doesn't really look like one. Joe Meno and Arthur Nersesian are also reading."

Tarzan Menko Cards.