Fantagraphics Blog

The following books are now available for pre-order! Click the cover images for more info about each book. And of course we'll be bringing you previews as the release dates get closer. All are expected to arrive between now and the end of October. For more, see our Upcoming Arrivals page. (Coincidentally, today is Joe Kubert's 82nd birthday!) And new editions of these out-of-print books by Jason:

FANTAGRAPHICS AND THE STRAND BOOKSTORE PRESENT: KIM DEITCH TALKS PICTORAMA AND MORE ON THURSDAY, SEPT. 18 Veteran underground cartoonist Kim Deitch, creator of the acclaimed Fantagraphics collection Shadowland and the Pantheon graphic novels Alias the Cat and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, has recruited his entire cast of siblings to produce a unique, all-new "picto-fiction" pocket book. Alternating between heavily illustrated near-comics stories and outright prose, Deitch's Pictorama is a testament to the entire Deitch family's amazing yarn-spinning abilities. Join Deitch at the Strand as he gives a power point presentation telling the story of how Deitch's Pictorama came about and…

  You know, I see Jacob Covey every day but somehow every time I read an interview with him I learn something new. Reading his comments on the design of Popeye, a project/topic I would have thought we'd exhausted in office talk, is fascinating peek into the thought processes that go into graphic design.

Los Angeles film fans not only get to watch great films at the Silent Movie Theatre, part-owned by Sammy Harkham– they also get to take home monthly programs with cover art by great cartoonists. (Shown: Harkham, Richard Sala, Josh Simmons.)

Coming in March, another of our Pin-Up paperbacks. This time we're collecting various cartoonists who worked for the Humorama mens' magazines of old, giving an overview of styles and content. Jefferson Machamer is a stand-out in these old pulps. His work looked like nobody else's. The women are decidedly manish and the poses stiff so it's odd that he did pin-up work. I was unfamiliar with Machamer when I was first flipping through the Humorama digests and I couldn't get my head around this guy who seemed, at times, to be drawing Jimbo in drag. (Gary Panter has called him…

Just one new title from us scheduled to arrive at comic shops today: • Castle Waiting Vol. II #12 by Linda Medley This is a rare instance of a title arriving in stores before we receive it ourselves, so head on down to your local store and snap it up! (Also, we haven't had a chance to upload the preview for this issue yet, but it's coming soon.)

Zak Sally presents two cartoons he submitted unsuccessfully to Nickelodeon magazine.

Flora-philes rejoice! On the Jim Flora blog, Irwin Chusid reveals the cover design for The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, the third in our series of Flora art books, which is due just about a year from now.

Congratulations to Philip Spector of Mamaroneck, NY for winning the signed limited-edition Ghost World silkscreen print! Philip, your prize is on its way. Thanks to everyone who participated by pre-ordering Ghost World: Special Edition (which is now in stock).

"When I was coming up in the '80s, the representation of Latinos, even at the literary level, was incredibly un-diverse. Even amongst hard-core Latino writers I really admire, there wasn't the kind of writing about the sectors of the Latino community that I was familiar with. "Love and Rockets was not only a revolution in comics, it was a revolution in Latino letters. It was the first time that people were writing about the kind of Latinos that I grew up with where being a Latino was a given. What we really drew or what compelled us in our lives was…