Fantagraphics Blog

During those heady mid-1990s, Seattle's The Stranger (which has employed, at times, a slew of comics-related folks, from co-founder James Sturm, to former art directors Jason Lutes, Joe Newton, and Dale Yarger, and columnists like Tom Spurgeon and yours truly) was a hotbed for local cartooning. Strips would come and go and you could always count on the paper's back page for some quality cartoons. One of my all-time favorite Stranger strips was a short-lived feature by Jeremy Eaton, called Jackass. This surreal gem featured a disembodied head at the mercy of Eaton's imagination, and the results were always a great blend of…

As if we don't already have enough social networks to keep track of, we're now on the "social bookmarking" site Delicious! We've been bringing you our weekly "Blogosphere Roundup" link posts for a while, and we thought it might be nice if the links could be searchable and organized with tags so you can find related links (for instance, all the reviews of a certain book, or links pertaining to a particular artist). We'll still bring you our roundup posts every week, but now you can follow along in real time on our Delicious page or with the RSS feed.

We've added several new books to our roster of titles which are available with FREE signed bookplates as a bonus when you order directly from us! They include: Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell (signed by Bell, not by Ditko… are you crazy?)Deitch's Pictorama by Kim, Seth and Simon Deitch (shown below – signed by Kim only)Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by the Hernandez Brothers (shown above – signed by both Gilbert and Jaime!)The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime HernandezPerla La Loca by Jaime HernandezBeyond Palomar by Gilbert HernandezAmor Y Cohetes by Gilbert,…

Here's a slightly belated look at the two ultimate entries (until we go back and reprint the early Eclipse volumes) in our Krazy & Ignatz series of Krazy Kat reprint volumes: 1943-1944 (top) and The Complete Sunday Strips 1935-1944, the giant hardcover compiling the last 5 volumes (bottom). Watch these video/photo slideshow teasers for exciting fold-out action, glinting gold foil stamping, and more. Click here and here if the slideshows don't appear above.

… though it's quite an impressive forgery of his late-1980s style: Spotted HERE. 

Here's what the Internet says about our books this (relatively quiet) week: • Kevin Church sandwiches a thumbs-up for Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars amongst some other reviews; Alan David Doane calls the book "thrilling"; • Blog Flumer Ken Parille says it best: "In anticipation of the forthcoming release of Daniel Clowes's Ghost World: Special Edition, I take a close look at the comic's closing line of dialogue" • Mano de Papel notes our publications in general (in Spanish) • Jog notes our New Comics Day releases and, while complimentary toward the books, doesn't care for our slideshow previews • Whatever…

  For the Capitol Hill Artwalk on September 9, Toys in Babeland is going to host a show of Ellen Forney's Lustlab originals, and she'll also be performing her Lust reading/presentation at TiB's 15th anniversary partyon September 18. The art show is called "Ta-ta, Lustlab Ad of the Week!" ELLEN FORNEY'sTa-Ta, "Lustlab Ad of the Week"!! Original art exhibition and LUST book signing Capitol Hill Art WalkTues., Sept. 9, 6 – 9pmFREE! Exhibition continues through Oct. 6 Babeland707 E. Pike St. (on Capitol Hill)Seattle, WA 98122206-328-2914 Join Ellen Forney in bidding "Ta-Ta!!" to her provocative "Lustlab Ad of the Week" cartoon series! Ellen will be on…

THE 4th ANNUAL BLAB! SHOWSaturday, September 6, 8:00-11:30 pmOPENING RECEPTION: September 6th, 8:00-11:30 pm Check out all the artwork HERE!  Copro/Nason Gallery and Monte Beauchamp proudly present "THE BLAB! SHOW," the fourth Group Art Exhibition featuring original paintings and illustrations from the forthcoming issue of BLAB! magazine – Monte Beauchamp's periodic anthology of sequential and comic art, illustration, painting, and printmaking. Artists include: SHAG, TRAVIS LOUIE, RYAN HESHKA, GARY BASEMAN, RON ENGLISH, LUKE CHEUH, GARY TAXALI, FRED STONEHOUSE, ANDY KEHOE, TRAVIS LAMPE, LAURA LEVINE, MARC BURCKHARDT, CJ PYLE, MARK TODD, TOM HUCK, and MANY MORE. Don't Miss Out!!!! The show continues until September 27. COPRO/NASON GALLERY…

  Here's a swell recap of our recent Robert Pollard book release party, courtesy our pal Rob Clough. Thanks to Rob for the recpap and pics (and be sure to check out Rob's writing about comics, he's one of the best on the Net): On a rainy Durham evening on August 15th, Merge Records hosted a book release party and art exhibit for Robert Pollard. Merge has released the last several solo albums of the former Guided By Voices lead singer, so Durham was a fitting site for the debut of TOWN OF MIRRORS, a tribute to his remarkable eye as a visual…

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: Dead Boy, no! (Remember, you must be registered and logged in to read.)