Join us at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Sunday, December 30 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM as we welcome Brooklyn cartoonist Nathan Bulmer back to his native Seattle. He’ll be signing copies of his new Eat More Bikes collection from Koyama Press, and other self-published comix.

Enjoy live music from Zachary David Jammin’, imbibe in complimentary seasonal refreshments, view the colorful 30 Years of Love and Rockets exhibition, and take advantage of deals all over Georgetown from the Only in Seattle Sundays discount program sponsored by the Office of Economic Development.

Fantagraphics Bookstore is located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) only minutes south of downtown Seattle. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Open on New Year’s Eve until 4:00 PM. Closed New Years Day. Phone 206.658.0110.

While trampsing around the suburbs and backwaters of Texas, I happened to find the majestic Webb Gallery in Waxahachie for there lay a treasure trove of Esther Pearl Watson paintings. With fading painted trim in still vibrant oranges and teals matched with iron statues and odd toys from people long since dead, it reminds you of an open range and that mix of culture which is a side-step from Southwestern.

Watson's paintings, unlike her Unlovable comics Fantagraphis printed, are deeply personal and autographical. As the daughter of the local color, Watson watched her father build several large-scale UFOs. Out on the lawn. 

Bitter-sweet nostaglic scenes in dirty brown skies and abandoned women's clinics, Watson paints a darker time in her childhood. But that ever-hovering presence, the idea of 'what-if', the UFO. (They Might Be Giants might have called it her 'hovering sombrero') 

Compared to Watson's Unloveable, which also runs in Bust Magazine, the unapolagetic Tammy Pierce is nearly the opposite of these quiet moments with tension bubbling under the surface. Each canvas, most of them wooden, are akin to a diary page created in paint, dirt and the occasional glitter patch instead of words. Notes are scribbled in the corners of most of the paintings to enhance or detail the scene. Often a new town, a new landscape to explore.

Details of the paintings. They practically vibrate.

So all these gorgeous paintings hang on the high-ceilinged walls of the Webb Gallery amongst their antique carnival posters, including Coney Island originals. The perfect place for the painted recollections of hazy memories. Something almost most too incredible to believe.

The Webb Gallery is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5 or by appointment, (972) 938-8085. A quick 30 minute drive from downtown Dallas or 2 hours up from Austin, be sure to see it! 209 West Franklin Street Waxahachie, TX 75165. The current exhibition by Esther Pearl Watson will be up through January 20th, 2013.

For more pictures of the show or to purchase see Esther Pearl Watson's website.

The 30th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this third of three volumes. Perla La Loca collects the adventures of the spunky Maggie; her annoying, pixie-ish best friend and sometime lover Hopey; and their circle of friends. As usual, Jaime Hernandez spotlights a wide range of headstrong female characters found in previous volumes Maggie the Mechanic and The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S.

Perla begins with the "Wigwam Bam" story, arguably Jaime Hernandez's definitive statement on the post-punk culture (what a good song too!). As Maggie, Hopey, and the rest of the Locas prowl Los Angeles, the East Coast, and parts in between trying to recapture the carefree spirit of those early days. "Wigwam Bam" brings us up to date on all the members of Jaime's extensive cast of characters and then drops a narrative bomb on Hopey (and us) in the very last pages. Split up from Hopey yet again, Maggie bounces back and forth between a one-laundromat town in Texas (the "Chester Square" that serves as the title of two of the strongest stories in the book), where she has to contend with both her own inner demons and a murderous hooker, and Camp Vicki, where she has to fend off her aunt Vicki's attempts to make her a professional wrestler and the unwanted advances of the amorous wrestling champ-to-be, Gina.

Once again $14.99 is a heck of a deal for 290 pages by one of the masters, Jaime Hernandez.

"'Wigwam Bam' [is] one of the medium's all-time high points..." – The Onion A.V. Club

"For a relatively inexpensive introduction to the joys of Jaime's good stuff, ...I recommend Perla la Loca, a paperback reprint of a 1990-1996 sequence that kicks off with the fantastic ensemble tragicomedy 'Wigwam Bam,' throws in a bunch of wrestling and decline-and-fall-of-punk business that he draws with obvious, infectious relish, and ends with the mistaken-identity tour de force 'Bob Richardson.'" – Douglas Wolk, TIME/Techland

Coming in late February/early March, Messages in a Bottle collects the best work by Bernard Krigstein, a singular draftsman and one of the most graphically sophisticated comics illustrators of all time, whose too-brief career in the 1940s and '50s included work for EC and Atlas Comics. For those who have been awaiting a new edition of our long-out-of-print B. Krigstein: Comics, this book contains every story from that volume plus several more. It is our great privilege to have had a number of these stories specially recolored by the great Marie Severin; the remainder have been painstakingly restored from the original comic books by acclaimed editor Greg Sadowski. Read a free 22-page excerpt with 3 complete stories, and pre-order a copy, right here.

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed three recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below: 

Heads or Tails by Lilli Carré (Starred Review)

"As a graphic artist, Carré carries forward the design tradition that stems from the gossamer surrealism of Cocteau; as a verbal artist, she may be the most successful prose poet going. . . Her Wanda Gág–meets–Gene Deitch drawing style and new-weirdness literary bent make her work acutely interesting to both read and scrutinize." —Ray Olson

Blacklung by Chris Wright (Starred Review)

"Wright shows he’s got a deep arsenal of storytelling weapons at his command. Unsettling, upsetting, and strangely touching, Wright’s story arrives at something humane and emotionally true through a sea of aberrance and terror." —Ian Chipman

Spacehawk by Basil Wolverton

"Spacehawk's stories may be absurd concoctions of primitive space opera and already-established tropes of the nascent superhero genre, but Wolverton's solid,elemental drawings-already evincing his distinctive use of stippling-combined with his intuitive design sense have a raw power that is rare among comic books of the era and impresses even today." —Gordon Flagg

As the final embers of the Yule log die down, that wad of Christmas cash is starting to feel mighty warm in your pocket, isn't it? We're here to help you avoid unsightly burn holes in your pants and get what you really wanted for Christmas by offering 20% OFF everything on our website (including our already-discounted clearance items and gift sets) Wednesday, December 26 through Saturday, December 29, 2012! Just use the coupon code FANTACLAUS when you check out and you'll receive 20% off everything in your order. (If you prefer to shop by phone, just mention this offer when you call — 1-800-657-1100 or 206-524-1967 outside the U.S., 9 AM to 5 PM Monday-Friday.) 20/20 Club members get a double-shot discount of 36%, so join up if you haven't already.

Need some suggestions?

In a classic mood? Blast off with Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk. Start your EC Comics Library collection with Harvey Kurtzman and Wallace Wood volumes. Stay in the Christmas spirit with Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy and Carl Barks's Donald Duck.

Thinking contemporary? Catch up with the Hernandez Brothers' latest Love and Rockets. Prepare for the President's second term with Steven Weissman's Barack Hussein Obama. Sail the bloody seas with Chris Wright's Blacklung. Meet the Great Emancipator in Noah Van Sciver's The Hypo. Take a chance on Lilli Carré's Heads or Tails — either way you win.

And that's less than 1% of our catalog! Shop shop shop!

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery curator Larry Reid joined Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn last Friday at the ribbon cutting ceremony marking the re-opening of the Airport Way Bridge at the north entrance to the Georgetown business district. While Reid had imagined wielding scissors on a Claes Oldenburg scale, the more modest pair did the job. So patrons again have an unobstructed route to the store. Following the snipping exercise, the Mayor dropped by the bookstore for some Christmas shopping. (To avoid tipping off the gift recipients, we won’t disclose his purchases – but he displayed excellent taste in comix.) Store is open until 4:00 PM on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, closed for Christmas and New Year’s Day. Seasons greetings.

Huzzah! The Complete Syndicated Pogo Vol. 2: "Bonafide Balderdash" by Walt Kelly has hit the NY Times "Graphic Novels Best Sellers list" (hardcover). George Gene Gustines highlighted Pogo and its many qualities and quirks about this funny strip set in Okefenokee Swamp. The rest of the list is here but you'll notice no other funny animals!

As with every year we've been diligently compiling our books' appearances on end-of-year lists and for your browsing and shopping reference we have created a handy page of 2012 Critics' Picks, listing books that are being chosen by critics, fellow artists, readers and other comics professionals as the Best of 2012. (See also the 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 lists — these lists can also be found under "Award Winners" in our "Browse Shop" navigation tab.) This page will continue expanding as the year winds down and into the new year and more lists are announced.

If you're a critic, blogger, pundit and/or enthusiast who's putting together your own Best of 2012 list and need to be reminded which of your favorite Fantagraphics titles were released this year (and there's a lot of them), by all means use our complete and up-to-date 2012 Releases section as your guide. (Note that this list includes multipacks which may contain previous years' releases.)

Ever since her performance at our Love and Rockets Anniversary Party, we've just been entranced by artist and musician Geneviève Castrée!

And for a limited time only, we have some of her comics and music for sale at the store, including this particularly exquisite album, recorded under the alias Woelv for K Records in 2007.

Not only does this record feature Geneviève's beautifully haunting music, but it also comes with a 60-page book of her lovely illustrations that exists to better understand the stories that are melodically expressed in her songs.

This entire record is sung in the French language, so if you're not Kim Thompson, you can read the translations of the lyrics included in the book, which is greatly recommended by Geneviève.

The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.  Open until 4:00 PM on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve; closed on Christmas and New Year's Day.