Steven Brower will be at the Spring 2011 WildPig Con in Somerset NJ this Sunday, April 3, to sign his books including From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin — don't miss it if you're in the area!

Comix fans will delight at the 20% discount coupon at Fantagraphics Bookstore running in the current issue of Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger. You'll find a stack of the papers right inside the door of the store.

The coupon applies to all the fabulous new and backlist books from Fantagraphics as well as those of our comix-publishing colleagues. We just received a shipment of classic comic strip volumes from IDW including Bloom County, Polly & Her Pals, Barney Google, Terry and the Pirates, Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, Rip Kirby, and L'il Abner. We have ample supplies of titles from Top Shelf, Drawn & Quarterly, First Second and others, not to mention terrific new tee shirts by Jim Blanchard, Basil Wolverton, and Jim Woodring. You'll even get an additional 20% off the books in our bulging half price room!

Drop by soon for bargain books and more at Fantagraphics Bookstore. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

Fantagraphics won't have a table at WonderCon 2011 this weekend, but attendees can get a behind-the-scenes look at a wonderful upcoming title of ours: Oil and Water, written by Steve Duin, a columnist for The Oregonian, and illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler.

Saturday, April 2nd, from 4:00-5:00 pm, in Room 220

Comics for Social Justice: The Making of Oil and Water: Oil and Water is a book-length comic (Fantagraphics, Fall 2010) that is a partly fictionalized account of a 10-day trip 22 Oregonians (activists, teachers, business owners, scientists and artists) took last summer to "bear witness" to the BP oil spill. Steve Duin (Comics: Between the Panels and Oregonian columnist) will briefly present the historic impact of comics on issues of contemporary social relevance. Mike Rosen (Portland to Gulf Coast Project Leader) will give a quick overview of why this project was conceived and what it hopes to accomplish. Shannon Wheeler (Too Much Coffee Man and cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine) will present his sketches from the Gulf Coast and show how he and Duin transformed them into a compelling portrait of what hope and challenges remain along a ravaged coastline, and one awash in both seafood and oil, that will be changed as irrevocably as those Oregonians that chose to bear witness to the tragedy. Q&A session to follow.

WonderCon 2011 runs this weekend from Friday, April 1st to Sunday, April 3rd at the Moscone Center South in San Francisco, CA.

We're bailing out our warehouse! We have a lot of brand new books coming in over the next couple of months (like, a LOT) and our warehouse manager has put together a nice big list of primo books for us to clear out to make room. From all-time classics to recent favorites to hidden gems, we've got nearly 100 titles on sale for at least 30% off from now through the end of the day Sunday (April 3)! (Sale prices not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.) There's too many to list here — go check it out and shop shop shop!