photo credit: Jacob Covey

Join Joe Sacco tomorrow, Tuesday, April 24th, for a discussion on "Comics and Journalism" at Duke University in Durham, NC!

He'll be speaking starting at 5:00 PM in Duke's East Campus in the White Lecture Hall, 107. This event is free and open to the public.

This is the week all our heads explode:

 Tuesday, April 24th 

• Portland, OR:  T Edward Bak will deliver a presentation on WILD MAN: The Strange Journey and Fantastic Account of the Naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, which was serialized in Mome!  He'll be joined by artist Vera Brosgol at the Portland Central Library. (more info)

• Durham, NC: Joe Sacco will discuss "Comics and Journalism" at Duke University! More info about this event coming to the FLOG today!

Thursday, April 26th 

• New York City, NY: Award-winning Austrian cartoonist and animator Nicolas Mahler will be a special guest at the Austrian Cultural Forum. It'll be the worldwide debut of Angelman: Fallen Angel, his first book to be released in English in six years! More info about this event on the FLOG soon!

Friday, April 27th  

• Brooklyn, NY: The Scott Eder Gallery hosts the opening reception of Drew Friedman: My Way, his very first New York gallery show of comic strip and illustration art! It's also the official re-release party for the hotly-anticipated Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, Drew's first anthology, co-written by Josh Alan Friedman.   (more info)

Friday, April 27th  

• Brooklyn, NY: Desert Island hosts a pre-MoCCA International soirée (see?) with Jason, Nicolas Mahler, and Olivier Schrauwen, along with Matt Forsythe and Tom Gauld! More info about this event coming to the FLOG soon!

Saturday, April 28th  

• New York City, NY: Ohmygod, it's the 2012 MoCCA Fest at the Lexington Avenue Armory with special guests Bendik Kaltenborn, Drew Friedman, Fredrik Strömberg, Hans Rickheit, Jason, Josh Simmons, Kim Deitch, Michael Kupperman, Nicolas Mahler, Olivier Schrauwen, and Peter Kielland! More, more MoCCA details are coming to the FLOG today!

• Portland, OR: Holy crap, it's the Stumptown Comics Fest, with special guests Peter Bagge and Stan Sakai! Stay tuned for more details right here on the FLOG!

Sunday, April 29th  

• Detroit, MI: It's the closing day of the acclaimed Joshua White and Gary Panter’s Light Show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit! (more info)

• Utica, NY: It's your last chance to see the exhibit LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute! (more info)

• New York City, NY: It's your last day to swing by the Lexington Avenue Armory for MoCCA to meet special guests Bendik Kaltenborn, Fredrik Strömberg, Hans Rickheit, Jason, Josh Simmons, Kim Deitch, Michael Kupperman, Nicolas Mahler, Olivier Schrauwen, and Peter Kielland!

• Portland, OR: And it's your last day to hit the Stumptown Comics Fest, with special guests Peter Bagge and Stan Sakai!

Now in stock in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Popeye Vol. 6: "Me Li'l Swee'Pea"
by E.C. Segar

188-page black & white/color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-483-2

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Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Alas, E.C. Segar, arguably the funniest cartoonist to ever lay ink on paper, died at the age of 44, leaving less that a decade’s worth of strips featuring his immortal creation Popeye — so this sixth volume of Segar’s Popeye is in fact the final one, enabling collectors to add the last “E” to the P-O-P-E-Y-E spelled out on the spines of Fantagraphics’ smashing collection.

This final volume starts off in grand style with “Mystery Melody,” featuring the terrifying return of the shape-shifting Sea Hag. Olive Oyl, Wimpy, Poop- deck Pappy, the Jeep, the newly domesticated Goon, and Toar all appear in this four-month epic, as does Bolo, the latest in Segar’s cast of massive Popeye opponents.

Other stories include the melodramatic “A Sock for Susan’s Sake” (Popeye becomes the protector of a girl who lives on the streets), Popeye’s boxing duel with King Smacko, the return of Thimble Theatre’s original star Castor Oyl as a detective who solves the case of “Plastic Pan,” the Poopdeck Pappy yarn “Wild Oats” (culminating in a six-month prison sentence for the rambunctious oldster), “The Valley of the Goons” (in which Popeye is shocked to discover who the new leader of the Goons is), and the self-explanatory “King Swee’Pea.”

And that’s just the dailies! Popeye Volume 6 also includes 62 splendid full-page full-color Sundays, featuring further adventures of Popeye and an epically surreal six-month interplanetary voyage for Sappo, the star of Popeye’s “top strip.” The supplementary features include two historical articles by Popeye expert Rick Marschall (one on Popeye’s translation to the world of licensing and merchandising, and one on Segar’s place in comics and pop culture history), an illustrated Segar-written biography of Popeye originally serialized in newspapers of the time, and more rare art and photos.

Download and read a 15-page PDF excerpt (27.2 MB) with 10 pages of dailies and 5 pages of Sundays.

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Record collecting was an engagement with mystery. [Pat] Thomas understands this and his book, Listen, Whitey, which documents the pieces -- both lauded and obscure -- of the recording element within the Black Power movement of the 1960s and ‘70s.... These small discs were part of the overall effort that allowed African Americans to get real information about the Black Power Movement, to let them know they weren't alone, to show them ways to be involved, to stoke ideas and energy, and to provide catharsis. Thomas mines this territory to construct a richly illustrated history of a time when revolution was damn hard, and it left reminders that it once existed." – John Seven, North Adams Transcript

• Scene: At SLUG Magazine, Chris Proctor reports from Kevin Avery's book reading of Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson at Salt Lake City's The King's English bookshop: "Hearing him read these quotes aloud brought to life the already clear picture I had of Nelson from reading Avery’s book myself."

• Scene: Culture blogger Philip Utley of Kellygreen reviews the Daniel Clowes retrospective exhibit — "There’s a quiet, clever intelligence to his work. He can also be harsh and sexually frank. Which, of course, totally offends me. So, when a show of his work came to the newly renovated Oakland Museum of California, I pulled out my dildo and jumped in the car." — with a bunch of close-up photos of the artwork

It's a homecoming tonight for our editor Pat Thomas, who is back in town in the middle of his book tour for Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975!

And it's an extra special event, because it's also a benefit for the Life Enrichment Bookstore, Seattle's only Black-owned and operated bookstore. It has been in business for more than 17 years and has provided healing, history, support, and transformation through educational workshops, book clubs, and celebrations.

Join Pat there tonight, Friday, April 20th, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM! He will be doing a reprise of the tremendous multimedia presentation for Listen, Whitey! that he did at Washington Hall last month.

He will be joined by special guest, Aaron Dixon, the founder of the Seattle Black Panther Party back in the '60s.  His lecture will capture first-hand knowledge of the legendary Black Panthers, as well as Seattle’s contemporary African-American landscape.

Pat will also be joined by Dr. Maxine Mimms, founder of the Tacoma campus of Evergreen State College, which has provided the Black community of Tacoma the opportunity of the Evergreen college experience. In the early 1960’s, when she taught in Seattle, one of her students was Jimi Hendrix!

This is sure to be a very special night to benefit a very special bookstore!  Proceeds will help keep the Life Enrichment Bookstore thriving as a business and gathering place for village building activities. The Life Enrichment Bookstore is located at 5023 Rainier Avenue South in Seattle.

[UPDATE: The Seattle Weekly recommends it! –Ed.]

Now in stock in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion
by Hans Rickheit

144-page black & white/color 7" x 10" softcover • $18.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-509-9

See Previews / Order Now

Lovers of art comics know Hans Rickheit from his smashing graphic novel The Squirrel Machine (2008), but Rickheit has, for over a decade, been producing his own self-published comics — reaching into the deepest cupboards of the back-mind and culling these strange artifacts. He has been a basement-dweller, gallery troll, and a purveyor of forbidden notions. Originally distributed into the world as Xeroxed pamphlets, these “underground comix” reflect the true nature of its nomenclature: Here are the archeological findings of the subterranean ruins of the psyche. Finally, these scattered elements have been compiled into a compact, lushly illustrated bedside reader. Give your cerebellum a tug and become a spelunker of the subconscious as we trespass among the scorched archaic wastelands of the offspring of apes and fools. Here we find the profane, beautiful progeny of prurient ideals. Immerse yourself in the nocturnal meanderings of unnamed protagonists. Ponder the uncomfortable sexuality of the twins, Cochlea & Eustachia. Recoil at the doings of a dwarfish malefactor in "Hail Jeffrey," or simply stare at the pretty pictures. Suffice to say that readers of The Squirrel Machine will not be disappointed.

The author instructs you not misuse this tome. Poke it gently with a long stick, if you must. Careful, it might ruin the carpet. Placate it with a belly-rub or sweet pastry before it attacks the children. Don’t worry, your tongue won’t stick. If it fits, don’t shove it in too quickly. Keep it as your own cherished object; a shameful, guarded secret. The filter for reality’s blinding glare. Detritus of the Under-Brain. The Unspeakable Thing You Always Knew.

Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion. By one of the most inscrutable and discomfiting cartoonists alive.

14-page excerpt (download 1.1 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: For The Guardian, comics creators Bryan & Mary Talbot select their top 10 graphic memoirs, with Joe Sacco's Palestine at #4: "Sacco was trained as a journalist and singlehandedly created the genre of reportage in graphic novel form. Immersing himself in a situation, his in-depth reports use the medium of comics to its full potential. Like his Safe Area Gorazde or recent Footnotes in Gaza, Palestine follows his experiences as he investigates events and interviews residents, explaining the history, politics and dynamics of the place as he goes along. The palpable sense of place and the feeling that we're in the presence of the people who relate their experiences to him (and therefore to us) is a testament to his storytelling skills, his work being far more intimate than that of a filmed documentary. Sacco is a master of this medium."

• Feature: "Compiling the book was a learning experience for Thomas... 'They (the Panthers) switched from a gun-toting paramilitary organization to a more community-based entity offering free food, clothing, and medical care,' he says. And, perhaps, this may be Listen, Whitey!’s biggest strength — and greatest contribution — to future discourse about this topic that has been so distorted and misrepresented in its presentation to the consciousness of mainstream America. Maybe now, 40 years after the histrionics and exaggeration, enough time has passed so the emergence of Black consciousness can be scrutinized with a measure of clarity." – Gregg Reese, Our Weekly

• Interview: At The Atlantic, Steven Heller has a Q&A with Daniel Clowes: "I was trying to get work as an illustrator in the '80s, but no art directors actually ever called, which is what led me to throw up my hands in despair and slink back to comics. Originally, I was hoping to find a writer to collaborate with, since I was much more interested in the drawing part of the equation, but that didn't work out. And so I began writing my own stories."

• Plug: Lee Wind of the wonderfully-named blog I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? spotlights Shimura Takako's Wandering Son Vol. 1

Walt Kelly was old school: When he drew his comics, he first sketched them out in light blue pencil, and then proceeded to delineate them in his legendarily lush ink line. One huge advantage of this system was that he didn't have to erase any pencil lines (all that erasin' time adds up). Here is a sample.

Another advantage is that it made them really cool looking! Carolyn Kelly, the editor of the POGO series, thinks so too, and since she had a selection of original POGO art from the strip's first years, she scanned several images that featured those blue lines and used them as graphic elements in the first volume.

We would like to continue this design element, but as it happens, Carolyn's stash of POGO originals for the next several years' worth of strips is very limited. So we are hereby putting out a call to all POGO collectors: If you have any originals (dailies or Sundays, but Sundays especially since they often contain such lush imagery), particularly for 1952 through 1955 since that covers our next two volumes (but pretty much any years would be great), do please contact us! In exchange for a scan of your precious collectible, we will be happy to send you copies of the book it appears in.

In this month's issue of Booklist you can find reviews of three of our recent releases, excerpted below:

Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 1, edited by Blake Bell: "Dating from 1938–42, most [stories] feature superheroes designed to compete with the then-new Superman, such as Amazing-Man, who gained his powers from the Tibetan monks who raised him; the Flash Gordon-derived Skyrocket Steele; and Hydroman, who could transform himself into a waterspout. The stories and artwork are laughably crude by modern standards, although no more so than those in other comic books from the period. But even the earliest ones show traces of the sleek polish that would become Everett’s hallmark. By the later stories, his mature style is firmly in place, a sign that future volumes in the series will be of even greater interest." – Gordon Flagg

Krazy & Ignatz 1922-1924: At Last My Drim of Love Has Come True by George Herriman: "Herriman’s graphically dazzling, ineffably beguiling creation remains unequaled a century after its first appearance, and the 13 volumes amassing his three decades’ worth of fanciful Sunday funnies are mandatory purchases for any comics-art collection. This volume is filled out with Herriman rarities, including his first daily comic strips, from 1903, and the full run of Us Husbands, a far-more-conventional Sunday strip about married life that Herriman drew throughout 1926." – Gordon Flagg

The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD-Inspired Saritical Comics, edited by John Benson: "MAD historian Benson presents 32 stories and nine covers from the copycats fielded by nine publishers, and at the end of the book discusses them. If you read the stories before the notes and you’re a devotee of the early MAD, you’ll have recognized the imitative qualities Benson points out, such as how MAD’s Jack Davis and Bill Elder had the drawing styles that were aped, and how Elder’s habit of adding what he called chicken fat — jokey signs, bits of business going on in the background, incongruous decoration — to every panel was swallowed whole by the knockoffs. But as Benson tells us, none of the pretenders quite 'got' MAD or, more important, its nearly sole writer, Harvey Kurtzman, whose all-important 'touch' lay in his jaundiced, derisive, smart attitude toward American commercial culture. Prime Americana." – Ray Olson

Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition, the deluxe, slipcased two-volume hardcover set collecting the complete first decade of Stan Sakai's long-running, beloved series, with bonus materials including a color cover gallery, a career-spanning interview and more, has sold through its print run and is now a collectible. However! We have received a small shipment of dent-and-ding copies returned from the distributor, so if you don't mind a slipcase with a bonked corner or other superficial damage and you love bargains, good news because you can buy one of them for $50 — that's half price — from our mail-order department or from the fabled back room at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. Fifty bucks for 1,160 pages of top-notch comics and fascinating bonus features is a heck of a deal, and we don't imagine these will last long, so don't delay!