We're busy as bees getting ready for our Spring conventions! MoCCA! Stumptown! TCAF! Here are some other fine events to keep you busy in the meanwhile:

Tuesday, April 17th 

•  New York City, NY: The legendary Gahan Wilson will be teaching a Master Class in Cartooning at MoCCA! (more info)

Still from "In Suspense" by Lilli Carré

Friday, April 20th 

• Chicago, IL: Lilli Carré launches her exhibit Moving Holds at Western Exhibitions! More information about this show is coming to the FLOG this week! 

Saturday, April 21st

• Boston, MA: The 2012 Boston Comic Con kicks off today, with special guests Peter Bagge and Al Jaffee! (more info)

Sunday, April 22nd

• Kyoto, Japan:  The exhibit Three Sides Chicago: Squares, Squirrels & Dots, featuring Archer Prewitt, alongside Sam Prekop and Eric Claridge, closes at the Trancepop Gallery. (more info)

• Boston, MA: The 2012 Boston Comic Con continues today with special guests Peter Bagge and Al Jaffee! Plus, Al will be part of the panel "Legends of Mad Magazine" with Al Feldstein and Paul Coker Jr. (more info)

Thank you to everyone who came out to the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery for the opening reception of our new exhibit, “Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics” with our special guest, Michel Gagné (seen above), editor of our brand new collection of the same title!

Gagné's interpretive exhibit features enlarged examples of Simon and Kirby’s romance comics, which he spent five years restoring for this gorgeous new collection.

Michel gave a great presentation on his delicate restoration process, which you can watch below (YouTube link)! WARNING: I have to apologize -- I'm not the best filmographer, and as the sun was setting in Seattle, the lighting in the video gets kinda weird. But please don't let the lousy lighting detract from Michel's great presentation -- it's really fascinating to hear how he cleaned up all those old images and restored them for this book!

Also, our exhibit features an original Jack Kirby page from 1967's "Fantastic Four #65," thanks to Gary Groth, of course!

“Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby’s Romance Comics” will be available for viewing through May 9, 2012, and you can get the book any ol' time! If you can't make it to Seattle, check out more photos of the exhibit at the Fantagraphics Flickr! The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) just minutes from downtown Seattle. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00. Phone 206.658.0110.

Photo by Christina Foxley, courtesy The Strand Bookstore NYC

Learn cartooning from the master himself! The legendary Gahan Wilson will be teaching a special Master Class this Tuesday, April 17th in New York City!

Join Gahan at MoCCA from 7:00 to 9:00 PM as he shows and tells you how to make your own humorous cartoons. Using his own life and career as reference points, Gahan will give you pointers and advice about the art and business of cartooning that only this master of the medium can provide.

Classes are held at MoCCA, located at 594 Broadway, Suite 401 (between Houston and Prince) in New York City. Click here to register, or give 'em a call at 212-254-3511.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental [New Edition]
by Drew Friedman & Josh Alan Friedman

http://www.fantagraphics.com/anysimilarity

88-page black & white 9.25" x 12.25" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-521-1

See Previews / Order Now

Finally back in print, Any Similarity... is a collection of Drew Friedman’s earliest comic strips and illustrations, featuring his most obsessively stippled black-and-white panels and his most hilarious wise-guy takes on the stars and demi-stars and never-quite-stars of that swamp we like to call showbiz.

In these strips, many of them written by his brother Josh Alan Friedman (both are sons of the legendary Bruce Jay Friedman: humor genes will tell!), the artist works out his obsession with such celebrities as Jim Nabors, Frank Sinatra Jr., Joe Franklin, Bob Hope, Andy Griffith... and Ed Wood, Jr. film star Tor Johnson, whom Friedman actually catapulted back into some sort of semi-fame when these strips were first published in the 1980s.

Friedman is the kind of pop-culture aficionado whose Three Stooges worship is focused not on Moe, Larry or Curly but on Shemp (whose unmistakable mug graces the new cover of this edition), and whose teasing adoration can often be mistaken for mockery or contempt. But who but a worshipful fan would lavish quite so many dots on the loving delineation of these greats’ every pimple and wrinkle?

“I stand in awe of Drew Friedman’s technique and the certain flavor of sad old America he captures.” – R. Crumb

10-page excerpt (download 3.5 MB PDF):

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

Today's (and yesterday's when it was slow) Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The Dutch artist and designer Joost Swarte has a tremendous reputation among cartoon-art aficionados, given his tiny body of comics work. The answer to the title of his 40-year retrospective, Is That All There Is?, is: 'Pretty much, yeah.'... Plot is beside the point. Swarte is more concerned with formal purity, and with making the deep structures of cartooning visible. He pares his art to mechanical, hard-edged vectors and curves: caricature triple-distilled into symbolic visual shorthand, with every line canted just so. His geometrically precise, nearly architectural drawings are the bridge between the Tintin creator Hergé and contemporary artists like Chris Ware, who wrote this volume’s foreword." – Douglas Wolk, The New York Times

• Review: "Now we're talkin'! The first two volumes in Fantagraphics' Steve Ditko Archives (edited by Blake Bell) were rewarding collections of the offbeat auteur's early work, and among the best archival books of horror comics published in the last several years. But in volume 3, a.k.a. Mysterious Traveler, we see Ditko's lunacy reach its full maturation... The bold dynamism and moody linework that would characterize Ditko's Spider-Man and Dr. Strange work just a few years later, as well as his horror tales for Creepy and Eerie, is in evident throughout.... Volume 3 is essential for classic horror comics fans, and further cements Ditko's reputation as an artist without peer." – Joseph McCabe, FearNet

• Review: "Kevin Avery has compiled an incredibly thorough account of one of folk and rock music’s most important critics of the 20th Century: Paul Nelson. Avery reveals Paul Nelson as not just a music critic, but also a true writer who loved his subject matter possibly more than anything else. After reading, I felt that I knew more about Nelson than simply his life’s accomplishments—I knew him as the man he was: an observer who secluded himself with his books, film and music." – SLUG Magazine

• Review: "Madcap university mystery. Girl detective Judy Drood, with the hapless Kasper Keene, investigates the disappearances of girls on campus. Beautiful young women (some dressed like pirates), monstrous old men (some of them professors), photography, a puppet, and a misguided quest for eternal youth all figure in.... The dark edge in Sala’s other work is fully expressed here [in Mad Night]. The book is incredibly violent (though the dark, woodcut-like art makes it feel absurd). Here’s a body count by how victims meet their end..." – Gene Ambaum, The Unshelved Book Club

• Plug: "Published three years ago in an indie porn comic, Josh Simmons’ 'Cockbone' remains a high water mark for today’s horror comic.... The Furry Trap will collect that story, along with ten others being described by the publisher as 'hard-edged horror.' You already know if you can handle this stuff, so if you can, it’s time to start counting days. Eli is, most definitely, coming." – Tucker Stone, "Flavorpill's 10 Most Anticipated Comics Releases, April-July 2012"

• Plug: "While it’s a bit of an exaggeration to call Dal Tokyo Panter’s lost masterpiece, it certainly hasn’t been the easiest thing to come by. That’s to be the case for anything that’s serialized over the course of multiple years, multiple publications, and two different continents. Thankfully, the entire book has finally found a home at Fantagraphics, and those of us without access to early-’80s copies of the LA Reader can finally experience 'a future Mars that is terraformed by Texan and Japanese workers' as only Gary Panter — one of the most influential cartoonists alive — can provide. For some of us, this book has been a long time coming." – Tucker Stone, "Flavorpill's 10 Most Anticipated Comics Releases, April-July 2012"

• Interview (Audio): "Listen and see how well I survived this one! The interviewer grilled my ass off," says Pat Thomas of his interview today on KUOW Presents to discuss Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 and in particular former Black Panther leader Elaine Brown

• Interview (Audio): Yesterday's Pat Thomas radio guest spot to discuss and spin Listen, Whitey! on The Hear and Now on Berkeley's listener-powered KPFA can be streamed from their website for another couple of weeks

• Interview (Audio): Stream last week's chat and DJ set with Listen, Whitey! author Pat Thomas on KCRW with host Mathieu Schreyer, who says "This book is a great read and the topic is ever relevant."

Contest: Read the winning stories (and all the other entrants) in Studio 360's Significant Objects Story Contest

• List: Who are the Top Ten Oregon Cartoonists? Anne Richardson of the Oregon Movies, A to Z blog lists Oil and Water artist Shannon Wheeler among them

• Analysis (Video): At his  blog, Paul Hornschemeier shares video of two "talks given during my recent graphic novelist's residency at Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. Tammy Birk (Professor of English, Otterbein University) discusses themes in Mother, Come Home while Ryan Jordan (Department of Philosophy, The Ohio State University) examines the nature of paradoxes in general, using Zeno's paradoxes in The Three Paradoxes as a launching point."

• Analysis: At where else but The Hooded Utilitarian: "'Lightning Only Strikes Twice Once, Y'Know': Phallic Mothers, Fetishism, and Replacement in the Comics of Los Bros Hernandez," Part I (focusing on Gilbert's work) and Part II (focusing on Jaime), by Eric Berlatsky

Not only does the Threadless t-shirt company keep us lookin' good, but now they're also helping defend our first amendment rights with a benefit for the mighty Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!

Tonight, Friday, April 13th, they'll be hosting the CBLDF/THREADLESS C2E2 Fashion Show Welcome Party, launching a colossal new "Comics-On-Tees" collection featuring artwork by Jeffrey Brown, Anders Nilsen, Paul Hornschemeier, and Jeff Lemire, based on a story from Jeffrey!

Raffle prizes will include a plethora of awesome Threadless swag, including original retail art, and great CBLDF items, including classic signed comics, exclusive prints, and more! Giant games of Mario Kart will be projected for attendees to play, with a guest DJ providing non-stop music, getting you in the mood for a weekend of comic con revelry. There will also be a “drawing wall” for ongoing Live Art throughout the night and plenty of beer, wine, and popcorn from the famous Threadless popper.

To top it all off, THREADLESS and CBLDF will announce a major project for 2012, expanding their fundraising partnership and creating something awesome for comic fans of every stripe. 

The CBLDF/THREADLESS C2E2 Fashion Show Welcome Party kicks off at 9:00 PM at The Threadless Atrium [ 1260 West Madison, Chicago ]. Free for card carrying CBLDF members, with a $20 suggested door donation for non-members. Sorry kiddoes, 21 and up only!

Hey Chicago! Stop whatever you're doing (yes, that means reading the FLOG) and go register for this NOW! Space is limited, and you do NOT want to miss out.

It's the Comics: Philosophy & Practice conference at the University of Chicago, held May 18th-20th.  And the line-up will make any comics-fan's head spin: it features Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Gary Panter, Joe Sacco, Carol Tyler, and Chris Ware, as well as Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel, Phoebe Gloeckner, Justin Green, Ben Katchor, Françoise Mouly, Seth, and Art Spiegelman... WOW.

Oh, and did I mention it's FREE? Why are you still reading this?! Registration opens TODAY (Friday, April 13th), but space is limited, so don't delay!

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

Krazy & Ignatz: The Complete Sunday Strips 1916-1924
by George Herriman

600-page black & white/color 9" x 12" hardcover • $95.00

See Previews / Order Now

Our final limited-edition deluxe Krazy hardcover (it's Volume 1, but the third to be published) collects the three Krazy & Ignatz softcover books which comprehensively compile the first nine years (1916 through 1924) of Krazy Kat Sunday strips, under hard covers. It's not a slipcase, it's a single hardcover book. The covers to the original three softcover books are NOT included, but literally everything else is, including nine years' worth of black-and-white masterpieces (and 10 color strips), plus all the bonuses (other rare strips, the entire Us Husbands). This is the one collectors have been waiting for, enabling you to complete your Krazy Sundays collection in three enormous, deluxe hardcover books designed by Chris Ware.

"The Krazy & Ignatz books have been a godsend to comics fans... Each book is bizarre, sweetly amusing, and blissfully continuity-free." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives," The A.V. Club

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

Krazy & Ignatz 1922-1924: At Last My Drim of Love Has Come True
by George Herriman

256-page black & white/color 9" x 12" softcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-477-1

See Previews / Order Now

Krazy Kat, with its eternally beguiling love triangle of kat/dog/mouse, its fantastically inventive language, and its haunting, minimalist desert décor, has consistently been rated the best comic strip ever created, and Fantagraphics’ award-winning series one of the best classic comic-strip reprint series ever published.

With our 13th volume, Krazy & Ignatz 1922-1924, the decades-in-the- making project of publishing every single Krazy Kat Sunday created by Herriman comes to a close. (Next: The dailies!)

While the Krazy Kat Sundays were created and published in black and white until 1935 (and therefore the majority of strips in this book are black and white), Herriman’s publisher did briefly experiment with running the strip in color in 1924, and all 10 of these rare full-color strips are presented here. The book also includes more rare photographs of Herriman, a “DeBaffling” section explaining period references and in-jokes, and the usual surprise “goodies” each of these volumes springs on their readers.

Krazy & Ignatz 1922-1924 includes the entire runs of Herriman’s early strip “Little Tommy Tattles” and his very first daily strip “Mrs. Waitaminnit,” which haven’t been printed in over a century. Also featured is the entire run of Herriman’s hilarious mid-20’s domestic comedy Sunday strip Us Husbands. And for the 13th and final time, the cover is by Chris Ware.

Download and read a 20-page PDF excerpt (12.1 MB).

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

Hot on the heels of its Eisner Award nomination for "Best Graphic Album – New," Mark Kalesniko's beautiful, ambitious and complex book Freeway has been named an honor book (i.e. runner-up) for the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize by a jury representing the Pennsylvania Center for the Book at Penn State University.

From the judges' comments:

"Kalesniko's vivid existentialist drama of the dog and his artistic dream reassuringly demonstrates that in comics, at least, creativity and originality continue to flourish and (with this honor award) receive their rightful recognition." – Susan Squier

"With allusions to the history of the classic studio animation, the use of anthropomorphism and a great relationship story, Freeway is a fantastic graphic novel." – John Secreto

"How do we get to where we want to be — in the workplace, in love, in life, on LA's tangle of freeways? Kalesniko's dog-faced protagonist lives and imagines dozens of possibilities for us in this melange, which offers both a staccato pace and a gentle lyricism. How ironic that the pursuit of happiness turns out to be something of a demolition derby." – Henry Pisciotta

"Every nomination list needs one book that pays homage to the 1960s Existentialist movement....  The art work is perfect for this tale of hopeless desperation and despair. It's great to see this theme again." – Glenn Masuchika

Congratulations Mark! We're also pleased that Paul Hornschemeier's Life with Mr. Dangerous, originally serialized in Mome, has received the same honor this year, which last year was bestowed upon Drew Weing's Set to Sea.