Pretty book alert! The first bound copy of Lilli Carré's story collection Heads or Tails showed up at the office late last week. It's a gorgeous package containing Lilli's short stories from Mome and elsewhere, along with new material. With a unique visual style and a literary, poetic storytelling sensibility, along with an experimental streak informed by her work in illustration and animation, Lilli is a singular young talent and we're thrilled to be collecting her comics work. The book is due in early November, give or take. Stay tuned for more previews & sneak peeks; learn more about the book and pre-order a copy (with a money-saving offer on Lilli's acclaimed 2008 debut The Lagoon) here.

Sadly, I was out of town when the show first opened, so yesterday was my first look at our latest exhibit Game Over: Failed Alternative Video Games, and holy heck -- it's a winner!

Inspired by video game journalist Bob Mackey's piece for 1Up.com, our very own Jen Vaughn conceptualized the “box art” of some of our most famous graphic novels reimagined as failed videogame adaptations. For example...

How about Prison Pit for the Xbox 360? As Jen puts it, "even gorier than Mortal Kombat!" The box detail that cracked me up? "No quests here." Ain't that the truth!

Speaking of quests, who wouldn't want to try out Dungeon Quest: Book Three for the Wii? Introducing new playable character, Lou the Little Forest Man! The box detail that made me laugh here: "Skip that next bag of weed and save up for Dungeon Quest 3..." HEE!

If you live outside of Seattle and can't make it to the show, you can check out more of Jen's hilarious and awesome adapations over on the Fantagraphics Flickr. 

But if you do live around Seattle, don't let it be game over for you! You have until Wednesday, September 5th to check out the show. The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at Airport Way S. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

 The freshest fried-this-morning Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: Tucker Stone on The Comics Journal gives a thumbs-up to Dungeon Quest Vol. 3 by Joe Daly. "Dungeon Quest–the mumbling stoner counterpart to its methed up metal freak cousin, Prison Pit–has a whole new stack of penis-obsessed pages to play with. It’s tempting to single out one part of this volume to label as best, but that temptation dissipates upon the realization that it’s going to be impossible to pick a winner."

• Review: BookGasm raves about Jacques Tardi's New York Mon Amour.  JT Lindroos says, "It shuffles in elements from Tardi’s other books, but distills those familiar ingredients into a wholly unique concoction. . . It’s a love letter to an imaginary city bursting with life, depression and death, a city you love to observe from a distance."

• Interview (audio): BoingBoing's podcast Gweek features Joshua Glenn, editor of Significant Objects, and Top Shelf cartoonist Ed Piskor.

• Plug: Noah Van Sciver finished out the TCJ Comic Diary week with a visit by Gary Groth. Heidi MacDonald of The Beat said nice things about The Hypo: "an extremely well researched look at Abraham Lincoln’s early days as a depressed young lawyer, will be one of the buzz books of the fall."

• Plug: Bleeding Cool and Rich Johnston show off some pages from Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust, coming out this fall.

• Interview: Editor of the Steve Ditko and Bill Everett Archives, Blake Bell, shows up on the Distinguished Comic Book Podcast to talk about Ditko, Bill Everett, and the Secret History of Marvel Comics. 

• Plug: Robot 6 and Bridget Alverson are excited for both the upcoming Wilfred Santiago books on Michael Jordan and John Brown. "If the images are any indication, Santiago is busting out from the limited palette he used for the Clemente book to full, brilliant color, applied in a bold, painterly style."

• Plug: The Covered blog continues to highlight new versions of Love and Rockets covers. This time it's L&R #50 drawn by Robert Goodin. Check out Goodin's eerie treatment of a classic.

• Plug: The Love and Rockets Northeast Tour is mentioned on BoingBoing. Thanks, Marc!

• Interview: Casey Burbach interviews editor John Benson on fanzine Squa Tront's issue #13 (forty years after issue #1 came out) and the EC collections that have been published: "I thought that the color in the latest “EC Archives” series was pretty bad, at least in the book that I saw – not appropriate for comics of that era. . . The Fantagraphics series will be produced with quality and taste, I’m sure. Hopefully, with a different distribution set-up, going into bookstores, they may also reach a new audience."

• Review (audio): The Comic Books are Burning in Hell podcast recently chatted up Johnny Gruelle's Mr. Twee-Deedle edited by Rick Marschall. Around the 38 minute mark is where they predict ". . . it'll wind up a real contender for 2012's 'thru the cracks' award for most sadly obscure release. . ." Let's avoid ANY books falling through the cracks, check out this broadsheet-sized wonder today!

• Review: The Australian checks out Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons, edited by Kelly Gerald. Owen Heitmann says, "Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons is primarily of historical interest, documenting the early development of the first postwar female writer to merit inclusion in the Library of America series. Editor Kelly Gerald has taken this archival approach to heart, reproducing apparently every extant example of O'Connor's cartooning, even doodles from later handwritten letters."

Chris Wright writes: "My second book, and first 'graphic novel' Blacklung, will, if all goes according to plan, be debuting at SPX in September. I didn’t feel like drawing new comics one day, so I drew these promotional poster type things instead." It'd be nice to have some printed copies to give away at our SPX table — I'll see if we can make that happen. In the meantime, you can read a 12-page excerpt and pre-order a copy of the book right here.

"A bunch of large, intricate drawings" by Ron Regé Jr. from his upcoming Fantagraphics release The Cartoon Utopia are on exhibit as part of the "Shangri-LA" art show curated by Mike Kelley opening at Synchronicity Space in L.A. tonight which explores notions of... Utopia! Turn your head upside-down and you'll see that Ron is also giving a lecture at the gallery next Friday, August 24 at 7PM. More info here.

The Raven (Softcover Ed.)
by Lorenzo Mattotti & Lou Reed

166-page full-color 9" x 9" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-585-3

Ships in: September 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

In 2000, veteran rock 'n' roller Lou Reed, legendary director Robert Wilson, and a cast of singers and actors premiered Reed's musical POEtry in Hamburg's Thalia Theater.

An ambitious combination of Edgar Allen Poe's poems and stories and Reeds reinterpretations of same (with a few classic Reed songs such as "Perfect Day" and "The Bed" integrated for good measure, POEtry bridged the centuries to provide a unique vision of beauty and horror for the dawning 21st century.

In 2003, Reed released (under the title The Raven) a double CD reprising the musical, featuring an all-star cast of singers and actors including Steve Buscemi, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson. Willem Dafoe, and the Blind Boys of Alabama, as well as an edited single-CD version focusing on the songs.

Now, for the definitive book version compiling the songs, verses and narratives that comprise POEtry/The Raven, Reed has personally commissioned legendary Italian illustrator and cartoonist Lorenzo Mattotti (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stigmata) to visualize this extraordinary collaboration. Mattotti's vivid, abstracted and enigmatic artwork brings out all the terror and beauty of this centuries-spanning masterwork.

For our edition of this book, we enlisted Grammy Award-nominated designer Jesse LeDoux to create the striking jacket design.

16-page excerpt (download 2.2 MB PDF) including the Table of Contents and Reed's foreword (also read our exclusive interview with Lorenzo Mattotti):

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

The First Division Museum at Cantigny is right on target with their fantastic new exhibit saluting Bill Mauldin and his famous characters Willie & Joe!

Titled Drawing Fire: Bill Mauldin and the WWII GI, this exhibit tells the GI story using Mauldin’s cartoons and the some of the museum’s extensive but rarely seen World War II collection. 

Visitors will see more than forty of Mauldin’s cartoons and a variety of artifacts including personal objects carried by soldiers, equipment, decorations, and letters written home during the war. In addition, an interactive allows visitors to hear German weapons and artillery that GIs would have faced. 

The exhibit runs through Monday, September 3rd. The First Division Museum at Cantigny is located at 1s151 Winfield Road in Wheaton, IL. 

Hat tip to The Comics Reporter for letting us know about this event!

Barack Hussein Obama
by Steven Weissman

112-page full-color 7.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $22.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-623-2

Ships in: September 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

What does it mean to live in America today? If you know there’s no right answer to that question, you’ll want to read Barack Hussein Obama — a book about you; about your country, your family, your president.

Barack Hussein Obama is not a graphic novel. It’s neither a biography nor an experiment, but a whole, fully-realized parallel America, a dada-esque, surrealistic satirical vision that is no more cockeyed than the real thing, its weirdness no more weird, its vision of the world no more terrifying, where the zombie-esque simulacra of Joe Biden and Hillary and Newt and Obama wander, if not exactly through the corridors of power, through an America they made and have to live in, like it or not.

American cartoonist Steven Weissman takes from the lives of the leader of the free world, his friends, his family, his sworn enemies, and gives them a new life that is both withering and oblique, devastating and contemplative, chaotic and pellucid.

Before you lose your will to vote, read Barack Hussein Obama.

13-page excerpt (download 6.3 MB PDF):

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

I've been waiting for a chance to use this pic... // photo credit: Joshin Yamada, Stumptown 2012

Word on the street is Peter Bagge is heading to Vancouver for the Word on the Street National Book & Magazine Festival! 

Join Pete on Sunday, September 30th at Western Canada's largest celebration of words and reading. He'll be signing at the "Authors Tent" at 1:30 PM, and at "The Word Under The Street" on 3:30 PM.

This literary celebration is FREE and open to the public, so grab the kids, and c'mon down!

The Word on the Street Festival is held in Library Square, right in the heart of the Entertainment district downtown. Library Square is across the street from the Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver and the CBC Plaza, near the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The block is easily accessible by bus or on foot from neighbouring areas like Chinatown, Yaletown and downtown.

Yeah, yeah, this week is almost over, but I wanted to let you know...

Anders at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery // more photos from that event

Friday, August 17th

• Chicago, IL:  Remember that art show I was telling y'all about from Anders Nilsen? He returns to the Elmhurst Art Museum this week for a slideshow presentation and artist talk this Friday! (more info)