Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 15 & 16 • SPX, Bethesda, MD

Tuesday, Sept. 18 • Atomic Books, Baltimore, MD

Wednesday, Sept. 19 • Philadelphia Free Library, Philadelphia, PA

Friday, Sept. 21 • The Rock Shop, Brooklyn, NY

Sunday, Sept. 23rd • Brooklyn Book Festival, Brooklyn, NY

September 14th-23, the seminal Love and Rockets creators Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez will tour from Washington D.C. to Brooklyn as part of the 30th Anniversary of Love and Rockets. Signings and readings await the Northeast this fall.

First stop on the Love and Rockets train are signings at Politics and Prose Bookstore in D.C. Experience the plush bookstore and lush linework of the Hernandez Brothers starting at 7pm on Friday, September 14th.

Heading back to the small press scene, Jaime and Gilbert are special guests at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Sept 15 and 16th, with several signings at the Fantagraphics table at the convention throughout the weekend.

The following Tuesday, September 18th, the Hernandez Brothers will be signing at Atomic Books in Baltimore. Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 features a letter from Atomic Books' Ringmistress, Rachel Whang, who is also available for signing.

The Philadelphia Free Library proudly hosts Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez for a presentation in the Free Library's Montgomery Auditorium starting at followed by a Q & A session. After the talk, fans and friends can get their Love and Rockets books signed in the Library Lobby from 8:30-10:30 at night.

Friday nights may never be the same especially after September 21st when the avid fans of punk, the Hernandez Brothers, bring the house down at The Rock Shop starting at 7:30pm.

The Love and Rockets East Coast Tour will end with a stop at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 23rd. Gilbert Hernandez will join many other creators on The Sex Panel: Taboo in Pictures featuring obscenity, art and the area between the two. Meanwhile Jaime Hernandez stars on a panel called Worlds Built Over Time: Panel to Page, Book to Series on world building and character development in the long term. Book signings will follow each panel discussion.

More details to come on this rare opportunity to see the creators of such favorite characters as Hopey, Maggie, Ray, Luba and Fritz on the Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary Northeast Tour.

Love and Rockets: New Stories #5
by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez

104-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-586-0

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

Order this or any other Love and Rockets 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.

How do you follow up a one-two punch like Jaime Hernandez’s stunning two-part masterpiece “The Love Bunglers” from LRNS #3 and #4, which sent Maggie and Ray’s relationship in a startling new direction, as well as providing some mind-blowing revelations about Maggie’s (and her family’s) past?

If you’re Jaime, you deftly move sideways and switch focus to other characters, specifically Ray’s ex, the rambunctious “Frogmouth.” In “Crime Raiders International Mobsters and Executioners,” Tonta, the Frogmouth’s half-sister, comes to visit for a weekend and sees what kind of life the Frog Princess is living with Reno and Borneo — as well as a brand new character or two.

On the other-brother side, Gilbert Hernandez celebrates the 30th anniversary by bringing one of his current characters (“Killer,” granddaughter to the legendary Luba) into the Palomar milieu in a story that showcases a fictionalized “movie” Palomar (starring Fritz as a combination of Luba and Tonantzín), even as it brings back a number of the classic Palomar characters for real. This will be a much-anticipated homecoming for fans of the “classic” Love and Rockets of the 1980s.

Thirty years in, Love and Rockets continues to surprise and delight.

And yes, the letters column is back!

14-page excerpt (download 1.7 MB PDF):

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

The sweetest smelling Online Commentaries & Diversions:

•Review: Partially and fully-reviewed on Em & Lo and SUNfiltered respectively is new book Significant Objects by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. Em and Lo said, "The book also organizes the stories and objects into groups that will be more familiar to thrift-store shoppers, based on the items’ original intended use: novelty items, figurines, kitsch, toys, etc."

•Plug: Significant Objects editor Joshua Glenn showed up on Benjamin Walker's WFMU show "Too Much Information" as a correspondant. As if you needed another reason to listen to TMI.

•Plug: Bookstore of our dreams, Powells, listed Significant Objects as a staff favorite while the Very Short List, a site featuring different curator gems, focused on three objects within the book.

•Review: Detroit News takes a look at No Straight Lines, edited by Justin Hall. Eric Henrickson wrote, "If 'No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics' isn’t the definitive look at the world of GLBT comics, it surely must come darn close. . . I knew there was a lot out there, but I was surprised at the depth of the genre — in sheer quantity and in quality. It’s also a great volume for comics historians."

•Review: Wandering Son, Volume 3 by Shimura Takako is reviewed on Experiments in Manga. Librarian Ash Brown says, "Shimura deals with her characters and with identity, particularly gender identity, with a tremendous amount of sensitivity. Wandering Son is one of the few comics that I have had the opportunity to read that has accomplished this as a fictional work rather than as a memoir." But that isn't all Wandering Son is about: "The fact that the characters aren't characters per se but actual individuals is one of Wandering Son's greatest strengths. Ultimately, the story isn't about the 'issues' surrounding personal identity so much as it is about the people themselves."

•Review: Hillary Brown of Paste Magazine examines Flannery O'Conner: The Cartoons, edited by Kelly Gerald. "Fantagraphics has done us a service of scholarship in publishing these early linocuts, executed for O’Connor’s high school and college newspapers, and the essay by editor Kelly Gerald that follows their reproduction makes some interesting connections to her later literary works, but most of them don’t stand on their own."

•Commentary: Drew Friedman visited MAD Magazine almost 40 years ago and wrote a little about his trip, picked up by Boing Boing.

•Plug: The MOST OCD-happy site of Hernandez Brothers mentions, Love & Maggie, lists the newest mentions of the month.

•Review: Pornokitsch goes WAY back to a sold-out Jules Feiffer illustrated novel, Harry, the Rat with Women. Jared says,"Everything is there and familiar, but somehow drawn and thin and somewhat ethereal; delicate but distorted." Now you know to get it when at Half-Price books!

The Love & Rockets 30th Anniversary tour is heading to the East Coast, and before their appearance at the 2012 Small Press Expo, you can catch the Brothers Hernandez in Washington DC!

Join Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez at the Politics & Prose Bookstore on Friday, September 14th for a signing and celebration of 30 years of incredible storytelling, starting at 7:00 PM.

This all-ages event is FREE and open to the public! Politics & Prose Bookstore is located at 5015 Connecticut Ave NW in Washington, DC.

We miscounted! It turns out that, almost 3 years after we first offered it to what appeared to be an almost-immediate sellout, we actually have 4 copies left of the Pim & Francie: Collector's Edition by Al Columbia.

Each copy of this special limited Collectors Edition comes with an original sketch hand-drawn and signed by Al Columbia. This sketch is on a separate sheet of paper which is tipped in (inserted without adhesive) to the book. See below for a representative example of a typical sketch. This special edition was strictly limited to 50 copies and is available exclusively only to consumers who order direct from Fantagraphics. Did we mention there's only 4 of them left?? The price is $100 and we expect them to be gone almost instantaneously, so order now!

As for the book itself (still available in the standard edition), this gorgeous grimoire is part alchemy, part art book, part storybook, part comic book, and part conceptual art, a broken jigsaw puzzle of a book starring two childlike imps whose irresponsible antics get them into horrific trouble.

A near duel is what let Denver cartoonist Noah Van Sciver to the trail of a book that eventually became the graphic novel, The Hypo. This week Van Sciver writes about his creative process and findings at Forbidden Planet.

Van Sciver writes,"Most books I would find on the bookstore shelves flew through Lincoln’s bachelor years on their way to the Civil War. I gathered as much as I could from the first few chapters of as many books as I could find, but most told the same anecdotes over and over again offering me only slightly different wording. The book that fixed that problem for me was 'Lincoln’s Melancholy' by Joshua Wolf Shenk." 

Read more at Forbidden Planet and pre-order The Hypo today!

The latest two issues of Michael Kupperman's critically-acclaimed series Tales Designed to Thrizzle hit the digital stand today thanks to a handshake and wink between Fantagraphics and comiXology. Enjoy issues #7 and #8 featuring comics with the Haminal and of course, beloved "Train & Bus Coloring Book." Has Mars mania grabbed ahold of you? Originally serialized in the Washington City Paper and online at Fantagraphics.com, the true story of the first lunar mission, "Moon 69," also graces the pages of issue number 8. More Kupperman is coming, keep watching the stars.

"No one does giddy surrealism quite like Kupperman..." – "The Best Comics of the '00s," The A.V. Club

Is That All There Is? (Softcover Ed.)
by Joost Swarte

144-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" softcover • $25.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-628-7

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

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.

By appropriating and subverting Tintin creator Hergé’s classic “clear line” style, Joost Swarte revitalized European alternative comics in the 1970s with a series of satirical, musically elegant, supremely beautifully drawn short stories — often featuring his innocent, magnificently-quiffed Jopo de Pojo, or his orotund scientist character, Anton Makassar.

Under Swarte’s own exacting supervision, Is That All There Is? will collect virtually all of his alternative comics work from 1972 to date, including the RAW magazine stories that brought him fame among American comics aficionados in the 1980s. Especially great pains will be taken to match Swarte’s superb coloring, which includes stories executed in watercolor, comics printed in retro duotones, fiendishly clever use of Zip-a-Tone screens, and much more. (There’s even a story about how to color comics art using those screens, with Makassar as the teacher.)

Other noteworthy stories include Swarte’s take on an episode from Hergé’s early days, a Fats Domino story, a tribute to the legendary “Upside-Downs” strip, and a story titled simply “Modern Art.”

“I’ve loved Joost Swarte’s perfect cartoons, drawings and designs for decades and it’s nothing short of ridiculous that a comprehensive edition of this brilliant artist’s work has never been available in America until now. Swarte is considered a national treasure in his native Holland, and if you open this book, you’ll understand why.” — Chris Ware

18-page excerpt (download 4.3 MB PDF):

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

Is That All There Is? (2nd Hardcover Ed.)
by Joost Swarte

144-page full-color 7.75" x 10.5" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-510-5

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

Due to popular demand, in addition to the new softcover edition, we are offering this new hardcover edition at the same increased trim size (and with a new matte cover treatment — see photo above for comparison with First Edition), limited to 500 copies!

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

The Cavalier Mr. Thompson: A Sam Hill Novel
by Rich Tommaso

144-page two-color 6" x 9" softcover • $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-610-2
Published by Recoil Graphic Novels

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

Welcome To Big Spring, Texas and The Cavalier Hotel. A place brimming with all manner of colorful characters – horse thieves, roughnecks, shady lawmen, con men, oil barons, gamblers, bootleggers, flappers, dappers, wildcatters, railroad men, drunkards and murderers...

But Frank Hill, the proprietor of The Cavalier, has a new hotel dick (Nick Ford) to keep a sharp eye on folks who may cause trouble. Along with number one son, Sam Hill, The Cavalier should have been easy to patrol and kept duty free of any sort of criminal or unsavory activity.

That is, until Ross Thompson – a slick operator from Chicago — came into their humble abode and turned everything upside down. Not just the hotel, but the whole damn town! Big Spring was a just string of yarn for Mr. Thompson to pull and pull at, until the entire community came unraveled! Now you’ll have to crack open this here book for yourself to find out just how he done it...

16-page excerpt (download 7 MB PDF):

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

 The hottest, sweatiest Online Commentaries & Diversions: 

•Review: Ray Olson continues the reading journey of Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest Vol. 3 and reviews it on Booklist Online:  "For at times, the yarn becomes seriously exciting, especially during the travel and fight scenes when everybody clams up. . . Because of Daly’s cartooning chops, nonpareil entertainment."

•Plug: Comics Reporter only needs 140 characters sometimes, especially when talking about Joe Daly's work. Tom Spurgeon says on Twitter, "Dungeon Quest Vol. 3 is so good at one point 1000 copies danced around my bed like in an old Warner Brothers cartoon."

•Review: Writer on the go Maria Popova reviews Significant Objects at Brain Pickings. "Part Sentimental Value, part MacGuffinism, Significant Objects reminds us of the storiness of our lived materiality — of the artifacts we imbue with meaning, with loves and losses, with hopes and desperations."

•Interview: Comic Book Resources interviews Gary Groth on The Comics Journal digital archives move to Alexander Street Press. Chris Mautner quotes Groth,"The magazine is a journalistic repository that comprises the history of comics from the year I co-founded it, 1976, to present, though the first 25 pre-Internet years are probably the most valuable; so, depending upon how valuable you think those 274 issues of The Comics Journal are, this will allow academics and students access to every one of those issues. There are literally tens of thousands of pages comprising interviews with hundreds of creators (many of whom have sadly died), reviews and criticism, investigative journalism, and debate about issues"

•Review: Booklist Online looks at  Angelman. Ray Olson compares the creator Nicolas Mahler to another creator: "Mahler is, however, minimalist musical lampooner and prankster Erik Satie."

•Review: Fredrik Strömberg's Jewish Images in The Comics is reviewed on The Jewish Daily Forward. "The current comics renaissance has produced a plethora of engaging and positive Jewish images to fill the collection. . . Like most surveys, “Jewish Images” sacrifices depth for breadth, and Strömberg plays a lot of catch-up for readers who may not be familiar with Jewish laws, traditions or history. Still, this is a work of tremendous ambition, spanning countries, languages, and artistic styles," says Mordechai Shinefield.

•Plug: The first of many Love and Rockets appropriations via Covered. François Vigneault remakes Jaime Hernandez's L&R cover #31 after the jump.

•Review: Tucker Stone glibbly describes what makes Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 so damn good on The Comics Journal. "[Jaime] opts to take a step back from the heavy drums of emotional extremes, focusing on some lesser used characters as they wander through some summer business. Gilbert takes a more direct approach to the spectacle, pouring a heavy mix of the snarling violence that’s laced so much of his recent work all over the streets of Palomar, the fictional village that so many of his critics clamor for him to return to. It’s a meaty read. . . It’s the new Love and Rockets. What the fuck else did you have planned?"

•Review: Shimura Takako's Wandering Son Volumes 1 - 3 are reviewed on Pol Culture . Robert Stanley Martin says, "Shimura handles a sensitive early-adolescent subject with considerable grace. She captures the doubts--and the joys--of the two characters as they explore and come to terms with their cross-gender tendencies." 

•Interview (audio): Deconstructing Comics asks No Straight Lines editor, Justin Hall, some questions while at Comic-Con International.

•Review: Booklist Online enjoys the latest and last Popeye Volume 6 "Me Li'l Swee'Pea" by E.C. Segar. Gordon Flagg states,"It’s a testament to the brilliance of Segar’s creation and the solid foundation he laid down in his decade drawing Popeye that the one-eyed sailor endures as a pop-culture icon to this day."

•Review: New Noise Magazine and Marco Lalubin take a peek at Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3 A rough French translation says,"Steve Ditko reaches one of the most memorable creative peaks of his career here, first by turning in more carefully worked-over stories and second by frequently displaying a twisted and cruel sense of humor modeled on what EC Comics had been doing in the first half of the 1950s. Especially dazzling are his attempts at graphic boldness, his compositions reaching the same level (at least for the period collected here) as Jack Kirby (albeit less chaotic) -- particularly amazing in that they paradoxically give the impression of respecting the physical constraints of the classic comic book page"

•Review: A Prince Named Valiant reviews the latest Prison Pit - wait no, not at all. They reviewed Prince Valiant Vol 5 1945-1946 as their name might suggest. Michael J. Bayly says, "With stunning art reproduced directly from pristine printer's proofs, Fantagraphics has introduced a new generation to Foster's masterpiece, while providing long-time fans with the ultimate, definitive version of the strip."