Is this happy-go-lucky holiday season getting on your nerves? Are increasingly sentimental anthropomorphic animals for the flippin' birds? Johnny Ryan is here to serve you. This week comiXology and Fantagraphics released Angry Youth Comix issues #11-14 for you to enjoy in the midst of madness. In addition to the sex, violence and scatological filth on display, Angry Youth Comix delivers equal opportunity antagonism toward every race, gender, sexual orientation, political persuasion and religion, as well as jokes about international and humanitarian tragedies, in abundance. That being said, it is only available via the filthy filthy web so buy it and read it on your computer instead of going to that meeting.

$1.99 is the crazy amount of money for the eyeball tickling guffaws you'll emit when reading Angry Youth Comix. Head over to comiXology now to download. Then you'll get to find out exactly what happens to Loady McGee, Sinus O'Gynus and Blubbina LaQuiche.

"Let me tell you something: In this increasingly cynical world of happily self-imposed isolation and sneering judgement, one graphicish novella, with pixie-like tickles, appears through the misty mist to take us all by the hand gently unto the night. You hold in your hand that very thing. Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comix. Now go away." – David Cross

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

"Oh man, so much great stuff to splurge on this week. Let's start withSpacehawk, Basil Wolverton's fabulous, fantabulous astronaut superhero from the alleged Golden Age. Lots of bizarre aliens and shifty-eyed villains in this one. Then there's the second volume of Ernie Bushmiller'sNancy (which I praised... the other week), and the second volume of Walt Kelly's Pogo Possum, Bona Fide Balderdash." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946-1948
by Ernie Bushmiller

336-page black & white 8.5" x 8.5" flexibound softcover • $26.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-599-0

"...Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946-1948, for the all of us in all of us." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"Thor's pick of the week" – Midtown Comics

"It's a great book...a perfect book. In an ideal world, this is what you'd find in hotel rooms instead of Gideon Bibles. This is far better than what the world deserves...well, I deserve it, at any rate — I'm not sure about the rest of you. But you should get a copy anyway." – Mike Sterling

Pogo - The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 2: "Bona Fide Balderdash"
by Walt Kelly

356-page black & white/color 11.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-584-6

Pogo - The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 1-2 Box Set
by Walt Kelly

664-page black & white/color 11.5" x 9.5" x 3" two-volume slipcased hardcover set • $69.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-629-4

"As is so often the case, my splurge would be from Fantagraphics: The second volume of Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, a steal at $39.99. I’m old enough to remember when Pogo ran in the Sunday paper, although I never understood it then. Later on, I picked up some of the paperbacks and really came to appreciate Walt Kelly’s sense of humor. I’d love to read them all." – Brigid Alverson, Robot 6

"Pogo certainly belongs on any informed list of the top 5 newspaper comic strips of all time. The artwork is stunning, the pacing is fast, the characters simply come alive on the page; the plot-lines are crazy and labyrinthine and above all hilarious. The dialog is pitch perfect – even the lettering ads to the strips characterizations and somehow, along the way, you will learn quite a bit about potent political satire especially as the specter of McCarthyism weighed down on life in 1950s America. The comics really are that good and Fantagraphics does the Kelly oeuvre proud with beautiful production values and insightful introductory material. Buy this book – or put it on your Christmas wish list." – Heroes Aren't Hard to Find "Staff Picks"

"Fans of lush cartooning and wordplay... — not really exclusive tribes there — can satiate themselves with Pogo - The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 2: "Bona Fide Balderdash", which I'm told ain't malarkey." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal 

Spacehawk
by Basil Wolverton

272-page full-color 9.25" x 13" flexibound softcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-550-1

"I picked up Fantagraphics’ Spacehawk Halloween mini-comic this year and selfishly did not give it to a Trick or Treater, because I loved how strange and awesome Basil Wolverton’s pulpy space comic is. That’s why I’m splurging on the full Spacehawk collection ($39.99) this week." – Michael May, Robot 6

"All who hungered for an enormous 9.25" x 13" color softcover compiling the entirety of Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk will have their fill in this latecoming Best of 2012 Reprint Project, I'm not kidding." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"Excitement couldn't be higher!" – Bergen Street Comics

End the year in style with a trip to Georgetown on Sunday, December 30 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM as Fantagraphics Bookstore welcomes Brooklyn, NY cartoonist Nathan Bulmer back to his home town of Seattle. Bulmer will sign copies of his new comix collection, Eat More Bikes, from Canada's adventurous Koyama Press.

A recent graduate of New York's storied School of Visual Art, Bulmer made an immediate impact with his daily Eat More Bikes comix art blog. He returns to Seattle with a new anthology of these strips, as well as a handful of hilarious self-published minicomics. The festivities include music by Zachary David Jammin' and complimentary holiday refreshments. This event coincides with the "Only in Seattle Sundays" small business promotion of the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development.

Shop local at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery, located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) in the heart of Seattle's lively Georgetown arts community. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Open until 4:00 PM on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day. Phone 206.658.0110.

Listing information:

Nathan Bulmer book signing with music by Zachary David Jammin'
Sunday, December 30, 2:00 to 4:00 PM
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale St., Georgetown, Seattle
206.658.0110
www.fantagraphics.com

It can be hard being a touring band on the road! When we couldn't manage to schedule a signing at the store with Ron Regé, Jr., we brought the books to him at last week's Lavender Diamond show in Seattle. And while supplies last, you can get one of those autographed copies of The Cartoon Utopia exclusively at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! It's a joyous holiday gift!

The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.

Get ready to party it up like there's no tomorrow -- 'cause there isn't!

This Thursday, December 20th, it's the final event in the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series, our collaboration with Elysian Brewing Company! And when we say final, we mean FINAL, 'cause y'know... apocalypse.

"Doom" has never tasted as good as this Golden Treacle Pale, available on draft, and in exclusive 22 oz. bottles with labels featuring the artwork of the great Charles Burns from his weirdly apocalyptic Black Hole series.

The official tapping begins at 6:00 PM, followed by Bryan's very last survival demo. At 8:30 PM, we'll toast the apocalypse, and then KEXP's DJ Riz will spin us into oblivion! Don't forget to bring your Apocalypse Beer Survival Guide to complete the mission!

The Elysian Brewing Company is located at 1221 E. Pike Street in Seattle. The end is HERE, and you know it's beer!

We sometimes lose track of things in our mail-order warehouse, and then someone notices them and says "hey, what's the deal with these?" When the item in question is a bunch of bookplates signed by Robert Crumb, it's kind of a big deal.

These bookplates were originally made for our exclusive signed hardcover editions of The Complete Crumb Comics and the R. Crumb Sketchbook series. The hardcovers are mostly long sold out and out of print, but we don't want these leftovers to go to waste, so we are now offering them with the softcovers as well, for an additional $30 a pop. We have them for nearly every in-print volume of both series, and for all of the volumes that are out of print. You can buy them separately, but in that case it's limit one of each per customer, so we're limiting it to phone orders for separate sales. If ordering from our website, just choose the desired option when adding each book to your shopping cart.

As you can see, the plate for each book is a unique design (not all plates are shown here). Some are numbered, but some are not; we can't guarantee a number on yours. They are limited in edition and quantity, so don't miss out.

Santa recently delivered a big bag of barely bent books by our favorite artists to Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. They'll be featured at 50% off all day Friday and Saturday, December 14 and 15. Dozens of books by Barks, Bagge, Burns, Clowes, Carre, Crumb, Forney, Friedman, Hernandez, Kurtzman, Millionaire, Panter, Sacco, Swarte, Woodring and more. Classics like Peanuts, Pogo, Popeye, and Prince Valiant, along with some long unavailable titles - all at half off!

While visiting Georgetown, head up the street to see Santa at Masquerade on Friday and Saturday from 2:00 to 6:00 PM, or get your picture taken with Santa's sexy helpers from Little Black Devil Burlesque from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Make a day of it and shop local at the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall and Full Throttle Bottles, then drink and dine at one of Georgetown's lively cafes or nightclubs. 

Fantagraphics Bookstore is open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. We'll be open until 4:00 PM on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. (Closed on Christmas and New Years Day.) 

Classic adventures await you on the first Saturday in May, a.k.a. one of the funnest days of the year! We are pleased to present Hal Foster's Prince Valiant for Free Comic Book Day on May 4, 2013.

This full-color comic collects two Prince Valiant stories from Hal Foster's 1950 peak: "Home Again," in which Val, Aleta, and newborn baby Prince Arn enjoy an eventful ocean journey back to Thule; and “The Challenge,” in which another knight's unwelcome advances on Aleta result in a classic duel with Valiant!

We're in the midst of assembling our Fall 2013-Winter 2014 season, and while there's still lots of stuff we're keeping under our collective hat for now (we've barely just revealed our Spring-Summer 2013 season, for pete's sake), some other stuff has been leaking out here and there... like this forthcoming book from Paul Hornschemeier, Artists Authors Thinkers Directors, collecting his sketchbook portraits from his Daily Forlorn blog. Pictures of smart people for smart people! Did excitement for this book cause yesterday's catastrophic Tumblr outage? We may never know.

Seattle skies may be grey, but tomorrow things will take on a purplish hue, as our own Ron Regé, Jr. rolls into town with his rock combo, Lavender Diamond! 

You can catch them Thursday, December 13th at the Sunset Tavern [ 5433 Ballard Avenue Northwest ] with local lass Shelby Earl opening the show. Alas, the concert is 21+, so you young'ins will want to try to stalk him outside the venue to get a book signed.

And Fantagraphics will be on site with copies of Ron's latest masterpiece, The Cartoon Utopia, for sale! Now is your chance to get your books signed by Ron himself, or perhaps get a special holiday wish inscribed in one for a festive gift!

Live outside of the Seattle area?  Lavender Diamond will be LIVE on KEXP at 3:00 PM PST, and you can stream their set worldwide at KEXP.ORG. You live in Portland? Visit Ron this Friday evening at Floating World Comics before their show at the Doug Fir Lounge!