Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: 

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

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BARGAIN COMBO:

Nancy Is Happy + Nancy Likes Christmas Gift Set

Price: $51.98 $41.59

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

It's three more full years of Ernie Bushmiller's beloved comic strip, featuring nearly one thousand meticulously restored daily strips from its post-World-War II graphic high point — superbly crafted but not yet quite stylized into the almost machine-life sleekness of later decades. And what can you say about the jokes in Nancy other than that, contrary to its reputation for a zen-like, ultra-square oddness, many of them are actually just extremely funny?

Nancy Likes Christmas is topped off with a new introduction by Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith, a lifelong fan of Nancy and admirer of Bushmiller's genius, and once again designed with pop-art snap and crackle by Fantagraphics senior designer Jacob Covey.

Visitors to the festivities at Fantagraphics Bookstore's 6th anniversary gala on Saturday are in for a treat. In addition to celebrating 30 years of Love & Rockets with Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, and music by cartoonist Geneviève Castrée's Ô Paon, we have a stellar line up of special guests in store. Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra (pictured above) is in town for a show at Roq la Rue with Blab cover artist Ryan Heshka. They'll attend the party with Roq la Rue proprietor Kirsten Anderson (who is also celebrating her birthday that night.) Peter Bagge will also be there. Look for his work upstairs at the One Night Stand group show. Our resident Stranger geniuses Jim Woodring and Ellen Forney will be around. While you're there, pick up a copy of Ellen's sensational new graphic memoir Marbles. I'm sure she'll sign one for you. Start your holiday season in style this Saturday, December 8 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Ho, ho, ho!

Katelan Cunningham of Soul Pancake recently interviewed Rob Walker, editor of Significant Objects, on the value of story. Significant Objects takes oddball, flea market items and writers you know and will one day know added stories to the items. Editors Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn's social experiment then sold the items for eBay with the stories and lo and behold, used and broken items went for more money once a narrative enhanced their 'meaning.' Walker describes the spark of the project, "I broke a coffee mug. It was just a nothing souvenir mug, nobody would have paid any money for it, but I was really sad when this happened, and it's because I had bought the mug on a trip with the woman I later married."

On Soul Pancake, Cunningham and Walker weighed the value of physical objects to the extreme of hoarding versus digital everything, like digi-wedding rings. Sounds interesting, right? Well, you could win this beautifully designed book with a short homework assignment! Visit the Soul Pancake interview and write a 200 word story about item in the photograph, don't worry you've seen a pair of these probably every day of your life. No research needed. Write your story in the comment section and a winner will be chosen tomorrow, December 5th. Pencils up!

Thursday, December 6th

• Seattle, WA: It's your last chance to see our exhibit for The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! Prints are a ridiculously-cheap $25 each! (more info)  

Friday, December 7th

• Seattle, WA: Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra debuts her latest collection "Let the Devil Wear Black" at Roq La Rue, with Blab #18 cover artist Ryan Heshka! (more info)   

Saturday, December 8th

• Seattle, WA: The Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary Celebration comes to the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery with guests of honor Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez! We'll also have a special musical performance from Geneviève Castrée! (more info)   

 • Los Angeles, CA: Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd present the Eighth Annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, with work from Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, John Cuneo, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Johnny Ryan, Malachi Ward, and Steven Weissman! (more info)   

We're pleased to bring you the rundown on our Spring-Summer 2013 season of upcoming releases by presenting the catalog prepared for our book-market distributor, W.W. Norton. Scroll through it in an embedded reader on this page, and download a better-quality 26.8MB PDF version here. As you read, please keep in mind that most of these books are still in development and all artwork, contents, prices, specs, and release dates (especially release dates) are preliminary and subject to change.

With about 3 dozen new books and a fat handful of reprints and new editions of previous books, there's a lot to look forward to, including:

• Brand new and/or newly-translated graphic novels by Kim Deitch, Graham Chaffee, Cathy Malkasian, Jason, Dash Shaw, Jim Woodring, Lars Fiske & Steffen Kverneland, Max, Shimura Takako, Manuele Fior, Charles Forsman, and Leslie Stein

• New editions and reprints of material by Samuel R. Delany & Mia Wolff, Linda Medley, Anders Nilsen, Hans Rickheit, Peter Bagge, Jacques Tardi, and Robert Crumb

• New volumes in our ongoing comic strip reprint series, including Peanuts, Zippy, Mickey Mouse (color Sundays!) and Prince Valiant

• Newly-translated classic European comics and cartoons by Storm P., Jacques Tardi, Martí, Hergé, and R. Macherot  

• New collections of vintage cartooning and illustration by Willard Mullin, Jim Flora, Gene Deitch, Virgil "VIP" Partch, George Carlson, and Charles Rodrigues

• New collections of vintage comic book material by Steve Ditko, Johnny Craig (EC), Basil Wolverton, Carl Barks, and Al Feldstein (EC)

• Plus an anthology of 4 decades of mini comics, a prose memoir by Kipp Friedman, and a revised, updated and rewritten history of women cartoonists by Trina Robbins

Check our Upcoming Arrivals page for updates as books from this catalog are added to our website. Information about our distributors can be found here, and more resources for press and retailers can be found here. 

Work on Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 2 is nearing completion but we have two missing pieces of the puzzle and editor Blake Bell is putting out the call to all Golden Age collectors! We're looking for the following two stories: 

Silver Streak Comics #20 (Apr '42) - Rex Reed 8-page story
Target Comics v1 #8 (Sep '40) - Chameleon 6-page story

If you have copies of either of these comics, click here to find out how to contact Blake and what the next steps will be after that. Contributors will get a free copy of the book and credit in the acknowledgments!

Who knows what the devil will wear to the opening reception for Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra's latest exhibit at Roq La Rue, this Friday, December 7th!

"Let the Devil Wear Black" is a collection of meticulously tight, jewel-like mixed media paintings and exquisitely-rendered black and white drawings, homes to a dark fairytale land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal neighbors. The painting below is titled "OMG," for very, very obvious reasons!

Femke will be joined by artist Ryan Heshka, cover artist for Blab #18! His own collection "Disasterama" debuts that night, as well.

Both artists will be in attendance for the opening reception from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, and they'll also be joining us at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, December 8th for our 6th anniversary celebration with Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez, and musical guest Geneviève Castrée!

Roq La Rue is located at 2312 2nd Avenue in Seattle's tricky-to-park Belltown neighborhood, so get there early!