January 15, 2009, 7PM

Join Lilli Carré as she signs copies of her new graphic novel The Lagoon (Fantagraphics). She will also sell prints and various little handmade book items. Refreshments will be served!

In The Lagoon, a family is seduced by a mysterious creature's siren song that can be heard emanating from the lagoon after dark, and how each member reacts to the song in The Lagoon is the crux of the story. For the wise - or pixilated - Grandpa, the song reminds him that, in the time he has left, he must pause to respect, appreciate, and fear nature. The song hints at something that Zoey, the daughter, is too young to fully grasp. And the song lures the sexually frustrated mother, and eventually, her husband, into danger... Carré experimented with nib pens and brushes while drawing this black-and-white graphic novel, giving the art a different feel from her previous, Eisner-and-Harvey-Award-nominated story, Tales of Woodsman Pete.The Lagoon was influenced by the films Creature from the Black Lagoon and Night of the Hunter, but reads more like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O'Connor or Carson McCullers. Rhythms - Grandpa's taps, the ticking of a metronome - are punctuated by silences that pace this "sound"-driven story. Older teen and adult readers are invited to imagine the enigmatic creature's haunting, ever-shifting tune as it reverberates through weedy waters, eventually escaping the lagoon to creep into windows at night.

Lilli Carré was born in 1983 in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in Chicago, making animations, illustrations, and comics. Her animated films have shown in various festivals in the US and abroad, including the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and her previous book of comics Tales of Woodsman Pete (Top Shelf) is a collection of her stories surrounding a hermit who's slowly losing his wits.

QUIMBY'S: 1854 W North Ave, Chicago, IL 60622

Due in February, Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace 1959-1960 features the tiny troublemaker's encounters with bobby-soxers, beatniks, cats and hobos, and of course plenty of mischief at home and in the neighborhood, all expressed through Ketcham's dazzlingly fluid line. Click this link if the embedded slideshow doesn't appear above, and/or to open it in a new window.

The Comics Journal #295
Edited by Mike Dean & Kristy Valenti; Gary Groth, executive editor

The Comics Journal #295 is chock full of all the comicky goodness that you’ve come to expect from our fine publication! Check it out:

• Sean T. Collins interviews writer Brian K. Vaughan about Y the Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways, Pride of Baghdad, how a career in comics led him to writing for the hit television series Lost, and much, much more.
• Paul Karasik presents a conversation with Italian cartoonist Gipi, who talks about Garage Band, Notes for a War Story, the Ignatz books and how he narrowly avoided a life of crime.
• Rob Clough offers us a chat with humor cartoonist John Kerschbaum, covering everything from The Wiggly Reader to Pete & Pussy to why he couldn’t figure out why his first editors hated him so much.
• Michael Dean examines the page rates paid by the Best American Comics anthology series.
• Noah Berlatsky digs into the comic-book closet and finds out what’s hiding back there.
• R.C. Harvey examines the life of Flash Gordon/Rip Kirby creator Alex Raymond.
• Our comics section this issue: Charles A. Voight’s short-lived newspaper strip The Theorist, in its entirety.

As always, we’ve got free online previews of our Brian K. Vaughan, Gipi and John Kerschbaum interviews to whet your apetite. The Comics Journal #295 — around the comics world in 208 pages! Don’t miss it.

200-page b&w/color 7.5" x 9.5" squarebound softcover magazine • $11.99
Add to Cart • Read More...

• Review: Panel Patter explores House by Josh Simmons

• Review: The Daily Cross Hatch guarantees that Ted Stearn's Fuzz & Pluck will make you laugh

• List: Largehearted Boy names his "Favorite Graphic Novels of 2008," including Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• List: At RevolutionSF, Rick Klaw names "What Is Best in 2008," including The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott (reproduced from his top comics list on his "Nexus Graphica" column)

• List: Zack Soto names his personal "best of/favorite" comics of 2008, including Perla La Loca by Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 by Jaime and his brothers, and Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

• List: At Robot 6, what Ivan Brunetti (and others) is reading

14 Italian artists, including Ignatz creators Marco Corona (above), Gabriella Giandelli, Lorenzo Mattotti and Sergio Ponchione, illustrate the articles of the Italian Constitutional Charter for an exhibit opening in Bologna tomorrow, January 13. Marco Corona's blog has details in Italian; here's the Google translation.

Last week we posted our monster tally of critics' Fantagraphics picks for the best comics of 2008. To celebrate the fact that over two thirds of our 2008 releases were chosen as the best of the year by various commentators, all of these titles are now 20% OFF for two weeks only, through 11:59 PM Pacific time, Jan. 26, 2009! Click here to browse the selection of titles. If you're missing anything we put out last year, this is a great chance to catch up!

Scheduled to arrive around the end of this month, Esther Pearl Watson's Unlovable is a glitter-encrusted, hot pink hunk of high school humiliation, heartbreak, halitosis, hairspray and hilarity from the pages of Bust magazine. Click this link if the embedded slideshow doesn't appear above, and/or to open it in a new window.

Get 'em here. 

Courtesy Drew Friedman and MAD Magazine...