Freeway
by Mark Kalesniko

420-page black & white 7" x 10" softcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-356-9

Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Alex Kalienka is in an awful jam.

Literally, a traffic jam — but figuratively, his whole life is a mess. A dream job turned nightmare at the biggest animation studio in the world. A love affair that is not what he imagined. And possibly someone with a life-threatening grudge against him...

In his first new graphic novel since 2001’s acclaimed Mail Order Bride, Mark Kalesniko compresses an entire life into a single day as the frustrated animator, stewing on a pitiless California freeway, alternately rages, reminisces, fantasizes, and hallucinates — intercut with a series of imagined moments from two generations ago, the Golden Age of animation, when an earlier Alex made his entry into a much different professional world.

Loaded with fascinating insider gossip and historical details on two different eras of animators, skipping seamlessly among the present and several different pasts, reality and fantasy, Freeway is another step forward for a major cartooning talent.

“Kalesniko is an expert at sophisticated, visually efficient narrative renderings of complex emotions. His drawings are spare and cinematic, and each panel underscores the characters’ psychological isolation or another revealing detail.” — Publishers Weekly on Mail Order Bride

Download an EXCLUSIVE 35-page PDF excerpt (7.6 MB).

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

Exclusive Savings: To celebrate the release of Freeway, we're pleased to offer Mark Kalesniko's critically-acclaimed graphic novels Alex and Mail Order Bride for 25% off for a limited time!

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Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):

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And elsewhere:

Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane:

Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit:

Lucky by Gabrielle Bell:

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List (Audio): On the Inkstuds radio programme, listen to Chris Butcher, Bill Kartalopoulos, Tucker Stone and host Robin McConnell discuss the Best of 2010, including Love and Rockets: New Stories #3 by the Hernandez Brothers — we haven't had a chance yet to listen ourselves but Robot 6 reports that Stone in particular has good comments on L&R

• List: At TIME.com – Techland, Douglas Wolk lists "15 Excellent Things Happening in Comics Right Now." First on the list: Jim Woodring's Nibbus Maximus and the coming of his Congress of the Animals ("If you are wise, you will not miss it"). Third on the list: "Cathy Malkasian's Temperance came out in the middle of last year, and I still don't know quite what to make of it, which is probably a good sign. [...] It's lovely to behold, rather difficult, terribly sad, very frustrating in some ways, and absolutely worth looking at."

• Review: "Since the appearance of Hey Wait…, Jason's first book to be translated into English, the Norwegian-born cartoonist has remained one of the most distinctive voices in comics. What I Did is the latest omnibus collection of Jason's work… into a beautiful hardcover volume… Grade: A" – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle 

• Review: "Stacked with surprising twists and intricate plotting, [The Search for] Smilin’ Ed revels in Deitch’s increasingly complex personal universe, threading new characters into the established histories of his previous protagonists. Densely detailed and creatively laid out, the art can absorb a reader’s eye for days, with tons of nods, winks and subtle touches embedded in nearly every scene." – Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Review: "Steve Ditko has produced a disproportionate amount of my favourite, formative fiction over the decades. His is a unique voice wedded to an honest heart blessed with the captivating genius of a graphic master. The tales [in The Ditko Collection Vol. 2] have seldom been seen elsewhere; never often enough and always with little fanfare. If you can find this volume and its predecessor you’ll see a lot of his best work, undiluted by colour, and on lovely large white pages. Even if you can’t find these, find something – because Steve Ditko is pure comics." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Coming Attractions: At Robot 6, Chris Mautner looks at "Six potentially great 2011 comics you haven't heard of," leading off with The Man Who Grew His Beard by Olivier Schrauwen (coming in late Summer): "If you’ve had the lucky opportunity to read Schrauwen’s My Boy, or perused his work in the anthology Mome, then you’ll know this Belgian artist is the real deal — a true, utterly unique and frequently inspired cartoonist who draws upon century-old cartooning styles (McCay, Outcault) to create something contemporary and frequently bizarre."

• Coming Attractions:  At Examiner.com, Richard Lipski looks ahead to our Fall 2011 publication of Oil & Water, a chronicle of the Gulf Coast post-Deepwater Horizon oil spill, written by Steve Duin and drawn by Shannon Wheeler

• Reviewer: Alexander Theroux (whose The Strange Case of Edward Gorey is coming soon) reviews the novel Destiny and Desire by Carlos Fuentes for The Wall Street Journal

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "I’d say 'you can’t make this shit up,' but you can, or Ryan can at least, and watching him frogmarch his characters through the outlandish scenarios needed to give birth to these you-gotta-be-fucking-kidding-me ideas is Guffaw City. And as I always point out, he’s a fine, fine cartoonist; ...his buoyant brushwork... is what sells the childlike glee of everything that’s going on [in FUC_ __U _SS __LE]." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Interview: Comicdom's Tomas Papadimitropoulos talks to Richard Sala (in English after the Greek introduction): "I hesitate to reveal too much about The Hidden at this point. It will be a somewhat different from things I’ve done before. On one hand it’s almost like an action-packed monster movie. But, at the same time, it may be more personal than my Peculia and Judy Drood books. There is some reflection or looking back on my life as an artist involved." (via Spurge)

Dave Cooper hangs out with our Canadian counterparts at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly and signs copies of his new book Bent on Thursday, January 20th at 7:00 PM. On their 211 Bernard blog they write: "Cooper continues to obsess and fixate over his bizarre procession of milky figures as they crawl and wriggle into hidden meadows, jungles and cities." Soyez là ou vous serez carrés.

Coming up on The Comics Journal website:

Marc Sobel and his Android read comics; Kristian Williams takes to the sky with Garth Ennis for an in-depth analysis of the writer's aerial war stories; Rob Clough tours Seth's Palookaville; Nathan Wilson looks at Andy Diggle's Rat Catcher and more! 

French and Belgian publishers have taken to promoting their new books with nifty semi-animated "trailers." Here is the trailer for Lewis Trondheim's new series, RALPH AZHAM, coming this March from Dupuis.

I post this to distract you from the fact that I'm a bit behind schedule on finishing the translation for Lewis's APPROXIMATE CONTINUUM COMICS. It's embarrassing that Lewis draws new comics faster than we can translate his old ones.

OMfuckingG. It's Michael DeForge's entry for The New Yorker's Eustace Tilley cover contest, starring Cannibal Fuckface and friend from Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit. Eustace Fuckface! Michael DeSlorge! I could go on and on. So awesome I can barely stand it.

Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921: A Kind, Belevolent and Amiable Brick
by George Herriman

176-page black & white 9" x 12" softcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-364-4

Ships in: February 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

As Fantagraphics’ ambitious plan to reprint every single Sunday Krazy Kat page created by George Herriman for close to three decades (this being the penultimate book) careens toward the finish line, this volume features another three years’ worth of Sunday strips — over 150 little masterpieces by the greatest cartoonist of all time, featuring the greatest comic-strip love triangle of all time: “kat,” “mice” and “pupp.” Each page is a hilarious, poetic masterpiece crackling with verbal wit and graphic brilliance. Those were the days…!

In the introductory essay, editor Bill Blackbeard chronicles Krazy Kat’s ascent from its earliest days as a tiny pendant for Herriman’s earlier strips The Dingbat Family and The Family Upstairs to its own full feature. A second major article in this volume is Bob Callahan’s “Geo. Herriman’s Los Angeles,” a fascinating look at Herriman’s pre-Krazy Kat days as a journalist/illustrator, covering such things as a Mexican bullfight (Herriman was appalled), the opening of a new “bums’ jail” (Herriman’s sympathies were clearly with the vagrants), and UFO sightings — all accompanied by Herriman’s virtuoso cartoons, of course.

As usual, the cover is designed by Chris Ware, featuring a striking two-color look that will set this latest volume apart from the previous eleven.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 16-page PDF excerpt (1.9 MB).

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

Exclusive Savings: Order Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921 together with the previous volume 1916-1918 and save 20% off the combined cover price!

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: iFanboy's Jason ranks Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition at #1 on the Top Collected Editions of 2010: "Fantagraphics has treated us with a 1,160-page, two volume slipcase collection that reprints the first seven trade paperbacks worth of content, as well as 50 covers and lots of never-before-seen backmatter."

• List: "I don’t understand how Medley can write and draw so well. The story is entertaining and well-paced. The art is spacious, smooth with expressive lines. I have no idea why Medley hasn’t won every award everywhere. Volume two picks up where the first left off, telling the stories of a group of people who have retired to Castle Waiting, a refuge in a difficult, quasi-medieval world." – Carol Borden, The Cultural Gutter, "10 Comics I Liked in 2010"

• List: Paul Gravett's Best of 2010 is very, very extensive, including mentions of no fewer than 10 of our titles

(The above 3 links via Sandy Bilus at I Love Rob Liefeld)

• Review: "The unease which Mezzo brings to King of the Flies is ever present in the twisted shapes of his men and women, the oversized drops of an acrid drizzle, the fur like scrub which seem like the myriad hairs of a fly’s appendage, a modern day dance of death choked with the dregs of modern life; the strange underbelly of free will and capitalism — sex, drugs and alcohol; death, lust and tainted beauty; the unsettling horror of kitsch; the nauseating mingling of youth, disease and dementia." – Ng Suat Tong, The Hooded Utilitarian (The Comics Journal)

• Interview: At his Talking with Tim blog, Tim O'Shea talks to Destroy All Movies!!! editors Zack Carlson (quoted here) & Bryan Connolly: "I’m constantly shocked by people’s willingness to forgo the most valuable resources we have — like bookstores and video stores — because of the lazy convenience of the internet. Why don’t people want to leave their homes? Are they afraid they’ll get struck by lightning or bitten by a dog? It makes me nuts."

• Plug: "...Set to Sea is an astounding visual piece with a simplistic narrative that avoids the saturated complexities of other graphic works. I’ve been a long time fan of Weing’s, and highly recommend this title." – Michael Dean, Slither and Friends