Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features a rescued-from-obscurity rarity from comics great Gil Kane.

Blackmark

In 1974, Gil Kane created Blackmark as a paperback series for Bantam Books. Kane was a comics artist specializing in superheroes who had drawn every major character from Superman and Spider-Man to Green Lantern and Conan. Blackmark was his attempt to go "independent" and create a series which he would own and whose creative direction he could control. The first volume of this sword-and-sorcery/heroic-fantasy narrative, designed and published in the paperback format, has been out of print for over 25 years, and the completed second volume was never published. Fantagraphics Books is proud to collect both volumes in a single trade book format, larger than the original paperback size to better showcase Kane's elegant art.

160-page black & white softcover
regularly $16.95 • ON SALE $12.71
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Made by our pals at Sparkplug and found via our pals at Drawn & Quarterly, the above map shows you where to feel the love (and do all your shopping) at Comic-Con next week. Click for the big version.

We're continuing to tease you this week with video and photo previews of our upcoming releases. This time, it's Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4, the latest issue in the hilarious hit series from Michael Kupperman. Watch the video above, and take a closer look in our photo gallery.

Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

The artist we're featuring today, Mark Kalesniko, got widely noticed for his series Alex, which was later collected in a graphic novel of the same name. Today we're putting the spotlight on three of his earlier, lesser-known titles:

S.O.S.

Before Alex, Kalesniko made S.O.S., a lyrical allegorical comic with a beautiful Asian-American protagonist. The story details how Chloe slowly finds her identity and achieves independence and empowerment while literally "adrift on the ocean" on a small sailboat beset by a huge, ravenous shark. S.O.S. is a metaphorical one-shot, a dramatic short subject told entirely in pantomime. Kalesniko brilliantly unveils the conflicts within Chloe — between tradition and modernity, between the safety of her chinese family and the unfamiliar dangers of the Western world. The story is told in ink, collage, and wash, introducing to comics the exciting panel-to-panel "camerawork" which Kalesniko has refined into an assured mastery.

24-page black & white 6.75" x 10.25" comic book
regularly $2.75 • ON SALE $2.06
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Mail Order Bride

Monty, a Canadian comic-and-toy-shop owner and a pathetic 39-year-old virgin, expects his Asian mail-order bride Kyung Soo to fulfil his female Asian fantasy stereotypes: obedient, hardworking and loyal. Tall and accentless, Kyung turns out to be much more complex than Monte is willing to accept. This sharp and affecting look at their prickly relationship is told over 264 elegant, touching pages in this original graphic novel by Disney animator Mark Kalesniko. Kalesniko adroitly juxtaposes Monty's non-sexual, juvenile obsessions with his objectification of his bride, drawing a direct line between loneliness, consumerism, and how the need for order in one's life compromises the approach to matters of the heart.

264-page black & white 8" x 11" softcover
regularly $19.95 • ON SALE $14.96
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Why Did Pete Duel Kill Himself?

Before the astonishing Mail Order Bride, Kalesniko created this equally fine work of comic art. He combines stylish graphics and a keen eye for the perspective of a child in his first book-length graphic novel. Here, the unexpected suicide of a young, marginally successful actor sets the tone for this examination of the childhood of Alex Kalienka. Petty humiliations, minor injuries, small betrayals — the overall gradual degradation of growing up different provides a stunning glimpse at the existential nature of life.

96-page black & white 7" x 10" softcover
regularly $8.95 • ON SALE $6.71
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We'll be revealing video and photo previews of a half-dozen of our upcoming releases over the next few days. First up, the next two entries in our Ignatz Series: Delphine #3 by Richard Sala and Grotesque #2 by Sergio Ponchione. Spine-tinglers both! Watch the videos above and take a closer look in our two photo galleries: Delphine, Grotesque.

Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features two books from a cartoonist who's near and dear to our hearts -- not only is he a singular artist, he counts the beans for us: Ted Jouflas.

Filthy

The apocalyptic Filthy from Ted Jouflas examines everything filthy in the world! From the slime of urban decay to the deforestation of a once pristine Eden; from the garbage barges of old Shanghai to the sewers of Los Angeles; from the bowl of dirty underwear that is the corporate world to the royal media drunk on themselves; this book goes there and wallows in it! Join the fun with a variety of charming characters: the vicious brat Janine De Bleu and her billionaire parents Mumsie and Popsie; her evil cat, Milo Maurice; her little rodent friend, Le Rat; the Slum Boy in the drudlepit and his evil uncle, Skunkle Sneaky! All rendered in Jouflas's striking, hilarious style and written with a perfect rhyme scheme.

80-page black & white 8" x 11" softcover
regularly $9.95 • ON SALE $7.46
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Scary!

You saw her in Weirdo as "Batgirl" and "The Monster." Now Winkie is back in this all-original graphic novel. Written with a sadistic wit and drawn in a style bold and demented enough to compare to Ralph Steadman, Jouflas's debut work follows Winkie on the most hellacious misadventure of her life, a tale of debauchery, crime, neuroses, greed, lust, psychoses, vengeance, love, rage, mystery, comedy, and sorrow. Co-starring Dave the French Poodle, Mensa the Cat, Dr. Nimrod, Princess Pretender, and Candyass the Hillbilly, Scary is the bastard offspring of "Fractured Fairy Tales" and the black-and-white horror films of the '30s and '40s.

104-page black & white 8" x 11" softcover
regularly $6.50 • ON SALE $4.88
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As we gear up for this year's big Comic-Con International, we've got a couple of real goodies from last year's Con for you!

On Friday, July 27, 2007, at Comic-Con International in San Diego, moderator Gary Groth was joined by the Hernandez Brothers for two featured spotlight panels on their work and the 25th anniversary of Love and Rockets. We are pleased to bring you these audio recordings of each interview and Q&A session: the first with Jaime and the second with Gilbert.

Jaime:

Click here for the archive page with streaming audio (please use that address if linking from your own site), or click here to download the audio file (19.5 MB MP3).

Gilbert:

Click here for the archive page with streaming audio (please use that address if linking from your own site), or click here to download the audio file (17.2 MB MP3).

Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features another cartoonist who's a best-seller in his native land but relatively unknown here: the Mexican cartoonist known as JIS.

Cats Don't Exist

JIS (a pen name for Jose I. Solorzano) made his American debut with this inspired and inspiring slice of psychedelic absurdity. With a childlike mastery of the obvious, an inspired sense of mischief, and hilarious insight into the human divine, Jis' comics at once recall the sensibilities of both Jules Feiffer and Terence McKenna. Deceptively minimalistic, the book collects a handful of comic stories and individual drawings that will nudge the lucky reader gently into a dissonant universe. In the title story, cats replace aliens as bogeymen of the human psyche. "To Our Dear Enemies" is a fulsome thank-you note to censors for infusing boring old sex with such intrigue; "We Woke Up... Married" and "Guilt as an Aphrodisiac" will teach you more about love than Erich Fromm and Barbara Cartland combined; and JIS's epic is "Moons, Loonies, and Angel, which kicks off with the deceptively comforting line, "First, organize your eyes..."

96-page b&w/color 8.5" x 11" softcover
regularly $12.95 • ON SALE $9.71
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Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features a bona fide rediscovered classic by cartooning great Milt Gross:

He Done Her Wrong

First published in 1930, the famously wordless He Done Her Wrong is Milt Gross' graphic masterpiece, the result of his prior collaboration with Charlie Chaplin on the 1928 silent-era film classic The Circus. Sharing the same goofy, over-the-top comic mayhem that was Chaplin's trademark, and preceding the expressive, cartoony art style of MAD Magazine legend Harvey Kurtzman, all of He Done Her Wrong's hilarious slapstick, tragic heartbreak, heroism and villainy, character development, high emotions and raucous thrills somehow manages to take place, astonishingly, without a single word of text, or conversation, or even a footnote. The story follows the convoluted misadventures of a naïve frontiersman with superhuman strength exploited by a larcenous robber baron who eventually double crosses our hero and steals his girl. He Done Her Wrong is a classic comics work, legendary among aficionados, and arguably the 20th century's first graphic novel. Fantagraphics Books is proud to put this back into print in a facsimile edition, unabridged, with newly designed covers.

256-page black & white 7" x 8" softcover
regularly $16.95 • ON SALE $12.71
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Every day in July we're spotlighting books from our month-long Hidden Gems Sale, wherein we're featuring some of our under-the-radar backlist titles and encouraging you to try them by offering them at a nice discount of 25% off!

Today's installment features an anthology collection of Duplex Planet Illustrated stories compiled and edited by David Greenberger and illustrated by some of the brightest lights in alternative comics:

No More Shaves

The Duplex Planet started in 1979 as a small, self-xeroxed fanzine by David Greenberger. In 20 years, it has become a veritable cottage industry and endless source of inspiration for Greenberger. The Duplex Planet features stories and conversations that Greenberger had with the residents of the Duplex Nursing Home in Boston, where he worked in the late 1970s and '80s. Greenberger presents the beauty and comical wisdom of the often bizarre and occasionally poignant things said by his elderly friends. Greenberger never imposes his own worldview, allowing the residents to quietly flesh themselves into some of the more remarkable characters in contemporary literature. No More Shaves presents these stories in comics form interpreted by many of today's best cartoonists, including Dave Cooper, Jason Lutes, Rick Altergott, Doug Allen, Daniel Clowes, JR Williams, Ron Regé Jr., Dame Darcy, Jeff Johnson, Tim Hensley, Holly Jane Zachary, Paul Nitsche, Pat Moriarity, Eric Theriault, Greg Ruth, Wayno, George Parsons, Gary Leib, and Dean Rohrer.

160-page black & white 8" x 11" softcover
regularly $18.95 • ON SALE $14.21
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