Hokey smokes, look at these gorgeous pages from the tribute to Johnny Gruelle that Tony Millionaire is penning for our upcoming collection of Gruelle's Mr. Twee Deedle. Be sure to head over to Tony's blog for a slightly larger view and some lovely correspondence between Tony and HIS MOM!

Fantagraphics is puttin' the "comics" back in Comic-Con as we head to San Diego this week with a slew of scintillating signings, almost two-dozen dynamite debuts, and a collection of comics sure to please any comics fan... and fill those enormous free tote bags they give away at the door.

First up, DEBUTS!

• Love & Rockets New Stories 4 by Los Bros Hernandez
• Mark Twain’s Autobiography by Michael Kupperman
• Prison Pit Vol. 3 by Johnny Ryan
• Mome 22, edited by Eric Reynolds
• The Raven by Lou Reed and Lorenzo Mattotti
•  The Art of Joe Kubert, edited by Bill Schelly
• Setting the Standard: Alex Toth, edited by Greg Sadowski
• Esperanza by Jaime Hernanadez
• Like A Sniper Lining Up His Shot by Jacques Tardi
• Gil Jordan, Private Detective: Murder by High Tide by M. Tillieux
• The Pin-Up Art of Humorama, edited by Alex Chun
• Drawing Power, edited by Rick Marschall and Warren Bernard
• Sibyl-Anne vs. Ratticus by R. Macherot
• Willie & Joe: Back Home hardcover and Willie & Joe: The WWII Years softcover by Bill Mauldin
• The Armed Garden by David B.
• Complete Peanuts 1981-1982 (Vol. 16) by Charles Schultz
• Even More Jewish Comedians by Drew Friedman
• The Hidden by Richard Sala
• The Man Who Grew His Beard by Olivier Schrauwen
• Nuts by Gahan Wilson

Next up, SIGNINGS!

Thursday, July 21st:
1:00 - 2:00 PM    Joyce Farmer / Esther Pearl Watson
2:00 - 3:00 PM    Bill Schelly / Robert Goodin
3:00 - 5:00 PM    Gilbert Hernandez / Jaime Hernandez / Mario Hernandez
5:00 - 6:00 PM    Frank Stack / Paul Hornschemeier

Friday, July 22nd:
11:00 - 12:00 PM    Joyce Farmer / Bill Schelly / Tim Hensley
12:00 - 1:00 PM    Floyd Norman / Wilfred Santiago / Frank Stack
1:00 - 3:00 PM    Gilbert Hernandez / Jaime Hernandez / Mario Hernandez
3:00 - 4:00 PM    Paul Hornschemeier / Anders Nilsen / Esther Pearl Watson
4:00 - 5:00 PM    Mark Kalesniko / John Pham / Malachi Ward
5:00 - 7:00 PM    Johnny Ryan
5:00 - 6:00 PM    Jon Vermilyea
6:00 - 7:00 PM    Robert Goodin

Sunday, July 24th:
11:00 - 12:00 PM   Joyce Farmer / Jon Vermilyea / Esther Pearl Watson
12:00 - 1:00 PM    Mark Kalesniko / Frank Stack
1:00 - 3:00 PM    Gilbert Hernandez / Jaime Hernandez / Mario Hernandez

All the action awaits you at our usual spot, Booth #1718!

And don't miss our amazing PANELS!  I won't get into all the details, because Mike did so earlier here on the FLOG, so click on the date to see our previously posted full rundown on each panel!

Thursday, July 21st:
• 12:30-1:30     Spotlight on Bill Schelly [Room 8]
• 1:00-2:00     CBLDF Master Session 2: Shannon Wheeler [Room 30CDE]
• 2:00-3:00     Love and Rockets — Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez [Room 9]
• 2:30-3:30     Joyce Farmer: Special Exits, A Memoir [Room 4]
• 3:30-4:30     Spotlight on Frank Stack  [Room 4]
• 6:00-7:00     Comics for Social Justice: The Making of Oil and Water [Room 9]

Friday, July 22nd:
• 10:30-11:30     Comics Arts Conference Session #5: Critical Approaches to Comics: An Introduction to Theories and Methods— Matthew J. Smith and Randy Duncan with panelist, Andrei Molotiu. [Room 26AB]
• 1:00-2:00     Comics Arts Conference Session #6: Wordless Comics with Andrei Molotiu. [Room 26AB]
• 12:00-1:00     CBLDF Master Session 3: Jaime Hernandez [Room 30CDE]
• 1:00-2:00     Publishing Queer: Producing LGBT Comics and Graphic Novels with moderator Justin Hall  [Room 9]
• 1:00-2:30     The Golden Age of the Fanzine moderated by Bill Schelly. [Room 24ABC]
• 10:30-11:30     Cartoon Network Comedy: Regular Show/The Problem Solverz and More! The Problem Solverz talent includes Ben Jones, John Pham, and Jon Vermilyea. [Room 6A]

Saturday, July 23rd:
• 10:00-11:30     50 Years of Comic Fandom: The Founders with Bill Schelly [Room 24ABC]
• 11:30-12:30     Bill Blackbeard: The Man Who Saved Comics with Trina Robbins [Room 24ABC]
• 12:30-1:30     Fantagraphics 35th Anniversary  [Room 24ABC]
• 1:00-2:00     Spotlight on Anders Nilsen [Room 4]
• 2:30-3:30     The Art of the Graphic Novel with Joyce Farmer (Special Exits, A Memoir) [Room 24ABC]   

Sunday, July 24th:
• Nothing. Come shop with us!

PHEW! And, can you believe it? This is only the beginning! Stay tuned to the Fantagraphics FLOG, Twitter and Facebook for important (we mean it!) Comic-Con announcements all week long! 

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Willie & Joe: Back Home
by Bill Mauldin; edited by Todd DePastino

288-page black & white 8" x 10" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-351-4

See Previews / Order Now

In the summer of 1945, a great tide of battered soldiers began flowing back to the united States from around the globe. Though victorious, these exhausted men were nevertheless too grief-stricken over the loss of comrades, too guilt-ridden that they had survived, and too numbed by trauma to share in the country’s euphoria. Most never saw a ticker-tape parade, or stole a Times Square kiss. All they wanted was to settle back into quiet workaday lives without fear. How tragic that the forces unleashed by World War II made this simple wish impossible.

Willie & Joe: Back Home brilliantly chronicles the struggles and disillusionments of these early postwar years and, in doing so, tells Bill Mauldin’s own extraordinary story of his journey home to a wife he barely knew and a son he had only seen in pictures. The drawings capture the texture and feel, the warp and woof, of this confusing time: the ubiquitous hats and cigarettes, the domestic rubs, the rising fear of another war, and new conflicts over Civil Rights, civil liberties, and free speech. This second volume of Fantagraphics’ series reprinting Mauldin’s greatest work identifies and restores the dozens of cartoons censored by Mauldin’s syndicate for their attacks on racial segregation and McCarthy-style “witch hunts.” Mauldin pleaded with his syndicate to let him out of his contract so that he could return to the simple quiet life so desired by Willie & Joe. The syndicate refused, so Mauldin did battle, as always, through pen and ink.

"More than anyone else, save only Ernie Pyle, he caught the trials and travails of the GI. For anyone who wants to know what it was like to be an infantryman in World War II, this is the place to start — and finish." – Stephen Ambrose

"He was one of the great cartoonists who has ever been — in and out of the Army... he was a genius. His cartoons are still funny and perceptive. Bill was a sergeant, but no general officer in WWII had more power than Sgt. Bill Mauldin." – Andy Rooney

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Willie & Joe: The WWII Years (Softcover Ed.)
by Bill Mauldin; edited by Todd DePastino

704-page black & white/color 8" x 10" softcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-439-9

See Previews / Order Now

During WW II, the closest most Americans ever came to combat was through the cartoons of Bill Mauldin, the most beloved enlisted man in the U.S. Army.

This new paperback edition of the 2008 two-volume, deluxe hardcover set brings together Mauldin’s complete works from 1940 through the end of the war under one cover. This collection of over 600 cartoons, most never before reprinted, is more than the record of a great artist: it is an essential chronicle of America’s citizen-soldiers from peace through war to victory.

Bill Mauldin knew war because he was in it. He had created his characters, Willie and Joe, at age 18, before Pearl Harbor, while training with the 45th Infantry Division and cartooning part-time for the camp newspaper. His brilliant send-ups of officers were pure infantry, and the men loved it. Mauldin’s cartoons and captions recreated on paper the fully realized world of the American combat soldier.

Willie & Joe is edited by Todd DePastino, Mauldin’s official biographer. Willie & Joe contains an introduction and running commentary by DePastino, providing context for the drawings, pertinent biographical details of Mauldin’s life, and occasional background on specific cartoons (such as the ones that made Patton howl).

Twentieth Century Eightball (3rd Printing)
by Daniel Clowes

100-page 6.75" x 10.25" black & white/color softcover • $19.00
ISBN: 978-1-56097-436-9

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

Twentieth Century Eightball collects the very best humor strips from Eightball, written and drawn between 1988 and 1996. Included within are such seminal strips/rants as "I Hate You Deeply," "Sexual Frustration," "Ugly Girls," "Why I Hate Christians," "Message to the People of the Future," "Paranoid," "My Suicide," "Chicago," and over three dozen more. Other favorites include "Art School Confidential," one of Clowes' most popular strips of all time, which was adapted into a major motion picture that re-teamed Clowes with Ghost World director Terry Zwigoff. Also included is Clowes' hilariously Freudian deconstruction of professional athletes, "On Sports," which caused a stir in San Antonio when reprinted in the city's most popular weekly paper, prompting an advertising boycott and demands for the paper to be destroyed by local sports fans. Also on display is Clowes' absurdist sense of humor, from strips like "Zubrick and Pogeybait" and "Hippypants and Peace-Bear" to "Grip Glutz," "The Sensual Santa," and "Feldman."

Noted comics historian Roger Sabin, author of Phaidon's Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels, calls Eightball a "corrosively satirical vision of an America cracking apart, and confirms Clowes as a worthy successor to the underground greats of the 1960s." While Clowes' legion of admirers continues to grow along with the author's maturity as an artist, many longtime fans frequently cite Clowes' bitterly humorous work to be amongst his very best. With over 40 pages in color and many of these strips having been out-of-print for years, Twentieth Century Eightball has proven to be one of Clowes' most popular books of the twenty-first century.

2003 Harvey Award Winner, Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work

Download and read a 12-page PDF excerpt (2.2 MB) including "Art School Confidential," "Cool Your Jets," "Ectomorph," "The Truth" and "Ink Studs."

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

The French are, not unreasonably, excited by the strong showing of French cartoonists and graphic novels in the Eisners this year -- nine nominations for eight titles, four of 'em for Fantagraphics:
http://www.actuabd.com/Neuf-nominations-pour-la-BD

We think it's sort of charming that the item was posted on Bastille Day. Hence our Marseillaise quote above, for those of you who missed it.

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web. Running a bit late this week; apologies if you've been hunched over your browser clicking "refresh" since last night.

---

Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size):

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

And elsewhere:

Cochlea & Eustachia by Hans Rickheit:

Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit:

Humblug by Arnold Roth (3 new udpates!):

Keeping Two by Jordan Crane:

Lucky by Gabrielle Bell (daily diary strips all throughout July!):

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

The Pain — When Will It End? by Tim Kreider:

Les Petits Riens by Lewis Trondheim:

Truth Serum by Jon Adams:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "In Joyce Farmer’s powerful Special Exits the people are more people-like than I have encountered in comics in a long time.... It is moving without being sentimental. Real without being pedantic; a solid graphic novel that reads, well, like a novel! ...Special Exits is packed with details that can only come from observation and experience. Farmer is a close observer.... Special Exits is one of the most engrossingly human comics and, ultimately, one of the most moving... Joyce Famer has brilliantly conveyed what it is to be human. To live, to die. To ripe, to rot. And thereby hangs her tale." – Paul Karasik, The Comics Journal

• Review: "Here is Volume One of Roy Crane's Captain Easy, a wonderfully colorful and nicely designed Sunday page from 1933-35. Crane’s style is a wonderful paradox: broadly cartoony characters against nice filigrees of background illustration. The eye is lost in the pastel colors, the bold crossword puzzle layouts, the simple lines, and the breathless breezy action. The adventures never let up, and no scrape is too tight for this impossibly ingratiating and resourceful hero.... This book is more than a historically interesting sociological artifact; it’s a delight. Rating 9/10" – Michael Barrett, Popmatters

• Review: "[In Isle of 100,000 Graves] Vehlmann seamlessly takes on Jason's laconic style and deadpan irony for a genre-blending adventure with all the subversive wit one would expect from a Jason tale…. This light, entertaining take on 19th century adventure stories is sheer enjoyment. Grade: A" – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle  

• Plug: Comics Alliance's Caleb Goellner recommends Thursday's Love and Rockets panel at Comic-Con: "Even if you haven't had a chance to delve into the admittedly dense (in a very good way) Love & Rockets stories by Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, you can soak up some serious inspiration from this panel and L&R's 30 years of history. Fantagraphics co-founder and The Comics Journal EiC Gary Groth is moderating, which means the book's cultural significance should resonate beyond the fan speak usually associated with these kinds of things. If you've got a free hour, we recommend investing in this panel and checking out L&R on the floor afterward."

• Plug: Illustrator/cartoonist David Hughes discovers the work of Esther Pearl Watson (via our own Ted Jouflas, who is a Hughes fan)

Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954
edited by Greg Sadowski

432-page full color 7.5" x 10.5" softcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-408-5

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

Alex Toth’s influence on the art of comic books is incalculable. As his generation was the first to grow up with the new 10-cent full-color pamphlets, he came to the medium with a fresh eye, and enough talent and discipline to graphically strip it down its to its bare essentials. His efforts reached fruition at Standard Comics, creating an entire school of imitators and establishing Toth as the “comic book artist’s artist.” Setting the Standard collects the entirety of this highly influential body of work in one substantial volume.

Toth began his professional career at fifteen in 1945 for Heroic Comics, but quickly advanced to superhero work for DC. Responding to the endless criticism of editor Sheldon Mayer and production chief Sol Harrison, the young artist strove toward a technique free of “showoff surface tricks, clutter, and distracting picture elements.” Simply put, he learned “how to tell a story, to the exclusion of all else.”

After falling out with DC in 1952, Toth moved west. He freelanced almost exclusively for Standard over the next two years, contributing classic work for its crime, horror, science fiction, and war titles. But perhaps most revelatory to the reader will be the romance collaborations with writer Kim Ammodt, Toth’s personal favorites. “I came to prefer them for the quieter, more credible, natural human equations they dealt with — emotions, subtleties of gesture, expression, attitude.”

To explain his take on comics, Toth would quote such proverbs as “To add to truth distracts from it,” or “The beauty of the simple thing.” He employed these axioms “to make clear how universal this pursuit of truth, clarity, simplicity, economy, in all the arts and many other disciplines really is — and has been for 6,000 years.” These and other observations regarding the comic book form will be collected in an essay based on Toth’s published and unpublished letters and interviews.

Every page of Setting the Standard is restored to bring Toth’s unsurpassed graphics and page designs into full clarity, making this an essential edition for anyone with an appreciation of the art of graphic storytelling.

Download and read a 38-page PDF excerpt (17.7 MB) with 6 complete stories.

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

Hats off to Seattle's Phinney Neighborhood Association for their clever appropriation of Jacob Covey's Taking Punk to the Masses design for their annual Summer Beer Taste.