The new prepackaged Online Commentaries & Diversion:

•Commentary: The Huffington Post made it over to the Robert Crumb exhibit called "Crumb: From the Underground to the Genesis" at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris: "Never one to shy away from his love-hate relationship with women, Crumb invited the world into his most perverted fantasies, one which includes riding on his mother's boot."

•Interview: Zachary Hunchar of Technorati questions Pete Bagge about a long life in comics. "People expect their entertainment to be for free now," said Bagge. "Musicians compensate for it by performing live more often, but the only equivalent to that for cartoonists is more comic conventions."

•Interview: WTF Podcast with host Marc Maron digs into the essentials of Tony Millionaire's work: "[Marc's place] is like my place, I have a very small garage, built for a model T, and it's cluttered. I have all the corners I need to work in."

•Commentary: Tom Spurgeon is afraid of all the press releases for San Diego Comic-Con will overwhelm your normall-observant Hernandez Brothers' radar. On the Comics Reporter, he made an impassioned called for Love and Rockets coverage during the 2012 Comic-Con International: "It's vital for the medium we love . . . that we treat San Diego as a place where Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez have been in attendance more than 25 times each more than we treat it as a place Steven Spielberg has been to once. Both Jaime and Gilbert remain vital, exciting cartoonists. . ."

•Plug: Gene Ambaum of Unshelved touches on Oil & Water by Steve Duin, Shannon Wheeler and Michael Rosen: "[an] anti plastic activist and bird enthusiast,” who wears a strange cyclops-like lens to aid his bird watching, says he has 'the poop story to end all poop stories.' He doesn’t tell it until the end of the book, so I had to keep reading."

•Review: From a rather rough translation of Swedien's second largest newspaper, Expressen, Jan Gradvall speaks on Paul Nelson from the book Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery: "Paul Nelson invested all of his feelings [in] records, books, movies. Them he could communicate with - not with live people."

Man of our dreams. (Panel from Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental by Drew & Josh Alan Friedman.)

Everybody wants to know: what new books will Fantagraphics be debuting at the San Diego Comic-Con? Well, attendees, get ready to be among the very first to feast your eyes on the following, most of these fresh from the printers! Find 'em all at Booth #1718!

• The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez A rare foray into all-ages work, “The Adventures of Venus” was Gilbert Hernandez’s contribution to the kids’ anthology Measles which he edited in 1999 and 2000. This super-affordable little hardcover collects all the previously uncollected “Venus” stories from Measles, plus a new story done just for this book!

 
• The Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here: Images from the Graphic Novel by Malcolm McNeill (not officially out 'til October!) In 1970, William S. Burroughs and artist Malcolm McNeill agreed to collaborate on a book-length meditation on time, power, control, and corruption that evoked the Mayan codices and specifically, the Mayan god of death, Ah Pook. McNeill created nearly a hundred paintings, illustrations, and sketches for the book, and these, finally, are seeing the light of day in The Lost Art of Ah Pook.

• Observed While Falling: Bill Burroughs, Ah Pook, and Me by Malcolm McNeill (not officially out 'til October!) Observed While Falling is an account of the personal and creative interaction that defined the collaboration between the writer William S. Burroughs and the artist Malcolm McNeill on the graphic novel Ah Pook Is Here. The memoir chronicles the events that surrounded it, the reasons it was abandoned and the unusual circumstances that brought it back to life.

• Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (not officially out until September!) It’s neither a biography nor an experiment, but a whole, fully-realized parallel America, a dada-esque, surrealistic satirical vision that is no more cockeyed than the real thing, its weirdness no more weird, its vision of the world no more terrifying, where the zombie-esque simulacra of Joe Biden and Hillary and Newt and Obama wander, if not exactly through the corridors of power, through an America they made and have to live in, like it or not.

• Buz Sawyer Vol. 2: Sultry's Tiger by Roy Crane (not officially out until September!) In the last adventure in our 2nd volume, Buz is kidnapped and flown to Africa by mysterious assailants. His friend Chili Harrison bets International Airways chief Mr. Wright $200 that even in this desperate situation, Buz will manage to get involved with a pretty girl. Long-time readers of the strip will have no trouble guessing who wins that bet.

• Captain Easy Vol. 3 Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 3 (1938-1940) by Roy Crane (not officially out until August!) The third volume in Fantagraphics’ ongoing reprint of Roy Crane’s legendary comedy-action series features what many consider the absolute peak of the series: “Temple of the Swinks,” in which Wash and Easy discover an ancient temple with statues of an unknown animal called a swink... a real-life specimen of which shows up!

• The Cavalier Mr. Thompson: A Sam Hill Novel by Rich Tommaso (not officially out until August!) Welcome To Big Spring, Texas and The Cavalier Hotel. A place brimming with all manner of colorful characters. And then, Ross Thompson – a slick operator from Chicago — came into their humble abode and turned everything upside down. Big Spring was a just string of yarn for Mr. Thompson to pull and pull at, until the entire community came unraveled! Now you’ll have to crack open this here book for yourself to find out just how he done it... 

• The Complete Peanuts 1983-1986 Gift Box Set (Vols. 17-18)
• The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 (Vol. 18) by Charles M. Schulz (not officially out until August!) Peanuts reaches the middle of the go-go 1980s in this book, which covers 1985 and 1986: a time of hanging out at the mall, “punkers” (you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Snoopy with a Mohawk), killer bees, airbags, and Halley’s Comet. And in a surprisingly sharp satirical sequence, Schulz pokes fun at runaway licensing with the introduction of the insufferably merchandisable “Tapioca Pudding.”

• The Crackle of the Frost by Lorenzo Mattotti & Jorge Zentner (not officially out until September!) In 2011, Fantagraphics presented the extraordinary Stigmata, a stunning display of Mattotti’s whirling, emotional, black and white linework, as well as his painted illustrations for Lou Reed’s The Raven. The Crackle of the Frost ups the visual ante even on those masterpieces, combining the narrative drive of the former with the lush color illustrations of the latter to create a graphic-novel masterpiece with panel after panel of sumptuous full-color paintings.

• Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter (not officially out until August!) Gary Panter began imagining Dal Tokyo, a future Mars that is terraformed by Texan and Japanese workers, as far back as 1972, appropriating a friend’s idea about “cultural and temporal collision” (the “Dal” is short for Dallas).

• Is that All There Is? (softcover) by Joost Swarte (not officially out until September!) Under Swarte’s own exacting supervision, Is That All There Is? collects virtually all of his alternative comics work from 1972 to date, including the RAW magazine stories that brought him fame among American comics aficionados in the 1980s.

• Jewish Images in the Comics by Fredrik Strömberg Jewish Images in the Comics showcases more than 150 comic strips, comic books and graphic novels from all over the world, stretching over the last five centuries and featuring Jewish characters and Jewish themes.

• Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez (not officially out until September!) In Jaime's story “Crime Raiders International Mobsters and Executioners,” Tonta comes to visit for a weekend and sees what kind of life the Frog Princess is living with Reno and Borneo. On the other-brother side, Gilbert celebrates the 30th anniversary by bringing one of his current characters (“Killer,” granddaughter to the legendary Luba) into the Palomar milieu.

• Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur edited by Jacques Boyreau (not officially out until August!) An oversized coffee table book celebrating the art of the 1970s porn movie poster, Sexytime collects over a hundred of the most outrageously over-the-top porn movie posters of the era. It includes “classics” like The Sex-Ray Machine, Candy Goes to Hollywood, and The Senator’s Daughter starring such ’70s porn stalwarts as Annie Sprinkle, John Holmes, and Seka.

• Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 by Michael Kupperman Break out your crayons as Red Warren, "America's Grandpa," brings you his highly educational "Train & Bus Coloring Book." The guests at a sophisticated weekend party sure get nervous when a certain mystery writer shows up on her goat. Learn the story of French national hero Bertrand de Copillon, a.k.a. "The Scythe." And originally serialized in the Washington City Paper and online at Fantagraphics.com, the true story of the first lunar mission, "Moon 69." All this and more in the eighth and final issue of the series that changed the face of comic book humor, Tales Designed to Thrizzle!

• Significant Objects edited by Joshua Glenn & Rob Walker Significant Objects began in 2009 as a bold online inquiry into the relationship between narrative and the value of everyday objects. It has been the subject of speculation by everyone from NPR to litbloggers to The New York Times’ Freakonomics crew. A collection of one hundred Significant Objects stories is published in this hardcover volume.

• No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics edited by Justin Hall Queer cartooning encompasses some of the best and most interesting comics of the last four decades, with creators tackling complex issues of identity and a changing society with intelligence, humor, and imagination. This book celebrates this vibrant artistic underground by gathering together a collection of excellent stories that can be enjoyed by all.

• Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture - A Career Retrospective by Jack Davis Jack Davis arrived on the illustration scene in the euphoric post-war America of the late 1940s when consumer society was booming and the work force identified with commercial images that reflected this underlying sense of confidence and American bravado. Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture is a gigantic, unparalleled career-spanning retrospective, between whose hard covers resides the greatest collection — in terms of both quantity and quality — of Jack Davis’ work ever assembled!

• Wandering Son Vol. 3 by Shimura Takako; edited and translated by Matt Thorn As shown in the first two volumes of this acclaimed series, Shuichi and his friend Yoshino have a secret: Shuichi is a boy who wants to be a girl, and Yoshino is a girl who wants to be a boy. After an unhurried, almost leisurely buildup that gave us an opportunity to get to know and understand our protagonists, artist Shimura picks up the pace in this latest volume, with tears and laughs aplenty. A sophisticated work translated with rare sensitivity by veteran translator and comics scholar Matt Thorn.

• Castle Waiting Vol. II #17 by Linda Medley Linda Medley continues to gather loose ends and drop new hints in this new issue of the beloved series. Chess has a surprising revelation about the identity of baby Pinter's father — could it be tied in with the war? The Hammerlings Dayne & Tolly bid farewell to the castle, but not before leaving behind a surprise gift which Rackham discovers later (along with the strange gift Dr. Fell left in an earlier issue). Sister Peace has a tete-a-tete with the demon Leeds regarding religious artifacts — did you know demons collect them? Simon struggles with his reading lessons until Jain helps him have a breakthrough. And Jain faces off with the castle ghost!

• Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons by Flannery O'Connor; edited by Kelly Gerald Flannery O’Connor: The Cartoons, the first book devoted to the author’s work in the visual arts, emphasizes O’Connor’s most prolific period as a cartoonist, drawing for her high school and college publications in the early 1940s. Her cartoons are a creative threshing floor for experimenting and trying out techniques that are deployed later with such great success in her fiction.

• God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez Originally serialized in Love and Rockets: New Stories, “Ti-Girls Adventures” managed to be both a rollickingly creative super-hero joyride. Aside from being presented in a large format that really displays Jaime Hernandez’s stunning art, God and Science will be a “director’s cut” version that includes a full 30 new pages in addition to the original 100-page epic, including four new full-color faux Ti-Girls covers, several expansions of scenes, an epilogue set back in Maggie’s apartment, and a long fantasy/timewarp sequence that draws the focus back on Penny’s awful predicament.

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics goes "full circle" with a book release party at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, where this collection first began as a show in 2006!

Join our editor Justin Hall on Thursday, July 19th as he presents readings from Burton Clarke (Gay Comix), MariNaomi (Kiss and Tell), Robert Triptow (Gay Comix), and Mary Wings (Come Out Comix), plus keep your eyes peeled for other surprise guests.

The Cartoon Art Museum is located at 655 Mission Street in San Francisco. This event goes from 7:00 to 9:00 PM, and is FREE and open to the public!

Seeing is believing! After a loooooooooong wait we're extremely excited to finally be able to hold Gary Panter's Dal Tokyo in our hands as our advance copies were delivered late last week. This green monster (measuring over 16" wide) collects the long-running punk/sci-fi strip in all its confounding visual and verbal richness in one giant volume. We're looking forward to showing you more — stay tuned for our full set of previews. The book is scheduled to hit stores in September — if you buy it via our mail-order you can be among the first to get it if you pre-order now.

Gee, sure is a slow week for events at Fantagraphics... cough.

Monday, July 9th

• Berkeley, CA: Our own Tim Kreider will be doing a reading at 7:00 PM at Books, Inc. (more info)

Tuesday, July 10th

• Brooklyn, NY:  Join Michael Kupperman at Littlefield for another fine edition of his monthly comedy series The Crime Stoppers Club, with special guests Julia Wertz, James Adomian, Matthew Thurber, Annie Lederman, and special guest Adam Warrock! (more info)

• New York City, NY: It's the launch party for Significant Objects, hosted by editors Joshua Glenn & Rob Walker at The Strand! Starting at 7:00 PM, writers Luc Sante, Matthew Sharpe, Mimi Lipson, Ben Greenman, Annie Nocenti, Shelley Jackson, Jason Grote, and more will share their extraordinary stories of ordinary things! (more info)

Wednesday, July 11th

• San Diego, CA: Oh right, it's Preview Night at that San Diego Comic-Con thing! (more info)

Thursday, July 12th

• San Diego, CA: Hurry! Quick, get to Booth #1718 at the San Diego Comic-Con and check out all our awesome debuts before they sell out!  (more info)

 • San Diego, CA: Mome-vet Malachi Ward is part of The Crazy Rattlesnake Treehouse Gang live comics reading at Space 4 Art [ 325 15th St ]! No badge required to attend! The fun starts at 8:00 PM! (more info)

• San Diego, CA: Comedian Patton Oswalt is doing a show at the awesomely-named Spreckles Theater at 8:00 PM. Patton wrote the introduction for The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 (Vol. 18) which happens to be debuting aaaaaat... (more info)

Friday, July 13th

• San Diego, CA: Dang, you guessed it! Booth #1718 at the San Diego Comic-Con! Patton, come by and see us! We love you! (more info)

Saturday, July 14th

• Seattle, WA:  The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery presents the opening reception for “The Massive World of Mini Comics,” an exhibition featuring art created by young students who attended an 826 Seattle workshop devoted to comic zines taught by Seattle cartoonists Max Clotfelter, Ben Horak and Tim Miller, and facilitated by Fantagraphics Books and Alex Bleecker, program coordinator for 826 Seattle! (more info)

• San Diego, CA: Swing by Booth #1718 at the San Diego Comic-Con to see which Fantagraphics employee has cracked from all the loud video game noises! (more info)

Sunday, July 15th

• San Diego, CA: It's your last chance to visit us at Booth #1718 at the San Diego Comic-Con! Will there be amazing deals? You better swing by and check. (more info)

"Who was Miss Owens?" The talented and handsome cartoonist of upcoming book The Hypo, Noah Van Sciver, addresses some of the history in his graphic novel. Before Mary Todd, Abraham Lincoln was engaged to another! Find out more at Noah's blog and pre-order the book today.

The greenest Online Commentaries & Diversion:

•Review: Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing gushed about Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man. "[Carl Barks'] art is expressive and perfectly rendered. . . I think the best way to read Barks is via The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library, published by Fantagraphics."

•Review: The New York Review of Books takes a look at Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons. Barry Moser: "[Flannery O'Connor] also said that a story—or a linoleum print, if you will—has to have muscle as well as meaning, and the meaning has to be in the muscle. Her prints certainly have muscle, and a lot of it."

 •Plug: Kotaku was pleased with their copy of God and Science by Jaime Hernandez in an article called "Four Comics That Will Vibrate Your Molecules This Week." Evan Narcisse expands on an idea, "It's as if [the Hernandez Brothers] never shook their adolescent fascination with rayguns and capes, choosing instead to deepen the metaphoric and escapist elements of such genre tropes."

•Plug: Comics Crux snagged a copy of Jaime Hernandez' God and Science plus the FIB mini. Jess Pendley matter-of-factly states: "If you are a fan of either Jaime Hernandez or traditional capes-and-tights stories, you’ll only be doing yourself a service by purchasing this right now."

•Interview (video): Watch an 'Outrageous Tub' interview featuring No Straight Lines editor Justin Hall on Accidental Bear. In reference to a superhero question "Are you good or bad?" Hall replied, "I haven't made a decision yet." Be bad, be sooo bad.

•Plug: The guys over at Stumptown Trade Review got excited about No Straight Lines, edited by Justin Hall: "It was just the other day that I mentioned one could never tell what was coming from Fantagraphics. As if to prove my point, they are at it again. . ."

•Review: Paste Magazine had a lovely time reading Mr. Twee Deedle (edited by Rick Marschall): "[Johnny Gruelle's] strips seem crafted mostly to impart lessons (be kind, don’t wiggle, giving is better than receiving), and there’s no question that they can feel preachy and simplistic, but the art, deliberately old-fashioned even at the time and reminiscent of Kate Greenaway’s illustrations, rescues them."

•Plug: Robot 6 caught the scent of a very good book slated for September by Chris Wright. Michael May is excited for Blacklung: "Depressing, existential AND romantic? I couldn’t sign up quickly enough for Chris Wright’s original graphic novel debut."

•Review: Litkicks takes the time for a lengthy review of Everything Is An Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, edited by Kevin Avery. Alan Bisbort also interviewed one of Nelson's mentees in the world of music criticism: "Rolling Stone was home to a lot of alpha males and females, especially on the writing side, and Paul was just the antithesis of that."

We rather inconveniently sold out of all of our back issues of Squa Tront: The EC Comics Magazine just before the brand new 13th issue came out, but we've just managed to get our hands on a limited supply of issues 10, 11 and 12! (And we mean limited: we have 2 copies of #12!) These are the last of 'em so get them while you still can!

Who's ready for some Comic-Con?! Fantagraphics is getting ready to head to San Diego ourselves, and over the next week, we'll be rolling out our list of debuts and our signing schedule right here on the FLOG.

How about a list of panels featuring our fabulous Fantagraphics artists? See you there!

Thursday, July 12th

• 4:00-5:00 PM // Womanthology: One woman's (Renae De Liz) question on Twitter became a fully realized all-female graphic novel anthology in under a year. A legion of supporters helped fund Womanthology: Heroic through a considerably successful Kickstarter campaign, and recently IDW announced the continuation of Womanthology as an ongoing series, starting with Womanthology: Space. Meet some of the more than 170 creators who made the book happen, including our own Trina Robbins (The Brinkley Girls). Moderated by Womanthology contributor Barbara Kesel. Room 25ABC

• 8:00-9:00 PM // Artist As Brand, Rise of the Artist Entrepreneur: Greg Spalenka moderates a panel discussion on art career sustainability. Learn strategies on how to create an income off your talent on your own terms. Panelists include Dave McKean (an icon of popular art culture, professional artist, photographer, graphic designer, director, musician, Arkham Asylum, The Sandman, MirrorMask), Craig Elliott, Shiflett Brothers, Miss Mindy, and Daniel and Dawna Davis. Room 8

Friday, July 13th 

•  2:00-3:00 PM // No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics: Queer cartooning has been one of the most vibrant artistic and countercultural movements of the past 40 years, tackling complex issues of identity and changing social mores with intelligence, humor, and an irreverent imagination. No Straight Lines, a massive anthology published by Fantagraphics Books, is the most definitive collection to date of this material, showcasing everything from lesbian underground comix, to gay newspaper strips, bi punk zines, and trans webcomics. The editor of the book, Justin Hall moderates an all-star panel of some of the true greats of LGBTQ comics: Alison Bechdel, Paige Braddock, Ed Luce, Trina Robbins, and Eric Shanower. Room 25ABC

• 2:30-3:30 PM // Dave McKean: My Two Years with Dawkins, Christ, and a Small Crab Called Eric: Dave McKean, illustrator of many books with Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, John Cale, Heston Blumenthal, Grant Morrison, and occasional artist,photographer, director, musician, writer, and singer of forgotten songs, talks about two intense years spent exploring both sides of the theological divide. Room 5AB

• 2:30-3:30 PM // Comics Arts Conference Session #8: Jack Kirby, Modernism, and Abstraction: Jack Kirby is increasingly emerging as an important 20th century American artist even beyond the realm of the comics world. This panel will discuss the relationship of Kirby with abstract art, his deeply modernist artistic achievement, and his influence on art and abstract comics. Andrei Molotiu (Indiana University, Bloomington; Abstract Comics: The Anthology) will give a presentation on the topic, then will discuss the subject with artist Mark Badger (Batman: Jazz, Martian Manhunter) and other surprise guests. Room 26AB

• 5:30-6:30 PM // D+Q & Fantagraphics: North America's two most influential independent comics publishers, which have defined the literary comics medium for the past 25 years, preview their upcoming lists. Jacq Cohen (publicity director) and Eric Reynolds (associate publisher) of Fantagraphics, and Julia Pohl-Miranda (editorial marketing manager) and Tom Devlin (creative director) for D+Q present their 2012 and 2013 lists, with a few surprises. Room 26AB

Saturday, July 14th 

•  11:30-12:30 PM // Save the Date: Your New Favorite Film: This may be the first comic book film that isn't based on an actual comic book; instead, Save the Date uses the style and sensibility of indie comics by renowned graphic novelist Jeffrey Brown as a jumping off point to tell a contemporary story of the trials, pain, and happiness of modern love. Explore the challenges and advantages of working in film versus comics with cartoonist/screenplay co-writer Jeffrey Brown, director Michael Mohan, and producers Jordan Horowitz and Michael Roiff, and the cast. Room 5AB

• 1:30-3:00 PM // 30th Anniversary of Love and Rockets: For 30 years Los Bros Hernandez have entranced comics readers around the world with their adventures of Maggie, Hopey, Luba, and the entire Love and Rockets cast of characters. Comic-Con special guests Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, and Mario Hernandez join with Fantagraphics Books co-publisher Gary Groth to talk about this award-winning series of comics and its decades-spanning durability. Room 24ABC

• 4:30-6:00 PM // Spotlight on Gilbert Shelton: Underground comix legend and Comic-Con special guest Gilbert Shelton makes a rare U.S. appearance to discuss his career (including The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Wonder Warthog) with moderator Fantagraphics Books co-publisher Gary Groth, plus Ron Turner (publisher, Last Gasp San Francisco), and Shelton's literary agent, Manfred Mroczkowski (Interlicense Ltd., Mill Valley, CA). Room 5AB

• 5:30-8:00 PM // Gays in Comics: 25th Year Celebration!: This year, founding moderator and best-selling author Andy Mangels, chairs a new form of panel, a live documentary that will unfold for the audience, featuring a mixture of commentary, images, music and other surprises! Showcased with live appearances and video messages will be an army of awesome creators who have appeared on the previous 24 panels, including Roberta Gregory, creator of Naughty Bits and Bitchy Bitch and the godmother of the gay comic movement; Trina Robbins, remarkable writer and artist whose work on behalf of women in comics has helped redefine the industry; Justin Hall, author of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, creator of Glamazonia, and Prism Comics talent chair; and much more! Room 6A