FLOG! Entries - July 2012

Daily OCD 7/31/12

TheJenVaughn

The sun is shining on the newest Online Commentaries & Diversions:

•Interview: Creator of the epic series Dungeon Quest, Joe Daly, is interviewed about the third graphic novel on The Comics Journal by our own Eric Buckler. "I liked the idea of creating a character without shame, and a almost healthy polymorphous sexuality, and within that a kind of an innocence, or at least a pureness. I also try to challenge myself to see what cartooning can achieve, what it can get away with. There seem to be things that cartoon characters can get away with, that would be far less acceptable if they were real people."

•Interview: David Gerstein, editor of the Mickey Mouse books (with Gary Groth) is interviewed on Comics Alliance. Chris Sims asks, "[Sorcerer's Apprentice] Mickey seems like a completey different chaacter than the one we see in Gottfredson's work." To which Gerstein replies, ". . . Mickey didn't need to share as much screen time with his supporting cast in his early days; he got adventure shorts largely to himself, and got to be this urgent, driven little squirt in a wild, swashbuckling world."

•Commentary: Filmmaker Magazine makes a nice comparision to Gabriella Giandelli's Interiorae and David Lynch's Blue Velvet film. ". . . a sudden surge the perspective into one of the panels suddenly seems impossible, breaking with the traditional formula of one panel = one captured frame of time. [In the example panel] the character exists in unfolding time not in separate spaces, but the same space all at once." It is also a classic Burne Hogarth tool!

•Plug: Steven Heller, top designer and professor, posted his summer reading list at the SVA school site which included *drumroll please* Significant Objects. "Contributions from writers explaining why things like a rabbit candle, mermaid figurine and Santa nutcracker are worth writing about."

•Review: HeroesCon Online reviews Jaime Hernandez's God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls. Andy Mansell says, "The story is fun, exciting, fast paced and way over the top, but it is not a satire of superheroes. The difference between Jaime’s work and a genre parody is one of tone. God and Science is a genuine love letter to super-hero comic books."

•Plug: Our friends at Love & Maggie have compiled a lovely list of Love and Rockets related-links for your perusal.

•Review: D&Q's storefront, Librairie Bookstore, enjoyed Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons. Jade says, "In terms of artistic ability, she’s far from the genius of woodcut and linocut artists Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, and Giocomo Patri. Yet considering how O’Connor produced these works during her teenage years, there is some undeniable talent here."

•Interview: Comics Book Resources covers the Gilbert Shelton interview conducted by Gary Groth at Comic-Con International. Bridget Alverson quotes Shelton, "I could only have animal comics and Little Lulu, but Donald Duck and Little Lulu are great stuff."

Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

Dal Tokyo
by Gary Panter

220-page black & white 16.25" x 6.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-56097-886-2

Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

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).

Why Texan and Japanese? Panter says, “Because they are trapped in Texas, Texans are self-mythologizing. Because I was trapped in Texas at the time, I needed to believe that the broken tractor out back was a car of the future. Japanese, I’ll say, because of the exotic far-awayness of Japan from Texas, and because of the Japanese monster movies and woodblock prints that reached out to me in Texas. Japanese monster movies are part of the fabric of Texas.”

In 1983, Panter finally got a chance to fully explore this world, and share it with an audience, when the L.A. Reader published the first 63 strips. A few years later, the Japanese reggae magazine Riddim picked up the strip, and Panter continued the saga of Dal Tokyo in monthly installments for over a decade. But none of these conceptual descriptions will prepare the reader for the confounding visual and verbal richness of Dal Tokyo, as Panter’s famous “ratty line” collides and colludes with near-Joycean wordplay, veering from more or less intelligible jokes to dizzying non-sequiturs to surreal eruptions that can engulf the entire panel in scribbles. One doesn’t read Dal Tokyo; one is absorbed into it and spit out the other side.

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

Are you a F.O.O.C.er?

TheJenVaughn

Charles Forsman of future Fantagraphics titles Celebrated Summer and The End of the Fucking World, is a mini-comics publisher in his own right. Forsman is curating a great set of cartoonists and publishing their work via his Oily Comics Boutique. If you become a "Friend of Oily Comics" you get ANY publication created from July - September ($30) or July - December ($60) via monthly deliveries through September or December (respectively). Check out what our local mailmain delivered this month!

Comics by Max de Radigues, Aaron Cockle, Melissa Mendes, Forsman and Andy Burkholder. Forsman was recently interviewed about his comic creations plus publishing & distributing excursions on Comic Book Resources and on the Inkstuds podcast with Robin McConnell.

When de Radigues gave Forsman Moose #1, he couldn't believe it, "I could tell he wasn't laboring over the artwork and he was having fun. I wanted to have fun again. . . Readers responded to it almost immediately." Here is the first page of Belgian cartoonist, Max de Radigues' Moose #9.

And one more taste of FOOC: east coast cartoonist Melissa Mendes.

While Forsman's The End of the Fucking World will be printed via Fantagraphics next year but you can still get a taste of the mini-comic by subscribing to Friends of Oily Comics.

TODAY is the last day to get the fancy subscription supersale complete with buttons, patchs, etc. Plus, you get a membership card with a personalized portrait. Just sayin'. It's worth it.

Fantagraphics at GeekGirlCon in Seattle!

janice

Fantagraphics goes geeky at the 2nd annual GeekGirlCon in Seattle!

Visit us at Booth 214 on Saturday, August 11th and Sunday, August 12th! We're excited to announce our special guests who will be joining us on Saturday: Ellen Forney, Megan Kelso, Justin Hall, and Roberta Gregory!

Saturday, August 11th:
12:00 - 2:00 PM Ellen Forney / Megan Kelso

Saturday, August 11th:
3:00 - 5:00 PM Justin Hall / Roberta Gregory

You can find us at Booth 214:

We're selling tickets for GeekGirlCon at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery -- no service charge, cash only! The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at Airport Way South. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM.

GeekGirlCon ‘12 takes place at The Conference Center, located at 8th and Pike in downtown Seattle, WA, right across the street from the Washington State Convention Center (where Emerald City Comicon is held). Come say hi to our wonderful new marketing wizard Jen Vaughn, as well as myself and Jacq!

The Complete Comics Journal Joins Online Archive from Alexander Street Press

Eric

THE COMPLETE COMICS JOURNAL ARCHIVES JOIN THE UNDERGROUND AND INDEPENDENT COMICS ARCHIVE FROM ALEXANDER STREET PRESS

Fantagraphics Books, publisher of The Comics Journal, has announced a partnership with Alexander Street Press to make the complete archive of the The Comics Journal available as part of its Underground and Independent Comics online collection. This is the first-ever scholarly online collection for researchers and students of literary and underground comic books and graphic novels, and the inclusion of more than 25,000 pages of interviews, commentary, theory and criticism from the 35 year history of The Comics Journal marks a significant contribution to the academic study of the comics form.

“Most back issues of The Comics Journal are sold out and unavailable,” says Comics Journal founder and Fantagraphics President Gary Groth. “This will allow academics, critics, and historians access to the magazine that's covered the widest range of cartooning for the longest period of time. We believe Alexander Street Press' project serves an important cultural function and we're very pleased to be part of it.”

The Underground and Independent Comics online collection covers the works that inspired the first underground comix from the 1960s (such as works by Basil Wolverton and Harvey Kurtzman), to the first generation of underground cartoonists (including R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez and many others) and encompasses modern sequential artists like Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez and Daniel Clowes, with over 75,000 pages of comics from the 1950s to present. With the inclusion of The Comics Journal archives, scholars can now similarly trace the roots of comics criticism and have access to the Journal’s incomparable oral history of the field.

Institutions who have already subscribed or purchased the archive include the Library of Congress, British Library, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Notre Dame and many others.

Comics have become an increasingly popular area of academic study, and yet the typical library has only a small selection of graphic novels in the catalog. Underground and Independent Comics solves this problem, collecting thousands of comics and related texts in one, easy-to-use online collection. With multiple combinable search fields, users can sort the materials in the collection by type, coloring, publication date, writer, penciler, inker, character, genre, publisher and more. Scholarship never before possible is now just a few keystrokes away.

“The chance to have access to 100,000 pages of underground and new wave comics in ways that were unimaginable a short time ago should change the face of comics research completely.” — James Danky, faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Noah Van Sciver's Lincoln Lesson #4

TheJenVaughn

Just when you think Professor Van Sciver couldn't find a more complicated member of the extended Todd-Lincoln family, BLAMMO: Ninian Wirt Edwards arrives. "Ninian married Elizabeth Porter Todd, Mary Todd’s older sister, and played a key role in Mary and Abraham Lincoln’s marriage. . . After the Whig party’s successes, Ninian would invite all of his friends over to the house for oysters and cigars to celebrate." And this is where Mr. Lincoln started to really garner some attention. Read more about Noah Van Sciver's historical research for The Hypo on his blog and preorder The Hypo today!

Get a Move On to the Massive World of Mini-Comix!

janice

Max Clotfelter, Ben Horak, Tim Miller, and a student from their comics class with 826 Seattle. // photo credit: Kelly Froh

While we were at Comic-Con, the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery launched the “The Massive World of Mini-Comix,” an exhibition featuring art created by young students who attended an 826 Seattle workshop!

I finally had a chance to view the show this past weekend, and it was so inspiring! I loved getting to see artwork by 12-year-olds next to work by people 2-to-3x their age, their teachers, Seattle cartoonists Max Clotfelter, Ben Horak and Tim Miller.

The show closes on Thursday, August 9th, so if you live in Seattle, you still have a chance to see it! The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at Airport Way South. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM.

Local artists Eroyn Franklin and Max Clotfelter check out the show! // photo credit: John Ohannesian

Or, if you live outside of the Seattle area, you can check out more photos of the show on the Fantagraphics Flickr!

Jason Book Signing at Plan�te BD in Montreal!

janice

If you can read that flyer, you should go to this!

Jason is back in North America, and will be signing on Saturday, August 11th at the Planète BD [ 3883 St-Denis ] in Montréal, Quebec! Join him at 2:00 PM for this special event!

This Week in Fantagraphics Events: 7/30-8/6

janice

Monday, July 30th

• Portland, OR: Northwesterners should not miss the chance to see Tim Kreider while he's on our side of the coast! Tim will be doing a reading at 7:30 PM at the infamous Powell's Books! (more info)

Wednesday, August 1st

• Bothell, WA: And then, Tim Kreider will be doing a reading at 7:00 PM at Third Place Books! (more info)

• Snoqualmie, WA: And our own Jim Blanchard is launching his art show Primitiva at The Black Dog. Ten or so of his acrylic paintings will be adorning their walls through September 15th. Check it out if you're in the area! (more info)

Love and Rockets Draw Tunes

TheJenVaughn

Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers is filled from indicia to back cover with a love of music, creating jams, going to concerts and odes to punk songs. Robert Boyd recently compiled a nice list of songs in Jaime and Gilbert's comics. Then LA-based comic store, Secret Headquarters, went ahead and built a playlist around said list of music. Listen away on Spotify, whether you are drawing, walking around town, hanging with friends or generally being a badass. Playlists Locas by Jaime and Palomar by Gilbert.

Daily OCD 7/28/12

TheJenVaughn

The newest, brightest bulb Online Commentaries & Diversions:

•Review: Sarah Hansen of Autostraddle looks at No Straight Lines. "I like my queer comic anthologies like I like my women. Handy AND beautiful. . .What No Straight Lines really achieves is putting all of these influential comics in one place. Together, they contextualize each other and the LGBTQ scene at the same time."

•Review: Paste's 'breeder' journalist Sean Edgar cracks open No Straight Lines and has a baller time. "The work in this book illustrates a sweeping chronology of our generation’s greatest civil conflict with all of the tears and smiles that follow. It’s a fascinating read and an essential perspective historically and socially. Even if you’re a breeder."

•Commentary: Publishers Weekly's coverage of Comic Con International in San Diego is THOROUGH. Shannon O'Leary talks up No Straight Lines. " . . .Hall focused on collecting 'literary queer comics in danger of being lost' with the focus instead on literary, self-contained works that would give the reader the experience of being 'satisfied' with each of the stories."

•Review: From the Librairie Drawn and Quarterly Bookstore, Jade reviews her six years of love for Love and Rockets, including keeping the store stocked with them."After all these years, the Hernandez Brothers continue to knock it out of the park with some of the best work in the industry."

•Commentary: Heidi MacDonald runs down the things that stuck out to her at Comic-Con in San Diego. The 30th Anniversary of Love and Rockets was a big one featured on THE BEAT. "While Los. Bros didn’t get the skywriting and theme park they deserved, they got a lot of love, and that will last longer. . . .We’ll give the final word to Jamie Hernandez, because he is the final word."

•Commentary: Eisner Award winner, Charles Hatfield, writes at Hand of Fire speaks about the Hernandez Brothers at Comic-Con International. "I love L&R, and credit it for keeping me in comics as a grownup. Great, great work."

•Plug: Longtime Love and Rockets reader, Robert Boyd, created a long and annotated list of the music found in the thirty-year series. "Each brother does his own very different stories, but both were (and presumably still are) punk rock fanatics and music lovers in general. This is reflected in their work."

•Plug: Sean T. Collins was spotted sporting the newest Love and Rockets shirts on television while discussing the tragic events of Aurora, CO.

•Review: Shelfari picked up two of our titles for the Graphic Novel Friday. Alex Carr starts with Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest Vol. 3: "if you can laugh at your obsession while still poring over weapon and armor upgrades, the Dungeon Quest series should be on your couch next to the game manual and open laptop. . .It's absurd, engrossing, very adult, and pitch perfect." On Jaime Hernandez's God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls, "It's oversized and billed as a director's cut,� with 30 additional pages."

•Interview: Timothy Callahan over at Comic Book Resources got the shimmy on new(er) cartoonist, Chuck Forsman, who has two books out next year from Fantagraphics: Celebrated Summer and The End of the Fucking World. "While at Forsman's studio, I saw the finished pages for 'Celebrated Summer' and it's such a fully-realized work, it's no surprise [Associate Publisher Eric] Reynolds was so quick to jump on it, even after seeing only a few pages."

•Commentary: The Best-Manga-Worst Manga panel of 2012 Comic-Con International has transcribed their views a la Deb Aoki at About.com. Shimura Takako's Wandering Son falls into the BEST MANGA (series) for Kids/Teens. Shaenon Garrity said, "I picked this as best manga for kids, but it's really a great manga for everybody. . . It's done in such a beautiful, sensitive way." Meanwhile, The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio is one of the Most Anticipated. Garrity again states, "Moto Hagio is probably the greatest manga artist after Osamu Tezuka. . . It's one of the two manga stories that practically invented the boys' love genre, along with Keiko Takemiya's Song of the Wind and Trees.

•Review: Jazz-Institute covers Listen, Whitey!: The Sights and Sounds of Black Poewr 1965-1975 and via a rough translation, Wolfram Knauer says, "Pat Thomas's book is a very valuable addition to the musical history of the 1960s and 1970s, precisely because the author attempts to establish and explain the political context. The coffee-table book is generously illustrated with album covers, rare photos, newspaper articles, and ads. A thorough index and a separately available CD with examples of the music mentioned in the text complete the concept."

•Review: Forbidden Planet makes people choose their eight favorite comics should they ever end up on the dreaded desert island. Some of those books included E.C. Segar's Popeye and Daniel Clowes' Twentieth Century Eightball. Across-the-pond artist Steve Tillotson states, "The Fantagraphics collections are great, and the character of Popeye is brilliant- I like how he just punches anyone who pisses him off, but he’s also got a really strong sense of morality, and he talks funny."

•Plug: Did you know Carl Barks was unknown for the first 16 years of his work on Disney comics? He was merely known as the good Disney artist, more on THE BEAT and MetaFilter.

The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 & 1983-1986 Box Set by Charles M. Schulz - Previews

mike

The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 (Vol. 18)
by Charles M. Schulz

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-572-3

Ships in: August 2012 � Available to order upon its arrival in our mail-order warehouse.

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.”

Also in this volume: Peppermint Patty wins the “All-City School Essay Contest” with her “What I Did During Christmas Vacation” essay but snatches defeat from the jaws of victory with a disastrous acceptance speech… Charlie Brown, Linus, Sally and Snoopy go to “rain camp” one year, and “survival camp” the next… The World War One Flying Ace gets the flu and is nursed back to health by a French Mademoiselle (Marcie)… Sally gives Santa Claus a heart attack (literally!)… Lucy talks Charlie Brown into posing in swimtrunks for their school’s “Swimsuit issue”… Peppermint Patty gains a crabby tutor… Linus suffers a crisis when addressed for the first time as “Mister”… plus another return appearance by Molly Volley, Snoopy’s accidental destruction of his dog house (with a cannon!), and lots of near-Beckettian strips set in the desert starring this volume’s cover boy, the one and only Spike!

This volume's introduction is by comedian and actor Patton Oswalt (Big Fan, Young Adult, Ratatouille).

It’s another two years of hilarious, heart-warming strips from the great Charles M. Schulz.

16-page excerpt (download 1.6 MB PDF):

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

The Complete Peanuts 1983-1986 Gift Box Set (Vols. 17-18)
by Charles M. Schulz

two 344-page black & white hardcover volumes in a custom 8.75" x 7.125" x 3" slipcase • $49.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-573-0

Ships in: August 2012 � Available to order upon its arrival in our mail-order warehouse.

A boxed set of the seventeenth and eighteenth volumes of The Complete Peanuts, designed by the award-winning graphic novelist, Seth. Shipping shrinkwrapped, with volumes 1983-1984 and 1985-1986 packed in a sturdy custom box designed especially for this set, it's the perfect gift book item. (For more information on the contents of each volume, see the individual product listings linked above.)

"The Complete Peanuts has framed Charles Schulz’s enduring masterpiece about as well any lifelong fan could’ve hoped." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives", The A.V. Club

PEANUTS ® & © Peanuts Worldwide

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

No Straight Lines Signing in Berkeley Tomorrow!

janice

The west coast party for No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics continues to Berkeley! Join our wonderful editor Justin Hall for a signing and reading at Pegasus Books tomorrow, Saturday, July 27th.

He'll be joined by Jon Macy, Paige Braddock, Lee Marrs, Andy Hartzel, and Christine Smith for a series of comic book readings to celebrate the release of this important anthology.

Pegasus Books is located at 2349 Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. It's gonna be another awesome event!

Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur
edited by Jacques Boyreau & Peter Van Horne

96-page full-color 10.75" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-553-2

Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Sexytime is the book that pornoisseurs all over the world have anxiously been waiting for. Not that grade drooler, the porn addict, mind you, but the porn aesthete, the porn classicist who knows his stag film history and lives by the credo, Veni ergo sum.

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.

This is the book for those who harbor a healthy, passionate yet tortured curiosity and appreciation, in short, a total jones for retro design mixed with brazen sexuality, who want to discover a secret, blushing school of design that is uniquely controversial to this day. Selected with heat sensitive attention to detail and accompanied by a brain-ripping narration on the rise of “post-porn” by Jacques Boyreau, this collection of pristinely re-mastered movie posters from the golden age of American porn is a portrait of taboo-busting 1970s “porno chic” erotomania. Accept no substitutes.

10-page excerpt (download 2.8 MB PDF):

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

Pairing Books with Booze

TheJenVaughn

While reading a particularly engrossing book or graphic novel, it is not abhorrent to combine the experience with a fine drink. We are not above such fun.

In the weekly article from iFanboy, Comic Shots picks one tasty drink and pairs it with a delicious read: Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man. Josh Christie waxed on quite a bit about Carl Barks' stories. "I was, perhaps, predestined to love these new editions of Barks’ classics. Nevertheless, these stories tap into something deeper – they are, at their core, good stories. Barks’ characters are funny and charming, and their constant scheming (be it in an attempt to save a dollar or to thwart the Beagle Boys) is wildly creative."

Christie read the book while sipping only the fanciest beer imaginable at a whopping $150 a bottle. So we here at the ol' homestead came up with our own drink that you can make at home (if you are of drinking age) that also rings true to Scroogian sensibilities. It's a lil' take on the screwdriver called the Scrooge Diver.

Ingredients:

1 part vodka (cheap, of course)

1/2 part cranberry juice

one stolen sugar packet (Scrooge's kitchen is FULL of free condiments)

Orange juice to the top with three ice cubes and enjoy while reading the best of Carl Barks in "Only a Poor Old Man." In the end, we actually used FREE VODKA which is better than cheap (in Scrooge's eye) thanks to the Jason Sacks of the Comics Bulletin who handed out special apple vodka at Comic-Con this year. Uncle Scrooge enjoys a soda below.

If mixing drinks isn't your thing, maybe you'd enjoy drinks with comics labels. For the past seven months, Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle has created some very special beers with Charles Burns art as part of the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse. With names like Maelstrom, Ruin and most recently, Torrent: you know that these are not your average beers. We claim no responsibility for you waking up in the post-apocalyptic/neo-punk/dystopian world of your dreams.

If you are in Seattle and have missed such excellent apocalyptic parties at Elysian Brewing Company and its satellite pubs, Tangletown and Elysian Fields, you've got August through December to make up for it! Check with your local co-op or grocery store to see if they carry Elsyian's 12 Beers of the Apocalypse.

First Looks: Barack Hussein Obama, Naked Cartoonists, The Raven S/C, Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me

mike

Shipments of advance copies of more of our September books have been pouring into the office over the last couple of weeks and I've plunked them down on my desk here in our glamorous offices and taken a few snapshots for you:

Barack Hussein Obama, Steven Weissman's acclaimed webcomic now collected in this lavish hardcover! Part absurdist satire, part old-fashioned gag strip, part Lovecraftian horror, part thinly-veiled autobiography, all amazing!

Naked Cartoonists: Drawers Drawing Themselves Without Drawers — a hilarious and revealing collection of self-portraits of over 70 world-famous cartoonists in the buff, from the collection of Mark J. Cohen and Rose Marie McDaniel.

The Raven by Lorenzo Mattotti & Lou Reed — an inspired collaboration with Reed's words and Mattotti's images, based on the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, now in a new paperback edition!

Also in a new paperback edition after several years out of print, Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977, collecting two decades of Crumb's personal correspondence. A powerful view into the mind of an artistic genius!

And we already gave you a peek at these from the floor of Comic-Con, but what the heck, here they are in our office:

Buz Sawyer Vol. 2: Sultry's Tiger by Roy Crane...

...and Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez. Woo!

New Comics Day July 11, 18 & 25, 2012

mike

While we were at Comic-Con and then I was on vacation a gazillion of our books came out in comic shops because of course they did!

Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying these latest releases about (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

The Adventures of Venus
by Gilbert Hernandez

96-page 7.75" x 7.75" black & white hardcover • $9.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-540-2

"I think children's comics benefit from stand-alone collection more than most because it enables you to get on the wavelength being offered a bit more fully than in a serial comic book. So while I'll miss this Gilbert Hernandez work appearing next to back-up shorts featuring slightly inappropriate Rick Altergott comics, I think this book works super-well. I forgot how charming those comics are. This is also a good one to buy in anticipation of his forthcoming autobiographically-oriented work. Price point kills, too. Yeah, buy that one." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"...my first grab would be The Adventures of Venus, a collection of all-ages comics starring Luba’s young, American niece, Venus. Originally serialized in Gilbert’s short-lived kids anthology Marbles, these are really charming stories about everyday kid activities like reading comic books, playing soccer, getting sick and just generally having an active imagination." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Gilbert Hernandez’s completely delightful kids’ comics from the pages of Measles are collected in The Adventures of Venus..., along with a new piece..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Dungeon Quest Book 3
by Joe Daly

288-page black & white 6" x 8.25" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-544-0

"...an enormous 288-page return to Joe Daly’s humorous fantasy quest narrative/gaming spoof..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls
by Jaime Hernandez

136-page black & white/color 8.75" x 11.25" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-539-6

"If I was looking to splurge, I’d add Jaime Hernandez’ God and Science: Return of The Ti-Girls collection (Fantagraphics, $19.99) to my take-home stash, because … well, it’s Jaime and it’s glorious. I’ve already read it in the Love and Rockets serialization, but $19.99 for a collected hardcover? I am splurging, after all!" – Graeme McMillan, Robot 6

"Even though I read the story when it was serialized in Love and Rockets New Stories, I’m tempted to pick up God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez, as it’s got a new coda and because, hey, new Jaime Hernandez book." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"...the new Jaime Hernandez release God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls, a 136-page hardcover collection/expansion of his superhero serial from the newest incarnation of Love and Rockets..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture - A Career Retrospective (2nd Printing)
by Jack Davis

208-page full-color 10.25" x 13.25" hardcover • $49.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-447-4

Busted! "Mike Baehr said in casual conversation -- which I think means, 'Oh yeah, use this on the site as if I gave you an actual quote' -- that this book did extremely well for Fantagraphics at SDCC. Really handsomely mounted book featuring a great cartoonist." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"I was a big Mad Magazine junkie in my youth, so I’d likely go for Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture, a coffee-table sized retrospective honoring the master cartoonist behind so many great EC stories and Mad parodies, not to mention album covers, movie posters, magazine illustrations, etc." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"...Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture provides 208 pages of stuff from the humorist, illustrator and Mad contributor..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Jewish Images in the Comics
by Fredrik Strömberg

424-page black & white 6" x 6" hardcover • $26.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-528-0

"...the latest (424-page!) Fredrik Strömberg sampler of annotated iconographies..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Significant Objects
edited by Joshua Glenn & Rob Walker

242-page full-color 6" x 8.25" flexibound softcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-525-9

"Significant Objects is not a comic — not an awful lot of comics this week caught my eye — but a potentially interesting prose compilation culling the ‘best of’ Joshua Glenn’s and Rob Walker’s online effort at selling knickknacks through eBay by commissioning writers to create short stories for the item descriptions, with comics folk Gary Panter, Ben Katchor and Ann(ie) Nocente (along with frequent writer-on-comics Douglas Wolk) joining the likes of William Gibson(!), Jonathan Lethem and Neil LaBute as contributors; $24.99." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"Not comics: a book featuring the essay/object pairings organized by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, which you can read about here." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8
by Michael Kupperman

32-page full-color 6.75" x 9.5" comic book • $4.95

"I can't imagine there's a better single-issue buy out there; Michael Kupperman is one of comics' funniest people, and probably its most consistent right now." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"...my first pick would easily be the latest issue of Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle, featuring a thrilling moon caper, a Murder, She Wrote parody and a truly strange coloring book about trains. If you’ve a yen for idiosyncratic, absurdist humor — and who doesn’t? — this is your meal ticket right here." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"...the final issue of Michael Kupperman’s hugely-admired comedy showcase..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man
by Carl Barks

248-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-535-8

"Fantagraphics continues to be the gold standard for reprinting old comics material. This collection of Carl Barks' splendid Scrooge stories continues the formula of the Donald Duck volume from a few months ago: four long stories (including 'Back to the Klondike'!), then a handful of shorter stories and one-page gags." – Douglas Wolk, ComicsAlliance

"My big splurge purchase this week is Only a Poor Old Man, the second volume in Fantagraphics ongoing Carl Barks collection. I’m so happy that an affordable version of Barks’ duck stories is finally available, I can’t resist snatching it up." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"...another 248 pages of re-colored vintage Carl Barks... Just collect the change from between your couch cushions and go to town, little angels. " – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Wandering Son Vol. 3
by Shimura Takako

224-page black & white/color 7" x 9.5" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-533-4

"...[A] solid manga offering..." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"Shimura Takako’s soft ‘n delicate story of transgender sexual identity among adolescents continues..." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Sexytime Book Launch in London!

janice

It's the launch so sexy, editor Jacques Boyreau took it to a whole 'nother country... Hey London! Get ready for a sexy time with the launch of Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur!

Join Jacques at The Horse Hospital in London for the official book release party on Friday, August 24th at 7:30 PM. Be one of the first to get your hands on this anthology of over a hundred of the most outrageously over-the-top porn movie posters of the era!

It's also the kick-off for an exhibit of pristinely re-mastered movie posters from the golden age of American porn, a collection of taboo-busting 1970s “porno chic” erotomania.

The exhibition runs through September 1st, and there will be daily matinee screenings of Jacques Boyreau's Candy Von Dewd & the Girls from Latexploitia... I bet that's exactly what it sounds like.

The Horse Hospital is located at Colonnade, Bloomsbury in London. Someone go check in on those horses for me.

Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution in NY This Fall!

janice

Buffalo, NY pays tribute to their proud native son Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez with Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution, an in-depth career retrospective opening Friday, September 14th.

The exhibition will be hosted by the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and will include both original drawings and reproductions representing all stages of Spain’s comix career (East Village Other, Zodiac Mindwarp, Zap Comix, Subvert, Anarchy, Weirdo, Zero Zero, Blab, American Splendor, et al.), including prints from his poster designs for the San Francisco Mime Troupe (1974–2011), with particular emphasis on his mature work of recent years in which he explores both his personal history of growing up in Buffalo in the 1950s and early ‘60s.

The Burchfield Penney Art Center is located at 1300 Elmwood Avenue, in the heart of Buffalo's Museum District. This exhibit will run through Sunday, January 20th, 2013.

No Straight Lines Signing in San Francisco Tomorrow!

janice

Join our wonderful editor Justin Hall for a celebration of No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics!

He'll be hosting an awesome event at Books Inc. in the Castro this Thursday, July 26th at 7:30 PM, and he'll be joined by a cast of contributors, including Trina Robbins, Ed Luce, Rick Worley, and Robert Triptow for a series of comic book readings to celebrate the release of this important anthology!

Books Inc. is located at 2275 Market Street in San Francisco. Don't miss it!