Wouldn't you like to see a full-length steampunk animated feature designed by Jacques Tardi? Yeah, so would we. Here's a teaser trailer for just such a thing currently in development, from the studio that brought you PERSEPOLIS, called LE MONDE TRUQUÉ (co-written by Tardi's COCKROACH KILLER writer Benjamin Legrand, for good measure). In English, yet. Enjoy!

The FantaMenace is our entry in Hazardfactory's annual Power Tool Races at the Georgetown Carnival next Saturday. Powered by a Makita disc sander and built by Close Enough Engineering on a concept by Larry and Bella, this tool is wicked quick. We plan a triumphant return to the podium this year after our 2010 victory in the Georgetown Chainsaw Massacre. Don't miss Joe Sacco, Girl Trouble, Bubble Man and so much more. Free fun all day long. Listen to Fantgraphics Bookstore curator Larry Reid discuss the Carnival with Marco Collins on Tuesday at 3:30 PM on Jet City Streamradio.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Out of the Shadows
by Mort Meskin; edited by Steven Brower

200-page full-color 7.5" x 10.5" softcover • $26.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-532-7

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One of the greatest visual storytellers in the history of comics. That was Mort Meskin, famed Golden Age artist whose name belongs in the first rank of comics storytellers: Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko.

See for yourself why Meskin earned the admiration and respect of his peers (as well as contemporary critics and historians) for his atmospherically charged work, his masterful use of form and composition to convey mood and action, his noirish use of light and shadow to create suspense.

This, the first-ever collection of Meskin’s comics, surveys his work from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Here, in just under 200 pages, you’ll discover the artist’s amazing ability to stamp his own fresh visual imprimatur across a wide variety of genres: superheroes (The Black Terror, The Fighting Yank, a never-before published Golden Lad), adventure (the origin of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle), science fiction (Tom Corbett, Space Cadet) — plus horror, kid gangs, crime, Western — even romance!

Rescued from the fading obscurity of old, yellowing comic books, this deluxe volume meticulously reproduces his work from the best available sources. At last, Mort Meskin steps into the spotlight and — OUT OF THE SHADOWS!

Praise for Mort Meskin:

“Deserves to be treasured by all comics fans and studied by all artists of the medium” – Rich Clabaugh, Christian Science Monitor

"A genius" – Carmine Infantino

"A great talent" – Jack Kirby

"One of comics' unsung heroes" – Jim Steranko

20-page excerpt (download 6.4 MB PDF):

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

Twilight descends upon Texas on Friday, July 20th as cartoonist and essayist Tim Kreider makes a special appearance at the Dallas Museum of Art! 

He'll be giving a lecture on political cartooning, particularly German artist George Grosz, as part of the "Late Nights at the Museum" series, and in celebration of the summer exhibition Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas.

The event runs from 6:00 PM to midnight, with the talk scheduled to begin at 9:00 PM. The Dallas Museum of Art is located at 1717 North Harwood Street, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Preview/Interview: At Print Magazine, Michael Dooley presents a bunch of pages of The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s Mad-Inspired Satirical Comics and has a quick Q&A with editor John Benson: "When Isaac Asimov edited his massive Before the Golden Age anthology of 1930s science fiction... he relied entirely on his memories of reading the stories when they first appeared, and that's how he made his selections. Similarly, Jules Feiffer largely relied on his memories of the stories from his original reading when making selections for his seminal The Great Comic Book Heroes in 1965. Like the Asimov and Feiffer books, The Sincerest Form of Parody is partly an exercise in nostalgia, so in making my selections, I think it's fair to give some consideration to my reaction to the material when I first saw it."

• Review: "...Fantagraphics recently unlocked whatever crate must have been used to house Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle. Over a foot long and over a foot-and-a-half tall, the hardcover features the most beautiful endpapers in recent memory. Gruelle’s artwork is full of whimsy, presented in both the richest nostalgic color and black and white. The narrative involves two children on a journey through a magical land as guided by a wood sprite, but this is truthfully an art book. It’s meant to be read sprawled out on the floor, the only surface in an average reader’s home that is likely large enough to properly balance this fine luxury. Rick Marschall provides a lengthy, informative essay that is lavishly accompanied by further illustrations." – Alex Carr, Omnivoracious

• Review: "In an age of indie-comics dependent upon the banality of the everyday, a hesitant realism, Rickheit eschews reality in favor of the impossible, a state of existence that is truly fantastical. But this is not a utopia, this is a world entirely of the body, though not only the body of human beings, but the body of all living meat, of anything that breathes and shits. This is a world of pure imagination, of subconscious desires let loose with an acutely detailed drawing style. And ultimately, [Folly]’s a perfect work for those who refuse to float away from their bodies but are ready to let their heads go where-ever one can find the new." – Invisible Mike, HTMLGIANT

• Tweet of the Day: "I just read The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons; I'll be on the Internet the rest of the day looking for instructions on how to boil my eyes." – Tom Spurgeon (@comicsreporter)

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Prince Valiant Vol. 5: 1945-1946
by Hal Foster

112-page full-color 10.5" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-484-9

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Fully half of this latest volume of Hal Foster’s epic masterpiece — again scanned from superb syndicate proofs — is devoted to the remaining chapters of “The Winning of Aleta,” a 20-month (!) epic in which Valiant obsessively pursues his bride to be. Not surprisingly this is followed by a sequence called “Matrimony,” which ends with a newly wed queen adjusting to the luxurious, exciting court life at Camelot.

But Val’s marriage does not signal an end to his adventures, quite the contrary. In “War in the Forest” Val is sent out to spy on encroaching Saxons — unknowingly aided by Aleta, who, disguised as a small knight (and dubbed “Sir Puny”) helps prevent disaster. But the 1946 strips end with Val and Aleta unable to return to Camelot and the displaced couple journeying to Thule…

Half the strips in this volume also include the delightful “The Medieval Castle,” Foster’s chronicle of two young boys growing up during the time of the First Crusade — but by the end of the 1945 strips this series has ended and the Valiant portion resume its full-page glory.

This volume also features a Foreword by P. Craig Russell, a gallery of Hal Foster's commercial illustration work and an essay titled "Aleta: Water Nymph of the Misty Isles" by Brian M. Kane.

With stunning art reproduced directly from pristine printer’s proofs, Fantagraphics has introduced a new generation to Foster’s masterpiece, while providing long-time fans with the ultimate, definitive version of the strip.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

The Furry Trap
by Josh Simmons

140-page full-color 8.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-536-5

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Graphic novelist Josh Simmons (House) returns with a harrowing and genre-bending collection of modern horror short stories that could curl the toes of a corpse in a state of rigor mortis. Simmons’ disturbing, uncomfortable and even confrontational stories often work on multiple levels: straight, uncompromising horror; blackly humorous, satirical riffs on the genre; or as vicious assaults against the political correctness that rules so much of our popular culture. His artwork excels in conveying a feeling of dread and claustrophobia, and the stories herein all share an unmistakably and uncompromising commitment to exploring the crossroads of abomination and hilarity.

The Furry Trap contains 11 short stories, varying in length from one to 30 pages, as well as a number of “extras” that will flesh out the reader’s experience. From the title creatures in “Night of the Jibblers,” to the witches and ogres of “Cockbone,” to the Godzilla-sized, centaur-bodied depiction of the title character in “Jesus Christ,” to the disarmingly cute yet terrifying demons of “Demonwood,” to the depraved, caped crusading antihero in “Mark of the Bat,” Simmons is a master of creating terrifying beasties that inspire and inflict nightmarish horrors, usually taken to unforgettable extremes.

The individual stories in The Furry Trap stand on their own as mini-masterpieces of skin-crawling terror, but collectively complement each other in a way that only heightens the anxiety and dread pouring from page to page. Just remember: You’ve been warned.

14-page excerpt (download 6.2 MB PDF):

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