FLOG! Entries - June 2012

Significant Objects, ed. by Joshua Glenn & Rob Walker - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

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

Available with two different covers (book design by Jacob Covey) — make your choice when ordering.

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

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. Some theorized about the project’s hypothesis, others about its methods and results. Others just wanted to know if there would be a book collection. The answer is yes. A collection of one hundred Significant Objects stories is published in this hardcover volume.

This represents the latest plot twist yet to the story of a very unlikely project that began as an experiment, turned into an experimental literary magazine secretly published on eBay, and currently raises money for youth tutoring nonprofits.

Founded by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, SignificantObjects.com has published an extraordinary series of 200 stories and counting — by William Gibson, Curtis Sittenfeld, Sheila Heti, Colson Whitehead, Nicholson Baker, Meg Cabot, Gary Panter, Ben Katchor, Lydia Millet, Jonathan Lethem, and other talented writers — about ordinary stuff like novelty items, discarded souvenirs, and tasteless kitchenware picked up cheap at thrift stores and yard sales. The goal: To see if commissioning great stories about these insignificant things would increase their value — as measured in actual eBay auctions.

The experiment, in short, was a smash hit. As will be the Significant Objects book, which features 100 moving, absurd, surprising, and always entertaining stories from the project’s three volumes. It will change the way you look at things, forever.

21-page excerpt (download 1.6 MB PDF):

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

Daily OCD 6/28/12

TheJenVaughn

Get yer hot Online Commentaries & Diversions:

•Review: The long-awaited Comics Journal review of Gabriella Giandelli's graphic novel Interiorae is online. Sean T. Collins: "As the rabbit floats from one [apartment] to another, a sort of soporific rhythm sets in, a familiarity with the emotional and visual palette that allows individual moments to stand out. It’s not just the weird or grand stuff . . . but thoughtful and attractive details as well."

•Plug: The Stumptown Trade Review is as pumped as Fantagraphics is have the all-ages graphic novel The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez. "Luba’s niece [Venus] creates and collects comic books, walks through a scary forest, plays soccer, schemes to get the cute boy she likes, laments the snowlessness of a California Christmas, catches measles, and travels to a distant planet. . ."

•Plug: Comics Alliance lists the Best Comic Covers of June 2012 and Jacques Tardi's New York Mon Amour makes the grade. Andrew Wheeler says, "romance is not the vibe evoked by this menacing red sky over Tardi's exquisitely rendered New York street. This cover tells you that this is not a love story."

First Look: The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 & 1983-1986 Box Set

mike

I gotta say, even after 9 years of this (well, at least for 6, which is how long I've been here), it's still a pretty big thrill when the advance copies of the new volume of The Complete Peanuts show up at the office. Here's Vol. 18, 1985-1986, and the 1983-1986 Box Set, fresh out of the box. As a long-time Spike fan I love Seth's design for these, and as a big Patton Oswalt fan I'm excited about the new volume's introduction. These guys'll be available in a couple of months — stay tuned for previews!

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

mike

Just arrived and now shipping from our mail-order department:

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

See Previews / Order Now

Order this or any other Love and Rockets book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Originally serialized in Love and Rockets: New Stories, “Ti-Girls Adventures” managed to be both a rollickingly creative super-hero joyride (featuring three separate super-teams and over two dozen characters) that ranged from the other side of the universe to Maggie’s shabby apartment, and a genuinely dramatic fable about madness, grief, and motherhood as Penny Century’s decades-long quest to become a genuine super-heroine are finally, and tragically, fulfilled.

In addition to introducing a plethora of wild new characters, God and Science brings in many older characters from Jaime’s universe, some from seemingly throwaway shorter strips and some from Maggie’s day-to-day world (including some real surprises). The main heroine of the story, forming a bridge between the “realistic” Maggie stories and the super-heroic extravaganza is “Angel,” Maggie’s sweet-tempered and athletic new roommate and best friend, and now herself an aspiring super-heroine.

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.

Dungeon Quest Book 3 by Joe Daly - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and now shipping from our mail-order department:

Dungeon Quest Book 3
by Joe Daly

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

See Previews / Order Now

Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

In 2011’s Dungeon Quest Book Two, we left our heroes, Millennium Boy, Steve, Lash and Nerdgirl, in the Temple of Bromedes as they began their initiation into the mysteries of Atlantis under the tutelage of the androgynous forest mystic, Bromedes. In this third book, our heroes complete their learning with Bromedes and are guided towards further quests in Rufford Park and beyond, to the Zuur Plateau. However, they are not yet clear of the hazards of Fireburg Forest. Resurfacing to the forest floor (after hitting the strongest weed in the universe, “Orangutan Daydream”), they must survive a perilous cliff path, discover moon shrines, battle wild Womraxes, endure knock-out gas, hypnagogic visions, nakedness and deprivation and, finally, embark on a desperate and courageous mission to rescue Nerdgirl from cruel Forest Bandits and retrieve their stolen equipment.

In this third book, by far the longest installment of the series so far (288 pages!), the reader is also introduced to the history and mysticism of The Romish Book of the Dead, a sexually avant-garde “little forest man” (who becomes the fifth member of the crew), Steve’s newly discovered “battle warping” abilities (which Millennium Boy dismisses as being a mere “kundalini spasm”), weapons and armor upgrades and a whole new level of bizarre comedy, rousing adventure and ass-kicking action — all staged in front of fantastic backdrops replete with strange vegetation, ancient ruins and steampunk imagery.

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man by Carl Barks - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

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

See Previews / Order Now

Since Fantagraphics’ first release in this series focused on Donald Duck, it is only right that the second focus on Carl Barks’s other great protagonist, and his greatest creation: The miserly, excessively wealthy Scrooge McDuck, whose giant money bin, lucky dime, and constant wrangles with his nemeses the Beagle Boys are well-known to, and beloved by, young and old.

This volume starts off with “Only a Poor Old Man,” the defining Scrooge yarn (in fact his first big starring story) in which Scrooge’s plan to hide his money in a lake goes terribly wrong. Two other long-form classics in this volume include “Tralla La La” (also known as “the bottlecap story,” in which Scrooge’s intrusion has terrible consequences for a money-less eden) and “Back to the Klondike” (Barks disciple Don Rosa’s favorite story, a crucial addition to Scrooge’s early history, and famous for a censored bar brawl that was restored in later editions). Each of these three stories is famous enough to have its own lengthy Wikipedia page.

Also in this volume are the full-length “The Secret of Atlantis,” and over two dozen more shorter stories and one-page gags.

Newly recolored in a version that combines the warm, friendly, slightly muted feeling of the beloved classic original comic books with state-of-the-art crispness and reproduction quality, the stories are joined by another volume’s worth of extensive “Liner Notes,” featuring fascinating behind-the-panels essays about the creation of the stories and analyses of their content from a world’s worth of Disney and Barks experts.

New Comics Day 6/27/12: Mr. Twee Deedle; Hey, Wait reprint

mike

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin - The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpiece of Johnny Gruelle
by Johnny Gruelle

128-page full-color 14" x 18" hardcover • $75.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-411-5

"I have the name Johnny Gruelle permanently stuck in my memory from the Raggedy Ann & Andy books I used to look at as a kid. He was a comic-strip artist, too, and Mr. Twee Deedle ran from 1911 to 1914 after he won a New York Herald competition. It's gorgeous stuff, given the Sunday Press-style super-oversize treatment in this $75 hardcover -- those who like 'Little Nemo in Slumberland' and/or 'Maakies'... should certainly have a look at it." – Douglas Wolk, ComicsAlliance

"...I have fond memories of reading my mother’s old, frayed Raggedy Ann and Andy books as a child, so I’m curious to see Mr. Twee Deedle, a collection of strips done by Raggedy creator Johnny Gruelle prior to his seminal children’s series." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann’s Sprightly Cousin – The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpiece of Johnny Gruelle may run a fair risk of getting buried this week, but I’ve had my eye on the strip since Tony Millionaire started referencing it years ago, and these 128 pages are reproduced in a 14″ x 18″ format, so they should be fairly easy to spot, even above the din of stuff that escorts our June into history; $75.00." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"This is a staggering-looking book of work from the cartoonist Johnny Gruelle that I think ran concurrently to the Raggedy Ann stuff that found more of a place in the pop-culture firmament. You could see this as a way of exploring where someone like Tony Millionaire came from, or as a precursor to the Peter Wheat book someone out there has to be doing." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Hey, Wait... (4th Printing)
by Jason

64-page black & white 7" x 10" softcover • $12.95
ISBN: 978-1-56097-463-5

"Also of note this week [is a reprint of] Jason’s Hey Wait. If you haven’t read [it] before, [it's] worth a look..." – J.K. Parkin, Robot 6

Jewish Images in the Comics by Fredrik Str�mberg - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and now shipping from our mail-order department:

Jewish Images in the Comics
by Fredrik Strömberg

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

See Previews / Order Now

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.

The book is divided into chapters on Anti-Semitism, the Old Testament, the Holocaust, Israel, the Golem and much more, featuring everything from well-known comics like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and the work of Will Eisner to much more obscure (and in some cases far less savory) but no less culturally and historically interesting examples of how Jewish culture has been depicted in comics.

As with Strömberg’s previous two books for Fantagraphics, each strip, comic, or graphic novel is spotlighted via a short but informative 200-word essay and a representative illustration. The book is augmented by a context-setting introduction as well as an extensive source list and bibliography.

Jewish Images in the Comics is the third book in a series in which Strömberg examines different phenomena in our society, as mirrored in comics. Black Images in the Comics examines the way Black people have been portrayed in comics and The Comics Go to Hell looks at how the Devil has been used as a comics character.

Daily OCD 6.26.12

TheJenVaughn

The most recent ramblin' Online Commentaries & Diversions:

•Commentary: ABC News and Amy Bingham picked up a few quotes by a partial interview online by Gary Groth with Maurice Sendak. The full interview will be published in The Comics Journal #302 in December: “Bush was president, I thought, ‘Be brave. Tie a bomb to your shirt. Insist on going to the White House. And I want to have a big hug with the vice president, definitely."

•Commenary: MSNBC's Kurt Schlosser also writes on Maurice Sendak's TCJ #302 interview. In the article, associate publisher Eric Reynolds is also quoted, "[Sendak] was at the point in his life where he clearly didn't give a damn about propriety; he could speak his mind and clearly enjoyed provocation. I see these comments as part and parcel of his personality, not as a legitimate, actionable, treasonous threat."

•Review: The Washington Times takes a close look at Mr. Twee Deedle, edited by Rick Marschall. The long-forgotten artwork of Johnny Gruelle inspired writer Michael Taube: "Mr. Twee Deedle’s world is, quite simply, a series of innocent tales in a fantasyland that any child - and many adults - would have loved to experience, if but for a short while."

•Plug: The Frank Book by Jim Woodring gets a nice staff recommendation on the Harvard Book Store site. Craig H. says, "[Frank] takes us on his adventures through the psychedelic terrain of “The Unifactor,” a universe alive with rich pen-width and symmetrical, flying devices.

•Plug (audio): In the first few minutes of podcast Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, Angelman is recommended. Comics journalist Brian Heater of the Daily Crosshatch says, "it's Sergio Aragonés meets David Foster Wallace. . . about a little red winged superhero and his powers are good listening and empathy."

A Misfit Among Miscreants

LarryR

One of the reasons I came to work at Fantagraphics in 1991 was the presence of late art director Dale Yarger. We'd worked together at The Rocket, where he designed Bruce Pavitt's monthly Sub Pop column and refined the logo of the future record label. He later designed the catalog for the landmark Misfit Lit comix exhibition when I was curator at CoCA. He left Fantagraphics to join the fledgeling alternative newspaper The Stranger, creating a look that remains largely intact today.

I've always been fond of Dale's graphic sensibility - contemporary, yet absent fleeting trends of the moment. Timeless, in other words. Please join us on Sunday afternoon at Fantagraphics Bookstore as we remember this remarkable artist and dear friend. Gone too soon.

The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

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

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

Order this or any other Love and Rockets book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

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 in which Luba’s niece creates and collects comic books, walks through a scary forest, plays soccer, schemes to get the cute boy she likes, laments the snowlessness of a California Christmas, catches measles, and travels to a distant planet (OK, the last one may be a dream). Plus a new story done just for this book!

9-page excerpt (download 418 KB PDF):

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

Time to Stop Crime with Michael Kupperman!

janice

Crime doesn't pay... but for $8 you can pay to see crime being stopped by our own Michael Kupperman on Tuesday, July 10th!

Yes, his monthly comedy series The Crime Stoppers Club is back, with special guests Julia Wertz, James Adomian, Matthew Thurber, Annie Lederman, and special guest Adam Warrock!

Join them at Littlefield [ 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn ]; doors open at 7:30 PM, and show is at 8:00 PM. Show is 21+, so leave the vigilante youngsters at home. Seating is limited, so get there early.

And don't miss out on future editions of The Crime Stoppers Club -- follow them on Facebook here!

Daily OCD 6.25.12

TheJenVaughn

The most in vogue Online Commentaries and Diversions:

•Interview (audio): Perk up your ears to the soothing interview of Angelman's creator, Nicolas Mahler, on the Inkstuds podcast. Robin McConnell covers all the bases with Mahler: "[My] main influence is American newspaper comics from the 30s, this was what I discovered when I about was 15-16. It was Krazy Kat and Windsor McCay, those were the things that were important to my drawing style. Wouldn't you have guessed from looking at my drawings?"

•Preview: JK Parkin, Robot6, talks up a preview of The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez. This previously uncollected work will also have a new story! Can you spot all the references?

•Review: The sweetest review is up on Sequential Tart of The Adventures of Venus. Sheena McNeil gives the book a thumbs-up for kids: "I love that this graphic novel is full of characters from different cultures with different appearances. Venus and her sister live with their bodybuilder-like mom and no dad, Venus's rival, Gilda Gonzalez, is Hispanic and her crush, Yoshio, is Asian. It's refreshing to see all these different types of people together and getting along normally."

•Plug: Book Patrol teases with a few pictures of Jewish Images in the Comics by Fredrik Strömberg. Michael Lieberman says, "Spanning five centuries and featuring over 150 images the book becomes an instant essential reference. . . Who knew Golem was a super-hero?"

•Review: The Comics Bulletin sat down to a round-table review of E.C. Segar's Popeye Vol. 1: "I Yam What I Yam". Columnists Jason Sacks, Daniel Elkin, Danny Djeljosevic and Zack Davisson loved the large format (except for night-time readin' in bed). Sacks says, "There's a depth to these characters, too. They may be incredibly self-involved and aggressive, but there's this odd sort of internal integrity to them that makes them lovable."

•Plug: Glenn Perrett of Simcoe mentions The Sincerest Form of Parody, edited by John Benson, and the juicy ordering details. "You can return to the era when these magazines [Mad, Flip, Nuts, Panic, Madhouse] were popular with The Sincerest Form of Parody which features 'The Best 1950's Mad Inspired Satirical Comcs'."

•History: Reminiscing about comics created and read in the 80's, The Comics Reporter reviews Dalgoda. Created by writer Jan Strnad and art by Dennis Fujitake, Tom Spurgeon states,"It was leisurely paced, and had a genial tone; it was neither pompous nor self-loathing. The art featured that somewhat peculiar, can-still-spot-it-across-the-room Fantagraphics coloring from that era. In fact, Fujitake's art, with its blend of mainstream rendering values, meticulous environmental detail and humorous exaggeration, is what lingers on in memory." You gotta love those striking logo colors.

Gotta pair up my sleeve

TheJenVaughn

Love and Rockets' Jaime Hernandez snapped this quick picture while at HeroesCon this week. You never can get enough of Hopey or Maggie.

Editors Notes: Kim Thompson on New York Mon Amour

kimt

[In in the return of our Editors Notes series, Kim Thompson interviews himself (in a format he's dubbed "AutoChat") about New York Mon Amour by Jacques Tardi , now available to order from us and at a comics shop near you. – Ed.]

This is going to be a particularly discursive and rambling one, so reader, be forewarned. I don’t want to see any complainin’ in the comments section about how self-indulgent this is; you’re being told that going in. That said…

Okay, so… New York Mon Amour. This is what, your eighth? Ninth Tardi book?

I’ve reached the point where I have to go back to our website and count them off myself to keep track. Eighth. A Fellini-esque 8½ if you count the Fatale giveaway.

You’re cranking them out — eight in two and a half years. Why the hurry?

Because I’m afraid someone will catch on and stop me? No, it’s just that these are some of my very favorite comics, and I think it’s disgraceful that it’s taken this long for them to be released in English — so I’m making up for lost time.

And, to be honest, they’ve been selling unexpectedly well. I went into this Tardi venture with a samurai assume-you’re-dead-when-going-into-battle mindset figuring we could publish a handful before dire sales drove us into the ground, but on the contrary, we’re into second printings of four of our first five — in some cases third — and they’ve gone over great. So why not?

Also, Tardi works in so many different genres that even with two or three books a year, you don’t really repeat the way you would if you published many other authors. I can switch from his crime mode to his serious WWI mode to his Adèle stuff…

This book, or at least most of it, has already been released in English in one form or another. Why pick this one?

Well, with the exception of one short story which is buried in a huge British-published crime anthology, all of it’s been out of print for a while. And I had some problems with the way "Tueur de cafards" had been presented in the NBM title, including the reproduction and the lettering…

Yes, the new edition is noticeably better.

I don’t want to rag on the NBM version because the digital revolution has helped us so much in the intervening years. Our printing is far cleaner because we had first-generation digital files rather than second- or third-generation negatives or Photostats, and being able to use fonts instead of hand lettering, especially with Tardi’s eccentric caption design, is so much easier. So I am being helped by that. But I’d like to think that we added our own skills to the mix in addition to just surfing on those advances.

You even changed the title, from “Roach Killer” to “Cockroach Killer”…

I always hated the Dark Horse/NBM title, “Roach Killer.” As Tony Montana reminded us, “Cockroach” is such a great word, with its hard “k” sounds, and the BAM-bam BAM-bam rhythm of the whole title; I never understood why they opted for what they did. It always, uh, bugged me. Apparently Art Spiegelman didn’t either, because when he wrote the introduction for the NBM book version he automatically used the title “Cockroach Killer” (and that’s how they printed it in the book).

Did you go back to the earlier English translations?

Yes and no, mostly no. For “(Cock)roach Killer,” I remember thinking the original translator just hadn’t quite nailed the gritty conversational urban tone of the work, and I take some pride in my way around unbridled profanity, so I did that from scratch. “Hung’s Murderer” was short enough that I figured it was just as easy for me to do it rather than to fiddle around getting the rights…

What about “Manhattan,” which was printed in RAW?

Well, it’s fucking RAW. Spiegelman and Mouly knew their shit. I went over the RAW translation and I didn’t think it could be improved upon, at all; I just asked Art if I could use it and he said “Sure.” (Just as with the Joost Swarte strips for his book.) I think I changed one word, literally. And even though the original lettering was excellent, I re-lettered it using our Tardi font just for the sake of consistency throughout the book.

One interesting thing: There was one caption in the RAW version that’s not in the new version. It wasn’t in the new French version’s files I was working on and I emailed Casterman wondering if they’d left it off by accident, and no, Tardi had decided upon reflection that it was superfluous and eliminated it. So there you go.

Whose idea was it to combine “Killer” with the three other New York based stories for this book? 

 Apparently everyone’s. I had figured out I wanted to add “Manhattan” and “Hung’s Killer” to the book and was going to propose it to his publisher, Casterman, and then they beat me to the punch and put out exactly the book I had envisioned, throwing in a fourth story I was not familiar with, the John Lennon one. They even got a new cover out of Tardi for it. So it was pretty much kismet.

The Casterman book had some text pieces which you didn’t use…

They were too much “a European explaining the U.S. to other Europeans,” and they had too much of that French… impressionistic approach to essays that doesn’t travel real well, at least to my mind. There was this book by Bernard-Henri Lévy a few years ago that purported to explain America, and I’m sure it read fine in French but by the time it made it over here… Well, I didn’t read it, but I remember Garrison Keillor stomping all over it with hob-nailed boots, hilariously. Tardi’s book just seemed better off without them.

The fact is, there are some oddities in fact and tone in the comics stories themselves that… I wouldn’t say betray it, but reveal it as very much a book about the U.S. by someone who’s not an American. Even the premise of the lead story…

You mean the assertion that there are no 13th floors in New York buildings?  

Exactly. It’s one of those urban (literally) myths that Tardi took off and ran with, but any New Yorker will go “What the…?” And the conspiracy-thriller ideas and urban-hell vision are clearly formed more by American movies rather than anything else. It just doesn’t have the authoritative ring of authenticity that Tardi’s books set in Europe do.

I talked to Spiegelman about the book when we were preparing it; as a New Yorker he is much more sensitive to those oddities, and he felt it needed to be put in context as one of those interesting works about America by non-Americans whose “errors” have to be accepted — acknowledged, but accepted. The example Art used was Kafka’s Amerika, with its scene of a ship sailing into New York harbor, with the Statue of Liberty brandishing her trademark, uh, sword… I like to think of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, too, which is set in the most densely packed city in the Western world, and Leone’s own widescreen visual quirks led him to show all these enormous, broad avenues and Manhattan grocery stores that are the size of skating rinks. (Not that it isn’t a totally awesome movie.)

But Tardi’s visual research is so impeccable — as one can tell, he traveled to New York and did so much photo research that he was able to use the photos as backgrounds for the epilogue to the story without missing a beat — that I think he ultimately pulls it off. It’s not one of my very favorite of Tardi’s books, but as with all the books I translate I grew to appreciate it much more as I worked on it. (The Arctic Marauder went from one of my least favorites to one of my favorites.) And it was fun to take French dialogue in an American setting and translate it into its “real” language, it’s almost like this is the original version and the French one is a translation. I get that effect with some of the Jason stories set in the U.S., too.

The black-and-red “Schindler’s List little girl with the red dress” technique is pretty unique.

Don’t say that, Tardi hates Schindler’s List. He did a hilarious drawing about it for a movie column written by a friend of his I should show here that kind of says it all:

Don’t forget, Schindler’s List was released the same year as Jurassic Park. American critics found this admirable; European critics found it dismally revelatory.

Anyway, Tardi had some bad experiences with color early in his career, both in terms of reproduction and having to hand off coloring to another colorist because of time constraints, and for most of the 1980s and early 1990s he really avoided it (except for the contractually-mandated Adèle books). But he always liked going beyond pure linework and experimenting with tones, including Craftint…

Like in “Hung’s Murderer.”  

Exactly. He’s never done a whole book with that, but he played around with it for an alternate version of the ill-fated Fatale, too. I remember reading about him asking friends who traveled to America to see if they could find Roy Crane strips to bring back to him to study. He’d also used Letratone sheets for It Was the War of the Trenches (in the upcoming interview I did with him for the Journal he told me he loved the sensual aspect of cutting up and scratching away at those sheets) and had been using photographically-shot overlays for his Nestor Burma books. Recently, including in his upcoming book, he’s used digital tones. Add in the wild scratchboard effects for The Arctic Marauder and Tardi has messed around with pretty much every way of producing tones except maybe gray washes — and so much of Goddamn This War!, even though technically in color, falls into the monochrome that that could qualify.

Who is Benjamin Legrand, who wrote "Cockroach Killer"?

He’s a writer buddy of Tardi’s, a crime writer and translator. (Tom Wolfe and Robert Ludlum, among others.) To be honest I know as much about him as anyone who can consult Wikipedia. From what I understand "Cockroach Killer" was Tardi’s concept and Legrand came in to execute it. Last year Legrand was hired to write the novelization of Besson’s Adèle Blanc-Sec movie, which I assume was Tardi going, “Well, if such a thing must be done, might as well give it to my pal, and he’ll do a good job.” As a footnote, Legrand wrote the new Druillet book Delirius II (after the writer of the original Delirius died). He also co-wrote the screenplay for Le Monde Truqué, the feature-length animated film Tardi designed that we mentioned a few weeks ago, and for a more tenuous Tardi connection, worked on the French Nestor Burma TV series. So he seems to be part of the comics orbit and Tardi’s specifically.

What’s next for Tardi at Fantagraphics? Still cranking?

Oh, yes. Well, of course there is the 28,000-word interview I did with him that’s going in the next Comics Journal. But yeah, we’re already in production on the ninth book, which will be Goddamn This War! (sort of a sequel to War of the Trenches) and we’ve announced the tenth, his third Manchette adaptation, for early 2013. Then we need to do Adieu Brindavoine, his first solo graphic album from 40 years, because it’s part of the Adèle continuity and we have to release it before the third Adèle. By then we’ll have published… maybe half of his comics oeuvre? And he’s still producing. His next graphic novel is over 300 pages long, slated for completion next year, and might very well turn out to be his masterpiece. See the Journal interview for details!

So I could easily plot out the next five years or ten Tardi books on a napkin right now. No rest for the weary!

Your Pogo strip-search update!

kimt

I'm pleased to report that thanks to a few tips, we've got 103 of the 104 Sunday POGO pages we need for the next book (three of them include black and white panels from book reprints that we've colored to match the surrounding strips, but that's just between you and us).

The August 19, 1951 strip remains the problem child -- or "chile," as one of Kelly's characters might say. We have a 1/3 Sunday page tearsheet, and have been able to track down two of the three panels from the missing top strip as this sequence appears in a book, but the opening panel is nowhere to be found. If push comes to shove, we'll print it this way with a little note explaining to fans that we haven't been able to locate this strip (and will publish a full version in a later book if and when it turns up) -- we did that with a PEANUTS strip back when, and it did eventually turn up.

(click image to enlarge)

Daily OCD 6/21/12

TheJenVaughn

The up-to-the-minute Online Commentaries & Diversion:

•Plug: Our newest Jacques Tardi release, New York Mon Amour is out and available at your favorite comic shops. One of our such shop, Forbidden Planet, is very excited to have it in stock. Joe says, "I’m so glad the Fanta crew has been making these titles available again to English language readers."

•Interview: WMFU host of Too Much Information, Benjamin Walker, questions Michael Kupperman about comics as a serious form of literature at his MIT Center for Civic Media conference talk. Kupperman: "You see high points. You have to build to that humor. Sometimes there's just enough for three panels—I like to keep it short, keep the audience wanting more. It's kind of—there can be a central idea I need to do it."

•Review: On The Comics Journal, Jeet Heer takes a close look at Spain Rodriguez's newest collection of stories. In Heer's words, Cruisin' with the Hound : The Life and Times of Fred Toote "is a splendid book, a startling view of a plebeian world that tends to be submerged by the North American tendency to pretend that class doesn’t exist. The book is also evidence of the strength of the autobiographical comics tradition, which has room not just for minute introspection but also for stories of lively brutality."

•Review: Comics Worth Reading sits down with the latest issue (#16) of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting series. Johanna Draper Carlson glowingly states, "it’s [Medley's] character work, the small bits of perfectly realized dialogue, that make this series so rewarding."

•Plug: The ineffable Bud Plant mentions the brand-new Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch on his website: "Mickey Mouse was at his best in the 1930s newspaper daily and Sunday pages of Floyd Gottfredson."

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man by Carl Barks - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

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

Ships in: Any day now to our North American mail-order customers! Pre-Order Now

Also in this volume are the full-length “The Secret of Atlantis,” and over two dozen more shorter stories and one-page gags.

18-page excerpt (download 7.9 MB PDF):

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

Our Heroes at HeroesCon This Weekend!

janice

Fantagraphics won't be at this weekend's Heroes Con ourselves, but some of our artists sure will be! If you're in the Charlotte, NC-area, head out to the Charlotte Convention Center and meet 'em in the "Indie Island"!

• Jeffrey Brown | AA-417
• Dave Cooper | AA-515
• Colleen Coover | AA-113
• Jaime Hernandez | AA-415

• Roger Langridge | AA-220
• Jim Rugg | AA-537
• Rich Tommaso | AA-422
• Drew Weing | AA-444

You can even catch our artists in some panels, if you're so inclined!

Saturday, June 23rd

• 12:30 PM // Approaches to Humor, Room 203A: Sure the Convention is HeroesCon, but let’s never forget the funny side of the comic book world. Join The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald as she sits down with three of the very best cartoonists in the business. They are able to me us smile and even laugh out loud Roger Langridge (The Muppets, Fred the Clown) and Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese) and newcomer Tim Rickard (Brewster Rockit: Space Guy).

• 2:00 PM // Echoes of ‘82, Room 209: This year, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Heroes Con, cartoonist Ben Towle and blogger Craig Fischer turn their attention to 1982, and ask: What are the comics, and comics events, from 30 years ago that continue to influence comics culture today? Ben and Craig zero in on three — Destroyer Duck #1, Love and Rockets #1, and the demise of Warren Publications early in 1982 — and they’ve asked an all-star roster of creators (Jaime Hernandez, Louise Simonson) and commentators (Stergios Botzakis, Toney Frazier, Heidi MacDonald, Andrew Mansell) to join them in discussing these and other comics. We’ll also beam in some off-site commentary from Kirby experts Steve Bissette, Geoff Grogan, Charles Hatfield, John Morrow and James Sturm. With a lineup like that, how can you resist pulling on your leg warmers and joining us for the fun?

Saturday, June 23rd

• 3:30 PM // Dave Cooper & Dave Johnson, Room 208AB: Two great artists sit down to talk technique, inspiration and influences. And what is better than a Dave? Two Daves!!! That’s what. This is going to be a great hour. Join us.

First Looks: Captain Easy Vol. 3, Sexytime

mike

Here are your first glimpses of a couple books we have coming out in the August/September timeframe. They're both big, beautiful and unabashed! Up top we have Captain Easy Vol. 3 by Roy Crane, continuing the globe-trotting adventures of Easy and his pal Wash Tubbs from the Sunday pages of 1938-1940. And below that is Sexytime from Portable Grindhouse mastermind Jacques Boyreau, collecting eye-popping vintage skin-flick posters in an oversized coffee-table art book. Hit their respective links for additional sneak peeks and to pre-order your copies, and stay tuned for more previews!