Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 (Libri Impressi edition)
By Hal Foster

In February 2008 a Portuguese Prince Valiant fan published a special, English-language black and white edition of the first two years of Prince Valiant, shot from the very best proof sheets and carefully restored. Due to contractual limitations on territory this edition was NEVER made available in the U.S. — until now! By special arrangement with King Features Syndicate and the publisher, Fantagraphics has a little under 300 copies available for mail and website orders. They just arrived in our warehouse.

Fantagraphics is the EXCLUSIVE distributors in North America. This book is not available in comics shops (well, except for the Seattle Fantagraphics store). It is not available in bookstores. It is not available through Amazon.com. (We expect copies will turn up on eBay and Amazon's second-hand store at hugely inflated prices before the year is out, though.) This is it! And there are, as we said, fewer than 300 copies. We expect to be sold out within no more than a month or two.

It's a gorgeous, big 11" x 14" hardcover, and it's a thrill to see Foster's sumptuous linework for these first two years reproduced so crisply. Every Foster fan will need one! (It also includes a good, heavily illustrated five-page introduction chock full of rare Foster art.) See more images in our photo slideshow embedded below. Click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended).

Price is $35.00 per copy.

If you want to pre-order the full-color Fantagraphics edition of Prince Valiant 1937-1938 (due out in June 2009) as well, we're offering the two together at $55.00 (so you'd be getting $10 off the Fanta edition) -- just select that option when placing your order. (Our edition will be available for pre-order on its own in a few days from now.) Remember, the two books contain the EXACT SAME STORY MATERIAL — just one is black and white, and one is color — totally different reading and visual experiences. Order online or call 1-800-657-1100 (206-524-1967 in Canada).

Please note this is ONLY for North American customers (customers outside North America can order copies direct from the publisher: mcaldas59 [at] sapo [dot] pt), there are NO wholesale discounts available (although 20/20 Club discounts do apply), and only ONE copy per customer.

100-page black & white 11" x 14" hardcover • $35.00
Order Now!

Your Online Commentary & Diversions for today:

• Review: "[Jason] has proven over the years that no character, no genre, no classic plot is safe when he is in the room... Once again, [in Low Moon,] Jason squeezes an abundance of tension from scenes stripped of background noise and faces drained of emotion... [C]ount me among those who feels lucky to return time and again to Jason's cartoons, wondering when and if his winning streak will ever end." - Steve Duin, The Oregonian

• Review: "The King of Persia [by Walt Holcombe, collected in Things Just Get Away from You] is a gem of a book. The black and white artwork is whimsical and lush, with lovely crosshatching. The dialogue ranges from lyrical to comical within the same page, or even the same panel. There are wordless sequences in which the strength of the artwork shines. The story is bittersweet... it's packed full of humor and melancholy, each strengthened by its juxtaposition with the other." - Little Bits of Everything

• Preview: Irwin Chusid provides a behind-the-scenes tidbit about the upcoming volume The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora

• Profile: La Ficha Roja gives a brief rundown of Joe Sacco's career, en Español

• Profile: Gurldoggie spotlights "drunkard, draftsman and cult cartoonist Tony Millionaire" in advance of his appearance at our storefront on Saturday night

Gabby and Drinky hurl Maakies swag to the masses on the cover of this week's Stranger in advance of Tony Millionaire's appearance on Saturday evening at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. The drinks are on us. See you all there. 

This weekend is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and I hope many of you will be able to attend. Sadly, we had to scrap our plans to officially exhibit due to a heavier than usual spring and summer publishing schedule for us and already-busy con season from May through July. Given the sluggish economy, we decided maybe this wasn't the best year for us to make our international convention debut. But if you're a comic fan, you don't want to miss it, and the show actually has a fairly stellar line-up of artists with ties to Fantagraphics, including: 

• Dash Shaw
  
• Ho Che Anderson
  
• T. Edward Bak 
  
• Gabrielle Bell 
  
• Ray Fenwick
  
• Tom Kacynski
  
• Joe Lambert 
  
• Miss Lasko-Gross
  
• Seth 
  
• Craig Yoe 
  
• Dan Nadel 
  
• Frank Santoro 
  

And that's just the tip, the show has a pretty stunning lineup overall -- our pals at Drawn & Quarterly have a bonafide D&Q Hall-of-Fame lineup,for example, with names like Brown, Tatsumi, Tomine, and the aforementioned Seth. Programming schedule here. This is clearly one of the best shows of the year and I am bummed we couldn't do it this year but I'm already looking forward to the 2010 show.

Now available for preview and pre-order: Low Moon by Jason. This hardcover volume collects the titular serial strip from the New York Times Magazine, plus 4 more all-new short stories featuring murder, cavemen, sex, and alien abduction, all with Jason's trademark wry, deadpan sensibility. This book is scheduled to debut at the MoCCA Art Festival in NYC in June; it should be in stock and ready to ship in late June and in stores approximately 4 weeks after that.

View a photo & video slideshow preview embedded here. Click here if it is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended). And at our product info page, download a 12-page PDF excerpt!

Plus, as an extra bonus, decorate your computer screen or mobile phone with this exclusive free desktop wallpaper based on the back cover art! Select the size that matches your screen resolution:

800 x 600 | 1024 x 768 | 1152 x 864 | 1280 x 960 | 1280 x 720 | iPhone

Your Online Commentary & Diversions for the day:

• Review: "...Supermen!: The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1939-41 pulls together some of the goofiest, most innocent, most violent superhero comics ever penned... The forematter (a lovely, insightful, nostalgic essay by Jonathan Lethem) and the afterword (a collection of bibliographic and historical notes on each strip) make perfect bookends for the hot stuff in the middle. This is pure and unadulterated Id, the kind of thing that inspired a moral panic about the corruption of the young. It's every bit as potent today." - Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

• Review: "Miss Lasko-Gross takes us into the skankiest basement makeout sessions of our teenage despair in [A Mess of Everything]... Her fictional stand-in figures out how to work the system and achieves redemption through beautifully ugly comics that aptly capture the darker hallucinogenic melodramas of teenage geekdom." - Richard Gehr, The Village Voice

• Review: "[A] wild and woolly collection of pre-Superman supermen... As Jonathan Lethem notes in his introduction, our appreciation for the bizarre otherness of these characters in retrospect suggests that our contemporary icons might well appear no less 'totally opaque and infinitely awkward' to future readers." - Richard Gehr, The Village Voice (same link as above)

• Review: "Bob Levin's new book [Most Outrageous: The Trials and Trespasses of Dwaine Tinsley and Chester the Molester] sheds light on the legendary HUSTLER cartoonist without passing judgment or picking a side. Nevertheless, the author paints a fascinating picture of the good ol' boy folks around here called Uncle Dwaine." - K.K. Le Roque, Hustler (from print)

• Review: "Rory Hayes was nuts. I mean, really, truly insane... Hayes was tapping into a rich vein of paranoia and insanity that was truly disturbing... Rory Hayes work has the authentic voice of a true outsider artist, a genuine madman in a world full of posers... Where Demented Wented... is a fascinating collection and well presented. Recommended." - Colin Upton, Inkstuds

• Plug: "Monologues for Calculating the Density of Black Holes: [...] No more adventurous a way to spend $22.99 in comics monies this week."  - Jog

• Oddity: "I Dream of Popeye"??

• Oddity: R. Crumb sneakers from Vans?? (via Spurge)

• Oddity: Marc Palm mashes up Crumb & the Muppets (via everywhere)

In more "Mome-artist-with-a-new-t-shirt" news, Jon Vermilyea debuts this "goopy," Basil Wolverton-inspired new print and shirt design (in combo or separately, with a "3-D" print option) produced by Nakatomi, available in limited supply for this month only. There's more info here, and an interview with Jon here. Nakatomi looks like a company to keep an eye on; their last limited offering was from Mark Todd.

On her new blog, Lilli Carré previews a page from a new short story for a forthcoming issue of Mome. Click through for the larger, legible version.

In a related development: Lilli Carré has a new blog featuring her lovely comics, illustration, artwork and inspirations. Must bookmark.