Please tell your grandpa, tell your senator, tell your adversaries, and tell yourself to watch!

Oh, and have you purchased the BRAND NEW Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5? 

For your viewing pleasure, here is a video and photo slideshow preview of the brand-new edition of Usagi Yojimbo Book 7: Gen's Story, which we just got in stock last week. This is a newly redesigned edition of this all-ages classic, and the final Fantagraphics Usagi volume to be given the new design treatment, so now you can complete your collection! This book is in stock now, and is scheduled to be in stores approximately 4 weeks from now. Click here if the slideshow embedded above is not visible, and/or to view it larger in a new window (recommended).

You'll Never Know, Book 1: A Good and Decent Man
By C. Tyler

You’ll Never Know is the first graphic novel from C. Tyler (Late Bloomer) and sure to be one of the most acclaimed books of the year. It tells the story of the 50-something author’s relationship with her World War II veteran father, and how his war experience shaped her childhood and affected her relationships in adulthood. “You’ll Never Know” refers not only to the title of her parents’ courtship song from that era, but also to the many challenges the author encountered in uncovering the difficult and painful truths about her Dad’s service — challenges exacerbated by her own tumultuous family life.

You’ll Never Know is Tyler’s first first full-fledged graphic novel (after two volumes of short stories). Unlike many other graphic memoirs which have opted for simple, stylized drawings and limited color or black and white, You’ll Never Know makes full use of Tyler’s virtuosity as a cartoonist: stunningly rendered in detailed inks and subtle watercolors, it plunges the reader headlong into the diverse locales: her father’s wartime experiences and courtship, her own childhood and adolescence, and contemporary life. The unique landscape format, and the lush variety of design choices and rendering techniques, make perusing You’ll Never Know like reading a family album — but one with a strong, compelling, sharply told story.

You’ll Never Know’s release schedule and format emulate those of Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library: three beautifully designed, large-format hardcover volumes released annually to complete a trilogy of astonishing breadth, depth, and sensitivity.

104-page full-color 12" x 10.75" hardcover • $24.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons 1913-1940
By Nell Brinkley; edited by Trina Robbins

For over thirty years Nell Brinkley’s beautiful girls pirouetted, waltzed, Charlestoned, vamped and shimmied their way through the pages of William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, captivating the American public with their innocent sexuality. This sumptuously designed oversized hardcover collects Brinkley’s breathtakingly spectacular, exquisitely colored full page art from 1913 to 1940. Here are her earliest silent movie serial-inspired adventure series, “Golden Eyes and Her Hero, Bill;” her almost too romantic series, “Betty and Billy and Their Love Through the Ages;” her snappy flapper comics from the 1920s; her 1937 pulp magazine-inspired “Heroines of Today.” Included are photos of Nell, reproductions of her hitherto unpublished paintings, and an informative introduction by the book’s editor, Trina Robbins.

In 1907, at the tender age of 22, Nell Brinkley came to New York to draw for the Hearst syndicate. Within a year, she had become a household name. Flo Ziegfeld dressed his dancers as “Brinkley Girls,” in the Ziegfeld Follies. Three popular songs were written about her. Women, aspiring to the masses of curly hair with which Nell adorned her fetching and idealized creations, could buy Nell Brinkley Hair Curlers for ten cents a card. Young girls cut out and saved her drawings, copied them, colored them, and pasted them in scrapbooks. The Brinkley Girls took over from the Gibson Girls.

Nell Brinkley widened her scope to include pen and ink depictions of working women. Brinkley used her fame to campaign for better working conditions and higher pay for women who had joined in the war effort, and who were suffering economic and social dislocation due to acting on their patriotism. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she drew women of different races and cultures.

Except among a small group of avid collectors, she has been unjustly forgotten... until now.

136-page full-color 9.75" x 13.25" hardcover • $29.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Uh oh, I'm starting to post Twitter reviews. We're through the looking glass here, people.

• Review: "Jaime Hernandez again shows mastery in portraying both recognizable situations and complex emotions [in The Education of Hopey Glass]. The illustrations are beautiful. The man has achieved perfection with his drawing style." - Koen (translated from Dutch)

• Review: "Linda Medley's Castle Waiting... [is a] beautifully designed volume... 457 pages of glorious black and white illustration... The artwork is absolutely charming, hearkening back to older pen-and-ink styles, but with a cartoony touch to it. The characters are individually realized, both by the art and the writing... This would be a good comic book to give to younger people, perhaps especially if you know a girl who likes comics but is turned off by more mainstream fare... The twining of the fairy tales with the story is deftly and delightfully done. I love this series." - Little Bits of Everything

• Review: "In looking at [John Kerschbaum's] latest release from Fantagraphics, Petey & Pussy, I find myself bewildered and horrified at his style of comedy." - Tim O'Shea, Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?"

• Review: "Tales Designed to Thrizzle #5... [is] a comedy rag and reads like Monty Python writing a comic: lots of absurdity and naughty silliness coupled with incorrect history and ever-so-subtle statements here and there. Plus the art is spectacular! Michael Kupperman really makes it feel like you're reading some weird alternate-universe cartoon book from the 30s or something and it just makes the whole thing feel so weird, it's great!" - Timmy Williams, The Daily Cross Hatch

• Review: "Blazing Combat from Fantagraphics. Outstanding 1960's Warren goodness. Archie Goodwin et al. artists at their best." - John Siuntres (Word Balloon), on Twitter

• Plug: "I also came upon Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1. Even though I've read most of this material in periodical form, it's still a joy to revisit Kupperman's absurd, hilarious universe." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?" [ed. note: I'm going to have this book up for pre-order here on the website this week if it kills me]

• Plug: Free Comic Book Day may be over for this year, but we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that our Love and Rockets: New Stories FCBD edition was a top-5 recommendation from Whitney Matheson at USA Today

• Plug: "...Tales Designed to Thrizzle... is the funniest comic book ever." - Paul Constant (Books editor for The Stranger), on Twitter

• Preview: The Star Clipper Blog talks up Jordan Crane's Uptight #3

• Preview: Parka Blogs picks up our preview images of You'll Never Know, Book 1 by C. Tyler

• Things to see: On Covered, Jon Adams takes on Al Columbia's Biologic Show

• Things to see: Snoopy by Weissman

• Things to see: Schlitzie the Pin Head by Friedman

• Things to see: Dandelions by Huizenga

Our own Eric Reynolds nails this full-page illo of Ol' Dirty Bastard for HEEB magazine.

Ray Fenwick has a new t-shirt design up for sale at Tiny Showcase, don't ya know. Or is it an older design in new colors? In any case, save me one!

Following the stunning success of the Eisner Award winning I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets, a second volume collecting the stories of Fletcher Hanks, "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!", will debut at MoCCA in June.

Volume II contains more than TWICE as many Fletcher Hanks stories than Volume I as well as an introduction written by Paul Karasik and illustrated with drawings never before published by the elusive Super Wizard of the Inkwell, Fletcher Hanks.

Together the two volumes will comprise The Complete Fletcher Hanks, the artist who created 51 tales in a hailstorm of creative fury during the first three years of the comic book industry and then...mysteriously disappeared.

It now seems that he left behind another mystery, as well.

In compiling the book, editor Karasik noticed a few peculiarities. Hanks wrote and drew a story featuring a Jungle Magician named Tabu in Jungle Comics #2 (Jan. 1940). In this story Tabu speaks an odd Jungle patois in a single panel (otherwise he chats and thinks in, of course, perfect English), "ALLA KA TABU NEE PAPH EN YAL!".

Six months later in Jungle Comcs # 6 (June 1940), an evil character named The Demon speaks to the rainforest denizens in much the same kind of lingo when he says, "ALI KAH BABLOO NE PAPH EN YAH!" (see below)

Two very similar word balloons, six months apart. Is there a hidden meaning?

Calling all linguists and code-crackers! Any thoughts or suggestions, please contact Pau Karasik via his website:

www.fletcherhanks.com

High-res version here!