Like Father, like Son? Find out for yourself this Saturday, June 2nd as Howard Richardson presents his son, Scott Richardson, a.k.a. Tony Millionaire, in a presentation of amusing drawings and comics!

It's a benefit for the Gloucester Writers Center in Gloucester, MA, where Tony grew up. The GWC was founded to celebrate, preserve and promote the future of Gloucester's rich literary legacy, which certainly includes our Tony!

Join them starting at 7:30 PM at The Harbor Room [ 8 Norwood Ct, Gloucester ]. Tony’s art will be for sale to support the GWC as well.

After several years under Seattle's soggy skies, author Pat Thomas is making the move to Los Angeles, and what better way to celebrate than with a book signing for Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975!

Welcome Pat to town on Wednesday, June 13th at Skylight Books for a signing and presentation, beginning at 7:30 PM.

Skylight Books is located at 1818 N. Vermont Avenue, just 3 1/2 blocks north of the Sunset/Vermont Metro station, next to the Los Feliz 3 cinema.

* Other People's Publications
** Yeah, You Know Me.

"Down With OPP" is our erratically-scheduled column where we spotlight books by other publishers that we carry at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.  And I'm excited to announce we just got in a batch of Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown, out now from our friends at Chronicle Books!

This is a charming little book that depicts what it might've been like if Darth Vader had raised Luke Skywalker as a kid: bedtime stories about Darth Maul, trips to the zoo to see the banthas, afternoon baseball games with the lightsaber. You don't have to be a parent to appreciate the book, and you don't even have to be a Star Wars fanatic. After all, this kind-of humor is universal, amiright?:

But, y'know, Fathers Day is coming up on Sunday, June 17th, and this nice little embossed hardcover book makes a great gift for any Dad, even if he isn't a dark lord of the Sith. Why, you could even get it personalized this Saturday, June 2nd as Jeffrey will be making an appearance at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery from 6:00 to 8:00 PM! 

Yours truly will be awkwardly interviewing him about comics and his new film (!!!), the romantic comedy Save the Date, which will be screening Thursday, May 31st and Friday, June 1st at the Seattle International Film Festival.  (In fact, I'm told there's artwork by fellow Fantagraphics artists Paul Hornschemeier and Anders Nilsen around the set of the movie!) It's going to be a great night, and we may even have some special guests joining us... Plus, our own Larry Reid will be unveiling his latest power tool racer!

The Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle's Georgetown district. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: (206) 658-0110.

The latest Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Certainly, the comic’s self-contained gag-a-day format, along with the clarity and force of Bushmiller’s compositions, can often make each strip seem like an instance of emphatic singularity, a totem to be worshipped in dumb awe. But Nancy Is Happy returns to this gag-a-day strip precisely its daily qualities, so often overlooked. There is, we rediscover, an aspect of the quotidian to Nancy, a rhythmic unfolding in time, an ordinariness repeated with such unrelenting frequency that we’ve opted to shunt it into the sublime. Reading Nancy in continuity, rather than in isolation, may be an unfamiliar experience, but it is one which reveals the strip’s patient and inquisitive reaction to the bric-a-brac and ins-and-outs of everyday life—an attentive curiosity whose effect is diminished by removing the comics from their daily or weekly contexts." – Sean Rogers, The Comics Journal [Disclosure: I stole the pull-quote from TCJ.com editor Dan Nadel – Ed.]

• Interview: Inkstuds podcast host says "Sammy the Mouse cartoonist/publisher/printer Zak Sally joined me for a comics talk that goes into some interesting directions. We cover his latest book, as well as variety of funny book topics."

• Hooray for Hollywood: Screen Daily reports that the in-development film adaptation of Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler has a director attached, a cult-fave actor in casting talks, and a CGI Hitler

Via Forbidden Planet International comes late-breaking news that Olivier Schrauwen has an art show of original drawings and prints opening tomorrow (today actually — it's already Friday in Belgium) at Bries Space in Antwerp. Head to FPI for all the details (except for the misidentification of Olivier's English-language publisher)!

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

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

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.

Read editor Kim Thompson's Afterword from Vol. 1, detailing the production and restoration of these new editions, right here on our website.

12-page excerpt (download 5.2 MB PDF):

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

Richard Sala is unlocking the vaults with "Skeleton Key," a career-spanning retrospective dramatis personæ featuring new artwork of characters from his books throughout the years with a short bio in a trading card-esque format. He's posting them in batches on his blog and one by one on his Tumblr, with more to come. It's a real treat for Sala fans (like me)!

In this month's issue of Booklist you can find reviews of two of our recent releases, excerpted below:

Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez: "Rodriguez... had the perfect youth for reality comics. He grew up in an ethnically mixed working- and lower-middle-class neighborhood of Buffalo, and he was self-directed from early on. He went to religious instruction on his own initiative (his parents were indifferent) until a boozy priest chewed him out without hearing his story. He attended public school, discovered EC Comics, turned teenager just as R & B turned to rock ’n’ roll, went to art school after high school, dropped out to do factory work, and, most important, hot-rodded around to dance bars with his friends and then joined a motorcycle club. How cool is that? Answer: extremely, especially since all that time he was honing his drawing skills into the thick-outlined, carefully detailed style (like R. Crumb’s but without broad caricature) for which he is universally envied and beloved. This collection of autobiographical stories, accompanied by a long excerpt from a biographical interview with him, is one of Fantagraphics’ best production jobs as well as a helluva satisfying window on an era — the fifties — that American culture can’t let go of." – Ray Olson (Starred Review)

Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now by various artists, edited by Matthias Wivel: "Like many regions of the world, Scandinavia has a vibrant alternative-comics scene that’s essentially unknown to even the most well-informed American comics fan. This eye-opening collection of recent work from some two dozen artists is a welcome step toward rectifying that ignorance. As with any anthology, the lineup is uneven and the wide range of approaches, from dauntingly experimental to borderline mainstream, makes for an eclectic bunch.... The strips contain few Nordic signifiers, making them eloquent testaments to the universal language of comics." — Gordon Flagg

Please join us at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery as we welcome two of the country’s most acclaimed contemporary cartoonists: Jeffrey Brown on Saturday, June 2 and Joe Sacco on Saturday, June 9. These remarkable artists represent the current diversity of alternative comix and their potential to impact both popular and political culture.

Upon graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, Jeffrey Brown came to the attention of comix readers with works dealing with relationships and romantic misadventures. His primitive rendering style complemented his candid observations in a series of accessible graphic novels comprising the “Girlfriend Trilogy.” His recent work has taken a turn to humor and satire. Public response to his latest book, Darth Vader and Son (Chronicle Books, April 2012), has been nothing short of phenomenal. Brown imagines the Dark Lord in the role of “Father Knows Best” to mischievous young Skywalker. At once ridiculous and revealing, Darth Vader and Son resonates with generations of Star Wars fans. As co-writer of the new movie, Save the Date, Brown will appear at the Seattle International Film Festival with director Michael Mohan following screenings on Thursday, May 31 and Friday, June 1. This romantic comedy, nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, also features Brown’s comics. At his appearance at Fantagraphics Bookstore on June 2 at 6:00 PM, Brown will discuss his comix career followed by a book signing and informal reception.  

Joe Sacco’s journalism studies at the University of Oregon informed his career in comix. Following a trip to the occupied territories of the Middle East in 1991, Fantagraphics Books published his provocative comic book series Palestine. Sacco’s unfiltered portrayal of the tragic consequences of the continuing conflict helped alter American perceptions of Palestinian refugees. Now in its 14th printing, Joe Sacco’s Palestine is widely regarded as one of the transformative works in the comix medium. He has subsequently visited other regions ravaged by war and reported on the suffering of civilian populations, including atrocities in the Balkans (Safe Area Gorazde), Chechnya (Chechen War, Chechen Women), and elsewhere. His latest work, Journalism (Metropolitan Books, June 2012), collects Sacco’s documentary reports from North Africa, India, Iraq, and other areas of social and political unrest. Sacco will discuss his unique approach to comix and journalism prior to signing books at Fantagraphics Bookstore from 6:00 to 8:00 PM on Saturday, June 9. Arrive early and enjoy the colorful Georgetown Carnival arts festival featuring lively visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic neighborhood.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.) minutes south of downtown Seattle in the heart of the historic Georgetown arts community. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

Listing Information:

Jeffrey Brown discussion and book signing
Saturday, June 2, 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Joe Sacco discussion and book signing
Saturday, June 9, 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale Street, Seattle
206.658.0110

Someone buy THIS  for me? There was a time that we had this painting in the Fanta offices for awhile, during production of the first GHOST WORLD hardcover edition in 1996 or 1997. It's much larger in person than it was ever reproduced. I loved it so much I made a full-size color xerox of it that I still have. I'll just have to get that framed, I guess. *sigh*