The list of luminaries featured at the Third Anniversary gala at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, December 12 continues to lengthen as celebrity cartoonist Ellen Forney confirms her presence. Ellen does more than light up a room. Her collaboration with Sherman Alexie on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the National Book Award in 2007. She'll be available to sign copies of I LOVE LED ZEPPELIN, LUST, and her sexy contributions to BEST EROTIC COMICS 2008 and 2009.

Forney will join a stunning group of artists hosting the party including Peter Bagge, Jim Blanchard, Jacques Boyreau, Dame Darcy, Femke Hiemstra, Paul Hornschemeier, Scott Musgrove, Jay Ryan, Matthew Southworth, and Jim Woodring.

In addition to live music by Dame Darcy and Peter Bagge's Can You Imagine, DJ Russ "Fallout" Battaglia will spin demented holiday platters for the amusement of the assembled masses. Don't miss the any of these wild festivities. See you December 12.

Online Commentary & Diversions, first of the week, last of the month:

• Coming Attractions: Chris Mautner of Robot 6 got his hands on our Spring/Summer 2010 catalog and runs it all down for you

• Review: "Of all the comics published in 2009, none has deserved more acclaim... than You Are There. ... Tardi's art, which combines the liveliness and simplicity of the best cartooning with a well-observed realism is perfect for this kind of surreal tale. ... His work deserves to be read and will endlessly reward readers who seek it out." – Robert Boyd

• Review: "[Like a Dog] is a gloriously rough-hewn and hands-on collection from a compulsive cartoonist and storyteller packaged with the flair and imagination that has become a trademark of the world’s leading publisher of fascinating comics. ...Sally’s dedication to innovation, exploration and imagination will astound and entrance anyone who knows capital A Art when they see it." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "[Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1] is a cracking collection in its own right but as an examination of one of the art-form’s greatest stylists it is also an invaluable insight into the very nature of comics. This is a book true fans would happily kill or die for." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "Columbia's book [Pim & Francie] is positively festooned with frightening moments and tableaux... Any single upsetting image is a rosette on a much more ambitious and awesome-to-behold cake. Al Columbia has progressed to the point where he can haunt my nightmares for three days as an aside." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "...The Complete Iron Devil is a humorous adult fantasy book with great art. However, it wouldn't be nearly as good if it weren't for the excellent Devil's Angel story, which points out the craziness of 'morality police.'" – Bernard C. Cormier, [here] (CanadaEast)

• Plugs: The Comics Reporter's Black Friday Holiday Shopping Guide '09 is full of 'em

• Plugs: David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin recommends some current classic comic-strip reprint projects, including Prince Valiant, Popeye, and Krazy & Ignatz

• Plug: The Paper Collector recommends The Brinkley Girls

• Plug: Polish blog kg looks forward to our next two Complete Crumb reprints (perfectly broken English courtesy Google): "And you need to know that to find and collect all the works of Crumb is as hard as winning for best player of the world, being Polish football player."

• Plug: "It’s like a bomb went off in the subconscious of Max Fleischer and Columbia was around to collect the pieces years later when they fell to earth. In this time of safe substitution power fantasies, Columbia’s work is truly provocative stuff. Funny, dark, and impeccably executed." – The Synesthetic Fugue Incident

• Plug: The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log takes note of Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons

• Interview/Things to see: Hogan's Alley not only shares an extensive gallery of Arnold Roth's Christmas card art over the years, they have a Q&A with Roth about it (via Drawn)

• Things to see/Events: Dame Darcy dances with a shark and plugs her latest doings and makings in her new blog update

• Things to see: Post-it art by Lilli Carré for the imminent Giant Robot Post-it Show

• Things to see: A store window painted by, and photos of an exhibit featuring work by, Anders Nilsen

• Things to see: Another glimpse of Hans Rickheit 's current work in progress

• Things to see: Behind the scenes of the creation of Derek Van Gieson's Mome story "Devil Doll"

To paraphrase Monty Burns, we've had one of our trademark changes of heart — the exclusive signed silkscreen print pictured above, previously only available with direct orders of the standard edition of Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, will also be sent to people who order the Collectors Edition direct from us (including those who have already pre-ordered). That means that for a limited time while supplies last, the Collectors Edition will come with two prints: the silkscreen and the letterpress. See product listings for details. Supplies are very limited, and today's your only day to get either set at 30% off, so don't snooze!

Now available from Drew Friedman Fine Art Prints, a limited-edition art print of Frank Sinatra, who joins Dino and Jerry in Friedman's Rat Pack pantheon. (I vote for Sammy next.)

UPDATE: Drew writes in to confirm that this portrait will indeed be included in his next book from Fantagraphics Too Soon? coming Summer 2010.

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons
By Gahan Wilson

OVER ONE THOUSAND CARTOONS SPANNING 50 YEARS OF A LEGENDARY CAREER

Fifty-one, to be exact, but let’s not quibble. Gahan Wilson is among the most popular, widely-read, and beloved cartoonists in the history of the medium, whose career spans the 2nd half of the 20th century, and all of the 21st. His work has been seen by millions — no, hundreds of millions — in the pages of Playboy, The New Yorker, Punch, The National Lampoon, and many other magazines; there is no telling, really, how many readers he has corrupted or comforted. He is revered for his playfully sinister take on childhood, adulthood, men, women, and monsters. His brand of humor makes you laugh until you cry. And it’s about time that a collection of his cartoons was published that did justice to his vast body of work.

When Gahan Wilson walked into Hugh Hefner’s office in 1957, he sat down as Hefner was on the phone, gently rejecting a submission to his new gentlemen’s magazine: “I think it’s very well-written and I liked it very much,” Hefner reportedly said, “but it’s anti-sin. And I’m afraid we’re pro-sin.” Wilson knew, at that moment, that he had found a kindred spirit and a potential home for his cartoons. And indeed he had; Wilson appeared in every issue of Playboy from the December 1957 issue to today. It has been one of the most fruitful, successful, and long-lived relationships between a contributor and a magazine, ever.

Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons features not only every cartoon Wilson drew for Playboy, but all his prose fiction that has appeared in that magazine as well, from his first story in the June, 1962 issue, “Horror Trio,” to such classics as “Dracula Country” (September 1978). It also includes the text-and-art features he drew for Playboy, such as his look at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, his take on our country’s “pathology of violence,” and his appreciation of “transplant surgery.”

Wilson’s notoriously black sense of comedy is on display throughout the book, leaving no sacred cow unturned (an image curiously absent in the book), ridiculing everything from state sponsored executions to the sober precincts of the nouveau rich, from teenage dating to police line-ups, with scalding and hilarious satirical jabs. Although Wilson is known as an artist who relishes the creepy side of modern life, this three-volume set truly demonstrates the depth and breadth of his range — from illustrating private angst we never knew we had (when you eat a steak, just whom are you eating?) to the ironic and deadpan take on horrifying public issues (ecological disaster, nuclear destruction anyone?).

Gahan Wilson has been peeling back the troubling layers of modern life with his incongruously playful and unnerving cartoons, assailing our deepest fears and our most inane follies. This three-volume set is a testament to one of the funniest — and wickedly disturbing — cartoonists alive.

PREVIEWS! Download an EXCLUSIVE 25-page PDF excerpt containing all of Wilson's strips from 1958-1959, including a series of strips spoofing Sherlock Holmes (8 MB). Read Neil Gaiman's Introduction right here. And read designer Jacob Covey's production notes, with copious photos, on Flog! The Fantagraphics Blog.

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

942-page full-color 8" x 10" three-volume hardcover set with slipcase • $125.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-298-2
Bonus signed silkscreen print included with the first 50 orders!
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Limited Collectors Edition with signed letterpress print and box set of facsimile holiday cards • $175.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-334-7
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Popeye Vol. 4: "Plunder Island"
By E.C. Segar

With this fourth volume of our beloved series, Segar’s Popeye reaches one of its highest peaks in “Plunder Island,” the glorious, epic-length Sunday-continuity adventure that ran for eight months and pitted the intrepid sailorman against the malevolent Sea Hag and her terrifying, grotesque sidekick the Goon — helped, and sometimes hindered by, the easily corruptible J. Wellington Wimpy. “Plunder Island” is presented here for the first time in its complete, full-color, uncut glory!

Meanwhile, in the “dailies” section of Popeye Volume 4, Popeye visits “Poodleburg” and gets involved in a quest for both “Romance and Riches.” Other stories include “Unifruit” (featuring the return of King Blozo), the western epic “Black Valley” (with the unforgettable sight of Popeye in drag), “The Pool of Youth” (featuring the return of the Sea Hag... and her sister!); and the beginning of the extended six-month-long yarn “Popeye’s Ark”!

Comics historian Richard Marschall rounds off this volume with a long article on Segar’s storytelling skills and narrative strategies, focusing in particular on the “Plunder Island” sequence. Rediscover an American treasure in this handsomely designed series to be enjoyed by comic fans of all ages.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 15-page PDF excerpt (6.4 MB) with 5 pages of Sundays and 10 pages of dailies!

168-page color/b&w 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-169-5
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

We've got Cyber Monday fever! Today only (Monday, Nov. 30, 2009), all of our currently-available and pre-orderable 2009 releases (with a few exceptions) are marked down 30%! That's a fantastic deal on over 75 items, including but not limited to: deluxe box sets like Humbug and Gahan Wilson; gorgeous, oversized, impressive-under-the-tree volumes of classic newspaper strips Popeye, Prince Valiant, and The Brinkley Girls; no less than 4 books from the Hernandez brothers (including the big Luba and Locas II omnibuses); new & reprinted stuff from mainstays Peter Bagge, Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, R. Crumb, Tony Millionaire, Richard Sala, C. Tyler and Robert Williams; classics from Boody Rogers, Steve Ditko, Fletcher Hanks, Basil Wolverton, and the various artists of Blazing Combat and Supermen; two by the great Jacques Tardi; new comics from cutting-edge faves Al Columbia, Jordan Crane, Paul Hornschemeier, Kevin Huizenga, Jason, Miss Lasko-Gross, Michael Kupperman, Anders Nilsen, John Pham, Johnny Ryan, Dash Shaw, and Esther Pearl Watson; amazing art books like Portable Grindhouse and Rock Candy; Monte Schulz's novel This Side of Jordan; fully half a dozen issues of The Comics Journal; even some of our already-crazy-cheap Mome multi-packs — and much much more! Holy smokes, what a year it's been... and now's your best chance to get caught up and spread the love of comics with beautiful gifts for all your friends and family!

(Sale begins RIGHT NOW — midnight, Monday Nov. 30 — and ends exactly 24 hours later. Don't delay!)

UPDATED to clarify: This sale is NOT taking place at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery — online or phone orders only!

Huffington Post contributor Michael Giltz writes: "The best way to celebrate Schulz and his work is the ongoing series being published by Fantagraphics. The latest volume -- The Complete Peanuts, 1973-1974 ($28.99; Fantagraphics) -- is a lovingly produced volume that includes every strip from those two years in a handsome hardcover book designed by Seth. Like earlier editions, it's a thrill to read the strip chronologically and in one fell swoop. You get a far better sense of Schulz's creative zig-zagging as he suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself at the tip of a pop culture juggernaut." Read the rest here.

Black Friday Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: At NPR.org, Glen Weldon recommends "Tomes With Which to Tough Out Your Turkey Coma," including Linda Medley's Castle Waiting ("a wryly funny fairy tale narrative that's both women-centered and women-powered") and Gilbert Hernandez 's Palomar ("Dense, vividly realized and both literally and figuratively magical")

• Interview: Robot 6's Chris Mautner talks to Dash Shaw about The Unclothed Man in the 34th Century A.D., BodyWorld and other topics: "There’s a meshing going on between film/animation and comics. The meshing is happening in my own interests, the subject matter of my stories, the way my stories are created, and it’s been fueled a little by what’s going on outside of me..."

• Profile: Pop Culture Institute memorializes Charles M. Schulz on what would have been his 87th birthday yesterday

• Awards: Congratulations to Willie & Joe editor Todd DePastino, who won Fordham University's Sperber Prize for his excellent biography Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, it was announced today

• Reviewer: At Comics Comics, Dash Shaw recommends a starting point for new shoujo readers

• Things to see: Jim Blanchard draws a real-life bronc-bustin' babe

• Tunes: The Inkstuds podcast presents another episode of cartoonists making music, this time featuring Zak Sally, Gary Panter, Al Columbia and a mess of Fort Thunderers

ActuaBD interviews Lorenzo Mattotti (translated) about his new art book collaboration with Lou Reed, Le Corbeau (The Raven), among other topics. Above, Mattotti & Reed sign the book at Galerie Martel in Paris, where the original art is on display until January. Holy smokes! (Via The Comics Reporter)