FLOG! Entries - September 2009

Johnny Ryan comes to Seattle Oct. 10!

Eric

JOHNNY RYAN'S ANGRY YOUTH AT FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKSTORE & GALLERY ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10

September 30, 2009 - SEATTLE, WA. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery loudly presents transgressive cartoonist Johnny Ryan on Saturday, October 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Ryan will sign books and present an exhibition of his original comix, colorful silkscreen prints, and sculpted figures.

This event marks the launch of Ryan's original graphic novel Prison Pit combining his love for WWE wrestling, Gary Panter's "Jimbo" comics, and Kentaro Miura's "Berserk" Manga into a brutal showcase of violence, survival and revenge. The prolific Los Angeles-based cartoonist is best known for his outrageous 14-issue Angry Youth Comix series published by Fantagraphics Books. Ryan also pens the weekly comic strip Blecky Yuckerella, which has been collected in three volumes including the recently released Comics Are for Idiots.

Please join us to welcome this wildly entertaining and talented cartoonist on Saturday, October 10 for 6;00 to 9:00 PM. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) only minutes south of downtown. This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring exciting visual and performing arts presentations in close proximity throughout the creative arts community.

LISTING INFORMATION

Johnny Ryan
Art show and book signing
Saturday, October 10, 6:00 to 9:00 PM

Exhibition continues through November 4, 2009

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.)
Seattle, WA 98108
206.658.0110
Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM
www.fantagraphics.com

Daily OCD: 9/30/09

mike

Cripes, September is over already? Here's your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book makes for pleasant midday reading, maybe perched somewhere outdoors in the sun with a glass of ginger ale at your side. Read it in a lazy mood, identify with the slacker characters, and speculate on whether you could solve demented mysteries as well as they could. (Answer: probably not.)" – Molly Young, We Love You So

• Interview: Making his second appearance on the Inkstuds radio programme, Mr. Tony Millionaire

• Plug: "Man, if that Crumb book weren't coming out [Prison Pit: Book 1] would easily be my main pick for the week. Johnny Ryan does straight on fantasy/action, with no tongue in cheek, but without forsaking a single ounce of blood or guts. In fact, this may be even more gory and gruesome than his humor stuff... but those with strong stomachs will thrill to Ryan's grotesque and truly imaginative fight fest." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Things to see: Dolls! DVDs! It's your Dame Darcy update

• Things to see: Fantastic Four #9, page 10 by Anders Nilsen

• Tunes: The latest entry in the Inkstuds Mixtape series of cartoonist-curated playlists is from Noah Van Sciver

• Staff: “Language is Hell and Other Concrete Poetry from Nico Vassilakis” at Pilot Books in Seattle

New Ray Fenwick print for Tiny Showcase

mike

This is "Twelve Stories," Ray Fenwick's new letterpress print for Tiny Showcase. Super nice.

Drew Friedman's Jerry Lewis print now available

mike

Be like Jerry and get yourself a copy of Drew Friedman's latest limited-edition fine art print reproducing his 2004 strip "HEY OSCAR!" illustrating reasons why Jerry deserves a Lifetime Achievement Award! Order here (make it a pair with Dino), and get some background and must-read anecdotes on Drew's blog.

Monte Schulz in San Diego TONIGHT!

Eric

Wednesday, Sept. 30, 7PM

Mysterious Galaxy Books
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302 
San Diego, CA 92111 
Tel: 858.268.4747 

SPX pix 'n' more

mike

If you've got pictures of Fantagraphics at SPX, let us know! Here's a few that we've found on our own or have been sent to us. Con reports abound on the web: Rob Clough has a good one to start with, and Sean T. Collins has audio from the Critics Roundtable panel featuring our own Gary Groth.

Let's lead off with a video of Gahan Wilson at the Ignatz Awards, courtesy of Tom Neely:

Gahan Wilson & Gary Groth by Flickr user mgrhode1

Carol Tyler by Flickr user mgrhode1

From Rafer Roberts, the Gahan Wilson/Carol Tyler panel

Another view, from Colleen Venable

Carol Tyler presenting at the Ignatz Awards ceremony, by Greg McElhatton

Gahan Wilson at the Ignatz Awards, by Greg McElhatton

Gahan Wilson by Scott Edelman

Find more photos in our Flickr gallery.

Daily OCD: 9/29/09

mike

Here comes your Online Commentary & Diversions for today:

• Interview: We Love You So, the blog of Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are movie, talks to newly-minted Ignatz winner Jordan Crane, saying "Presenting melancholy tales of workaday worries and broken relationships right alongside whimsical, child-friendly fare, Uptight provides a fascinating peek inside Crane’s constantly shifting thoughts, and never fails to entertain." From Jordan: "When I’m writing something I usually have a particular person in mind that I’m writing it for. Not a general thing like 'I’m writing for someone between the ages of 25 and 50' but rather an actual person."

• Plug: "Oh yes, it's finally here — Johnny Ryan's bloody sexual fight comic [Prison Pit Book 1], ...a two-fisted smash-up of international comics influence and the universal joy of tight-wound one-on-one combat, so tight that everything that comes out of a body becomes a weapon, and doesn't that have a way of mixing pleasure and pain? ... I liked this a hell of a lot." – Joe McCulloch, Jog - The Blog

• Events: Michael Cavna of the Washington Post lists his SPX highlights, including talking to Gary Groth and seeing Gahan Wilson

New Comics Day 9/30/09

mike

Scheduled to arrive in comics shops across the country this week (though by some reports I think some shops may have received it last week): Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book 1! Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter says "This is an awesome book, and you need to own it eventually so why not buy it today?" Indeed! But first, why not check out the previews & reviews here and contact your local shop to make sure they get it?

YouTube Trailer for upcoming Tardi book!

kimt

The publisher of Jacques Tardi's most recent World War I book, the two-part PUTAIN DE GUERRE (my best translation: FUCKING WAR!), has released this nifty trailer on YouTube. It's all in French but there's lots of cool Tardi images between the vintage photos. PUTAIN DE GUERRE Volume II will be released in November in France. There are no plans just yet to release a U.S. edition (there are several other Tardi books we want to work our way through, including IT WAS THE WAR OF THE TRENCHES this coming Spring), which is good because it will give me a chance to think of a title we can actually use so that booksellers can display the fucking book.

Now in stock: Mome Vol. 16 - Fall 2009

mike

Mome Vol. 16 - Fall 2009
By various artists; edited by Gary Groth & Eric Reynolds

This issue features several of our favorite alternative comic artists of the last 15 years, bringing us great joy. Archer Prewitt is the first, with an all-new “Funny Bunny” strip created in between his active musical career. “The Moolah Tree” is the new Fuzz & Pluck graphic novel from Ted Stearn, following Fuzz & Pluck and Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville, beginning serialization here. We are equally proud to debut new work from Renée French, whose work is also featured on the front and back cover of this issue. And Nicholas Mahler debuts to ask "What Is Art?" (translated by secret weapon Kim Thompson).

Also: the second chapter of T. Edward Bak's "Wild Man - The Strange Journey - and Fantastic Accounts - of the Naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, from Bavaria to Bolshaya Zemlya (and Beyond)"; a new "Cold Heat" story by the team of Ben Jones, Frank Santoro & Jon Vermilyea; Dash Shaw interprets an episode of "Blind Date" into comics form; and new stories from Lilli Carré, Conor O'Keefe, Laura Park, Nate Neal, and Sara Edward-Corbett, with incidental drawings by Kaela Graham.

112-page color/b&w 7" x 9" softcover • $14.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Now in stock: You Are There by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Claude Forest

mike

You Are There
By Jacques Tardi & Jean-Claude Forest

THE SATIRICAL MASTERPIECE THAT USHERED IN THE GRAPHIC NOVEL ERA TO EUROPEAN COMICS… FINALLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH

One of the earliest full-length, standalone graphic novels to be published in Europe, and certainly one of the best and most original, Ici Même was serialized in the adult French comics monthly (A suivre) in the early 1980s and then released in book form. A quarter of a century later, this dark, funny, consistently surprising masterpiece has finally been translated into English.

An unexpected yet smoothly confident collaboration between the darkly cynical Jacques Tardi and the playful fantasist Jean-Claude Forest (of Barbarella fame), You Are There is set on a small island off the coast of France, where unscrupulous landowners have succeeded in overtaking the land from the last heir of a previously wealthy family. That heir, whose domain, in a Beckettian twist, is now reduced to the walls that border these patches of land he used to own, prowls the walls all day, eking out a living by collecting tolls at each gate.

His seemingly hopeless struggle to recover his birthright becomes complicated as the government sees a way of using his plight for the sake of political expediency, and the romantic intervention of the daughter of one of the landowners (who has her own sordid history with the politician) engenders further difficulties, culminating in an apocalyptic, hallucinatory finale.

Set in Tardi’s preferred early 20th century milieu, You Are There is drawn in his crisp 1980s neo-“clear line” style, gorgeously detailed, elegantly stylized, with impossibly deep slabs of black: You Are There is a feast for both the eyes and the brain.

NOTE: Because of our contract with the licensor this book cannot be sold to customers in the United Kingdom. If you reside within the UK please do not try to order it from our website; your order will not be processed.

196-page black & white 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $26.99
Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Daily OCD: 9/28/09

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "[The Squirrel Machine is a] darkly disturbing, brilliantly drawn story... B&W pen and ink drawings elucidate complex machines and Victorian-era architecture in baroque detail, while surrealist imaginings take turns for the truly repugnant. Sexual perversion, putrefaction and serial-killer style artworks are all ornately portrayed, as are the buildings, shops, horse-drawn carriages and crumbling mansions of a 19th-century small town. The story, while told primarily in pictures, includes a stilted and formal dialogue that only adds to the perversity. ... Though not for the faint of heart, this obscure tale will offer rich rewards to the right kind of reader, one who appreciates grotesque horror, angry mobs and the creative explosion of a repressed Victorian sexuality." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "In this memoir [Giraffes in My Hair], [Bruce] Paley openly shares his stories of the '60s and '70s, and by the end you'll feel like he's a long-lost uncle. ... At some point, this book will probably become a movie, but I suggest you check out the uncensored version with [Carol] Swain's great artwork, which sets the scene perfectly. It's a miracle Paley survived to tell these anecdotes, but I'm glad he did." – Whitney Matheson, USA Today Pop Candy

• Plug: Animator Jan Stephens recommends the works of Thomas Ott

• Profile: Joe Heller, editorial cartoonist for the Green Bay Post-Gazette, talks to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Tirdad Derakhshani in a syndicated article about the influence of Prince Valiant ("The release of Prince Valiant, Vol. 1: 1937-1938, the first in a new series of gorgeously printed, hardcover Valiant collections from Fantagraphics Books, served as a bittersweet reminder of the century-long rise and eventual decline of a great American art form, the comic strip"), with accompanying video

• Hooray for Hollywood: Popeye optioned for CGI movie; please don't screw it up

• Onomatopœia: Stephen Worth at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog presents a great Basil Wolverton rarity: an article Wolverton wrote for the Daily Oregonian in 1948 titled "Acoustics in the Comics." Learn the difference between "SCHALAMPF!" and "PFWUMPFPH!" (It's a re-run, but still worth a look)

• Things to see: Is Steven Weissman (a) prepping for Halloween, (b) inventing a new superhero, or (c) hoping to get cast on the next season of Project Runway? Whatever it is, I like it

Bookmark: Lilli Carr�'s revamped website

mike

Lilli Carré has updated and redesigned her website, home to her comics, illustrations, films, and bewitching "moving drawings." Much lovely strangeness awaits.

Uptight by Jordan Crane: Double Ignatz Winner!

mike

Congratulations to Jordan Crane, who took home two bricks last night at the 2009 Ignatz Awards at SPX: Outstanding Comic for Uptight #3 and Outstanding Series for Uptight. Outstanding! Several sites have the complete list of winners — we'll link to The Daily Cross Hatch since they have video of the ceremony. And don't forget, all of our 2009 Ignatz Award nominees are still on sale for 15% off!

Webcomics update for 9/25/09

mike

Friday PM is webcomics time!

Thus begins a lifelong journey in this week's Blecky Yuckerella strip by Johnny Ryan....

Back to the color! Back to the gags! Back to the standalone strips from Steven Weissman's Chocolate Cheeks, the next collection of the Yikes! gang's adventures! This week coins a phrase that I might have to incorporate into my vocabulary....

Breakups, Bruce Lee, and two extra-big strips in our Monday-Friday Rocky strips by Martin Kellerman. Enjoy!

Daily OCD: 9/25/09

mike

First Online Commentary & Diversions post from my shiny new computer:

• Profile: "Published in 1982, the [Hernandez] brothers’ Love and Rockets #1 is considered to mark a creative resurgence in comics, and for good reason. From the beginning the Bros. produced work that was subversive and masterfully crafted, combining the punk ethos with their own crisp intelligence." – Molly Young, We Love You So (the official blog of the Where the Wild Things Are movie — !!!)

• Review: "...Jaime [Hernandez]... confirm[s] my beliefs in the heights of his cartooning powers as he delivers the finale to a raucous, yet still quite moving, tale of female superheroes [in Love and Rockets: New Stories #2].... I'd follow him to the gates of hell at this point. With the brothers still working at such a high level of quality after over 25 years, anything they do is worthy of attention and analysis. I don't think I'll ever tire of experiencing their work." – Matthew J. Brady

• Interview: At Marvel.com, Sean T. Collins's series of interviews with Strange Tales contributors continues with R. Kikuo Johnson: "And I also felt like out of the entire Marvel U., Alicia Masters as a young artist, living and struggling after college, was the character I could put the most autobio into. I think the fact that she's a blind artist is hilarious. She's just a hilarious character."

• Things to see: At his blog, Steven Weissman says a fond farewell to Nick Magazine

• Things to see: Photos of the gala all-star Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror signing and exhibit at Family in L.A.

• Things to see: How about a great big batch of Hernandez Bros. rarities? (Via multiple sources)

I think that's his God costume

mike

Washingtonians, don't forget Tony Millionaire is in Puyallup tonight (we can only hope he goes to the Puyallup Fair in that getup) and Seattle tomorrow night with Chris Onstad. (Details here.) Here they are at Powell's Books in Portland OR on Wednesday. Photo courtesy Tugboat Press.

Daily OCD: 9/24/09

mike

Heads up, it's today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "West Coast Blues is an adaptation of a 70s crime novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette (Le Petit Bleu de la Côte Ouest), and it is a reminder of how good they did paranoid crime thrillers in the 70s. It is also a reminder of how good Tardi has done comics for forty years. ...Tardi's remarkable energy and range as a visual storyteller... will have you gobbling this book up in one gigantic gulp and then going back to appreciate the details and the nuance." – Jared Gardner, Guttergeek

• Reviews/Preview: The Abstract Comics blog has links to several reviews of the anthology from around the world (and their translations), plus a video preview of the book which accompanies one of the reviews

• Profile: For the AIGA website, Michael Dooley casts a spotlight on Harvey Kurtzman: "Either directly or indirectly, he’s had an effect on everything and everybody: from Saturday Night Live to The Daily Show, from the Zucker brothers to the Wayans brothers, from National Lampoon to The Onion, and from John Kricfalusi to Matt Groening."

• Events: John Hankiewicz is having an exhibit of his prints right now at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL

• Things to see: Hypebeast has images of all the Jaime Hernandez Stussy t-shirts which I couldn't find yesterday (via The Beat)

• Contest: Also via The Beat: enter the Peanuts look-alike contest!

Bookmark: Ted Stearn's revamped website

mike

Ted Stearn has launched a new, improved version of his website and it's chock full of comics, examples of his animation and illustration work, samples from his sketchbook (such as the above), news, info, and things you can buy from him. Swell!

Daily OCD: 9/23/09

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions, short but sweet:

• Plug: "Fantagraphics Books is now reissuing the first two years of Prince Valiant in the rich original colors — the pages are reproduced from Foster’s own engraver’s proofs. Every panel packs a one-two punch. A witch named Horrit once prophesied that Val would 'never know contentment,' but fans of the strip will find it here." – Cullen Murphy, Vanity Fair

• Review: "There hasn't been a bad time to be a fan of Los Bros Hernandez since they started making comics almost 30 years ago, but it's sure a good time to be a fan now.... [I]t's clear that the brothers are both still full of stories, and here [in Love and Rockets: New Stories] they take advantage of the new format to try out a number of new ideas, with a high rate of success. Looking forward to 2010." – Christopher Allen, Comic Book Galaxy

• Profile: At Graphic NYC, Christopher Irving enjoys a nice long chat with Gahan Wilson: "Circus freaks were also a big influence. My father used to take me to the circus, and though I loved circuses, what I really wanted to see was the sideshow. I dug the sideshow."

• Events/things to buy: Find out what's new with Dame Darcy — includes teacups and a lecture at Pacific Northwest College of Art