FLOG! Entries for Eric Reynolds

Fantagraphics Books to Publish In Case We Die, a Novel by Danny Bland

Eric

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS TO PUBLISH IN CASE WE DIE, A NOVEL BY DANNY BLAND

(not final cover)

SEATTLE, WA 1/23/13 -- Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce the forthcoming summer 2013 publication of In Case We Die, the first novel by longtime Seattle music figure Danny Bland, which follows a pair of addict outsiders who find themselves locked in the palpable, dizzy grunge-rock drug scene of '90s Seattle. The book will also be supported by a unique audiobook project from Seattle's Local638Records.

It wasn't the pounding headache or the all-too familiar taste of blood in my mouth that woke me that morning, but the stink of cat piss. They all have cats. Cats and bad tattoos and mops of dyed black hair that reek of cigarettes and watermelon Bubblicious. They all have ripped fishnets and dark red lips and Daddy issues.

Both love story and horror story, In Case We Die is a semi-autobiographical and visceral story of love, crime, addiction, redemption and revenge. Bland, a 25-year veteran musician (The Dwarves, Cat Butt, Best Kissers In the World) and road manager (Dave Alvin and the Blasters, The Supersuckers) and longtime Seattlite, brings his own experience to a harrowing tour through Seattle's darkest underground.

"When I first read a draft of In Case We Die, I did it purely as a favor to Rachel [Flotard, proprietor of Local638]," said Fantagraphics Associate Publisher and acquiring editor Eric Reynolds. "Rachel is hard to say no to. But I read it and loved it and actually tried to convince Danny to get an agent, and sell it to a big NY house who could land him a big movie deal. I actively discouraged him from thinking about Fantagraphics. But Danny told me all the reasons he thought that would be a bad idea, and I knew we were kindred spirits. He's shown great faith in us packaging the book he envisions and I'm proud to make that happen, because it's a book I'll be particularly proud of not just as a publisher, but as a Seattlite. It's a quintessentially Seattle novel."

Vulnerable to the high relief of heroin addiction, Bland's characters — Charlie Hyatt and Carrie Finch — are beloved, unapologetic protagonists whose epiphanies are as blinding as their weaknesses. Finch, 21, beautiful and dangerous, drowns out the voices in her head and the consequences of a misled life with electric guitar, booze and petulant misbehavior. Her single abiding faith takes the form of an unlikely savior — 60s psychedelic musician Roky Erikson. At the ripe old age of 28, Hyatt attempts to make sense of the cards he has been dealt; a miserable job, a drug habit he cannot afford and the wildly unstable woman he had chosen to love.

In Case We Die will also exist as a remarkable audio book project to be released by Local638Records [ http://www.local638records.com ]. An exclusive roster of legendary artists, musicians, actors and friends have lent their support and donated their talent by reading and recording chapters of the book including Dave Alvin (Blasters, Knitters), Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers), Duff McKagan (Guns & Roses), Donal Logue (Sons of Anarchy, American Splendor), Blag Dahlia (Dwarves), Wayne Kramer (MC5), Eddie Spaghetti (Supersuckers), John Doe (X, Knitters), Jacob Pitts (actor, Justified), Damien Echols (West Memphis Three), Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age), Rob Delaney (comic, Twitter superstar), Lou Beach (author, artist), Steve Earle (singer, songwriter, actor), Mark Boone Jr. (Sons of Anarchy), Amiee Mann (singer, songwriter, actress), Marc Maron (WTF podcast), John Sinclair (White Panther Party, MC5 manager), Lew Temple (The Devil's Rejects, The Walking Dead), Mark Arm (Mudhoney) and others t.b.a., with a portion of the proceeds benefitting MusicCares, a non-profit organization helping musicians and roadies gain sobriety and obtain medical care.

Two damaged people can balance a seesaw for a long time, even finding the illusion of safety; but when one gets off unannounced, the other will fall. As Finch finds sobriety, her sanity and her relationship with Hyatt falter until an inevitable event brings the two back together a decade later.

In Case We Die will premiere in Seattle this July with a number of local events t.b.a. promoting the release, with a wide release in August.

IN CASE WE DIE
A Novel by Danny Bland
Hardcover • Summer 2013
ISBN 978-1-60699-675-1
http://incasewedie.com
http://dannybland.com

-------------------------

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR IN CASE WE DIE:

"Our anti-hero is floating in a tiny lifeboat made of heroin, graveyard shifts & rock music. His companions are two fabulous women; a bombshell who robs banks & a beautifully pale rock violinist who can barely dodge suicide. ICWD is much funnier & more satisfying than any other junkie rock'n'roll tragedy." – John Doe (X)

"Bland is a brutally funny and bravely honest writer. A perfect guide through the bloodshot streets and desperate bedrooms of the underground wilderness." – Dave Alvin (Blasters)

"In Case We Die is a poetic and elegant journey ... straight to the gutter." – Wayne Kramer (MC5)

"Beautiful, literary redemption." – Exene Cervenka (X)

"A great piece of work — full of filth and heart." - Steve Earle

"A suitably Peckinpah finale. Bravo. It has been like a traveling dream state and sometimes familiar look into the abyss." – Greg Dulli (Afghan
Whigs)

"I am a believer in what Bland has to say. He writes with eloquence, candor, darkness, and humor....the good stuff!" – Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses)

Move Along...

Eric

... nothing to see here! Just a few hundred Barnaby clippings to scan for our second volume. Bless you, Jon Barli .

Fantagraphics at 2013 ALA Midwinter Seattle

Eric

Join Fantagraphics Books in our hometown of Seattle from Jan. 25-28 at the American Library Association Midwinter show, taking place at the Washington State Convention Center in downtown. Fantagraphics will be exhibiting with our distribution partner, W.W. Norton & Co., in booth #2409.

We'll be showcasing our first 2013 releases, including a few none of you have seen yet, and also hosting weekend signings and raffles with authors PETER BAGGE and JIM WOODRING!

We'll also be giving away some freebies, including comic books by Carl Barks, Crockett Johnson, Woodring and Bagge, plus other surprises...

Here's the schedule:

PETER BAGGE: Saturday, Jan. 26th at 11AM

JIM WOODRING: Sunday, Jan. 27th at 11AM

SEAN PIDGEON: Friday, Jan. 25 at 6PM (author of Finding Camlann: A Novel, courtesy W.W. Norton)

It should be a fun show for us. Seattle and King County boast two of the great library systems in America, so you know it should be a great ALA, and we'll be excited to show our hometown pride. Come ask us for great book, comics, restaraunt and tourist tips!

Also, out-of-town visitors please note! We'll be hosting a reception at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery that Saturday night from 4:30 to 6:00 PM following a Graphic Arts Guild workshop featuring Ellen Forney, David Lasky, Phil Foglio, and others. Stay tuned for more info.

ALA Midwinter Booth #2409: FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS / W.W. NORTON

Crockett Johnson's BARNABY: 1st Look

Eric

Earlier this month we wrapped up what has been my favorite project I've ever worked on. I've been pretty lucky to work on some amazing books by many of my favorite cartoonists, but this... this is something else. This is Crockett Johnson's BARNABY . This has been my #1 dream project for well over a decade, and it's now real.

Which is all to say, I'm genuinely thrilled to be the first one to present this sneak peek at Vol. 1.

If you're unfamiliar with BARNABY, let me allow Chris Ware to set the stage. This is from his introduction to Vol. 1:

"I never thought I'd see this day, but the book you hold is, well... the last great comic strip. Yes, there are dozens of other strips worth rereading, but none are this Great; this is great like Beethoven, or Steinbeck, or Picasso. This is so great it lives in its own timeless bubble of oddness and truth..." — Chris Ware

BARNABY is the long-lost comic strip masterpiece by Crockett Johnson, legendary children's book author (Harold and the Purple Crayon) and illustrator (Ruth Krauss' The Carrot Seed).

Featuring the misadventures of five-year-old Barnaby Baxter and his cigar-chomping, bumbling con-artist of a Fairy Godfather, J.J. O'Malley, BARNABY deftly balanced fantasy, humor, politics and elegant cartooning in a strip that captured the imaginations of kids and intelligent adults alike, including Dorothy Parker, Charles Schulz, W.C. Fields, Gardner Rea and Milton Caniff. We will be collecting in five volumes the entire, original ten-year run from 1942-1952.

Speaking of BARNABY superfans, our books are being designed by Daniel Clowes, which would sound more inspired if he weren't really the only man ever considered for the job. Dan is the person who first introduced me to the work of Johnson over 15 years ago, and I know this series means as much to him as anyone. I couldn't be happier with his designs. You've seen Dan's final cover for Vol. 1 above. Here's Dan's initial thumbnail rough from his sketchboook earlier this year; as you can see, he pretty much nailed it on the first take:

Here's a similar peek at one of Dan's initial "storyboards" for the book, this time for the opening spread of Jeet Heer's introductory essay:

... and here's the final, more-or-less identical final version, executed by our own esteemed Tony Ong and Clowes:

Dan makes things easy.

Here's a teaser of the entire jacket:

I can't end this post without mentioning my series co-editor, Philip Nel. Phil knows more about Crockett Johnson than anyone. Period. If you like Barnaby, please read Nel's definitive bio: Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature from the University Press of Mississippi.

In addition to his invaluable help behind-the-scenes, Phil has provided two indispensible resources for our first volume: a comprehensive biographical essay on Johnson focusing on the creation of Barnaby, as well as "The Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society: A Handy Pocket Guide," a stunningly comprehensive glossary to everything referenced in BARNABY. He'll even explicate formulas like this:

Anyway, there's much more to be had in this first volume, but I'm honestly reluctant to tip our hand too much. I can't wait for people to see this book. Featuring the first two calendar years of the strip, 1942-1943, you're in for a dense, rewarding treat. Look for it in stores by late-March or early-April (we'll update you as we go).

And once you finish Vol. 1, look for Vol. 2* in Spring 2014:

* This one's just a mockup and by no means final.

SPX in Pictures

Eric

Well, I spent about four hours last night and this morning writing, formatting, linking and tagging a detailed SPX report that our flog system just decided to erase. So much for that. At least the photos were saved, so here you go, I don't have the patience to write it again. Let's just say SPX was indeed the Best Con Ever and leave it at that. I'm going to go punch a wall.

The Complete Comics Journal Joins Online Archive from Alexander Street Press

Eric

THE COMPLETE COMICS JOURNAL ARCHIVES JOIN THE UNDERGROUND AND INDEPENDENT COMICS ARCHIVE FROM ALEXANDER STREET PRESS

Fantagraphics Books, publisher of The Comics Journal, has announced a partnership with Alexander Street Press to make the complete archive of the The Comics Journal available as part of its Underground and Independent Comics online collection. This is the first-ever scholarly online collection for researchers and students of literary and underground comic books and graphic novels, and the inclusion of more than 25,000 pages of interviews, commentary, theory and criticism from the 35 year history of The Comics Journal marks a significant contribution to the academic study of the comics form.

“Most back issues of The Comics Journal are sold out and unavailable,” says Comics Journal founder and Fantagraphics President Gary Groth. “This will allow academics, critics, and historians access to the magazine that's covered the widest range of cartooning for the longest period of time. We believe Alexander Street Press' project serves an important cultural function and we're very pleased to be part of it.”

The Underground and Independent Comics online collection covers the works that inspired the first underground comix from the 1960s (such as works by Basil Wolverton and Harvey Kurtzman), to the first generation of underground cartoonists (including R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez and many others) and encompasses modern sequential artists like Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez and Daniel Clowes, with over 75,000 pages of comics from the 1950s to present. With the inclusion of The Comics Journal archives, scholars can now similarly trace the roots of comics criticism and have access to the Journal’s incomparable oral history of the field.

Institutions who have already subscribed or purchased the archive include the Library of Congress, British Library, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Notre Dame and many others.

Comics have become an increasingly popular area of academic study, and yet the typical library has only a small selection of graphic novels in the catalog. Underground and Independent Comics solves this problem, collecting thousands of comics and related texts in one, easy-to-use online collection. With multiple combinable search fields, users can sort the materials in the collection by type, coloring, publication date, writer, penciler, inker, character, genre, publisher and more. Scholarship never before possible is now just a few keystrokes away.

“The chance to have access to 100,000 pages of underground and new wave comics in ways that were unimaginable a short time ago should change the face of comics research completely.” — James Danky, faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Wisconsin-Madison

CSI: Seattle

Eric

Sooooo, I'm at Seattle's Pike Place Market yesterday morning with my daughter near the fish-throwing guys. We're standing out on the curb next to an empty cop car, waiting for a friend. The back seat windows in the cop car are rolled down and I just happen to catch something out of the corner of my eye. I look closer, between the bars, the backseat is completely empty aside from a large ziplock bag with something familiar inside...

Evidence of a crime scene? Something more nefarious? If there are any Seattle law enforcement officials who can shed some light on this mystery, do tell. Ellen, if you need a good lawyer referral, talk to Gary.

Comic-Con Memories

Eric

I've been going to Comic-Con for almost 30 years now, god help me. Sometimes I think I know downtown San Diego better than any town I've actually lived in. These are some of the things I think of when I think about Comic-Con:

• The Picadilly

• HateBall Tour 1993

• Scary bail bondsmen offices

• When you could easily park in the convention garage

• When Hall H was just a grassy knoll where you could hang out before the con opened

• When I cared about the Marvel and DC booths

• When I first met Gary Groth and he had a pony tail

• When I first met Dan Clowes and he charged me $10 for a sketch but not the cute girl in front of me

• When I showed Dick Giordano my portfolio as a teenager and he was incredibly encouraging

• Drunk late-night walks with Jaime back to the hotel

• Eisner Retailer Judging with Sergio Aragonés, who brought his guitar to kill time

• Sin Alley Cats, The Ol' Prospectors, and Action Suits with Rube Reuben at that Fanta golf course party

• Danzig's stripper room

• Riding elevators with Lou Ferrigno, the guy who played Chewbacca, and Stan Lee

• Being told on at least three separate occasions over three separate years "NO PHOTOS!" by an off-the-clock Lou Ferrigno (including in the elevator)

• Selling comics to Leonardo DiCaprio, who had just flown in via helicopter with Gaston from Meltdown

• Eisner tears

• Jack Kamen's kiss

• When I realized that the Playboy back issue dealers didn't check ID

• Me, Jane Wiedlin, The Eisners

My Birthday Is Coming Up!

Eric

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*

Classic Sala Art for Sale!

Eric

Richard Sala has just made available for sale the entirety of the original art for his classic strip from BLAB!, "The Prestigious Banquet To Be Held In My Honor." I always loved this strip, and the price is right. Go here to BUY NOW! Heck, even if this particular strip is more than you can afford, Richard has a variety or other art for sale on the Comic Art Collective site as well, along with art for sale by many other great cartoonists.

D'Valuable Articles

Eric

It's a good day!

Some 16 to 17 years ago, I formed a vague friendship with a young writer named Joshua Glenn under the most tenuous of possible ways for sincere friendship to incubate: between the professional relationship of writer (him) and publicist (me). I have enjoyed Josh's vision and intellect and from the first issue of his zine, HERMENAUT (one of the unequivocally great periodicals of the 1990s), and thru his more recent endeavors, like the website HILOBROW . Through some minor miracle, we've managed throughout the years to have some reason, however ambiguous at times, to stay in touch.

And now! Full circle! It's 2012, and our friendship risks being crushed by the burden of professionalism yet again: this time as publisher / author. (And you thought the writer/publicist relationship was dicey!)

See, Josh and his brilliant co-conspirator, Rob Walker, have created this book called SIGNIFICANT OBJECTS. And we are publishing it. And it is wonderful! And I am proud! And the first advance copies have just arrived!

Seriously, putting this book together with Josh and Rob and Jacob Covey was one of my favorite book experiences ever, and now it exists! And it is BEAUTIFUL! This is the part of publishing that never gets old. I insist that when you see it in a bookstore, you pick it up. Feel it. Fondle it. Flip thru it. It begs to be fetishized. It doesn't feel like a normal book. You'll see, you'll see... It feels more... significant.

Joe Sacco at Duke U.: A Special Report

Eric

Attn: Flog Faithful... posting might lessen a bit this week as we continue to navigate the brutal, nine-day convention gauntlet that is Stumptown, MoCCA and TCAF. To ease your cravings, we bring you an exclusive Flog! report from our Tobacco Road Correspondent Rob Clough. -- Ed.

Joe Sacco gave a lecture and Q&A to an audience of about a hundred at Duke University on 4/24/2012. He said that this was probably the last time he was going to give this particular lecture on Comics Journalism. If you haven't seen it, Sacco gives an account of his working method by talking about the ways in which the comics page is an ideal construct for delivering multiple and often conflicting and contrasting forms of information. For example, in a page from Palestine, there's a heavy background emphasis on how rainy the weather was at the time and how uncomfortable that made everything. In each panel, you could see grey clouds following around Sacco and his friend and mud on their feet. Sacco noted that in prose, it's difficult to emphasize the constant nature of physical discomfort without being awkward. He said that you couldn't simply add the phrase "and there was mud on their feet" at the end of every sentence. Sacco repeatedly said how important accuracy is to him, from gettng the quotes right to trying to find out what a building or neighborhood might have looked like fifty years ago. For some aerial views that he didn't have access to (noting wryly that the governments of Egypt and Israel weren't about to grant him permission to fly over the settlements in Gaza), he simply used drafting skills and perspective to figure out what things would look like from above. Sacco also went into some detail about how he composes each page. On pages where there is violence or chaos, he favored a fractured panel arrangement where the reading order was made deliberately unclear for the reader, to reflect the chaos of the situation. On another such page, there was a spider-web of panels, where you could follow one character along one web to see what's happening with them, but the overall page had no set structure in terms of what order to read things in.

He talked about about how he represents himself in his comics, noting that he hides his eyes as a way of telling the reader that you're not getting every bit of info about him as a part of the story. He said that in choosing how he chooses to represent his experiences, he was conscious of how he affected the narrative, and more to the point, how the story affected him. When asked if he ever felt the urge to intervene or help in particular situations, he said that the works themselves were his form of intervention. Sacco told me that he's quite aware of other comics journalists operating, like Suzie Cagle, Dan Archer, Josh Neufeld, etc, though he wasn't necessarily an avid reader of anyone else in particular. I asked him about his feelings regarding the "embedded journalism" he did with the US military; he said that the experience is what you made of it, but that he didn't encounter a lot of grief in finding out things he was interested in. Similarly, he answered no when I asked him if his long-form journalistic works were a repudiation of the 24-hour, brief news cycle. He said that he depends on that news cycle to a certain extent and that it has its place. Instead, he said that he sees his work as a repudiation of shallow journalism.

Unsurprisingly, Sacco was warm and friendly with the long line of attendees who were having their books signed (many of which were provided by Duke's excellent Gothic Bookshop). He said that one reason why his touring is going to slow down is that he's going back into research and drawing mode. He has not one, but two books coming out this June. The first is Journalism, a collection of his short journalism stories that appeared in a variety of venues, and many of the stories were not published in the US. That one will be 208 pages. Also coming out is a book he's doing with Chris Hedges called Days Of Destruction, Days Of Revolt, which is about urban decay and the rise of a permanently doomed underclass in the US. Finally, he said that his current project involves research into Mesopotamia, partly because he had to get away from doing books about modern war zones. He said that he's going to work in aspects of his long-promised Gentleman's Guide To The Rolling Stones in the book. -- ROB CLOUGH

Josep Maria Berenguer, R.I.P.

Eric

We've written too many obituaries on Flog already this year. I'm saddened to contribute another. We learned this morning that Josep Maria Berenguer, founder of the legendary Spanish comics publishing house Ediciones La Cúpula , passed away last night after a battle with lung cancer. We have lost a friend here at Fantagraphics, and a colleague with whom we've had a very fruitful relationship with for over 20 years.

I first met Josep Maria Berenguer in, I believe, 1995 or 1996 on a trip to Barcelona with my good pal Peter Bagge . We were there for the Barcelona Comics Festival as guests of the Festival and La Cúpula, along with Aline Crumb and Tanino Liberatore, amongst others.

It was the first time in Spain for both Pete and I. La Cúpula had just begun publishing HATE, under the title ODIO , with savvy translations by a young editor/writer named Hernán Migoya and lettering by a talented cartoonist, Nono Kadaver (both of whom have become two of my best friends over the succeeding years; yet another reason to be grateful to Sr. Berenguer). We were treated like royalty and it was a trip I'll never forget. Pete and I have routinely fantasized about moving to Spain over the years since that trip.

Josep Maria was one of the most charismatic and generous hosts I've ever known. He was a natural storyteller, funny, politically incorrect, but also incredibly charming. Not in a typically macho, latin way, he was much more refined. He was an ex-hippie radical with a worldly air about him.

He clearly relished his role as a key countercultural figure in post-Franco Spain, founding the groundbreaking El Vibora and La Cúpula in 1979 (less than four years after the end of Francoist Spain). He greatly admired the irreverence of the first wave of American underground cartoonists, especially R. Crumb and Gilbert Shelton, and published both early on, as well as Robert Williams, Spain Rodriguez, and others. Over the years he published just about every notable American cartoonist you can think of: Bagge, Clowes, Hernandez, Burns, Tomine, etc. I think it would be hard to overestimate his role in raising the prominence of underground comics in Spain.

This decade, I was lucky if I saw Josep Maria even once every couple of years, but when I did, I relished it. In Barcelona, he took me to one of his favorite jazz clubs, and to his beautiful home that the company was named for (a kind of geodesic dome that "La Cúpula" refers to). We ate Moroccan food in Granada, Spain. We drank cheap beers at the infamous Picadilly in San Diego during Comic-Con. The last time I saw him, a couple summers ago, we had sushi together in New York City. He always had great stories, and a warmth to him that made you forget it had been a few years since you saw him last.

Rest in peace, old friend, and long live La Cúpula.

Photo: That's Josep Maria Berenguer on the far left, hosting (from left to right) Tanino Liberatore, Sra. Berenguer, Ana Forcada, myself, Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Peter Bagge at his home ("La Cúpula") in Barcelona, Spain. Photo by Christian Coudurés.

What a Bunch of Babies!

Eric

Having been preoccupied by this past weekend's Emerald City Con, we're a bit late in offering our warmest wishes and hearty congratulations to two of our favorite gentlemen and their lovely significant others.

First up, TheComicsJournal.com co-editor and Picturebox Founder Dan Nadel and his partner Rachel welcomed their first child, Henry, into the world early Friday morning. (You should do each of you a favor and help keep Henry in fresh diapers by picking up Picturebox's new Rory Hayesand Destroy All Monsters! books).

Meanwhile, on Sunday, our old pal Jacob McMurray , Senior Curator of Seattle's Experience Music Project and author of our book TAKING PUNK TO THE MASSES , and his wife Sara welcomed their second daughter, Eleanor, into their family.

Prince Valiant, Love and Rockets tributes wanted for Comic-Con Souvenir Book

Eric

San Diego Comic-Con is celebrating the 75th anniversary of Prince Valiant and the 30th anniversary of Love and Rockets. They're looking for quality tribute art and articles that are suitable for all ages for their Souvenir Book. Submission guidelines can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_souvenir_book.php. The deadline for submissions is April 20.

VOTE CLOWES: The Greatest Bald Man in the Bay Area

Eric

I'm not one for popularity contests, but this one is special. VOTE LUCKY #13. There's some stiff competition in Jerry Rice, Jerry Brown, Willie Brown, and even a few non-Jerry/Brown public figures in the Bay Area. But let's face it, none of them wear their smooth pates as well as Mr. Inkstud himself.

On the Centennial of the Titanic, A Free Story by Monte Schulz

Eric

In just a few short weeks - April 15, 2012 - the world will mark the 100th Anniversary of sinking of the RMS Titanic in icy North Atlantic waters, which remains one of the largest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

This month, Fantagraphics releases The Big Town, the new novel by Monte Schulz. This wonderful period novel, an allegory for the American dream as seen through the eyes of one man, is the third in a trilogy of novels set in the summer of 1929 (following This Side of Jordan and The Last Rose of Summer) that together form a sprawling tapestry of the American Jazz Age.

To celebrate the release of The Big Town, and to honor the memory of the victims and survivors of the Titanic on the centennial of its tragic fate, we are proud to release a free, standalone excerpt from The Big Town that presents a gripping, fictionalized account of the Titanic disaster. It all begins at High Society cocktail party in the big town, where a tony socialite makes conversation with the novel's protagonist...

"I conceived this story back in ‘93 and put it into the novel about three years or so later," says Schulz. "Some people have argued that the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was an ending to the 19th century, so I rendered it as a life resolving event. I also wanted my character Harry to hear it as a reminder of the fragility of family."

Read the excerpt below (click the zoom-in tool once or open in a new window for improved legibility) or download the PDF to read this harrowing story. If you'd like to read more, order your copy of the The Big Town today.

THE BIG TOWN
A Novel by Monte Schulz
ISBN 978-160699-503-7

"Bold and stirring, The Big Town is a big walk through the dark side of Jazz Age America, a place where temptation and violence were only a breath away. A finely-textured tale of moral ambiguity told with gripping realism that richly evokes the sights and sounds of an era defined by gangsters and Gatsby."

– Persia Walker, author of Black Orchid Blues

Attention Graphic Designers...

Eric

... FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS WANTS YOU.

We're super bummed to soon be saying goodbye to our longtime junior designer, Alexa Koenings, who is moving on to new challenges at the end of this month after several years of great work for us. We don't want her to go, but dammit, she's made up her mind.

One thing this means: WE'RE HIRING. We are currently accepting applications for the Junior Designer position. This is a full-time, salaried position in our office (telecommuters need not apply). If you don't currently live in Seattle, you must be willing to relocate.

SKILLS REQUIRED:

• Strong layout and typography sensibilities.
• Detail oriented-- both in your design work and in your ability to track change requests and stay on top of deadlines.
• Thorough InDesign and Photoshop knowledge required. Any other programs are a plus.
• Work well independently as well as with the various personalities of editors, artists, and authors, taking in and utilizing feedback.
• Ability to design interesting, unique solutions that respect and adhere to the vision of the artists we package.

The primary role as a Junior Designer will be doing book production and design, but you will also design ads (print and web), postcards, posters, etc. You will need to be a nimble designer, capable of solutions on a quick turnaround and able to maintain a steady workload. You will be responsible for sending press ready files to printers, so pre-press skills are a plus.

The right candidate could be anyone with a solid design sense and a passion for doing good work. Knowledge of comics is helpful but it needn't be an obsession.

Interested parties email resumé and samples (or links to same) to Eric Reynolds: reynolds [at] fantagraphics [dot com]. Serious inquiries only, please!

And, congrats again to Alexa, who will be missed (and who hopefully won't mind me stealing this pic from her facebook page):

Moonlighting

Eric

I snapped this outside my local Trader Joe's, which I know for a fact also happens to be Peter Bagge's local Trader Joe's. Peter, are you doing some holiday moonlighting we're unaware of?

Eternal, Unresolvable Conflicts

Eric

Dan Clowes Extended Interview from Closer Productions on Vimeo.

This is a fantastic "extended" clip of Dan Clowes' interview for the Shut Up, Little Man film, although it makes me nostalgiac for the pre-Internet 1990s, when things like these tapes were shrouded in mystery.