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

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

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.  

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 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

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. 

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

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*

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.

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.