FLOG! Entries for Jen Vaughn

New Comics Day 6.19.13

TheJenVaughn

320-page black & white (with some color) 11"x 6.75" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-522-8

"Johnson combined low-impact serialized adventure with some gentle comedy based around the ways that adults and kids diverge in their perspectives. The result is a compulsively readable strip with a winningly off-kilter point-of-view-and a cultural treasure that's been long-overdue for this kind of prestige archival project... " –Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

"Fantagraphics deserves a Nobel Prize in Literature for their efforts to reprint complete runs of classic American comic strips... There is rarely an attempt at more than 2-dimensions but that flatness provides a late art deco elegance to [Barnaby]....This strip is fun, funny, I'm so glad its back and Fantagraphics is giving it their usual top-notch presentation," –Kevin Lauderdale, It Has Come To My Attention

Daily OCD 6.18.13

TheJenVaughn

The last thing you'll read before the San Diego PR Storm 2013:

• Review: The AV Club looks at Ulli Lust's Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life. Noel Murray writes, "Today Is The Last Day Of The Rest Of Your Life takes the form of a post-apocalyptic horror story, wherein the heroine ekes out a meager existence by day and then fights off monsters by night.…Lust takes readers inside her experiences, letting them feel how high hopes can devolve into raw survival."

• Review: Ulli Lust's Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life is reviewed in the New York Times by Douglas Wolk. "the book ripples with exuberance:… Lust’s pen-and-ink work (augmented by the pale green tint of European paperbacks) depicts the stretched and crimped features of the people from whom she bummed change, the architecture of St. Peter’s Basilica and the chaos of a Clash concert with equally manic panache, and her line is as seemingly unkempt but as deliberately molded as her younger self’s punk-rock shock of hair."

• Plug: Whitney Matheson on USA Today's Pop Candy thinks Ulli Lust's new book, Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life, is right for you. "This epic memoir from the Austrian cartoonist (now translated into English) tells the story of her crazy travels through Italy as a true punk-rock girl in the '80s."

• Review: Booklist Online spends the day with Donald Duck: The Old Castle's Secret by Carl Barks. "The applause-worthy effort… Oodles of shorter pieces provide more evidence yet that this series is an essential addition to any serious (or just plain fun) comics collection" writes Ian Chipman.

• Review: The New York Journal of Books reads Donald Duck: The Old Castle's Secret by Carl Barks. "There is no tantrum like a Donald Duck tantrum…Every single page of this new collection of classic Donald Duck stories is filled with silliness and slapstick and adventure…Try not smiling at Carl Barks’ work. It’s impossible," says Mark Squirek.

• Interview: Zak Sally on The Comics Journal interviews on Peter Bagge and The Beat follows up. Bagge states, "I like the way [a pamphlet or floppy comic] feel. To me it's an ideal format, the traditional comic book format. It's the perfect amount of material to read in one sitting."

• Commentary: The Beat and Hannah Means-Shannon discuss the humor panel from HeroesCon 2013 featuring Peter Bagge (there promoting his new book, Other Stuff). When asked advice from a younger cartoonist Bagge replied, “If you’re goal is to be a starving artist, it’s an easy road ahead."

• Review: Dead Canary Comics look at Prison Pit series by Johnny Ryan. "It's so extremely excessive in its hilarity it draws stifled belly laughs from your gut on packed trains as parents and politicians glance witheringly at images of monsters shitting themselves, ghouls eviscerating ghouls... in an age when we've got more X Men titles than people on the planet it's refreshing to just have a comic book that's all about entertainment!"

• Plug: Speaking of Johnny Ryan, show off how you don't fucking mess around with a PRISON PIT patch! Only $5 (plus shipping).

• Review: Brian Heater of BoingBoing looks at Leslie Stein's Eye of the Majestic Creature Vol. 2."It’s a sort of childlike forgiveness of life’s darker corners, which carries on into grown up stories…Stein's is a welcomingly unique take on the well-trod world of autobiographical comics, and once you've excepted her rhythms as your own, it can be a hard world to step away from."

• Review (audio): NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour enjoy Dash Shaw's New School. Glen Weldon states, "Instead of a tidy narrative, [New School] is about art, about the art that's in the book itself…There's stuff going on at other levels, the intuitive, the leve of the unconscious, the subconscious I guess you could say.…This book is just fascinating."

• Review: Booklist Online reviews Goddamn This War by Jacques Tardi and Jean-Pierre Verney. "…six years of hopelessly indistinguishable trenches, explosions, corpses, mud, and maggots, all of it depicted via three panoramic panels per page rendered in smoky grays and foggy blues—with blood accents… The pages are strewn with images of dead bodies and midexplosion terrors, but the unforgettable centerpiece is two wordless pages of disfigured postwar faces"

• Review: About.com looks at Anders Nilsen's The End. Jeff Alford writes "these pages come from such a raw emotional place that they'll reverberate like an echo from a well....It's a message we've heard before, but its majestic delivery and the difficult path that led to this revelation make The End all the more exceptional."

• Review: Comic Pusher looks at Anders Nilsen's The End. "This isn't a non-fictional description of grief written after the fact, this is grief, unfiltered and complete…The best sequences are where Nilsen breaks away from the heartbreaking emotional literalism and opens out into almost abstract expressions of the nature of grief."

• Review: Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading unpacks Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Color Sundays by Floyd Gottfredson. "The lighter approach makes this book a better choice to share with your young ones. They should love the timeless highjinks of the mouse and his friends. And anyone can appreciate the skilled cartooning and astounding art, so well-done it almost seems to move on paper."

• Commentary: Heidi MacDonald of The Beat talks about Lorenzo Mattotti at BEA. "In Italy Mattotti is pretty much an all around art and design god, and he's known here for his New Yorker covers, and Fantagraphics has been putting out his recent work in Englias."

• Review: Wandering Son Vol. 4 by Shimura Takako gets reviewed by Read Comic Books. "…what continues to make Wandering Son a fantastic read is the frankness it presents developmental sexual identity…Few comics will challenge you like Wandering Son. It covers a topic not widely written about or discussed, and does so in a tactful, warm, embracing manner," concludes Nick Rowe.

• Review: The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center gives Wandering Son Vol. 4 a whirl. Terry Hong comments," ‘Fresh' is exactly the right word to describe this gentle gender-bender series…Creator Shimura Takako is a compassionate, empathetic storyteller without judgment or guile. Her young characters face their inescapable maturity as best as they can in a brave new world of ‘gender-fluid'."

• Review (audio): It Has Come to My Attention recorded a short 7-minute review of Barnaby Vol. 1 by Crockett Johnson. "Fantagraphics deserves a Nobel Prize in Literature for their efforts to reprint complete runs of classic American comic strips… There is rarely an attempt at more than 2-dimensions but that flatness provides a late art deco elegance to [Barnaby].…This strip is fun, funny, I'm so glad its back and Fantagraphics is giving it their usual top-notch presentation,"

• Review: Letterer Todd Klein looks at Pogo Vol. 2 Through the Wild Blue Yonder by Walt Kelly. "…this strip is perhaps the opposite of 'Peanuts,' which went with a minimalist approach. 'Pogo' is maximalist! Both are great fun and often quite funny.…There’s really not a single thing to fault in this fine book"

• Review: Jack Davis' new collection 'Tain't the Meat reviewed on Sound on Sight. "It's entertaining in the juvenile delight it takes in grossing out readers. You also get to witness Davis' style as it improves with every story: his lines get sharper, there's more detail and contrast in the panels… It might also provide a good trip down memory lane for some, reminding them of late nights spent with smuggled comics contraband and a flashlight under the sheets. It's a good introduction as well to a genre that may today seem corny and hackneyed, but I'll be damned if it still ain't pretty creepy, bad puns an all," writes Chris Auman.

• Review: Broad Street Review gazes upon 50 Girls 50 by Al Williamson with love. Bob Levin pens, "Williamson's art could infuse aliens and monsters, no matter how hideous, with sympathetic personalities that reinforced Feldstein's feelings about brotherhood and tolerance.…His delicate line, intricately constructed panels and gossamer-like space-station cities and landscapes are fully on display in this book."

• Review: Comics Bulletin on Came the Dawn by Wallace Wood. "…the true delight and fascination of Came the Dawn will be seeing again Wood's sublime understanding, indeed his enrichment of, the comics language, from panel and page composition to the pacing, direction, of capturing and conveying of mood…Let's face it: No one draws an emaciated corpse - especially in zombie form - better than Wood," pens Eric Hoffman.

• Review: The Last Vispo edited by Crag Hill and Nico Vassilakis is reviewed on Ler BD.

• Plug: The Love and Rockets Library makes it onto Robot 6's latest edition of Shelf Porn ....with a kitty! Pictures and shelf ownership by Guido Cuadros.

• Commentary: MTV Geek talks about the awesomeness of CAKE and artists like Kim Deitch and Noah Van Sciver appearing to sign books.

• Commentary: Aside from eating some suspect local food, Noah Van Sciver does great with The Hypo and his one-man anthology BLAMMO at Denver Comic Con on The Beat.

• Plug: Jim Woodring's first beer in the Oddland Series was included in the Best Labels of the week.

Just Add Color (and Gore)

TheJenVaughn

The only thing that could make Al Columbia's Pim and Francie even more terrifying is to add color. Columbia recently sent Hi Fructose some exclusive new paintings they are featuring on their website that continue the horrorscape he created in 2009's Pim and Francie. Turn the lights down low, grab that gristle pie you made for lunch and enjoy these haunting illustations after the jump.

Tony Millionaire on Funny or Die

TheJenVaughn

The Edge Of Allegiance - Episode 1: Immigration! - watch more funny videos

Maakies and Sock Monkey cartonist, Tony Millionaire, continues to be funnier than you on paper, in person and on film. This weekend Funny or Die released the video The Edge of Alligiance featuring Millionaire as George Washington on Mount Rushmore. If this made you spit out your cuppa joe, check out the older Fun With God where Millionaire plays who else but God? Keep your eyes peeled for our San Diego announcements so you know when Tony Millionaire will be signing books at our booth!

Fantagraphics at CAKE 2013 in Chicago

TheJenVaughn

Join us this weekend at CAKE at Center on Halsted in Chicago from Saturday, June 15 through Sunday, June 16th! Table 13-14 is the place to be. We're pumped to announce our special guests, Kim Deitch, Ben Catmull, Charles Forsman, Leslie Stein, Josh Simmons, Tom Kaczynski, Lilli Carré, and Noah Van Sciver! Check out our lush signing schedule:

Saturday, June 15th

Leslie Stein             11:00am-Noon
Chuck Forsman      Noon-1:00pm
Lilli Carré                  1:00pm-2:00pm
Kim Deitch               2:00pm-3:00pm
Ben Catmull             3:00pm-4:00pm
Noah Van Sciver    4:00pm-5:00pm
Josh Simmons        5:00pm-6:00pm

Sunday, June 16th

Tom Kaczynski    11:00am-noon
Noah Van Sciver   Noon-1:00pm
Kim Deitch              1:00pm-2:00pm
Chuck Forsman     2:00pm-3:00pm
Josh Simmons       3:00pm-4:00pm
Leslie Stein             4:00pm-5:00pm
Ben Catmull           5:00pm-6:00pm

Our artists will be partaking in programming throughout the weekend, so check out their panels! - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Fantagraphics-at-Stumptown-Comics-Fest-2013-in-Portland.html&Itemid=113#sthash.R89fGTf6.dpuf

We have some lip-bustin' new books to debut at CAKE.

• The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley by Kim Deitch

• Ghosts and Ruins by Ben Catmull

• The End of the Fucking World by Charles Forsman

• Eye of the Majestic Creature Vol. 2 by Leslie Stein

• The End by Anders Nilsen

• Wake Up, Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian

• Good Dog by Graham Chaffee

• The Daniel Clowes Reader edited by Ken Parille

aaaannnnd Wandering Son Vol. 4 by Shimura Takako

Our cartoonists will be partaking in programming throughout the weekend, so check out their panels!

On Friday, June 14th Kim Deitch has a signing from 6pm-8pm at Chicago Comics. (3244 N Clark)

Saturday, June 15th

Noon-1:00pm // Chris Ware: Special Guest Chris Ware is the author of Jimmy Corrigan - the Smartest Kid on Earth, which received the Guardian First Book Award and was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial of American Art. His most recent book, Building Stories, was voted a 2012 Top Ten Book of the Year by the New York Times, Time Magazine and Publishers Weekly. Jake Austen, editor of the vital and influential Chicago cultural magazine Roctober, will host Mr. Ware in conversation, speaking on Ware's career and his connection to Chicago and its living comics history.

3:00 - 4:30pm // Eyeworks: Parallel Lines: The Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation is a film festival with a focus on abstract animation and unconventional character animation. The festival programs showcase outstanding experimental animation of all sorts: classic films, new works, and rare masterpieces. Founded in 2010 by Alexander Stewart (Library Book, Sideral) and Lilli Carré (Heads or Tails, The Lagoon), Eyeworks is held annually in Chicago, with additional curated programs presented in Chicago and other cities throughout the year. The Eyeworks program showing at CAKE this year, Parallel Lines, features animated work that highlights an overlap between alternative comics and experimental animation. The screening will include both classic and contemporary works on this theme, showcasing narrative and graphic parallels between the two forms. Immediately following the screening there will be a Q&A, with presented animators Kim Deitch, Kevin Eskew, and Leif Goldberg.

Sunday, June 16th

12:30 - 1:30pm // Mega-Solutions to Micro-Publishing: Oily Comics: In the current expansion of the micro-publishing field, Special Guests Oily Comics is a premiere imprint. Operated by Chuck Forsman (The End of the Fucking World, Snake Oil) and Melissa Mendes (Lou, Freddy), Oily Comics features some of the best talent in alternative comics. Joining them on stage will be fellow Special Guest Michael DeForge (Adventure Time, Elizabeth of Canada, Lose), and German cartoonist, Anna Haifisch (The Buddies, Future Tense). CAKE co-organizer Max Morris will moderate this exciting discussion.

2:00 - 3:00pm // Kim Deitch: Special Guest Kim Deitch came from a legacy in the animation field and continues to form a legacy of his own. From the hey-day of the undergrounds, through the breakthrough of Raw, Kim Deitch remains a seminal force in alternative comics. Deitch will be speaking about his new book, The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley, out this year from Fantagraphics. He will be joined by Caitlin McGurk (Good Morning You), librarian at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.

3:30 - 4:30pm // Intimate Anxiety: Beyond the shock tactics of portraying "inappropriate" subject matter in comics, we find the medium is exquisitely suited for grappling with explicit content, unchained from the trappings of taboo. Intimate Anxiety focuses on three artists' ferocious visions of sex and death, made all the more visceral through gorgeous and painstaking details. Special Guest Phoebe Gloeckner sets the standard for work that probes these realms. From her experimental memoir, Diary of a Teenage Girl, to her iconic illustrations for RE/Search to her current work dealing with the ongoing femicide in Cuidad, Juárez, Gloeckner continues to confront difficult realities with groundbreaking graphic integrity. Julia Gfrörer's art vibrates off of the page while crafting oblique erotic worlds laced with terror. Through sparse text and a perfect sense of visual timing, Gfrörer's comics, such as Too Dark to See, Flesh and Bone and Black Is the Color bring language to the unspeakable. Joining them will be Special Guest Heather Benjamin, whose obsessively rendered drawings aim straight for the jugular vein. Author of the cult art zine Sad Sex and contributor to the prolific output of Collective Stench, Benjamin's art delves headfirst into complicated scenarios that are emotionally fraught and sexually feral. Moderated by Caroline Paquita, author of Womanimalistic and founder of Pegacorn Press, Intimate Anxiety is a conversation about the power and truth that lies within impropriety.

So come visit Jacq and all our cartoonists at tables 13-14 this weekend at CAKE! 3656 N Halsted, Chicago, IL 60613

Wake Up, Percy Gloom at comiXology

TheJenVaughn

Today is a two-fer digital comics day at Fantagraphics and comiXology! Cathy Malkasian's beautiful Candidesque tales of Percy Gloom and just released Wake Up, Percy Gloom are now available to download. The perfect fable for someone on a journey, Percy Gloom unique gem of a story, humorous and bewitching at the same time. Its diminutive hero is as complex and unique as the fantastical world he inhabits. Only $12.99 at comiXology for an 180-page adventure.

Meanwhile, in Wake Up, Percy Gloom we find our bulb-headed hero awaken from (what he thinks is) a 200-year nap and finds himself in a strange new land, embarking on a wide-ranging quest to find his mother. This new 116-page book from Malkasian is available both now both in stores and at comiXology to read digitally for $24.99.

"More than a fable, Percy Gloom is part of story telling myth that can be traced back to campfires around a cave. This is an inspiring work that speaks to all levels of our existence." -Diamond Scoop

New Comics Day 6.11.13

TheJenVaughn

The End
by Anders Nilsen

80-page two-color (with 16pp. full color) 7.25" x 10.5" hardcover • $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-635-5

"these pages come from such a raw emotional place that they'll reverberate like an echo from a well.…It's a message we've heard before, but its majestic delivery and the difficult path that led to this revelation make The End all the more exceptional." –About.com

Wake Up, Percy Gloom!
by Cathy Malkasian

Wake Up, Percy Gloom!
by Cathy Malkasian192-page two-color 8.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-638-6 - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&category=Cathy+Malkasian&Itemid=113#sthash.ppFUnjvP.dpuf

192-page two-color 8.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-638-6

"Malkasian fills the story with multiple levels, never once making any of them obvious. Her experience as an animator shines through as her pencil and panel construction holds an incredible sense of movement inside a graphic novel format.…More than a fable, Percy Gloom is part of story telling myth that can be traced back to campfires around a cave. This is an inspiring work that speaks to all levels of our existence." - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&category=Cathy+Malkasian&Itemid=113#sthash.HrwSRbVp.dpuf"Malkasian fills the story with multiple levels, never once making any of them obvious. Her experience as an animator shines through as her pencil and panel construction holds an incredible sense of movement inside a graphic novel format.…More than a fable, Percy Gloom is part of story telling myth that can be traced back to campfires around a cave. This is an inspiring work that speaks to all levels of our existence." - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&category=Cathy+Malkasian&Itemid=113#sthash.HrwSRbVp.dpuf

"More than a fable, Percy Gloom is part of story telling myth that can be traced back to campfires around a cave. This is an inspiring work that speaks to all levels of our existence." –Diamond Scoop

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=New-Comics-Day-5.29.13.html&Itemid=113#sthash.WaF2Tfkt.dpufThis week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=New-Comics-Day-5.29.13.html&Itemid=113#sthash.WaF2Tfkt.dpufThis week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=New-Comics-Day-5.29.13.html&Itemid=113#sthash.WaF2Tfkt.dpuf

A Jason-inspired Mural

TheJenVaughn

How cute is Jason walking by the Jason-inspired mural by Kolstadgata 15? His next book, Lost Cat, comes out soon!

New Hire at Fantagraphics

TheJenVaughn

We have a new co-worker here at Fantagraphics, her name is Wanda, she's roommates with Jacq and Tony and she's into comics. She's particularly excited about Lost Cat by Jason.

Although, she DID protest at this photo because she couldn't read the book. Okay, okay, Wanda.

There ya go. Jason comics are page-lickingly good, aren't they!

Eye of the Majestic Creature Vol. 2 Inspiration

TheJenVaughn

Leslie Stein, cartoonist from Eye of the Majestic Creature Vol. 2 (and Volume 1) recently took this picture stating her new book's cover was "inspired by the bass I never use but love and sabbath VOL 4, which I use all the time." You can pick up a copy of Stein's new book at the Fantagraphics table this weekend at CAKE, signing schedule and details coming soon.

And for the record, Stein DOES use guitars though. Her band, Prince Rupert's Drops, pretty muchs rips shit on the daily.

Game 1 with Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball

TheJenVaughn

Well, baseball and softball season in the city leagues of Seattle started recently and we couldn't help but draw a little inspiration from the man who helped elevate baseball to its on-high status, Willard Mullin. The Golden Age of Baseball Drawings 1934-1972 collects for the first time Mullin's best drawings devoted to baseball — depictions of players like Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Yogi Berra and the story of Mullin creating the Brooklyn Bum, the bedraggled mascot of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Whether you're in the dugout...

Out ready to turn a play in the infield...

Or catching fly balls in the outfield... (see me, I'm that little green and pink-banged blob on the right)

…this hardcover book is full of great baseball gags and political comics from a time when the nation needed something to keep up their moral. Our team, Scared Hitless, even decided to get uniforms to match the beautiful book jacket (or did Jacob Covey design it to match us?).

See you at the next game with some more previews of the Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972. For Seattle people, we play at the Cal Anderson park on Monday nights, 8pm. Come on by and check out this advance!

First baseman Matt enjoyed this Babe Ruth comic. Thanks to Hugo Garcia for photo help!

First Look: Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics

TheJenVaughn

Oh, goody! Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics in the pulpy flesh. A lost masterpiece from a cartoon giant. Wilson's mid-1970s Sunday strip — really a collection of one-panel gags, a freewheeling mélange of board meetings, monsters, cavemen and so on — are collected in this fine, long edition. While Wilson is better known for his work in Playboy and National Lampoon, it's fun to see him harness all the colors of the rainbow to convey the blackest of black comedy. Prismatic AND perverse.

Can you hear the oom-pah-pah accompanying some of the finest cartooning of lumpy, melty, and always hilarious people? Perhaps you need to read a few pages over here (full-screen viewing recommended), or get the PDF directly, and pre-order the book here.

First Look: The Children of Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez

TheJenVaughn

Supernatural mysteries run amok in Gilbert Hernandez's The Children of Palomar and unraveling them could mean trouble for all but this isn't quite Twin Peaks, its Palomar. Originally released as a three-issue magazine series titled New Tales of Old Palomar in the acclaimed international "Ignatz" format, these comics now live in a handsomely designed hardcover package!

We had advances of this beautiful graphic novel at TCAF but the book will debut at Comic-Con International in San Diego where Gilbert himself will sign copies and sketch Pipo, Chelo, Carmen or even a young Tonantzín inside! The rest of you will just have to preorder and wait for July! Beware the Blooter Baby...

Cathy Malkasian's Animations

TheJenVaughn

Cartoonist of Percy Gloom and Wake Up, Percy Gloom, Cathy Malkasian is one busy woman. After working on such animations like Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys film (for which she received a British Academy Award nomination), and most recently, creating 20 episodes of Curious George for PBS since 2008, she still has time to make a new graphic novel AND create her own small series. Hiding in Happytown is available to watch on YouTube and is the "adult animatic series featuring the travails of a tortoise in a city full of rabbits." Excitable, nervous and depressed, Scampers the tortoise is one of us, the person who isn't swept up in a musical moment every damn minute of the day and knows that darkness creeps around every corner.

With titles like "Froth and Debt" or "Sex Education," the series will be sure to impress you. Watch the rest of Malkasian's Hiding in Happytown on YouTube and preorder Wake Up, Percy Gloom today!

Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life on comiXology

TheJenVaughn

Ulli Lust's primal yet thoughtful graphic novel Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life about a 17 year old's trek through Europe, no money, no extra clothes is ready to read digitally on comiXology!

Back in 1984, a punked-out Ulli Lust set out for a wild hitchhiking trip across Italy, from Naples through Verona and Rome and ending up in Sicily. Twenty-five years later, this talented Austrian cartoonist has looked back at that tumultuous summer and delivered a long, dense, sensitive, and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece.

Universally considered one of the very finest examples of the new breed of graphic novels coming from Europe, Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life won the 2011 Angoulême “Revelation” prize, and Fantagraphics is proud to bring it to English speaking readers. Get your copy today comiXology for $26.99.

"the book ripples with exuberance:… Lust’s pen-and-ink work (augmented by the pale green tint of European paperbacks) depicts the stretched and crimped features of the people from whom she bummed change, the architecture of St. Peter’s Basilica and the chaos of a Clash concert with equally manic panache, and her line is as seemingly unkempt but as deliberately molded as her younger self’s punk-rock shock of hair." –Douglas Wolk, The NY Times

Cover Uncovered: In Case We Die by Danny Bland

TheJenVaughn

We are very excited to reveal the cover for a book that will shake you silly while laughing in your face: In Case We Die by Danny Bland. This debut novel by the veteran Seattle musician follows a pair of outsiders who find themselves locked in the palpable, dizzy grunge-rock scene of early-'90s Seattle. Read this book on your daily commute, coffee shop, in line to a rock show, just not the library because you will choke on your own loud laughter and squeeze out a tear if your ducts are in working order.

"Ours is a story written on hotel room walls with fifty cent words" states the dedication to this story of falling in and out of love and life. Right now Danny is is most likely in a Ford Econoline van on a long stretch of highway, driving a rock band to its next engagement, but we can't wait for him to tour the states reading to you from In Case We Die. More sneak peeks are ready for you to inject soon, more information at the In Case We Die website and you can pre-order the book from us today.

Tattoo Me, Baby

TheJenVaughn

It's Tuesday, you're reeling from a weekend of bombed-out emoting and drinking and maybe some excellent decision making! We have a few friends with some sweet artwork based on our cartoonists' work. Steve Desiena has a Jungle Princess by Michael Kupperman. Check out her hilarious adventures in Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2.

Meanwhile, Geoff Henao has a Jason tattoo. Get ready for the newest Jason book, Lost Cat, coming out in July.

The End of the Fucking World Limited Edition Risograph

TheJenVaughn

Charles Forsman, cartoonist of the upcoming The End of the Fucking World and Celebrated Summer, has a sweet summer gift just for you. The first 50 people who preorder The End of the Fucking World from the Fantagraphics website will receive a risograph print of the poster above (drawn and printed by Forsman himself!). There's even a penciled signature. I got mine on the wall already but that's because I preordered and pulled a string or two. So pull your own string by buying this soon-to-be-hit book!

Praise for the mini-comic series:

"This is a crime comic disguised as a slacker-road-trip comic, and Forsman delivers its methodical hum eight pages at a time with an astounding precision." – Comic Book Resources

"[TEOTFW] pulls you in like no other comic this year. Stunning in its simplicity and brave in its subject matter." – MTV.com

No Straight Lines wins Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBT Anthology

TheJenVaughn

Last night the 25th Lambda Literary Awards were presented and Justin Hall received one for No Straight Lines in the LGBT Anthology category. Congratulations to Justin and all the contributors to this amazing anthology that showcases four decades of queer comics, a historical tome of first person documentation and literary comics! No Straight Lines is ALSO up for an Eisner Award in Best Anthology. The hardcover version of the anthology sold out very quick last year but fear not, we have a softcover coming out in a few months. Browse a 34-page PDF excerpt and pre-order your copy right here. Can't wait? Buy a digital version of the book today at the comiXology website!

Behold the Fantagraphics' Bar Car!

TheJenVaughn

Pull up a stool to our entry in Hazradfactory's famous Power Tool Races at the Georgetown Carnival this Saturday. The Fantagraphics Bar Car blends Pina Coladas while leisurely tooling down the track. (The resulting cocktails will be served to race officials following each run.) Inspired by the mid-century motifs of Shag, Fantagraphics Bookstore's annual entry is going for cool, not speed. Come watch us win.

The Power Tool Races commence at noon and continue all afternoon, concluding with a delirious demolition derby. Enjoy an afternoon of free entertainment including acrobats, aerialists, brass bands, tall bikes, belly dancers, stiltwalkers, fortune tellers, burlesque acts, beer gardens, drag shows, interactive art, carnival games, and 17 bands on 4 stages (featuring Bonneville Power and Tom Price Desert Classic with Fantagraphics own Martin Bland.) Noon to 8:00 PM in Seattle's festive Georgetown arts community.