FLOG! Entries for Mike Baehr - February 2013

'Tain't the Meat� It's the Humanity! and Other Stories by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein - ...

mike

'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
by Jack Davis & Al Feldstein

224-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-578-5

Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

With its pitch-perfect blend of laughs, terror, and gore, as delineated by some of the finest cartoonists to ever draw a rotting, reanimated corpse, Tales from the Crypt (1950-1955, R.I.P.) remains the quintessential horror comic of all time.

And no cartoonist better encapsulated the grand-guignol spirit of Tales from the Crypt than Jack Davis, who, even at the earliest stage of what would become a six-decade career, possessed a level of skill that would elude most other cartoonists during their lifetimes. His maniacs were more homicidal, his victims more terrified, his dismemberments bloodier, and his werewolves more feral than anyone else's.

'Tain’t the Meat... It's the Humanity and Other Stories collects all of Davis's Tales from the Crypt classics, from EC's wicked revenge fantasies ("The Trophy!" and "Well Cooked Hams!") through the outright supernatural (the voodoo yarn "Drawn and Quartered!" and "Concerto for Violin and Werewolf") to the origin of the Crypt-Keeper ("Lower Berth") — and the legendary splatter gross-out of the title story.

This volume also includes biographical notes and essays, and an ultra-rare EC bonus: Davis's completely redrawn 3-D version of "The Trophy!" — back in print for the first time since its original appearance 60 years ago (and for the first time in regular, easy-on-the-eyes 2-D).

"...I have a spot in my heart for Jack Davis. I mean, that guy just makes me laugh. Even when he's drawing a gross-out, he just makes me laugh. I love his shoes, the way he draws shoes, and knuckles... there's just something about Jack Davis' stuff that blows me away." – George A. Romero

26-page excerpt (download 3.5 MB PDF):

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

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) by Al Williamson et al. - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library)
illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

264-page black & white 7.25" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-577-8

Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO: 50 Girls 50 + 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! (The EC Comics Library) Gift Set Price: $57.98 $46.38

Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid to reckon with — as he proved again and again in the stories he created for EC's legendary "New Trend" comics, in particular Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.

As a result of Williamson's focus, it's possible to compile all of Williamson's "New Trend" EC work into one book — which Fantagraphics is finally doing here. Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50 features three of EC's legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including "I, Rocket" and "A Sound of Thunder" — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from a short story submitted by a teen-aged Harlan Ellison.

Williamson ran with a gang of like-minded young Turks dubbed the "Fleagle Gang," who would help one another out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story ("Food for Thought") where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta's Shock SuspenStories short "Squeeze Play"; Krenkel's meticulous "Time to Leave"; and Angelo Torres's "An Eye for an Eye," an EC story that famously fell prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 also includes extensive story notes by EC experts.

22-page excerpt (download 3.3 MB PDF):

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First Look: Peter Bagge's Other Stuff

mike

Hey gang, we just got advance copies of Peter Bagge's Other Stuff! This handy volume collects Pete's collaborations (with Clowes, Crumb, Tomine, the Hernandezes, Alan Moore, etc.) from the back pages of Hate, stories from Hate Annual, and other odds 'n' ends. It's a must-have for Baggeliebers (huh?) and all lovers of hilarious satire.

Lucky attendees at Emerald City Comicon this weekend will have first crack at buying copies (and getting 'em signed and personalized by Pete himself) — everybody else will have to wait a couple months before it hits shelves. But you can get a taste with our 20-page excerpt, readable right here.

Cover Uncovered: Goddamn This War! by Jacques Tardi

mike

In 2010 it was our distinct privilege to bring you the English edition of Jacques Tardi's World War I tale It Was the War of the Trenches, widely acknowledged by readers, critics, and award committees as a comics masterpiece. In just 3 months or so we'll be following that up with Tardi's second WWI masterwork, Goddamn This War!

Tracing the "progress" of the war year by year, from the perspective of an unnamed soldier, Goddamn unflinchingly chronicles the horror, boredom, frustration and despair of war for its ground-level participants as they grind through the gears of history. Providing further historical context is an extensive text section written by Tardi's reserach partner, the historian Jean-Pierre Verney.

Production on the book is wrapping and it's off to the printer for release in about 3 months, and this is your first look at the final cover design. We're taking pre-orders right now (as well as for a specially discounted set of Goddamn and Trenches together).

Dropping the needle on The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora

mike

(final cover may vary)

Via the Jim Flora blog, co-editior Irwin Chusid shares a few words about The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora, coming this Summer:

Our first book, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (2004), featured Flora's known album covers. (No complete discography existed.) Since that book's publication, more vintage covers have been found, as well as the artist's rough drafts and rejected designs. The Mischievous Art... went through two editions, but is now out of print, highly sought and available only at high prices through rare-book sellers. So we decided to compile a complete collection of Flora record covers (including recent discoveries) and unpublished sketches in one volume, augmented by music images not included in previous volumes. The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora will be the definitive anthology of the maestro's visual compositions, reflecting jazz, classical, and Latin music. Regarding his jam-packed canvases Flora once said he "couldn't stand a static space." There's nothing static about the images in The High Fidelity Art: they wail, dance, bounce, and swing from the chandeliers. They hit notes that shatter glass. This is art to which you can tap your toes and snap your fingers. Flora had a knack for grooving with a paintbrush.

The book will feature a 1998 interview with Flora which I conducted at his home on Bell Island, in Rowayton CT, just a few months before he passed away from stomach cancer. The interview has not been previously published.

The book is scheduled to reach market in June 2013. Barbara Economon and I will provide the contents, and Laura Lindgren will expertly design it-the same team as the first three Flora anthologies.

Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein
edited by Greg Sadowski

272-page full-color 8" x 10.5" softcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-580-8

See Previews / Order Now

Working in comic books for just over a decade in the 1940s and '50s, Bernard Krigstein applied all the craft, intelligence, and ambition of a burgeoning "serious" artist, achieving results that remain stunning to this day. While his legend rests mostly on his landmark narratives created for EC Comics, dozens of stories for lesser publishers equally showcase his singular draftsmanship and radical reinterpretation of the comics page.

Harvey and Eisner Award-winning Krigstein biographer Greg Sadowski has assembled the very best of the artist’s work, starting with his earliest creative rumblings, through his glory days at EC, to his final daring experiments for Stan Lee’s Atlas Comics — running through nearly every genre popular at the time, be it horror, science fiction, war, western, or romance.

This edition reprints the out-of-print 2004 hardcover B. Krigstein Comics, with a number of stories re-tooled and improved in terms of reproduction, and several new stories added. Legendary EC colorist Marie Severin, in her last major assignment before her retirement, recolored 20 stories for this edition. The remainder has been taken from printed comics, digitally restored with subtlety and restraint. Original art pages, photostats from Krigstein's personal archives, and an extensive set of historical and editorial notes by Sadowski round out this compelling volume.

The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

The Adventures of Jodelle
by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier

164-page full-color 10.25" x 13.25" hardcover • $45.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-530-3

Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Ensconced in the avant-garde of the extraordinary social and cultural upheavals that were drawing 1960s Europe into the building wave of postmodernism, a Belgian advertising dropout, fed up with the corporate world, conceived the first "adult comic book" virtually off the top of his head.

By creating The Adventures of Jodelle, a deluxe comics album that wore its revolutionary Pop sensibility on its sleeve, Guy Peellaert obliterated the conventions of what had up to that point been a minor, childish medium. Ironically appropriating the face and body of the teen idol Sylvie Vartan, he fashioned a new kind of heroine, a sensual, parodically beautiful spy. For his setting he chose a defiantly anachronistic Roman Empire, into which irrupted the most flamboyant symbols of a conquering America, the originator of all fantasies.

Every page of this fascinating saga features a flood of topical references and in-jokes, operating playfully on the border that separated so-called "high" and "low" cultures. Peellaert drew from the most exciting stimuli of his time, subjecting them to his powerful formal innovations: Pop Art, extreme fashions, strident advertising, shock graphics, and cinematic techniques all collided in virtuoso compositions of extreme sophistication, whose inspirations ranged from classical paintings to Gottlieb pinball machines.

Published to thunderous acclaim in France in 1966 and then throughout Europe and in the U.S., Jodelle was an instant classic, whose influence would spread far beyond the confines of comics. It also triggered Guy Peellaert's "Pop Period," a creative whirlwind marked by his 1967 creation of PRAVDA, an unforgettable character that has since been acknowledged as a major component of the European Pop movement.

Completely remastered and featuring a new translation, this long-awaited reprinting of The Adventures of Jodelle is accompanied by an 80-page, lushly-illustrated textual supplement created in partnership with the artist's estate which traces the creative path travelled by this maverick artist, who multiplied his chosen means of expression, skipping from comics to cinema and moving through fashion, periodicals, and television, including collaborations with many of the great figures of mythical 1960s-era Paris, from Serge Gainsbourg to Yves Saint Laurent.

"Guy Peellaert was to Europe what Andy Warhol was to America — except Guy had more talent!" – Jim Steranko

"Peellaert's comic strips were the literature of intelligence, imagination and romanticism." – Federico Fellini

"Lusciously designed flat color patterns and a dizzying forced perspective reminiscent of Matisse and Japanese prints. Graphically, Jodelle sets a new record in comic-strip sophistication." – New York magazine

"Peellaert's contribution to comics was as fleeting as it was unforgettable. It was he who brought Pop Art into the Ninth Art. Intensity and velocity, these would be the core principles of this unclassifiable, extraordinary artist." – Pierre Sterckx

"The artist seems to perpetually reinvent the comics form anew, without carrying the weight of any previous tradition." – Thierry Groensteen

"As an art student in the Swinging Sixties, I discovered the first adult-oriented comics, like Barbarella and Guy Peellaert's The Adventures of Jodelle. At that very moment a whole new universe opened up to me. Having grown up in a home where comics were banned and considered mindless, that discovery was really one of adulthood and maturity." – Milo Manara

16-page excerpt (download 5.6 MB PDF):

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The EC Comics Library gets Ghastly in October

mike

(final cover may vary)

Following some hints and speculation here and there we're pleased to announce the upcoming 7th book in our EC Comics Library series. In October, just in time for Halloween, Fantagraphics will be casting off Sucker Bait and Other Stories illustrated by Graham "Ghastly" Ingels and written by Al Feldstein et al., a collection of 25 of Ingels's infamous horror stories from Tales from the Crypt, Shock SuspenStories, Vault of Horror and his showcase title Haunt of Fear.

Reached for comment, noted horror afficionado and editorial kibbitzer Kim Thompson had this to say: "Until I re-read all these stories, I'd forgotten how inventively disgusting Al Feldstein and Graham Ingels could be when they put their minds to it. I can't imagine any fan of grisly horror passing this up. (The murderous revived rotting elephant alone is worth the price of admission as far as I'm concerned.)"

This hardcover volume will clock in at approximately 208 pages and, like the other volumes in the series, be presented in glorious black and white.

Cover Uncovered: The End by Anders Nilsen

mike

Anders Nilsen's The End is now in the can and off to the printer for release later in Spring. It's an 80-page hardcover collection of short strips and drawings created in the aftermath of the death of his fiancée in 2005. By turns wrenching, meditational, abstract, moving, and darkly funny, and encompassing both Nilsen's looser sketchbook style and his more finely rendered comics, it's truly a unique work. Some of the material was released as an Ignatz Award-nominated 32-page comic of the same name in 2007; this version is reformatted and, obviously, greatly expanded. See an 11-page excerpt right here.

The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988 (Vol. 19) by Charles M. Schulz - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988 (Vol. 19)
by Charles M. Schulz

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-634-8

Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change)

So what do we have for Peanuts fans this time around?

An ill-considered attempt at flirting sends Charlie Brown to the school doctor... Linus's ongoing romance with the too-young "Lydia" of the many names continues... Snoopy is joined in the trenches by his brother Spike... Sally engages in a career as a playwright by penning the school Christmas play but mixes up Gabriel and Geronimo... A hockey mishap sends Snoopy to the doctor for knee surgery, in a (clearly autobiographical) sequence that lasts only until everyone figures out that dogs don’t have knees... Linus and Lucy’s kid brother Rerun begins to take on the greater role that will lead to him being one of the dominant characters in the 1990s... and Snoopy, inevitably, writes a "kiss and tell" book.

As we reach the 19th (!) book in this epochal, best-selling series collecting arguably the greatest comic strip of all time and head toward the end of the 1980s, Charles Schulz is still as inventive, hilarious, and touching as ever... and this volume even features a surprise format change, as the daily strip switches from its trademark four-square-panels format to a more flexible one-to-four-variable-panels format which, along with Schulz's increased use of gray tones, give this volume a striking, distinctive look.

This volume's introduction is by a fellow comic strip legend, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.

15-page excerpt (download 1.4 MB PDF):

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

PEANUTS ® & © Peanuts Worldwide

First Look: 50 Girls 50 and 'Tain't the Meat...

mike

Why looky what we have here, it's advance copies of the next two books in our EC Comics Library series!

50 Girls 50 and Other Stories collects Al Williamson's complete Weird Science & Weird Fantasy science fiction tales, with 3 written by Ray Bradbury, plus work by Frazetta, Krenkel, Torres, and more, backed up by expert EC essayists. Chock full of rocketships, weird aliens, time travel, bizarre planets, dinosaurs, and trademark EC twist endings, it's the classic, fan-fave stuff! Check out the table of contents and read 3 complete stories in our 22-page excerpt available here, where you can also pre-order your copy.

Good Lord! Choke! 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories collects the complete Jack Davis-illustrated, Al Feldstein-written Tales from the Crypt stories in one convenient, gore-drenched package bursting with your favorite monsters, grisly comeuppance, and severed body parts! The quintessential American horror comic drawn by its quintessential artist, backed by our usual scholarly bonus features. Sink your teeth into a 26-page excerpt with the table of contents and 3 complete stories, and pre-order your copy, right here.

And hey, we've arranged it so that you can save over 11 bucks when you order both volumes together! Isn't that nice?

Cover Uncovered: Zippy: The Dingburg Diaries by Bill Griffith

mike

Surely we're having fun by now! It's our 11th (!) collection of Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead, The Dingburg Diaries, wrapping up production and going to the printer for release in May or so. With two and a half years' worth of daily and color Sunday strips under chapter headings like "Beatniks, Bowling, Laundry & Food," "Mr. The Toad," "Little Zippy," "Art, Music & Comics," "Zerbina & Other Relationships," and "God," you know it's got the good stuff you want. Plus the back cover is maybe one of the greatest Zippy drawings ever. Pour yourself a tall glass of taco sauce and take a gander at 21 pages' worth of strips right here.

Fantagraphics Spring-Summer 2013 Releases Now Online

mike

We've just finished adding all of the books from our Spring-Summer 2013 catalog to the Upcoming Arrivals section of our website! The catalog itself is still posted here and available as a PDF download, but we already have some updates and corrections to book details, cover art, release dates, etc. so be sure to refer to our website listings for the most up-to-date information.

We've already announced a few books from our Fall 2013 - Winter 2014 season and we'll be plunging into adding the rest of the titles from that catalog over the coming weeks, so the impatient and/or hyper-vigilant among you will want to check back often for some previously unrevealed surprises!

First Look: The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier

mike

Our advance copies of The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier were delivered late last week and we couldn't be happier with our definitive English edition of this pop art classic! After much painstaking work this book is finally on its way to stores for an April shelf date. Containing the original comic, newly translated, restored and recolored in super-saturated, eye-popping tones, plus an extensive section — we can't even call it a "bonus" section because it stands on equal footing — on Peellaert's life and work of the period, it's a combination graphic novel and art book/monograph in one. Peellaert's fans ranged from Federico Fellini to Jim Steranko, and one look at this wild, eye-popping, sexy, satirical farce will tell you why. We can't wait to show you more; for now, take a 20-page sneak peek (evenly divided between the two sections) and pre-order your copy right here.

Fantagraphics January 2013 New Arrivals Recap

mike

Well folks, it's our first batch of 2013 releases and a swell batch it is.

In the past month we've received the gorgeous new definitive edition of the '90s cult classic 7 Miles a Second; Tom Kaczyinski's acclaimed short story collection Beta Testing the Apocalypse; the mammoth new issue of The Comics Journal; a reprint of a Complete Crumb Comics volume loaded with Fritz the Cat classics (and a sweet deal on multiple volumes); Alexander Theroux's encyclopedic, entertaining rant The Grammar of Rock (with Crumb on the cover); true Tejas tales in Jack Jackson's American History: Los Tejanos & Lost Cause; an essential new volume of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant; and the new 2nd hardcover collection of Michael Kupperman's hilarious Tales Designed to Thrizzle!

Remember, our New Releases page always lists the 20 most recent arrivals, and our Upcoming Arrivals page has dozens of future releases available for pre-order.

(Want these updates in your inbox every month? Subscribe!)

7 Miles a Second
by David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook

68-page full-color 9" x 12" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-614-0

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7 Miles a Second is the story of legendary artist David Wojnarowicz, written during the last years before his AIDS-related death in 1992. Artists James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook unsentimentally depict Wojnarowicz's childhood of hustling on the streets of Manhattan, through his adulthood living with AIDS, and his anger at the indifference of government and health agencies. A primal scream of a graphic novel, 7 Miles a Second blends the stark reality of Lower East Side street life with a psychedelic delirium that artfully conveys Wojnarowicz's sense of rage, urgency, mortality and a refusal to be silent.

Originally published as a comic book in 1996 by DC's Vertigo Comics, 7 Miles a Second was an instant critical success and has become a cult classic amongst fans of literary and art comics, just as Wojnarowicz's influence and reputation have widened in the larger art world. This new edition finally presents the artwork as it was intended: oversized, and with Van Cook's elegant watercolors restored. It also includes several new pages created for this edition.

"Revolutionary.... a runaway, over-the-top circus... An excursion into areas few, if any, comics creators have tread." – Jim Steranko

"Seven Miles a Second veers between an almost unbearably gritty naturalism and the incendiary heat of surrealist hallucination." – The New Yorker

"A revelatory work of art." – Art in America

"A cult classic... both a celebration of the unlimited potential of the comic book form, and a perfect melding of inspiring, iconoclastic imaginations." – Jim Jarmusch

Beta Testing the Apocalypse
by Tom Kaczynski

136-page two-color 6.5" x 9.25" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-541-9

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It would be easy to call Tom Kaczynski the J.G. Ballard of comics. Like Ballard, Kaczynski’s comics riff on dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments. Yet while Kaczynski shares many of Ballard’s obsessions, he processes them in unique ways. His visual storytelling adds an architectural dimension that the written word alone lacks.

Kaczynski takes abstract ideas — capitalism, communism, or utopianism — and makes them tangible. He depicts and meditates on the immense political and technological structures and spaces we inhabit that subtly affect and define the limits of who we are and the freedom we as Americans presume to enjoy. Society and the individual, in perpetual tension. Once you’ve read Kaczynski’s comics, it should come as no surprise to learn that he studied architecture before embarking on a career as a cartoonist.

Beta Testing includes approximately 10 short stories, most notably "The New," a brand new story created expressly for this book. It’s Kaczynski’s longest story to date. "The New" is set in an unnamed third-world megalopolis. It could be Dhaka, Lagos or Mumbai. The city creaks under the pressure of explosive growth. Whole districts are built in a week. The story follows an internationally renowned starchitect as he struggles to impose his vision on the metropolis. A vision threatened by the massive dispossessed slum-proletariat inhabiting the slums and favelas on the edges of the city. From the fetid ferment of garbage dumps and shanties emerges a new feral architecture.

The Comics Journal #302
edited by Mike Dean & Kristy Valenti; Gary Groth, Executive Editor

672-page black & white/color 7" x 8.5" softcover
ISBN: 978-1-60699-603-4

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The newly formatted, 600+ page Comics Journal proved a resounding success with 2011’s edition. 2012’s Volume 302 is sure to prove just as essential and exciting to comics readers worldwide.

This edition’s cover feature is a long, intimate interview-portrait with and of Maurice Sendak, the greatest and most successful children’s book author of the 20th — and 21st — century, the author of Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, Higglety Piggelty Pop, and the illustrator of works by Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, and Randall Jarrell. In his longest published interview (and one of the last before his death in 2012), Sendak looks back over a career spanning over 60 years and talks to Gary Groth about art, life, and death (especially death), how his childhood, his parents, and his siblings affected his art and outlook, his search for meaning — and also, on the lighter side, about his love (and hate) of movies. And his unbridled comments on the political leadership of the previous decade have already garnered national media attention and controversy.

Sharing equal billing in this issue's flip-book format: Kim Thompson conducts a career-spanning interview with French graphic novel pioneer Jacques Tardi. The two explore the Eisner Award-winner’s genre-spanning oeuvre comprising historical fiction, action-adventure, crime-thriller, “icepunk” and more, focusing on Tardi's working methods (with step by step illustration), collaborations and other media (such as film and animation), and his fascination with World War I. Plus, Matthias Wivel examines Tardi's adaptation of Léo Malet's 120, Rue de la Gare.

Also in this issue, Art Spiegelman conducts a wide-ranging aesthetic colloquy on classic kids’ comics (Carl Barks’s Donald Duck, John Stanley’s Little Lulu, Sheldon Mayer’s Sugar and Spike, and many more) with a group of comics critics and historians. Bob Levin provides a revelatory investigation of the twisted history of the "Keep on Truckin’" litigation and a fascinating biographical portrait of R. Crumb’s lawyer, Albert Morse. Warren Bernard writes a ground-breaking historical investigation of the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearing on Juvenile Delinquency. R.C. Harvey looks at Bill Hume's Babysan and Donald Phelps examines Percy Crosby's Skippy. And a tribute to the late Dylan Williams from his peers and the artists he published.

Plus: “How to Draw Buz Sawyer” by renowned newspaper cartoonist Roy Crane (and a previously unpublished interview), a new comic by Joe Sacco and one by Lewis Trondheim in English for the first time, Tim Kreider on Chester Brown, Tom Crippen on Mort Weisinger and Superman, Rich Kreiner on "difficult comics," and a visual gallery of and commentary on proto-comics.

The Comics Journal has been for 37 years the world’s foremost critical magazine about comics. It is now more vital than ever, a gigantic print compendium of critiques, interviews, and comics.

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 3: Starring Fritz the Cat (New Softcover Ed.)
by Robert Crumb

128-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-93019-375-1

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Starring Fritz the Cat includes Crumb's classic original Fritz stories from 1965, including "Fritz Bugs Out" and "Fritz the Cat, Special Agent for the CIA," the first two "real" stories in the Fritz canon, as well as "Fritz the Cat, Ace Statesman," four pages of a previously unpublished Fritz story, and several Fritz illos never before printed in color. Plus: Crumb's first published work from Help! and Yell, including the "Harlem Sketchbook" and the "Bulgarian Sketchbook," most never before reprinted; two dozen of his Topps trading cards, plus extremely rare promotional items, as well as many creeting cards done for American Greetings, several in full color; and many pages of strips from Crumb's 20-year-old sketchbooks. Plus more of Marty Pahls's ongoing Crumb biography, including the story of Crumb's first acid trip, with more rare photos of the young Crumb!

1989 Harvey Award Winner, Best Domestic Reprint Project

Buy Two, Get One Half Off! When ordering this volume, add any two other available volumes from The Complete Crumb Comics series and the third volume will be half price! See product page for more details.

The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics
by Alexander Theroux

352-page 6.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-616-4

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National Book Award nominee, critic and one of America’s least compromising satirists, Alexander Theroux takes a comprehensive look at the colorful language of pop lyrics and the realm of rock music in general in The Grammar of Rock: silly song titles; maddening instrumentals; shrieking divas; clunker lines; the worst (and best) songs ever written; geniuses of the art; movie stars who should never have raised their voice in song but who were too shameless to refuse a mic; and the excesses of awful Christmas recordings. Praising (and critiquing) the gems of lyricists both highbrow and low, Theroux does due reverence to classic word-masters like Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Van Heusen, Cole Porter, and Sammy Cahn, lyricists as diverse as Hank Williams, Buck Ram, the Moody Blues, and Randy Newman, Dylan and the Beatles, of course, and more outré ones like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Patti Smith, the Fall (even Ghostface Killah), but he considers stupid rhymes, as well — nonsense lyrics, chop logic, the uses and abuses of irony, country music macho, verbal howlers, how voices sound alike and why, and much more.

In a way that no one else has ever done, with his usual encyclopedic insights into the state of the modern lyric, Theroux focuses on the state of language — the power of words and the nature of syntax — in The Grammar of Rock. He analyzes its assaults on listeners’ impulses by investigating singers’ styles, pondering illogical lunacies in lyrics, and deconstructing the nature of diction and presentation in the language. This is that rare book of discernment and probing wit (and not exclusively one that is a critical defense of quality) that positively evaluates the very nature of a pop song, and why one over another has an effect on the listener.

Jack Jackson's American History: Los Tejanos & Lost Cause
by Jack Jackson

320-page black & white 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-504-4

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Jack Jackson loved American history and creating comics. He combined these into a single vocation and created a legacy of historical graphic novels that has never been equaled.

Jackson is credited with creating what many consider the first underground comic, God Nose, in 1964. He co-founded Rip-Off Press in 1969, and made some of the most scathing satirical comics about contemporary America ever seen. But, Jackson was a Texan, and in the 1970s he returned to his roots and began writing and drawing short historical comics about Texas history. He then went on to produce six graphic novels chronicling 19th century Western history focusing on his beloved Texas and the Plains Indians. Fantagraphics, which published Los Tejanos originally in 1981, is proud to bring his graphic histories back into print in a series of three volumes, each reprinting two of his long narratives.

The first volume features Los Tejanos, which Fantagraphics published as a solo book in 1981, and Lost Cause (1998) — chronicling Texas history before and after the Civil War.

Los Tejanos is the story of the Texas-Mexican conflict between 1835 and 1875 as seen through the eyes of tejano (literally Texan of Mexican, as distinct from anglo, heritage) Juan Seguín. It is through Seguín, a pivotal and tragic figure, that Jackson humanizes Texas’ fight for independence and provides a human scale for this vast and complex story.

Lost Cause documents the violent reaction to Reconstruction by Texans. As Jackson wrote, “Texas reaped a bitter harvest from the War Between the States. Part of this dark legacy was the great unrest that plagued the beaten but unbowed populace.” The tensions caused by Reconstruction are told through the Taylor-Sutton feud, which raged across South Texas, embracing two generations and causing untold grief, and the gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, who swept across Texas killing Carpetbaggers, Federal soldiers, and Indians.

Jackson’s work is as known for its rigorous research — he became as good an historian as he was a cartoonist — as well as its chiseled, raw-boned visual approach, reproducing the time and place with an uncanny verisimilitude.

This edition includes an essay by and interview with Jackson about the controversy Lost Cause generated, and an introduction by the novelist Ron Hansen.

Prince Valiant Vol. 6: 1947-1948
by Hal Foster

112-page full color 10.25" x 14" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-588-4

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Hal Foster's masterpiece of adventure enters its second decade as Valiant and Aleta journey to "The New World," a 16-month epic that allows Foster to draw some of his spectacular native Canadian backgrounds, and during which Aleta gives birth to Arn and acquires her Indian nurse, Tillicum. Most of the rest of the book is taken up with the action-packed five-month sequence "The Mad King," during which Val, back at Camelot, confronts the evil, fat little King Tourien of Cornwall.

This volume is rounded off with an essay by Foster scholar Brian M. Kane (The Prince Valiant Companion) discussing Foster's depiction of "Indians" as it relates to other interpretations of the times, accompanied by various graphic goodies including our most spectacular bonus feature yet — a double-sized fold-out page reproducing a strip hand-colored by Foster — plus a previously unpublished camping cartoon by Foster from circa 1915, some of Foster's Mountie paintings, Foster's own map of Val's voyage to/from the New World, and more rare photos and art.

As always, this volume is shot directly from Foster's personal collection of syndicate proofs, their glorious colors restored to create an unprecedentedly sumptuous reading experience.

Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2
by Michael Kupperman

176-page full-color 7.25" x 10" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-615-7

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BARGAIN COMBO: Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vols. 1 + 2 Gift Set Price: $49.98 $39.98

Hot on the heels of his acclaimed Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010 comes Michael Kupperman’s second all-comics collection of surreal slapstick and crazy non-sequitur goofiness, all from the pages of his beloved comic book series Tales Designed to Thrizzle.

Tales Designed to Thrizzle Volume Two features two of Kupperman’s recurring duos: America’s favorite mustachioed physicist/writer double team of Twain and Einstein (solving new crimes and barreling through exciting new adventures), and the crime-fighting team of Snake and Bacon ("Sssssssssssss!") who make a special return just to star in Reservoir Dogs 2.

Elsewhere in this volume the crusty Quincy, M.E. makes his comic book debut, struggling through the fantastic landscapes of his own dreams in "Quinception" (in which St. Peter also gets his own comic book). And learn the true story of the first lunar landing, guest starring Woodward & Bernstein, Lt. Columbo and... Quincy again??... in "Moon 69."

Also: The Jungle Princess battles rhino traders... A story of Broadway theatrics in "All About Drainage"... Slightly cursed merchandise and other dubious products... Cockney grave robbers... Cowboy Oscar Wilde... McArf the Crime Dog takes a bite out of scum... The origin of The Hamanimal... A photocomic starring comedian Julie Klausner, "Voyage To Narnia"... Break out your crayons for the highly educational "Train & Bus Coloring Book"... The story of French national hero "The Scythe"... and "Murder, She Goat."

Plus! This volume contains a full issue's worth of never-before-published, brand new Thrizzle material featuring "Mandate the Magician," "Fart Boobs," "The Odd Couple of Draculas," "Skull Groin," "Gladiator & Snivolus," "Mr. Flopears," "Gordon Ramsay's Fairy Tale Toilet Kitchen Nightmares," "McGritte the Surrealist Crime Dog," a new Twain & Einstein adventure and ever so much more!

Nancy Every Sunday (the blog)

mike

If you're impatient for us to start tackling Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy Sundays (we're just publishing the dailies right now), follow our pall Scott Allan's new Nancy Every Sunday blog for a regular fix. Above, Nancy's first Sunday appearance in Fritzi Ritz, 1933.

The Comics Journal #302 - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

The Comics Journal #302
edited by Mike Dean & Kristy Valenti; Gary Groth, Executive Editor

672-page black & white/color 7" x 8.5" softcover
ISBN: 978-1-60699-603-4

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The newly formatted, 600+ page Comics Journal proved a resounding success with 2011’s edition. 2012’s Volume 302 is sure to prove just as essential and exciting to comics readers worldwide.

The Comics Journal has been for 37 years the world’s foremost critical magazine about comics. It is now more vital than ever, a gigantic print compendium of critiques, interviews, and comics.

Finder's Fee for Bill Everett Archives Help!

mike

Release of Heroic Tales: The Bill Everett Archives Vol. 2 has been delayed because editor Blake Bell is still searching for two stories to complete the book:

Silver Streak Comics #1 (Dec '39) - text story with two illustrations by Everett
Target Comics v1 #8 (Sep '40) - Chameleon 6-page story

Blake (and us) are offering a free copy of the book and credit in the acknowledgments to anyone who can direct us to someone who has an unslabbed copy of either of these comics. (The owners of the comics will also get comp copies and acknowledgement.) See Blake's blog for more info.

Undergroundhog Day Sale 2013 - 30% Off Underground Comix!

mike

Take the plunge! Starting right now and running through Sunday, February 3, 2013, it's the third annual edition of our "Undergroundhog Day" Sale with at least 30% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer, Bill Griffith, Rand Holmes, Jack Jackson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! Yes, this includes new and recent books like Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977, Jack Jackson's American History: Los Tejanos & Lost Cause, Malcolm McNeill's The Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here, Diane Noomin's Glitz-2-Go, and Spain Rodriguez's Cruisin' with the Hound, plus to-be-released books like upcoming reprints of The Complete Crumb Comics volumes (and don't forget, most of our Crumb books come with an option for an exclusive signed bookplate)! The sale starts now and continues through the weekend. (Discount not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.)

Cover Uncovered: Green Eggs and Maakies by Tony Millionaire

mike

Designer Jacob Covey is putting the final touches on our newest Tony Millionaire strip collection Green Eggs and Maakies and it's off to the printer any moment now for release in May. Look at this gorgeous cover! Look at it! We like it on a boat. We like it with a goat.

As usual, this volume contains two years of Drinky Crow, Uncle Gabby, and more Maakies madness in a widescreen hardcover. If you're not already familiar with America's Funniest Comic Strip (so says I), we'll have previews for you soon, or you can catch up on Tony's website. And go ahead and pre-order a copy why don't you?