FLOG! Entries for Mike Baehr - November 2010

Destroy All Movies!!! hometown book release event at End of an Ear in Austin

mike

Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly will be signing copies of Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, with musical performances by local bands The Creamers and Cruddy, at a release party at Austin, TX record store End of an Ear this Saturday, Dec. 4, 6-8 PM. More info/RSVP on Facebook here!

Daily OCD: 11/30/10

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: East Bay Express's Anneli Rufus names Jim Woodring's Weathercraft one of the Best Books of 2010: "It's a wordless masterpiece from a Harvey Award-winning autodidact who executes his rhapsodically weird yet somehow relatable surrealistic visions with a lush, lifelike, retro-tinged precision that recalls Edward Lear and Winsor McCay. In an age when too many cartoonists draw with a lazy, defiantly fuckoffish lack of skill, Woodring's museum-quality mastery puts most of his colleagues to shame."

• Review: "Comic book historians Greg Sadowski and John Benson edited this fun time capsule [Four Color Fear], compiling over three dozen spine-tingling tales from the likes of Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Iger Studio, Joe Kubert, Basil Wolverton and others. Also included is a beautiful cover section, plus background commentary on each entry and an introduction by John Benson. Grade: A-" – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle Newspaper

• Plug: "Bent... is more beautiful red and black ink drawings and hazy, lush, desaturated oil paintings of mostly pillowy girls." – Matt Forsythe, Drawn

• Plug: "Castle Waiting Vols. 1 and 2 HCs (Fantagraphics) — These two huge hardcovers can currently be had for less than 50 bucks, and offer up a whole new world of wonder. Perfect for anyone who loves to be transported to another place and time." – Alan David Doane's Holiday Gift Guide, Trouble with Comics

• Plug: "Some reference books will tell you all about movies that won Oscars or about movies that come from certain countries. Who needs that? Destroy All Movies is the only book in the world that will tell you all about every single movie that contains a punk. And I mean every single movie. Editors Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly have done exhaustive years of research, and they’ve located every liberty spike wearing extra, every mohawked background actor and every safety pinned day player in cinema history. And then they wrote a whole bunch of funny, interesting stuff about those movies, and did some interviews with filmmakers and punks for good measure." – Dennis Faraci, Badass Digest "Badass Gift Guide"

• Reviewer: For the Wall Street Journal, Alexander Theroux (author of The Strange Case of Edward Gorey, coming soon) examines two new dictionaries: one of birdcalls, one of American slang

Anders Nilsen prints for sale

mike

Anders Nilsen is cleaning out his flat files and offering a bunch of prints and whatnot in a new online shop, just in time for the holidays.

Life imitates comics: Michael Jackson rips off Drew Friedman from the grave

mike

There's a new Michael Jackson song called "Much Too Soon"? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! (Top image ganked from TMZ; link via Drew.)

Things to see: 11/29/10 roundup

mike

• I'm going to go ahead and guess that the next panel says "NN" and going by the spot color that maybe this is a glimpse of the next issue of Ganges from Kevin Huizenga? Also new from Kevin: Fight or Run Post-its

• Ray Fenwick Mascots originals for sale (including the abandoned original cover)

• A short looped animation from Lilli Carré (video embedded above)

And more Things to See from the past week:

• Illustrations and other artwork at Matthias Lehmann's Bloc-Notes blog

• Early strips, illustrations, outtakes and film reviews by Jason at his Cats Without Dogs blog

• Steven Weissman's latest "I, Anonymous" spots and other things on his Chewing Gum in Church blog

• Harold Gray fan art at John Hankiewicz's Clip Joint blog

• Sketches by Frank Santoro at the Cold Heat Comics blog

• A portrait (?) of Marco Corona's upstairs neighbor at his Il Canguro Pugilatore blog

• Vintage Jim Flora illustrations & artwork at the Jim Flora blog

• Nature sketches with running commentary by Debbie Drechsler at her Just Around the Corner blog

• More sketches for Mark Kalesniko's forthcoming graphic novel Freeway (now up for pre-order!) at his blog

• Paul Hornschemeier has two new t-shirt designs available in the Forlorn Funnies Shirt Shop since our last update from his News and/or Head Lice blog

• Laura Park and some animal friends on her Flickr page

• Illustrations at Splog!, the Sergio Ponchione Lost Objects Gallery blog

• Drawings, sketches, photos from Renee French

• Daily drawings from Dash Shaw at The Ruined Cast blog

• A public transportation portrait by Steve Brodner

• Pages and panels by Derek Van Gieson at his These Days I Remain blog

• Some familiar creators post some new Trubble Club collaborative comics

• New sketches by Eleanor Davis at her We Be Ouija blog

Johnny Ryan's New Character Parade: the book

mike

Coming soon (and debuting this coming weekend at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Fest, where Johnny'll be) from our buds at the phoenix-like Pigeon Press: a softcover collection of Johnny Ryan's New Character Parade! Soon to join The Klassic Komix Klub and Comic Book Holocaust on your bookshelf. More info at Johnny's blog.

Daily OCD: 11/29/10

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Profile: "Joyce Farmer is a surprise. The gentle, white-haired 71-year-old, whom you’d half expect to greet you at the door with a pan of steaming muffins, recently has emerged as one of the most provocative voices in the comics and graphic-literature landscape. Her debut book, the 208-page illustrated memoir Special Exits, chronicling the slow, freaky decline and ultimate death of her elderly parents, comes out next week from Fantagraphics carrying the enthusiastic endorsement of no less than R. Crumb. 'It’s a completely unique work,' he says. 'Nobody else will ever do anything like that again.' [...] The book... is an almost uncomfortably honest memoir that’s dense with details. It’s also layered with meaning and sub-themes. [...] Like many memoirists, Farmer wrestled with guilt over airing her family’s stories; she even changed all the names in the book, including her own. 'I felt like I was really invading their privacy.' But she’s since come to terms with it. 'I just worked through it. I know what I did, and I take responsibility for it.'" – Deborah Vankin, The Los Angeles Times

• Review: "Destroy All Movies!!! is that very rare thing in publishing, a book you didn’t know you needed until someone wrote it. I certainly didn’t, and now I’m finding it indispensable. It’s an absolute must-have for cult-movie fans, movie trivia buffs, aspiring filmmakers and everyone who feels that punk never got its fair due for revolutionizing music and shaking up the status quo." – John G. Nettles, Flagpole

• Plug: "Destroy All Movies is a book on cult cinema... that is kind of the end all be all of ridiculous B-movies involving punks in any way, shape or form. It's at once a collection of titles, a love letter and a historical document. [...] It's a hell of an off beat and quite brilliant gift for the movie nerd or punk in your family!" – Quint, Ain't It Cool News

• Review: "...[Fire & Water,] Blake Bell's biography of Bill Everett (among other things the father of the Sub-Mariner but also the co-creator of Daredevil) helps to rectify an injustice by shining a spotlight on a cartoonist those importance and personality have never been properly recognized. A book which, without going into excessive detail, begins to clear the ground and, in particular, focuses heavily on the human element..." – Xavier Fournier, Comic Box (this is an improved translation by Kim Thompson of a previously-posted link)

• Review: "So, does it all mean anything? Who knows? But [Weathercraft] is certainly a fascinating read, full of arresting images that seem like they are triggering some deep impulse in our lizard brains, and that’s a pretty significant achievement in itself. If nothing else, it’s often quite funny... If you can accept that as something entertaining and play along with its dreamlike logic, you should be able to enjoy the book at the very least, and maybe you’ll even feel like you get something out of it. I know I did, and even if it was just confusion, it was worth it." – Matthew J. Brady, Warren Peace Sings the Blues

• Review: "The absence of words is matched by the most crazy drawings that depict surreal, unbelievable moments that make us stop to look again — and again. It's all so wacky and unusual that not infrequently we find ourselves laughing, reflecting on the silliness that we keep inside us all. For large and small, Weathercraft is sure to [bring] multiple pleasures." – Gilberto Custódio Junior, Soma (translated from Portuguese)

• Review: "Peanuts wasn't in its first flowering in the mid-70s... but it was still a smart, perceptive, deeply funny and humanistic strip. [...] The Complete Peanuts: 1975-1976 is the lucky thirteenth volume in Fantagraphics' reprinting of the entirely of Schulz's great strip; it's also the halfway point between 1950 and 2000. And the more interesting question about Peanuts circa 1975 isn't 'How come it wasn't as good then as in 1952 or 1967,' but instead 'How come Peanuts was still this good after twenty-five years?'" – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Review: "Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez are not just two of the best and most consistent comics creators of their generation, they're so far out in front that the only question is which of the two is preeminent. [...] Year after year, they keep expanding and deepening their worlds, telling new stories as powerful as they've ever done — they're our Balzacs, our Trollopes. Besides their various sidebar projects... they're still providing a yearly dose of the mothership, in the annual Love and Rockets: New Stories trade paperback." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Review: "I originally posted this review on January 18, 2008. This was before I’d read much, if any, of Gilbert’s Fritz material from Love and Rockets. I think the review holds up, which is why I’m re-running it; but with all of Beto’s post-Palomar Palomar-verse work under my belt now, if anything I find Chance in Hell, both its content and its very existence, even more disturbing." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Interview: Robot 6's Tim O'Shea talks to Nate Neal: "Even in the conceptual stage, I knew The Sanctuary didn’t need any words to get the story across. With a made up language the words would take on a symbolic stance that they otherwise wouldn’t have. That helps get across one of the important ideas of the book: how things get fucked up when a society thinks too symbolically. Or at least thinks too symbolically without being aware that that’s what they’re doing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the world we live in now!"

• Plug: "I finally cracked What Is All This?, Stephen Dixon’s mammoth collection of previously unpublished stories — and it’s terrific stuff. The book itself is also quite pleasing. Dixon still composes his stories on a typewriter (a Hermes Standard, the same brand Douglas Adams used), and Fantagraphics’ whiz art director, Jacob Covey, has mimicked the unevenness and smudges of typewritten text on the cover and section pages. It’s great design porn." – Nicole Rudick, The Paris Review

• Plug: "Thanks to the arrival this week of Castle Waiting 2, Linda Medley's second subversive collection of fairy tales, I'm on yet another kick of traditional fairy tales retold." – Nathalie Atkinson, National Post

• Plug: "...Mark Kalesniko’s Freeway is still a book I’m really, really looking forward to. It’s the continuing adventures of Kalesniko’s semi-autobiographical character Alex. I loved that book, I reckon I’m going to love Freeway just as much." – Richard Cowdry, The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Things to See: Will Elder by Drew Friedman

mike

Flog exclusive (unless you're Drew's friend on Facebook)! Drew Friedman shared this new portrait of the great Will Elder, commissioned by Elder's son-in-law Gary VandenBergh (quite possibly related to the documentary on Elder he's directing). Click the image to embiggen it slightly.

The Winter 2011 Catalog is here! Get your free copy!

mike

If you're on our mailing list, the Fantagraphics Winter 2011 Catalog should be arriving in your mailbox right around now! If you're not on our list you can get your free copy by calling 1-800-657-1100 (206-524-1967 outside the U.S.) or by emailing us — or download it as a PDF (8.3 MB). It's 100 pages jam-packed with hundreds of new, upcoming, and backlist titles, including exciting exclusive items — A Century of Comic Strips, Comic Books, Graphic Novels and More!

Cyber Monday: 30% OFF all 2010 releases TODAY ONLY!

mike

For the second year in a row we've caught Cyber Monday fever! Today only (Monday, Nov. 29, 2010), all of our regularly-priced, currently-available and pre-orderable 2010 releases are marked down 30%! That's a fantastic deal on over 75 items, including but not limited to:

• Deluxe gift-worthy box sets like Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition, Unlovable: The Complete Collection, and the latest Dennis the Menace and Peanuts sets

• Gorgeous, oversized, impressive-under-the-tree volumes of classic newspaper strips Captain Easy and Prince Valiant

• New & reprinted stuff from beloved veterans Peter Bagge, Dave Cooper, R. Crumb, Dame Darcy, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer, Drew Friedman, Bill Griffith, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Tony Millionaire, C. Tyler, and Jim Woodring

• Classics from Jack Cole, Steve Ditko, George Herriman, Basil Wolverton, and the various artists of Blazing Combat and Four Color Fear

• Volumes from international living legends Moto Hagio and Jacques Tardi

• New comics from cutting-edge faves Ho Che Anderson, Joe Daly, Stephen DeStefano, Ray Fenwick, Tim Hensley, Jason, Megan Kelso, Michael Kupperman, Cathy Malkasian, Linda Medley, Mezzo & Pirus, Nate Neal, Johnny Ryan, Drew Weing, Steven Weissman and our international stable of Ignatz Series artists

• All-ages treats from David B., Stéphane Blanquet, and Mitch Schauer & co.

• Eye-popping anthologies like Mome, Hotwire and Newave

• Deluxe biography/art books about Bill Everett, Rand Holmes and Mort Meskin and amazing art books like Norman Pettingill: Backwoods Humorist

• Stephen Dixon's short-story collection What Is All This?

• Insane pop culture tomes like Catalog No. 439 and Destroy All Movies!!!

• And much much more — see the whole selection here!

It's been another mind-boggling year... and now's your best chance to get caught up and spread the love of comics with beautiful gifts for all your friends and family!

Sale begins RIGHT NOW — midnight PST, Monday Nov. 29 — and ends exactly 24 hours later. Don't delay! Order online or by phone (1-800-657-1100; 206-524-1967 outside the U.S.); this sale does not apply at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.

Daily OCD: 11/26/10

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions, back from the U.S. holiday:

• Gift Guides: Rob McMonigal of Panel Patter goes through our new mail-order catalog (about which more soon!) to pick out his holiday gift-giving recommendations; The Beat and The Comics Reporter both post guides to holiday gift books with several of our books mentioned

• Review: "Freakazoid producer Mitch Schauer's debut graphic novel Rip M.D. is a warm and spooky tale for monster kids of all ages. [...] Drawn and inked in pitch-perfect EC Comics monster style, Rip M.D. pushes every one of my monster-loving buttons. The writing is witty, the plot sprightly, and the monsters are the heroes I always knew them to be. What's not to like?" – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

• Review: "Beto’s contribution to the Igort-edited Ignatz line of international art-comic series, [New Tales of Old Palomar] present[s] a suite of stories from Palomar’s past. They fill in a few notable lacuane — where Tonantzin and Diana came from, what was up with the gang of kids we’d occasionally see who were a few years older than the Pipo/Heraclio group, how Chelo lost her eye. A lot of this turns out to be really fascinating... But to me it’s not what’s told that matters, but how it’s told. [...] Beautiful stuff." – Sean T. Collins, Attentiondeficitdisorderly

• Review: "[Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics] is a good and valuable book, but one wonders what Bell could do with a better documented figure, if he can find an angle or provide insights not seen before. But enjoy it for what it is, a portrait and gallery of a talented, troubled artist whose work should be better known today." – Christopher Allen, Trouble with Comics

• Review: Andrea Ciolfi of Lo Spazio Blanco on the Italian edition of Locas in Love by Jaime Hernandez

• Plug: "...I’ve read a lot of books about weird films, but I’ve never seen one quite like Destroy All Movies: The Complete Guide to Punks on Film by Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly ($35, Fantagraphics). Printed in black-and-white and day-glo pink, the book catalogs virtually every single movie that ever featured a punk on-screen. I’m not just talking about the classics, like Rock ’N’ Roll High School and Repo Man, either. I’m talking about movies like Star Trek IV, which features a punk rocker in exactly one scene. And the book has an interview with the actor, too! Now that’s attention to detail." – Will Pfeifer, Rockford Register Star

• Plug: The Seattle Times travel section calls Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery a "hot shop" in Georgetown and says it's "heaven for fans of comics"

Norman Pettingill exhibit in Sheboygan, WI

mike

Norman Pettingill is the subject of a newly-opened art exhibit in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. From the announcement, as reported by NewsoftheNorth.Net: "Forty Pettingill drawings, now part of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center collection in Sheboygan, are on display or the first time in 15 years and will remain so until Jan. 16. More than 100 drawings from this renowned collection are featured in Norman Pettingill: Backwoods Humorist, a new hardcover book published by Fantagraphics." (Note that the JMKAC website seems to be down at press time.)

Things to See: Preview the new chapter of Kurt Wolfgang's Nothing Eve

mike

Chapter 10 of Kurt Wolfgang's serialized story "Nothing Eve" will run in Mome Vol. 22 (the Spring 2011 issue); Kurt presents the first two pages (1, 2) at the New Bodega blog.

Things to See: a couple of Nuts by Gahan Wilson

mike

The Comics Journal's Tom Crippen presents some samples of Gahan Wilson's National Lampoon strip "Nuts" (to be released in a complete collected edition by your pals here at Fantagraphics in the not-too-distant future).

Daily OCD: 11/24/10

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Drew Weing's slender, hand-sized debut graphic novel Set to Sea is a crosshatched masterpiece. [...] Weing draws in an elaborate, crosshatched style that's half Popeye, half Maakies, and it meshes brilliantly with the subject matter and the storytelling. Set to Sea is so lovely in places that I found myself exclaiming aloud -- it's got a naive-but-self-conscious grace that is impossible to describe and that few have ever mastered. This one is highly recommended." – Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

• Review: "In the first and the second volume [of Mome] there are a lot of things to enjoy. Stories differ both in length (there are one-page strips, too) and in narrative technique. [...] In these two books there [is] a lot [that is] interesting and confusing, enjoyable and intriguing. Do not be a mome, read these first-rate collections of comics." – Ray Garraty, Endless Falls Up

• Review: Attentiondeficitdisorderly's Sean T. Collins looks at Gilbert Hernandez's half of Love and Rockets Vol. II #20 (as reprinted in the Luba hardcover) in his ongoing "Love and Rocktober" series: "At long last he returns to Venus, Petra’s daughter and one of the least damaged, most well-adjusted, most self-assured characters in the whole post-Palomar oeuvre. [...] It’s an uplifting note to end on after all this darkness."

• Plug: NPR's Glen Weldon recommends "Five Tomes to See You Through Your Turkey Coma": "In honor of the 25th anniversary of this classic all-ages 'funny animals' tale of Miyaomoto Usagi, a stoic samurai rabbit who roams 17th-century Japan, Fantagraphics has collected the first seven trades in a sumptuous 2-book, 1200-page hardcover edition [Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition]. Which, uh ... won't be out until December. Until then, you can pick up a couple volumes and get a taste of Sakai's masterful, action-packed, richly detailed storytelling, and see why it's become such a beloved series."

• Plug: "Mascots, [Ray] Fenwick's forthcoming follow-up [to Hall of Best Knowledge], is similarly a series of episodes told through inventive typography and absurd yet hilarious text. But integrating these elements with brightly colored paintings, the book depicts a more surreal, frenzied world that is strangely resonant with today's super speedy internet age." – Space 15 Twenty

• Reviewer: Dash Shaw on the Osamu Tezuka documentary Secrets of Creation at Comics Comics

Things to See: CHUBBY CHASER - A Yikes! Cartoon

mike

It's time for a new episode of Yikes! animated adventures! Look at all those familiar names in the credits: Steven Weissman (creator), Martin Cendreda (animation), Johnny Ryan & Walt Holcombe (voices)... it's an explosion of talent and hilariousness!

New Comics Day 11/24/10: Special Exits

mike

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about our release this week, check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

Special Exits
by Joyce Farmer

208-page black & white 8" x 10" hardcover • $26.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-381-1

Ordering Info & Previews

"A decade-plus in the making project by underground veteran Joyce Farmer; observations of the declining health of her father and stepmother, and Farmer’s own changing role in their lives. I know nothing more, but I’ll be eager to look further." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"Joyce Farmer's fictionalized memoir of dealing with her parents' final years is incredibly powerful and sad; it's also got some fascinating stylistic ties to her underground work from the '70s (you can see where that kind of post-Binky Brown aesthetic has ultimately led her)." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

"Joyce Farmer's new book about seeing to elderly parents. This book's appearance speaks well to comics' ability to rediscover certain voices and give their best work a publishing platform no matter when in life that best work comes. As long as there's some ability for a cartoonist to walk into a publisher with a big stack of page and walk out with a book contract, comics is going to be okay." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"...Special Exits [is] a new memoir by former underground cartoonist Joyce Farmer about how she came to take care of her ailing parents in their final years. Yes, there’s been quite a lot of those kind of books out lately, but Farmer’s an interesting talent (she famously founded Tits n Clits in the 70s as a response to the misogynism of the early undergrounds) and the book has been building a strong, steady buzz. I’m curious." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Having cared for both my parents as they grew old, I know that final journey can be sad but also marked with moments of humor, terror, and pathos. It looks like Joyce Farmer gets it, and her family is quirky enough to make for some good reading..." – Brigid Alverson, Robot 6

Daily OCD: 11/23/10

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The second volume of Linda Medley's quirky Eisner-winning modern classic has finally arrived. [...] Castle Waiting is a warm yet bittersweet ramble through the margins of the fairy tale world. [...] Medley's distinctive black and white art is full of life, while her writing is as engaging if leisurely as ever." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "...[O]ne of the best and most under-covered of many under-covered comics of 2010 [is] Fantagraphics’ English-language edition of Jacques Tardi’s It Was the War of the Trenches. [...] Fascinatingly structured as a 20-page overture leading into an illustrated prose account of wartime experiences by the artist’s grandfather, and only then starting the work proper, a non-chronological barrage of soldiers’ experiences told in wide panels, three per page, unwavering, in contrast to the overture’s more dynamic usage of the page – everything in this book’s makeup draws attention to itself as a comic." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

• Review/Profile: "One day, the gods of all ART great and marvelous, finally will decide to roll out their lengthy gilded achievement banner listing cartoonists, illustrators and caricaturists... who have been creatively talented beyond the skills of mere mortal men and women. Without a doubt, near the top of this list of illustrious souls... will be the name... Drew Friedman. [...] With Too Soon? Drew Friedman has not only once again solidifies his stature as one the of the planet's funniest, most observant and skilled artists, I can add the often used, but in this case it's actually true, label of that of a living legend. [...] If I could give this book ten stars I would. If I could give this book whatever letter should come before the letter 'A' because it is better than an 'A' then I would give it not only that mysterious letter, but add around five or six pluses. Buy this book as a gift for yourself, your friends, loved ones, siblings, children, parents and grandparents." – Robert Jaz, Forces of Geek

• Profile: At the CCS Visiting Faulty blog recounts Carol Tyler's visit to the school last week: "When the fun was over, Tyler put on her Lois Lane Reporting Hat to deliver her scoop on herself. She started with a photo of her home, which boasts a bountiful garden out front. 'That isn’t yard work,' she said, 'What you’re looking at are scripts. If I can’t figure out a punchline, I’ll just rip up part of my lawn.'" (See photos on the CCS Flickr page.)

• Interview: It's the final installment of The Daily Cross Hatch's conversation with Jaime Hernandez: "I remember hoping — I remember that, when Gilbert and I were doing fanzine work for small publishers, some guy in his bedroom, he would say, 'we would like people to send their art,' and things like that. We just wanted to be published. We knew it wasn’t the big time, but it was just kind of fun to be out there, even on a small scale. Yet, at the same time, we did have stories to tell, and we were hoping that one day they would be published."

Things to See: Gipi's Spider-Man Piet�

mike

Gipi recounts the story behind this illustration, learning that he's not the first artist in Italy to have this idea recently.

Debuting soon: The Kim Deitch Files

mike

An exciting announcement from Zak Sally and his La Mano 21 imprint: The Kim Deitch Files print portfolio nears completion and will make its debut at two opposite-coast events in December: the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival on Dec. 5 and the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery 4th Anniversary celebration on Dec. 11, where Zak will also be performing a solo music set. Sez Zak:

"The Kim Deitch Files is a limited edition portfolio of the looseleaf 'story' pages which serve as Kim's sketchbook; it's where he works out the ideas for his comics. included in this folio are selections of the original story pages from many of Kim's major works (Alias The Cat, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams) as well as many of his other projects (Deitch's Pictorama, Southern Fried Fugitives), never before seen projects (the aborted Alice's Adventures Underground) and even a couple pretty jaw dropping life studies. they are exclusively in pencil, many in a fully rendered style that is both insanely gorgeous and (in their way) totally different than what you 'expect' from Kim's art. these pages have rarely been seen, and as individual pieces and as a look into the process of a master cartoonist...this is the real deal, folks."

More details and progress photos at the La Mano website. I can't wait to see this sucker in person!