FLOG! Entries tagged 'B Krigstein'

Fantagraphics February-March 2013 New Arrivals Recap

mike

Here's our latest batch of newly-minted books and it's a heavy-hitting group! They're all in stock and shipping now.

For fans of the classics we have the third and fourth books in our EC Comics Library series, featuring artwork by Jack Davis and Al Williamson, plus our astounding career-spanning book of B. Krigstein's comic work. If you like Pop Art graphics, sexy satire and absurd adventure you'll love our new definitive edition of Guy Peellaert's long out of print classic. The new graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez is a major work by a comics genius. We've got the 19th (!) volume of The Complete Peanuts, still hilarious after all these years! Plus reprints of books collecting work by Charles Burns & Robert Crumb -- you might've heard of those guys.

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.

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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

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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 one of our EC Comics Library volumes 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.

'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

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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

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

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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.

Big Baby (New Printing)
by Charles Burns

96-page black & white 9" x 12" softcover • $16.95
ISBN: 978-1-56097-800-8

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From the creator of the 2005 hit graphic novel Black Hole and the recent trilogy X'ed Out, The Hive and Sugar Skull comes this new softcover edition of his other masterpiece of modern horror. Big Baby is a particularly impressionable young boy named Tony Delmonte, who lives in a seemingly typical American suburb until he sneaks out of his room one night and becomes entangled in a horrific plot involving summer camp murders and backyard burials. Burns' clinical precision as an artist adds a sinister chill to his droll sense of humor, and his affection for 20th-century pulp fiction permeates throughout, creating a brilliant narrative that perfectly captures the unease and fear of adolescence.

The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 2: Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle (New Softcover Ed.)
by Robert Crumb

144-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-93019-362-1

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Another fascinating collection of early work from one of America's most original, trenchant, and uncompromising artists. "Some More Early Years of Bitter Struggle" features several key stories from Crumb’s pre-underground, homemade comics of the early 1960s (such as Farb and Arcade), with stories featuring early Crumb characters Fritz the Cat, Jim, Mabel, and Little Billy Bean. It also includes "Roberta Smith, Office Girl," Crumb's charming 4-panel strip for the American Greetings employee newsletter; a full-color section of cover illustrations; copious reproductions from Crumb's sketchbooks; and more of the biographical introduction by Crumb confidant Marty Pahls.

1989 Harvey Award Winner, Best Domestic Reprint Project

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

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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.

PEANUTS ® & © Peanuts Worldwide

Julio's Day
by Gilbert Hernandez

104-page black & white 7.5" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-606-5

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It begins in the year 1900, with the scream of a newborn. It ends, 100 pages later, in the year 2000, with the death rattle of a 100-year-old man. The infant and the old man are both Julio, and Gilbert Hernandez’s Julio’s Day (originally serialized in Love and Rockets Vol. II but never completed until now) is his latest graphic novel, a masterpiece of elliptical, emotional storytelling that traces one life — indeed, one century in a human life — through a series of carefully crafted, consistently surprising and enthralling vignettes.

There is hope and joy, there is bullying and grief, there is war (so much war — this is after all the 20th century), there is love, there is heartbreak. While Julio’s Day has some settings and elements in common with Hernandez’s Palomar cycle (the Central American protagonists and milieu, the vivid characters, the strong familial and social ties), this is a very much a singular, standalone story that will help cement his position as one of the strongest and most original cartoonists of this, or any other, century.

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.

Daily OCD 3/27/13

TheJenVaughn

The coldest shrimp cocktail of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Interview: Alex Dueben of Comic Book Resources interviews editor Greg Sadowski about Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein and about Basil Wolverton. "When I was putting together the first Krigstein books, Marie [Severin] was still actively working, so it made sense to hire her to do the coloring. Krigstein mentioned that she was his favorite colorist, so it was a decision I felt he would have approved of. I thought it would be a nice tribute to them both to encourage Marie to take her time and really give Krigstein's work the thought it deserved, and boy did she deliver," says Sadwoski.

• Plug: iFanboy writes on The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert. "Drawn in pop-art style, Jodelle was one of the early comic shots fired in sexual revolution of the 1960s; thoroughly modern and wholly…The story itself is still a hoot, but the essay – which places the story in its fascinating historical context – is what makes The Adventures of Jodelle a must-buy," states Josh Christie.

• Interview: Mobile Reviews asks Stephen Dixon of the novel His Wife Leaves Him why does he write. Part of Dixon's great answer, "I never answer it or even try to. It can only hurt my writing. And if I didn’t write, what would I do?"

• Plug: iFanboy plugs Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories by Johnny Craig. "The 23 stories in Fall Guy for Murder and Other Stories are short, weird, and incredibly creative. Craig stand out as not only an excellent writer, but one of the best artists of his time," writes Josh Christie.

Daily OCD Extra: Booklist's March Review

TheJenVaughn

This month's issue of Booklist reviewed a recent releases by Fantagraphics creators, excerpted below:

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

"…best known for his stories for the legendary EC Comics—8 of which are included here—Krigstein also produced remarkable work…in genres ranging from crime and horror to war and westerns.… Although Krigstein was a masterful illustrator…capable of varying his style to suit the demands of the story, his genius lay in how he broke down the scripts, using multiple, subdivided panels to audaciously manipulate time.…Krigstein’s thoughtful, intelligent approach to telling a story should be an eye-opener to readers of today’s mainstream comic books, which increasingly rely on huge panels filled with vacuous excitement and overblown rendering."

– Gordon Flagg

Daily OCD 3/22/13

TheJenVaughn

The longest, unabridged edition of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: The Village Voice is almost hospitalized while reading Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2. "Kupperman heaps absurdity upon absurdity…The result is a jubilant rococo, the strips all thrilling ornamentation…No exaggeration: I coughed hot soup out of my nose while reading the new hardbound volume of deadpan dadaist Michael Kupperman…" states Alan Scherstuhl.

• Review: Comic Book Resources looks at Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 by Michael Kupperman. Brian Cronin loves the Moon 69 story. "The devolution of the ads as the story continues might be my favorite part…The second collection of Kupperman’s individual Thrizzle issues JUST came out and it includes [Moon 69]! So go buy it, dammit!"

• Review: Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 by Michael Kupperman shines at The AV Club. "Kupperman's work only gets funnier when read in bulk... Kupperman's comics take pre-existing popular culture-TV shows, advertising, other comics-and tweak them just a little until they become hilariously absurd," states Noel Murray.

• Plug: Time Out New York analyzes Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 with one interactive panel. Cool!

• Review: Glen Weldon reviews The Comics Journal #302 on New Republic, exclusively the Maurice Sendak interview conducted by Gary Groth. "Why on earth would I want to read 100 pages of caustic carping? Because Sendak is funny. Deeply, passionately so. Read in full, Sendak’s zingers lose their venom and evince a sincere and surprising warmth. He comes off as bitter, but not embittered—a fine distinction, perhaps, but a real one."

• Plug (video): Mark Judge made a music video for TCJ #302. Trust me, you'll want to see this.

• Plug: USA Today's Pop Candy mentions TCJ #302. "This week I've been reading the wonderful (and massive) issue No. 302, which contains a huge Maurice Sendak tribute as well as his final interview"

• Revew: Chris Estey of KEXP writes on some of our new titles like The Comics Journal #302, edited by Gary Groth, Kristy Valenti and Michael Dean. "Probably my favorite single issue magazine of 2013, it is actually a freakily-elevated edition of the long-running only-trustable trade magazine devoted to comics…it gives us a chance to sample the gamut of an ever-evolving and surprisingly inspiring art-form."

• Revew: Chris Estey of KEXP reviews our newest book of music criticism The Grammar of Rock by Alexander Theroux. "Ripping through this hilarious rage on banality and unexpected pleasures I thought, they don’t make writers like this anymore…Drop that boring band biography and fetch this, if only for the mountains of lists of rarely-heard missing gems he has sampled and tasted beforehand for you."

• Review: Pop Matters has to tune into The Grammar of Rock by Alexander Theroux. John L. Murphy writes, "Naturally, the fun of The Grammar of Rock lies in its acerbic prose as well as its aesthetic insight…You’ll either laugh or you won’t. I laughed."

• Review: Washington Independent Review of Books also looks at Alexander Theroux's The Grammar of Rock. "Reading Alexander Theroux’s The Grammar of Rock is like hitching a ride with a suspiciously awake truck driver who talks endlessly for hours…All in all, this book is a very cold love letter," says DJ Randy Cepuch.

• Plug: Wired runs 10 sketches by Janet Hamlin featured in her upcoming book, Sketching Guantanamo. Hamlin remembers sketching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "He would turn and pose — a deliberate turn, facing me, holding very steady."

• Review: Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez gets reviewed on on The AV Club. "Julio's Day(Fantagraphics) is as much about what's not on the page as what is...Fashions, mores, and technologies change; but desires and disappointments do not," writes Noel Murray.

• Review: Nerds of a Feather give an outstanding rating and review a recent reprint of Jack Jackson's work. Philippe Duhart writes, "Los Tejanos and Lost Cause are the products of serious historical research, and as such they are clear exhibitions of comics' potential as a viable media for academic and journalistic work…I appreciate that Johnson sticks with the perspective of the “losers” -- Juan Seguin's struggles against racism following Texas’ rebellion and Texan Confederates' struggle to regain a sense of honor following the defeat of their cause."

• Review: Fingers on Blast reads Linda Medley's Castle Waiting Vol. 1. "The tales weave their way together seamlessly thanks to Medley's art. There is no simple way to describe it, but to say it draws you ever deeper into the story."

• Revew: Chris Estey of KEXP writes on some of our new titles Peter Bagge's Other Stuff which" features Bagge doing some sharp-witted journalism (on comedy festivals, especially) and historical stories…it is an electric, howlingly funny, bona-fide classic mangle of manic music history, prickly satire, and perfectly rendered cartooning."

• Review: Novi Magazine picks apart feminist storytelling in Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas. "While Thomas depicts male characters, Hagio codes femininity into every element of the story, with every effort towards drawing in her assumedly female audience…" writes Dan Morrill. •Review: BookDragon plugs The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. "…it’s certainly proved its lasting effects. Never mind the rockets, sometimes turbulent feelings can take you much, much further…" writes Terry Hong. • Plug: Comics Forge is looking foward to The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert as much as we are! "This was one of the trend setting 1960’s comics that you will see echoed worldwide during that time and when this style of pop art was raging as the most important thing since sex was invented…It looks like it is going to be a beautiful book, like most of the books that Fantagraphics puts out, you can feel the love."

• Review: Scoop covers Buz Sawyer Vol. 2: Sultry's Tiger by Roy Crane in one hell of a history lesson on newspaper and adventure comics. "Buz Sawyer may be the peak of the adventure strip as a genre…Crane’s ability to walk a fine line between hyper-realism while still incorporating an easy to read and understand style places him among the greats in comic history," says Mark Squirek.

• Review: Scoop covers Mort Meskin's Out of the Shadows. "He is so skilled at body language that without reading a single word you can see the kid’s enthusiasm for his grandfather’s story grow across the first three panels," writes Mark Squirek.

• Interview: Comic Book Resources and Alex Dueben interview Tom Kacyznski about his books. Kacyznski says, "There's an easy willingness to imagine the collapse of everything instead of small changes in the political system that could fix a lot of the problems that we're having. Those kinds of themes interest me."

• Review: Beta Testing the Apocalypse by Tom Kaczynski gets a look-see on B-Sides & Rarities. Elizabeth Simins writes, "Kaczynski’s style involves a pretty dedicated commitment to setting scenes with lyrical descriptions as much as imagery, which is something I associate with the space between “regular” fiction and comics…You should read it."

• Review: Grovel reviews The Hypo by Noah Van Sciver. "It’s a surprising but fascinating insight into the psyche of a man that outsiders would normally assume to be a sort of political superhuman, but Sciver adds depth and soul to the two-dimensional image of the man with half a beard and a top hat," penned Andy Shaw.

• Review: Comic Pusher enjoys their read of Chris Wright's new book: "In Black Lung Wright presents a world of ceaseless violence and pain, his reflectively brutal cartooning interwoven with elegiac prose, with the very syntax of comic storytelling breaking down under the memory and transformative agony of loss and obsession," says Jeffrey O. Gustafson.

• Review: Warren Leming over at Logos Journal reviews Everything is an Afterthought: The life and times of Paul Nelson. "Author Kevin Avery has done us a great service in bringing Paul Nelson’s woefully neglected story and life on the music culture scene into focus. This is a book for all those interested in what made 20th Century American music an anthem for the world."

• Plug: Jade at D&Q Bookstore digs into Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me by R. Crumb. "The extraordinary title is only matched by the incredible insight into the iconoclast’s mind and the ultra-snazzy portrait of an early Crumb on the cover, sporting a corduroy jacket and tie… A definite must-read for any Crumb fan."

• Review: The Comics Journal digs Black is the Color by Julia Gfrörer. Sean T. Collins writes, "Gfrörer’s most moving comic to date, Black Is the Color eroticizes suffering not to glamorize it, but to endure it."

• Interview: Robin McConnell interviews Julia Gfrörer about her webcomic and soon-to-be-in-print book, Black is the Color on Inkstuds.

• Review: Comics Bulletin loves Charles Forsman's The End of the
Fucking World. Geoffrey Lapid writes "Instead of allowing you to step back and look at James and Alyssa through wistful adult hindsight, Forsman's fluid and subdued linework take us right into those moments that you only understand when you're 17 years-old, proudly oblivious and doomed…James and Alyssa feel like real, substantial characters rather than simple broad strokes alluding to a deeper history."

• Interview: Ed Piskor is interviewed by Jackie Mantey for Columbus Alive during his Ohio art residency and on Hip Hop Family Tree. "The purity of intent is something that’s important to me with anything I come across," Piskor believes.

• Interview: Kelli Korducki interviews Jaime Hernandez on behalf of Hazlitt about Love and Rockets. Jaime answers, "I like the way women react to situations. Guys in a certain situation mostly try to keep it cool, keep their cover, keep things in control. With a lot of women I know, you get eight different reactions to a situation."

• Review: Jon Longhi looks at Spain Rodriguez in Having a Book Moment. Cruisin' with the Hound, a recent collection, is "it's all gang fights, hot rods, teenage mayhem and its wonderfully entertaining and beautifully illustrated."

• Plug: Craig Fischer on the Heroes Online Blog now looks at Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krisgstein. "Thanks to Sadowski, I’m now crazy for Krigstein."

• Plug: Earth Science Picture of the day is Elephant Feet, Arizona, (shot by Stu Witmer) as seen in the comic pages Krazy Kat by George Herriman.

• Plug: Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat enjoyed Tom Spurgeon's interview with Gary Groth. Tom also put up a visit of Fantagraphics in pictures, but you know, didn't include the new office.

• Plug: The LA Times and David Ulin say some touching things after the announcement of Kim's cancer diagnosis. Thank you.

New Comics Day 3/6/13: Messages in a Bottle

TheJenVaughn

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.

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

"Krigstein treated each assignment as a chance to put theory into practice, and even among EC’s formidable roster of stylists, Krigstein stands out as one for whom the words around the pictures almost don’t matter, because the art’s so mesmerizing that it’s hard to pay attention to anything else…" –Noel Murray, The AV Club

"Krigstein’s stories are sometimes epic and sprawling, sometimes compressed and confined…His mastery of chiaroscuro, and his dramatic composition and layout, applied across a very wide range of subject matter, are what make this gorgeous collection so essential." –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Daily OCD 2/27/13

TheJenVaughn

The best looping GIF of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: Publishers Weekly gives a Starred Review to Messages in a Bottle by B. Krigstein. "Krigstein’s stories are sometimes epic and sprawling, sometimes compressed and confined…His mastery of chiaroscuro, and his dramatic composition and layout, applied across a very wide range of subject matter, are what make this gorgeous collection so essential."

• Review: The AV Club also shows extreme love for the comics of B. Krigstein in his new collection Messages in a Bottle. Noel Murray writes, "Krigstein treated each assignment as a chance to put theory into practice, and even among EC’s formidable roster of stylists, Krigstein stands out as one for whom the words around the pictures almost don’t matter, because the art’s so mesmerizing that it’s hard to pay attention to anything else…"

• Review: The Advocate warms up to the reading of Gilbert Hernandez's Julio's Day. Jacob Anderson-Minshall writes "Hernandez is able to illustrate that those events had a global reach and dramatically impacted the lives of everyone — including the people in Julio’s life…A remarkable accomplishment that is likely to find its way on numerous Best of 2013 lists and garner Hernandez more well deserved awards and accolades, Julio’s Day is, at its heart, a gay story."
• Plug: Philip Nel plugs our latest volume of The Comics Journal #302 and it's interview -- the last interview-- with children's book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. "Above all, in reading Groth’s interview, it’s great to hear Maurice’s voice — his salty, funny, grumpy, insightful, irascible voice — just one last time." • Review: Neal Wyatt of the Library Journal looks at the new books coming out this year from Fantagraphics. "Browsing the Fantagraphics spring catalog underscores the myriad of styles and literary approaches that graphic novelists and artists explore—be it Anders Nilsen’s near metaphorical images or Dash Shaw’s crowded and kaleidoscopic landscapes." He singles out Good Dog by Graham Chaffee, The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley by Kim Deitch, Lost Cat by Jason, New School by Dash Shaw ("Known for his frenetic and inventive artwork…") and The End by Anders Nilson. • Plug: Dash Shaw appeared on Tumblr's Editorial Tumblr. He looks very nice, all working hard on comics and such.
• Plug: The Austin Public Library highlighted two of our books on their blog. On Jordan Crane's The Last Lonely Saturday, Betsey Blanche described as "The artwork is simple – drawn in mostly red and yellow – but full and effective." They also pulled out Lilli Carré's The Lagoon: "It’s another haunting but beautiful book about a family, mysteries, and the power of legends."
• Review: The Comicbook Pusherman looks at 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago. "…as a comic it absolutely crackles. The art is stunning. Santiago clearly captures baseball's (and Clemente's) unique energy and the Americas of the '50s and '60s and most distinctly the Puerto Rico of the 30s and 40s," says Jeffrey O. Gustafson. Gary at APE 2007 // photo credit: Chris Diaz • Plug: Get ready, MoCCA tablers. Gary Groth is on the esteemed jury for the Awards of Excellence starting up this year so reported by The Beat. Bring your A-game books printed on some uncoated paper. • Plug (video): Our own Publicity Director, Jacq Cohen, is captured on film at Comic Con India on the Wandering Violinist talking about Joe Sacco's Palestine. • Plug: Peter Bagge writes an article on cartoonist Al Capp at Reason. • Plug: Bob Temuka and the Tearoom of Despair pick the perfect albeit spoiler of a panel from Hate by Peter Bagge.

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

Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein - Previews, Pre-Order

mike

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

Ships in: February 2013 (subject to change) – Pre-Order Now

22-page excerpt (download 15 MB PDF):

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

First Look: Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krigstein

mike

Coming in late February/early March, Messages in a Bottle collects the best work by Bernard Krigstein, a singular draftsman and one of the most graphically sophisticated comics illustrators of all time, whose too-brief career in the 1940s and '50s included work for EC and Atlas Comics. For those who have been awaiting a new edition of our long-out-of-print B. Krigstein: Comics, this book contains every story from that volume plus several more. It is our great privilege to have had a number of these stories specially recolored by the great Marie Severin; the remainder have been painstakingly restored from the original comic books by acclaimed editor Greg Sadowski. Read a free 22-page excerpt with 3 complete stories, and pre-order a copy, right here.

Daily OCD: 9/28/11

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "This is hugely imaginative, exultantly silly, gag-a-minute writing that manages to comment on the popular culture of the last century while willfully wallowing in it — Python with a wry dose of Pynchon.... Were you, dear reader, to ask me if the brevity of [Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010]'s chronologically arranged but narratively stand-alone chapters made it an ideal book for bathroom reading, I would call you a coarse, disgusting pig-person, demand that you leave my office, and wipe down the chair you'd been sitting in. ... But, yes." – Glen Weldon, NPR Monkey See

• Interview: SF Weekly's Casey Burchby, who says "Drawing inspiration from Mad among other influences, Kupperman's brand of humor is punchy and ridiculous... Like the best satire, it reflects a vision of our world that is simultaneously accurate and abstracted. Kupperman's new book, Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910 - 2010, comes from the same comedic source," talks to Michael Kupperman: "Some of my comedic influences are deliberately funny, others are not. The unwittingly bad, the pompously ineffectual, the flimsily maudlin -- these are all genres I warm to. The Sunday comics page on 9/11 this year was a good example. Like it does anyone any good to see Hagar and Momma weeping."

• Review: "I literally dropped everything to read this thing.... Volume three in Ryan’s madcap ultra-violent combat comic [Prison Pit] is firmly in the vein, so to speak, of the first installment: No-holds-barred body-horror battle between monster-men who look like refugees from an alternate-universe He-Man whose house artist was Pushead instead of Earl Norem.... It is... a series fixated not just on surviving the present moment on a narrative level, but on drawing that moment out to ludicrous lengths on a visual level. Its action is defined by page after page of grotesque bodily transformations depicted beat by gruesome beat.... The introduction of the 'arch enemy' is a tantalizing link to the past for a story that draws so much of its power from living (and dying) in the now." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal

• Review: "Everything Is an Afterthought presents a vision of the heyday of rock journalism, times that have long past.... The story Kevin Avery tells is of someone who believed passionately in the art that moved him... Few of the artists profiled in the selected works do much for me — late ‘70s Rod Stewart, Jackson Browne, [Warren] Zevon — but Nelson writes about each with such care and insight that I went back to listen to all of them again." – Alex Rawls, Offbeat

• Review: "Oddly enough, the title, its font and also the cover art of The Man Who Grew His Beard made me think of the 1985 book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by neurologist Oliver Sacks describing the case histories of some of his patients, which given the completely insane collection of shorts in this book, both in terms of the stories and art, may not be entirely coincidental, I suspect. If surreal, single-panel humorist David Shrigley were ever to do comics, this is exactly what they would be like, to the point that I had to do a quick google search to check Olivier Schrauwen wasn’t a nom de plume for Mr. Shrigley. He isn’t." – Jonathan Rigby, Page 45

• List: Comics Bulletin includes Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez among their "Top Ten Comics to Share with Your Boyfriend and/or Girlfriend": "Palomar is really defined by its characterization, with the town's mayor Luba and her family often acting as the center. The stories set in Palomar are a large part of why Love & Rockets became such an important work as they showed how the scope of novels could be applied to the medium."

• Profile: At Trouble with Comics, Alan David Doane details his appreciation of the work of Bernard Krigstein, noting: "A few years ago, Fantagraphics Books released B. Krigstein: Volume One by Greg Sadowski. This oversized hardcover artbook/biography is one of the finest of its kind ever released, and although Krigstein’s story is largely one of restriction and boundaries, it should be noted that B. Krigstein Vol. 1 is not a depressing book. Its author was meticulous in his creation of a lasting, vital document of the subject, a man who took life and art very seriously and suffered greatly for both. The book is, in fact, a celebration of the life and work of Bernard Krigstein, and even if you think you know who that is, I guarantee you that by the time you get to the end of the book, you’re going to know the man and his work one hell of a lot better."

• Plug: At The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky spotlights A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Moto Hagio in a slideshow feature of alternatives to sexist superhero comics

• Plugs: Martha Cornog of Library Journal spotlights some of our upcoming releases in the latest "Graphic Novels Prepub Alert":

The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat by Robert Crumb: "Crumb's infamous and ever-horny Fritz has been reprinted before, but not recently and never in hardcover.... An underground classic, with touches of critical brilliance amid its college-kid-wannabe plots."

The Crumb Compendium by Carl Richter: "Mr. Natural turns 45 next year, as many years as his creator Robert Crumb has been publishing. Fantagraphics is billing this compendium as the 'definitive reference guide' to Crumb's oeuvre, covering published comics plus other artwork, merchandise, articles and interviews, characters, and photographs. Richter is a Crumb collector who served as consultant to Fantagraphics on The Complete Crumb Comics set, and Crumb himself helped out. Hey, guys, keep on truckin'!"

Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's 1940s-'50s Romance Comics by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, ed. by Michel Gagné: "The guys who created Captain America also jump-started romance comics with several vanguard series. Top selling until the Comics Code clashed with '60s permissiveness, the genre captured feminine readers even if plots and characters tended to push patriarchal sex roles and a Stepford Wives take on coupledom."

Lineup for our first EC book Corpse on the Imjin revealed

mike

We just announced our EC Comics Library series less than a week ago and already we're full steam ahead on the books: Straight from editor Gary Groth, here is the lineup of stories for the first book in the series, Corpse on the Imjin and Other Stories, collecting the war stories written by Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by Kurtzman and others:

Drawn by Kurtzman:

November - December 1950 - Two-Fisted Tales #18 - Conquest

January - February 1951 - Two-Fisted Tales #19 - Jivaro Death!

March - April 1951 - Two-Fisted Tales #20 - Pirate Gold!

September 1951 - Frontline Combat #2 - Contact!

September - October 1951 - Two-Fisted Tales #23 - Kill!

November 1951 - Frontline Combat #3 - Prisoner of War!

November - December - Two-Fisted Tales #24 - Rubble!

January -February 1952 - Frontline Combat #4 - Air Burst!

January - February 1952 - Two-Fisted Tales #25 - Corpse on the Imjin!

April 1952 - Frontline Combat #5 - Big ‘If'!

Drawn by others (note that stories may not appear in the order listed here):

November - December 1950 - Two-Fisted Tales #18 - Hong Kong Intrigue! (Feldstein)

January - February 1951 - Two-Fisted Tales #19 - Flight from Danger! (Craig)

July - August 1951 - Frontline Combat #1 - Marines Retreat! (Severin & Kurtzman)

July - August 1951 - Frontline Combat #1 - O.P.! (Heath)

September - October 1952 - Frontline Combat #8 - Thunderjet! (Toth)

September - October 1952 - Two-Fisted Tales #29 - Fire Mission! (Berg)

November - December 1952 - Two-Fisted Tales #30 - Wake! (Colan)

March - April 1953 - Frontline Combat #11 - Rough Riders! (Estrada)

March - April 1953 - Two-Fisted Tales #32 - Lost Battalion! (Craig)

March - April 1953 - Two-Fisted Tales #32 - Tide! (Kubert)

May - June 1953 - Frontline Combat #12 - F-86 Sabre Jet! (Toth)

May - June 1953 - Two-Fisted Tales #33 - Pearl Divers! (Kubert)

October 1953 - Frontline Combat #14 - Bonhomme Richard! (Kubert)

October 1953 - Two-Fisted Tales #35 - Memphis! (Crandall)

January 1954 - Two-Fisted Tales #36 - Battle! (Crandall)

February - March 1955 - Two-Fisted Tales #41 - Mau Mau! (Krigstein)

+ 23 Kurtzman covers!

Bargain copies of B. Krigstein Vol. 1 (without dustjackets) available - 60% off

mike

We have a stack of copies of this award-winning book which are missing the dustjacket but are otherwise in perfect condition. Rather than having them languish in our warehouse we're offering them at the discounted price of $20.00 — nearly 60% off! Quantities are limited so order quick!

B. Krigstein Vol. 1 [Without Dustjacket]
by Greg Sadowski

240-page full-color 9" x 11" hardcover • $49.95 $20.00

Ten years in the making, this exhaustively researched tome is a giant biography and career retrospective of one of the most important cartoonists in the history of comics. Following his life from early childhood to his acclaimed run at EC Comics, B. Krigstein traces the development of an artist who, despite having left only a relative handful of works behind him when he finally abandoned the comics field for the world of fine art, nonetheless served as an influence on many of the most acclaimed of the cartoonists to follow in his footsteps. This book also reproduces a generous sampling of art and illustration, plus six complete stories (including the famed "Master Race"), many of them newly-recolored by noted EC artist Marie Severin from Krigstein's own specifications!

2003 Eisner Award Winner, Best Comics-Related Publication

2003 Harvey Award Winner, Best Biographical, Historical, or Journalistic Presentation

Daily OCD: 3/15/10

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: For Library Journal, Tom Batten recommends a handful of recent "Classic Graphic Novels," including The Left Bank Gang by Jason: "Supporting his highly imaginative and quirky storytelling, Jason's deceptively simple cartooning carries a great deal of intensity in each line."

• Review: "Winning a coveted Jury prize at the 2010 Angouleme festival, Dungeon Quest succeeds on so many levels: the art and character design are superb, the dialogue is acerbic yet measured, the page construction has a flow to it that verges on perfection, the meter of the storytelling is spot-on, and, most importantly, it’s actually really funny. ... As the first volume in a series projected to last for a good few books yet, readers are advised to party-up with the cast of Dungeon Quest immediately." – Martin Steenton, Avoid the Future

• Review: "The series only lasted four issues, but it is among the high points of 1960s comics, and this handsome collection is one of the most welcome reprint volumes of the last few years. ... Blazing Combat showed comics readers the gritty downside of war..." – Robert Martin, The Comics Journal

• Review: "...[S]ome books just leave a reviewer pointing and jabbering, unable to coherently explain what he's just been through or to find any words that will adequately explain what he has seen. The Squirrel Machine is a book of [this] kind... Reading The Squirrel Machine is very much like watching some German Expressionist movie: it's a series of alternately wondrous and appalling scenes, clearly connected by some kind of logic, the true meaning of which resolutely remains beyond the knowledge of the viewer." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Plug: The fine folks at Librairie D&Q say "Now in store is this little jewel just published by Fantagraphics Books. On top of being a well-researched collection of underground mini-comix of the 1980's, this book compiles pages and pages of interviews and commentary on the creative, edgy, weird and free-spirited post-Crumb scene. While it may not necessarily represent the global landscape of underground comix in the 80's (one could argue it needs more wemin-ahtists, for example), Newave! is definitely a praise-worthy sampler of work most often hidden in the shadows of the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s."

• Plug: Roberto C. Madruga of Evolve Happy on Luba by Gilbert Hernandez: "The story is Hernandez at his best and the artwork is simplistically gorgeous."

• Plugs: The latest Robot 6 "What Are You Reading?" roundup includes several Fantagraphics mentions, and guest contributor Ng Suat Tong on the black & white Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 from Libri Impressi, available in the U.S. exclusively from us: "The new Fantagraphics and Portugese books are the only way one should read Foster's masterwork."

• Analysis: At PopMatters, Oliver Ho compares and contrasts two stories from B. Krigstein Comics and Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1: "The strangeness comes not so much from the individual stories, but from the way each comic and artist appears to be a sort of mirror image of the other."

• Links: Love & Maggie begins their detailed, annotated breakdown of the second entry on their list of the top 10 issues of The Comics Journal, #59

• Profile: Comic Book Resources' Kelly Thompson looks at the work of Gabrielle Bell

• Interview: The Comics Journal's Kent Worcester presents an edited transcript of his on-stage interview with Tom Kaczynski from the 2009 MoCCA festival

Fantagraphics Announces Six New Collections of Golden Age Comics

Eric

FANTAGRAPHICS & EDITOR GREG SADOWSKI PARTNER ON SIX NEW BOOK COLLECTIONS OF CLASSIC COMIC BOOK MATERIAL

Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce that it has struck a deal with comics historian and editor Greg Sadowski to produce six new collections of classic comic book material for the Seattle publisher. Sadowski is a Harvey and Eisner Award-nominated editor who has previously overseen the publication of the acclaimed collections SUPERMEN: THE FIRST WAVE OF COMIC BOOK HEROES 1936-1941, as well as B. KRIGSTEIN and B. KRIGSTEIN COMICS. He is a former staff editor and designer for Fantagraphics Books and currently works freelance from his home on San Juan Island in Washington State's Puget Sound.

"Greg has written one of the landmark cartoonist biographies (and only the first half yet!) with B. Krigstein, and the collections of comics from the '40s and '50s that he's edited for us — B. Krigstein Comics and Supermen!, to date — have been meticulously assembled, with an eye toward selection, flow, and accompanying historical text. We're pleased that he's got such an ambitious agenda ahead," says Fantagraphics Publisher Gary Groth, who acquired the books.

The books will be released one per season, beginning with FOUR COLOR FEAR: FORGOTTEN HORROR COMICS OF THE 1950s in June 2010 and produced in collaboration with comics historian John Benson (SQUA TRONT). The second book, due in Fall 2010, will be a collection of legendary artist Alex Toth's work for Standard Comics in the 1950s. The remaining books will be release in subsequent seasons, with exact schedules to be announced. The full list of books follows after the jump below.

FOUR COLOR FEAR: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s
RELEASE DATE: June 2010
This full-color 304-page edition collects the finest horror comics of the pre-code era (1950-54). EC is the company that most fans associate with horror, but to the average reader there remain unseen a tremendous volume of genuinely disturbing, compulsive, and imaginative stories from publishers such as Ajax-Farrell, Atlas, Charlton, Fawcett, Quality, Standard and many more. Four Color Fear collects the best, and includes 40 full-sized covers. Featured are comic book legends such as Jack Cole, Steve Ditko, George Evans, Frank Frazetta, Alex Toth, Al Williamson, Basil Wolverton, Wally Wood, L.B. Cole, Matt Fox and many others. "In these types of compilations, I try to provide a service to the reader who has neither the time, inclination, nor bank account to purchase and sift through hundreds of golden age comic books to glean off that precious 10% — the most distinctive and worthwhile examples from a particular genre," says Sadowski.

SETTING THE STANDARD: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54
RELEASE DATE: Fall 2010
"It's hard to overstate the influence of Alex Toth on the art of comic books," says Sadowski. "Toth was from that first generation who grew up reading comic books, and he came to the medium armed with enough discipline, talent, and sheer love and respect for the medium to create a technique free of condescension, artifice, or shortcuts. His work at Standard first established him as the 'comic book artist's artist.'" Learning his craft at Eastern and DC, Alex Toth arrived at Standard Comics in late 1951 with a fully formed, graphically impeccable technique perfectly suited to the comic book medium - honest, uncompromising, and free of condescension and artifice. Includes a biographical sketch and an essay on Toth's approach to comic book storytelling, based heavily on his interviews and written correspondence.

THE ROAD TO PLASTIC MAN: The Golden Age Comics of Jack Cole 1937-41
RELEASE DATE: t.b.a.
"From his earliest days in comics, Jack Cole was one intense artist / writer. It just took him a few years to fully incorporate humor into his work, so this book tracks his artistic evolution leading up to Plastic Man," says Sadowski. Jack Cole's irreverent yet artistically first-rate approach to comic book art was a refreshing departure for a young industry that tended to take itself a bit too seriously. His work influenced many of his contemporaries, most notably Will Eisner, whose Spirit gradually assumed Cole's intoxicating mixture of fun and high drama. The book begins with early "big foot" work for Centaur's Funny Pages, then gives way to raucous adventure and crime stories before honing in on the nefarious Claw, the boy inventor Dickie Dean, and proto-superheroes the Comet, Daredevil, and Silver Streak.

AWAY FROM HOME: EC Artists at Other Companies
RELEASE DATE: t.b.a.
The key ingredient in what made EC the most celebrated comic book company of all time was its remarkable stable of artists: Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, George Evans, Will Elder, Al Feldstein, Jack Kamen, Bernard Krigstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Graham Ingels, Joe Orlando, John Severin, Basil Wolverton, Wallace Wood, and Al Williamson, as well as that of part-timers Frank Frazetta, Roy G. Krenkel, Alex Toth, and Angelo Torres. "This book collects the best non-EC art by the EC stable of artists, in other words, the cream of the 1950s crop. A lot of these guys were pals and they often collaborated, so there will be a healthy sampling of these fraternal efforts," says Sadowski.

CREEPING DEATH FROM NEPTUNE: Basil Wolverton's Sci-Fi and Horror Comics 1938-55
RELEASE DATE: t.b.a.
"Many of Wolverton's comics have been reprinted in a number of formats, but for years I've been waiting for a full-color compilation of his serious golden age work. Finally I decided to do it myself. Like the Cole book, this one is a no-brainer," says Sadowski. Given the media coverage of his recent retrospective at New York's Barbara Gladstone Gallery, it's high time for a full-color anthology of Basil Wolverton's serious comic book work. This edition covers all bases, from his early features, Space Patrol and Meteor Martin, into Spacehawk ("Lone Wolf of the Void"), and ending with the skewed master's gloriously repugnant horror comics.

THE COMIC BOOK FRANKENSTEIN: The Monster According to Dick Briefer
RELEASE DATE: t.b.a.
"Dick Briefer had been involved in comic books since its earliest days. He was one of the first to work at Will Eisner and Jerry Iger's comic book studio in the mid-1930s. Like Eisner, Cole, and Wolverton, Briefer was responsible for the complete package: writing, layouts, pencils and inks, and often the lettering. He did his best work on FRANKENSTEIN, and this compilation should restore his status as one of the form's major pioneers," says Sadowski. Briefer's Frankenstein made its debut in 1940 in Prize Comics. He continually ramped up the monster's humorous aspect, which in turn increased its popularity, and Frankenstein was rewarded with its own title in 1945. Then, with the horror craze in full swing in 1951, Briefer responded by reverting the character back to its frightening origins. This book will travel through Briefer's complete Frankenstein series and shed light on one of comic books' most gifted creators.

Daily OCD: 8/31/09

mike

Our final Online Commentary & Diversions for August '09 brings a rich cornucopia of links:

• List: Alan David Doane of Comic Book Galaxy is, I believe, the first out of the gate with a definitive "Best Comics of the Decade" list, which includes Mome, our two B. Krigstein books, The Complete Peanuts, the Love and Rockets omnibuses, Maakies, Zippy the Pinhead, and a complete Fanta sweep of the "Works on the Subject of Comics" category

• List: An old link that just popped up in my search feed: ComicCritique.com's Adam McGovern gives out some best-of-2008 awards, with The Lagoon by Lilli Carré tied for Graphic Novel of the Year ("Carré’s artisanal eccentricity carves intricate patterns and masklike faces into pages that stand like the folk-art furnishings of vanished but vivid earlier societies") and Carré tied with Grant Morrison for the M.C. Escher Prize for Non-Sequential Art ("Morrison and Carré are two creators at the cutting edge of both storytelling craft and conversational physics who make us uncommonly aware of the presence of time.")

• Review: "Love and Rockets: New Stories #2. The Hernandez Brothers have been producing such consistently good comics for such a long time that I often feel they get taken for granted. But their recent comics [don't] just maintain their high level of previous achievement, they also have a freshness and liveliness that any young artist would envy." - Jeet Heer, Robot 6

• Review: "More than anything, [Peter] Bagge's work does what it always does with perfection, which is capture people doing exactly what people really do, and how they often think when they think that nobody else thinks that they are thinking it (sorry). His art is constantly moving, perpetually fluid, and instantly recognizable to a 21st century American culture raised on Tex Avery and Bob Clampett cartoons. Whether you agree with his politics or not, Everybody Is Stupid [Except for Me] is thought-provoking and, most importantly, hilarious." - Monster on a Rope

• Plug: "Supermen! The First Wave Of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941 edited by Greg Sadowski (2009) – I’ve always gotten a kick out of early comics. They’re anti-art in action. Irrational, crude and daffily violent. Kinda like early punk rock." - M. Ace, Irregular Orbit

• Analysis: For The Hooded Utilitarian, Ng Suat Tong examines the current state of comics criticism by surveying reviews of Dash Shaw's Bottomless Belly Button

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch posts the second of three parts of Brian Heater's interview with Jordan Crane: "The art—those are the tools I use to transfer the story. Pictures, words—those are the conveyance of the story. The important thing is the story, so once I get my tools there, I convey the story in a way I want to."

• Profile: Amy Stewart visited Ellen Forney in her studio: "There are only certain kinds of comics that interest me: I prefer the true-to-life ones that are well-drawn, have stories I can relate to, and make me laugh, cry, or think. Ellen does all three, in spades."

• Events: Chicagoans, catch Ivan Brunetti as a panelist on the next "Show 'n Tell Show," a live talk show devoted to design, next Saturday Sept. 6 at 9 PM

• Things to see: Bob Fingerman shares some preliminary thumbnail sketches for Connective Tissue