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 

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 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.

22-page excerpt (download 15 MB PDF):

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

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.

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."

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!

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

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 & 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.

[Read more...]

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