•Interview: Christopher Irving questions the ineffable Pete Bagge on his vast body of work on NYC Graphic. Bagge says, "With the style of work that I do, I like it to look on the surface like it’s shallow and stupid, but when you read it, the context is really sweet. . ." Christopher Irving reports: "Part of what makes Pete Bagge such an effective writer is his ability to tap into personal experiences that are universal. . . being jilted by a lover, getting angry at traffic, or trying to hide something from your parents."
•Review: Tom Spurgeon sits down for a good read with God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls on The Comics Reporter: "It's only when you try to unpack the story that you realize what a graceful and economical storyteller Jaime Hernandez has become no matter what genre he might choose to utilize."
•Review: On the Spandexless Reads, Josh Simmons' newest work gets a thorough once-over. Shawn Starr on horror book, The Furry Trap: "The Furry Trap is what your parents warned you about. It’s what Fredric Wertham warned America about. . . Simmons takes the normal, the stale, and adds an “edge” like none other, taking the tropes of each genre to the edge of a sharp cliff and then hurling them off so he can re-examine their splattered remains."
•Review: In a one-two punch by Tucker Stone, both Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes and Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man are reviewed on comiXology. Stone continues on about Carl Barks' work: "Everything I could want out of a comic is there--it's funny, gorgeous, and I'd make a smoke alarm wait just so I could read it in one sitting. . . I'm not blind to the fact that the stories were created with the intent of engaging with children, in fact, I have to wonder how much of what I perceive to be their greatness stems from that basic restriction."
•Plug:Stumptown Trade Review enjoys the book based on Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker's experiment, Significant Objects: "The experiment, in short, was a smash hit. The Significant Objects book features 100 moving, absurd, surprising, and always entertaining stories from the project’s three volumes."
Since Fantagraphics’ first release in this series focused on Donald Duck, it is only right that the second focus on Carl Barks’s other great protagonist, and his greatest creation: The miserly, excessively wealthy Scrooge McDuck, whose giant money bin, lucky dime, and constant wrangles with his nemeses the Beagle Boys are well-known to, and beloved by, young and old.
This volume starts off with “Only a Poor Old Man,” the defining Scrooge yarn (in fact his first big starring story) in which Scrooge’s plan to hide his money in a lake goes terribly wrong. Two other long-form classics in this volume include “Tralla La La” (also known as “the bottlecap story,” in which Scrooge’s intrusion has terrible consequences for a money-less eden) and “Back to the Klondike” (Barks disciple Don Rosa’s favorite story, a crucial addition to Scrooge’s early history, and famous for a censored bar brawl that was restored in later editions). Each of these three stories is famous enough to have its own lengthy Wikipedia page.
Also in this volume are the full-length “The Secret of Atlantis,” and over two dozen more shorter stories and one-page gags.
Newly recolored in a version that combines the warm, friendly, slightly muted feeling of the beloved classic original comic books with state-of-the-art crispness and reproduction quality, the stories are joined by another volume’s worth of extensive “Liner Notes,” featuring fascinating behind-the-panels essays about the creation of the stories and analyses of their content from a world’s worth of Disney and Barks experts.
248-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-535-8
Ships in: Any day now to our North American mail-order customers! Pre-Order Now
Since Fantagraphics’ first release in this series focused on Donald Duck, it is only right that the second focus on Carl Barks’s other great protagonist, and his greatest creation: The miserly, excessively wealthy Scrooge McDuck, whose giant money bin, lucky dime, and constant wrangles with his nemeses the Beagle Boys are well-known to, and beloved by, young and old.
This volume starts off with “Only a Poor Old Man,” the defining Scrooge yarn (in fact his first big starring story) in which Scrooge’s plan to hide his money in a lake goes terribly wrong. Two other long-form classics in this volume include “Tralla La La” (also known as “the bottlecap story,” in which Scrooge’s intrusion has terrible consequences for a money-less eden) and “Back to the Klondike” (Barks disciple Don Rosa’s favorite story, a crucial addition to Scrooge’s early history, and famous for a censored bar brawl that was restored in later editions). Each of these three stories is famous enough to have its own lengthy Wikipedia page.
Also in this volume are the full-length “The Secret of Atlantis,” and over two dozen more shorter stories and one-page gags.
Newly recolored in a version that combines the warm, friendly, slightly muted feeling of the beloved classic original comic books with state-of-the-art crispness and reproduction quality, the stories are joined by another volume’s worth of extensive “Liner Notes,” featuring fascinating behind-the-panels essays about the creation of the stories and analyses of their content from a world’s worth of Disney and Barks experts.
Don’t miss Free Comic Book Day this Saturday, May 5. Fantagraphics is offering two stellar titles for comics enthusiasts of all ages: Donald Duck Family Comics by Carl Barks and Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley. The first 50 visitors to Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle will also receive a coveted copy of Unseen Peanuts from 2007. No matter where you live, get out and show some love to your local comics shops.
Don’t miss Free Comic Book Day at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle. On Saturday, May 5, the Georgetown shop will be giving away free copies of specially produced comic books by master cartoonists like Carl Barks, Crockett Johnson and, while supplies last, the coveted Unseen Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz.
Celebrating its 10th year in 2012, the annual Free Comic Book Day promotion is a national effort on the part of publishers and retailers to attract new readers to the medium as well as show appreciation to loyal customers.
Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books offers two new titles for Free Comic Book Day this year, appealing to readers of all ages. Donald Duck Family Comics features 34 pages of full color comics by the great Carl Barks. Join Donald, his nephews, Uncle Scrooge and others on amazing adventures in some of the most acclaimed comics ever created. Also in store is Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley by Crockett Johnson. This rollicking strip follows the tyke Barnaby and his mischievous fairy godfather Mr. O’Malley. These wonderful cartoons will soon be collected in a handsome edition by Fantagraphics Books.
The first 50 customers at Fantagraphics Bookstore on May 5 will receive a free copy of Unseen Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. This delightful edition serves as both an introduction to the classic strip and a treasury of fascinating oddities designed to appeal to even the most fervent Peanuts fans. First issued by Fantagraphics Books for Free Comic Book Day five years ago, Unseen Peanuts became an instant collectible.
Fantagraphics Bookstore is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) in the heart of Seattle’s historic Georgetown arts community. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.
Fantagraphics is heading over to the mighty 2012 MoCCA Fest this weekend, with so much awesomeness in store for you all! Visit us this Saturday, April 28th and Sunday, April 29th at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City!
First off, take a look at all the debuts we're bringing! Many of these books won't be in stores for several more months, and copies are limited, so make our table your first stop:
Find all of this, and even more, at the Fantagraphics booth, located at our usual spot at #J1, J2, K1, K2:
And hey! Check out these panels!
Saturday, April 28th
12:15 pm // With Nicolas Mahler and Tom Gauld: Brian Heater interviews two artists; Tom Gauld of Scotland, and Nicolas Mahler of Austria. (Room B)
1:15 pm // Checklist for a New Comic: A Guide to Getting Started: In this brief seminar, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden will walk you through the many considerations you should keep in mind when you embark on a new comic of any kind. Abel and Madden will help you strategize and come up with a working plan for your next project, and will cover: creative block and coming up with ideas; choosing a format and platform that makes sense; setting goals and scheduling your time so that you can reach them; finding an audience and looking for collaborators and/or publishers. So bring some paper and be ready to take notes on your next big (or small) project! (Room B)
2:15 pm // Klein Award Ceremony with Gary Panter:Gary Panter receives the 2012 Klein Award! (Room A)
3:15 pm // Hans Rickheit in Conversation: Brian Heater takes on Hans Rickheit -- musician, performance artist, cartoonist. (Room B)
3:15 pm // A Nordic Roundtable with Fredrik Strömberg (SE), Peter Madsen (DK), Kaisa Leka (FI), Bendik Kaltenborn (NO) and Mattias Elftorp: The comics culture of northern Europe is brimming with energy, talent and innovation, among other things visible in the new anthology Kolor Klimax from Fantagraphics. Come and meet some of the Nordic artists present at MoCCA. (Room A)
5:15 pm // Carousel with Michael Kupperman, Domitille Collardey, Shannon Wheeler, Leslie Stein, Lauren Weinstein and R. Sikoryak: Live comics brought to life by cartoonists and a team of talented voice actors. With voices by Julie Klausner, Dave Hill, Scott Adsit. (Room A)
Sunday, April 29th
2:00 pm // A Discussion with Josh Neufeld and Shannon Wheeler: These two creators interview one another about their work in comics, especially as it relates to their approaches to documenting tragedy on the Gulf Coast. (Room B)
Be sure to drop by tables #J1, J2, K1, K2 to say hi to Jacq, Kristy, who is making her MoCCA debut, and Jen, the latest addition to the Fantagraphics Marketing team! See you at MoCCA!
What happens when you have to miss a couple of days of the comics internet is that it takes you almost the whole rest of the week to get fully caught up on Online Commentary & Diversions:
• List:Library Journal's Martha Cornog gives a nice shout-out to Carl Barks and recommends Oil and Water by Steve Duin & Shannon Wheeler as one of "30 Graphic Novels for Earth Day 2012": "Wheeler’s atmospheric, ink-washed greys capture eccentric residents from crabbers to a pelican-rescue team, and Duin’s script catches the ironic resiliency of people exploited by the very industry that feeds them.... Valuable for high schoolers and adults as a glimpse into the crisis, and for general sensitization to environmental issues."
• Review: "When I brought Pogo home from the bookstore on a Sunday afternoon, I called my daughters over, and we lay on the floor in the living room and read it together. I read it aloud, because half of the fun of Pogo is hearing the fantastic dialogue penned by Kelly, and my daughters loved it. I’m sure there were things that went over their heads — jokes that rely on experiences they haven’t had, references to past events, wordplay that’s a little too sophisticated. But the beauty of the strip is that does work on so many levels. There’s slapstick humor, cute little talking animals, and keen observations on the human condition — the last made easier to swallow perhaps because the characters aren’t people, as human as they may be." – Jonathan Liu, Wired – GeekDad
• Review: "[Jason] populates his tales with brightly clad cats and dogs and ducks, but their misbehavior is unmistakably human.... [Athos in America] is... consummately worth reading for its three gems: the lovely title story, the self-portrait 'A Cat From Heaven' and the wonderful 'Tom Waits on the Moon,' in which Jason carefully maps the crossed paths of four lonely people." – Sam Thielman, Newsday
• Review: "Despair threatens to overwhelm the creator’s usual tales of longing [in Athos in America]. In 'A Cat From Heaven,' his characteristic unrequited love story gives way to a somewhat depressing look at a self-absorbed cartoonist named Jason’s bitter relationship. Mercifully, the rest of the collection is a little more playful, from a couple noir parodies to the highlight, 'Tom Waits on the Moon,' in which four solipsistic stories converge in a tragic act." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle
• Review: "The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD-Inspired Satirical Comics is a wonderful book collecting the best stories of the beginnings of a favorite comic book genre — and I can’t emphasize this enough — it’s put together by people who know what they’re doing. Plus, it’s designed to fit on your bookshelf right next to your MAD Archives volumes. I can’t believe that you haven’t already picked this up! Are you unsane?!?" – K.C. Carlson, Comics Worth Reading
• Review: "If [Wandering Son] Vol. 1 was a masterclass in people not wanting to accept the status quo within their own minds, Vol. 2 shows the uncertainty of the waiting world. The way that Nitori and Takatsuki fumble forward with no plan is painful and endearing. They know the two of them are better together but there’s the problem of dealing with classmates, family and teachers. It’s not easy and well done to Takako for not short-circuiting the process. It’s not easy writing characters in distress but it’s wonderful to read it. If you can recognise the character’s pain and sympathise despite your differences, it proves you’re human and so is the author.... So much of what we read is a kind of literary false economy. We put in so much and get so little out of it. Wandering Son asks so little of you and you get so much out of it.... It is a wonderful, sweet, heartbreaking window into being different, young, unsure, afraid and human." – Eeeper's Choice
• Review: "[The Man Who Grew His Beard]’s a big batch of critic-friendly comic strips, comics which resemble curios excavated from some none-too-defined European past and more often than not have all the daring shallow-space visual syntax of a Garfield strip. They’re less stories than contraptions that wear their artifice and structure on their sleeve, like those medieval homunculi which transparently show their cogs and mechanisms while making their programmed movements." – Rich Baez, It's Like When a Cowboy Becomes a Butterfly
• Review: "Action! Mystery! Thrills!... beautifully resurrects all the Golden Age favorites, from superheroes to killer robots to cowboys and occult Nazis. This time capsule collection of cover art spans from 1933-45... An index in the back gives the fascinating stories behind the covers, while the full-page, color reproductions reveal them for what they are: works of art." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle
• Review: "Primarily known for his ghoulish comic strips in Playboy and The New Yorker, Gahan Wilson showed his tender side (kind of) with Nuts. Originally a series of one-page vignettes running in National Lampoon, Nuts is presented here in its entirety as a classic warts-and-all reminiscence of childhood, from sick days to family gatherings, the joys of candy to the terrors of the dark basement." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle
• Review: "R. Crumb hit it big in the ‘60s alternative Comix scene with his creation of Fritz the Cat (originally conceived as an adolescent). The feline protagonist remained Crumb’s avatar for lambasting American culture until a lackluster film adaptation prompted some divine retribution from his creator. The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat collects all of Fritz’s essential stories." – Mike Sebastian, Campus Circle
• Awards:GalleyCat reports that Author Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, contributor to Significant Objects, has won the $1,000 Sidney Prize, which rewards "the author of the best new American story," and has a link to an excerpt from the winning story
• Opinions:Robert Crumb's got 'em! In the third installment of the "Crumb On Others" series, he lets you know exactly what he thinks of a bunch of prominent personalities, from Hitler to Ghandi (in whose homeland Crumb can be seen above) and from Kurtzman to Van Gogh
• Interview: When The Comics Journal posted the Q&A with Bill Griffith conducted by Gary Panter, I called it the must-read of the day, and it still stands as your must-read of the week: "I’ve only taken LSD twice in my life. Once on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard in 1967, which was pleasant, but not ego-shattering or anything. And once in New York after I’d started doing comics. All I remember about the second time was, I got hemorrhoids."
• Interview: Who better to talk to Matthias Wivel, editor of our Scandinavian comics anthology Kolor Klimax, than Steffen Maarup, editor of our Danish comics anthology From Wonderland with Love? A taste: "Putting together a good anthology is similar to making a good mixtape. Whatever the individual merits of a piece, it won’t do to include it if it doesn’t somehow work for the anthology as a whole. There has to be a consistent idea or tone to the book, which doesn’t mean that there can’t be dissonance — there’s some of that in Kolor Klimax, and I think for the better — but the individual parts still have to generate something greater than their sum. It’s incredibly difficult to achieve, but also a lot of fun." Read more at The Metabunker
This month's Diamond Previews catalog came out yesterday and in it you'll find our usual 2-page spread (download the PDF) with our releases scheduled to arrive in your local comic shop in May 2012 (give or take — some release dates may have changed since the issue went to press). We're pleased to offer additional and updated information about these upcoming releases here on our website, to help shops and customers alike make more informed ordering decisions.
This month's Featured item is our next Carl Barks Library volume, Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man! We've also got the long (long, long) awaited collection of Gary Panter's punk/sci-fi strip Dal Tokyo; Sexytime, the surprising and tantalizing art book of vintage porn movie posters compiled by Portable Grindhouse madman Jacques Boyreau ("Certified Cool"!); the new softcover edition of the out-of-print-for-a-while Black Images in the Comics, a fascinating survey by Fredrik Strömberg; Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture, back for another go-round (yes, we know got some 'splaining to do!); God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls, collecting Jaime Hernandez's superhero fantasia from Love and Rockets: New Stories #1-2 with 30 new pages (!), a Spotlight item; the eagerly-anticipated 3rd volume of Shimura Takako's wonderful manga series Wandering Son; and The Furry Trap, a collection of Josh Simmons's notoriously disturbing horror comics. It's a big month, man!
• Review: "Barks's output has been reprinted often but either piecemeal in flimsy monthly comics or in high-priced collector's editions. [Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes], covering the years 1948-49, is the first in a planned 30-volume Barks library that will reprint his entire duck oeuvre in durable, affordable hardcovers.... Above all, Barks's Duckburg rings true because of his cynical world view. He rarely plastered on the sentimentality that dogs other Disney creations.... Although there are moral values in Barks's stories, he was never didactic and never wrote down to his readers. In his words, 'I always tried to write a story that I wouldn't mind buying myself.'" – Owen Heitmann, The Sydney Morning Herald
• Interview: Peter Huestis, a.k.a. Princess Sparkle Pony, writes "Diane Noomin's comics cover quite a bit of territory, from the broad (ha, ha) farce of her Didi Glitz stories to penetrating social satire and revealing autobiography. At her best... she manages to combine all of the above approaches to devastating effect," and presents his 1995 Hypno Magazine interview with Noomin (the intro to which is blurbed on the back cover of Glitz-2-Go): "I consider myself a feminist. Certainly there are people who won't, but I'm a feminist and I think it's good to do sexual material, and make fun of sex, and not think that there are certain bodily functions that we shouldn't talk about because we're feminists. I think that's... fucked up."
• Plug: "Fantagraphics Books reprints the best, from beginning to end, of Robert Crumb's iconic Fritz the Cat comics. Collected here is a sampling from the life of the famous funny animal, the American everyguy, metropolitan college student Fritz whose wise words of 1960's rebellion win him attention from ladies of all species. It's hard not to be charmed by Fritz." – 211 Bernard (Librairie Drawn & Quarterly)
• Plug: "Reading or re-reading Sala's Mad Night seems an infinitely better use of all of our free time than reading anything on the Internet right now." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Every Day Is Like Wednesday
• (Behind the) Scene(s): Read all about Frank Santoro's visit to the hallowed halls of our HQ and workshop presentation at our swingin' storefront in his tour diary at The Comics Journal
• Review: "In addition to undermining the colonialist attitudes of Hergé and classic Disney cartoons with his R. Crumb-ish verve, Swarte also presents a clutch of perfectly packaged riffs on cartoon art. Having a Chris Ware introduction makes sense, given Swarte’s excruciating eye for architectural detail, and could help introduce Swarte to a larger audience, but the book [Is That All There Is?] may not need it — the art doesn’t speak for itself, it shouts." – Publishers Weekly
"The Puerto Rican slugger overcame family poverty, racial prejudice, and the language barrier to be voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player for 1966. Puerto Rican-born Santiago (In My Darkest Hour) superbly captures the kinetic excitement of baseball as well as Clemente’s skill and warm humanity on and off the diamond.... Highly recommended; buy several."
"First published by Fantagraphics in 2003 and nominated for an Eisner Award, this history of racial depictions in comics has been updated in both its content and its source list. Over 100 entries, each featuring a representative illustration and an instructive short essay, cover an international range of comics, from Moon Mullins through Tintin, Will Eisner, R. Crumb, Peanuts, Boondocks, and beyond."
• Plug: "The Fantagraphics reprint of the Mickey Mouse comic strip made by Floyd Gottfredson was already a gem in its first edition in two volumes separately, but with this new edition, with two volumes in a box and a lower price, it becomes essential." – CaraB (translated from Spanish)
• Interview (Video/Audio): Get comfy for an hour-long chat with Bill Griffith about Lost and Found: Comics 1969-2003 on Bob Andelman's Mr. Media podcast, presented in video and streaming audio formats: "I’m sure somebody will be offended, which will be nice — to still offend somebody after all these years. People who only know Zippy comics through King Features will probably be surprised to see that Zippy was more adult-oriented."
The 2013 Fantagraphics Ultimate Catalog of Comics is available now! Contact us to get your free copy, or download the PDF version (9 MB).
Preview upcoming releases in the Fantagraphics Spring/Summer 2013 Distributors Catalog. Read it here or download the PDF (26.8 MB). Note that all contents are subject to change.
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