Hey gang, we just got advance copies of Peter Bagge's Other Stuff! This handy volume collects Pete's collaborations (with Clowes, Crumb, Tomine, the Hernandezes, Alan Moore, etc.) from the back pages of Hate, stories from Hate Annual, and other odds 'n' ends. It's a must-have for Baggeliebers (huh?) and all lovers of hilarious satire.
Lucky attendees at Emerald City Comicon this weekend will have first crack at buying copies (and getting 'em signed and personalized by Pete himself) — everybody else will have to wait a couple months before it hits shelves. But you can get a taste with our 20-page excerpt, readable right here.
In 2010 it was our distinct privilege to bring you the English edition of Jacques Tardi's World War I tale It Was the War of the Trenches, widely acknowledged by readers, critics, and award committees as a comics masterpiece. In just 3 months or so we'll be following that up with Tardi's second WWI masterwork, Goddamn This War!
Tracing the "progress" of the war year by year, from the perspective of an unnamed soldier, Goddamn unflinchingly chronicles the horror, boredom, frustration and despair of war for its ground-level participants as they grind through the gears of history. Providing further historical context is an extensive text section written by Tardi's reserach partner, the historian Jean-Pierre Verney.
Production on the book is wrapping and it's off to the printer for release in about 3 months, and this is your first look at the final cover design. We're taking pre-orders right now (as well as for a specially discounted set of Goddamn and Trenches together).
Our first book, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora (2004), featured Flora's known album covers. (No complete discography existed.) Since that book's publication, more vintage covers have been found, as well as the artist's rough drafts and rejected designs. The Mischievous Art... went through two editions, but is now out of print, highly sought and available only at high prices through rare-book sellers. So we decided to compile a complete collection of Flora record covers (including recent discoveries) and unpublished sketches in one volume, augmented by music images not included in previous volumes. The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora will be the definitive anthology of the maestro's visual compositions, reflecting jazz, classical, and Latin music. Regarding his jam-packed canvases Flora once said he "couldn't stand a static space." There's nothing static about the images in The High Fidelity Art: they wail, dance, bounce, and swing from the chandeliers. They hit notes that shatter glass. This is art to which you can tap your toes and snap your fingers. Flora had a knack for grooving with a paintbrush.
The book will feature a 1998 interview with Flora which I conducted at his home on Bell Island, in Rowayton CT, just a few months before he passed away from stomach cancer. The interview has not been previously published.
The book is scheduled to reach market in June 2013. Barbara Economon and I will provide the contents, and Laura Lindgren will expertly design it-the same team as the first three Flora anthologies.
Following some hints and speculation here and there we're pleased to announce the upcoming 7th book in our EC Comics Library series. In October, just in time for Halloween, Fantagraphics will be casting off Sucker Bait and Other Stories illustrated by Graham "Ghastly" Ingels and written by Al Feldstein et al., a collection of 25 of Ingels's infamous horror stories from Tales from the Crypt, Shock SuspenStories, Vault of Horror and his showcase title Haunt of Fear.
Reached for comment, noted horror afficionado and editorial kibbitzer Kim Thompson had this to say: "Until I re-read all these stories, I'd forgotten how inventively disgusting Al Feldstein and Graham Ingels could be when they put their minds to it. I can't imagine any fan of grisly horror passing this up. (The murderous revived rotting elephant alone is worth the price of admission as far as I'm concerned.)"
This hardcover volume will clock in at approximately 208 pages and, like the other volumes in the series, be presented in glorious black and white.
Anders Nilsen's The End is now in the can and off to the printer for release later in Spring. It's an 80-page hardcover collection of short strips and drawings created in the aftermath of the death of his fiancée in 2005. By turns wrenching, meditational, abstract, moving, and darkly funny, and encompassing both Nilsen's looser sketchbook style and his more finely rendered comics, it's truly a unique work. Some of the material was released as an Ignatz Award-nominated 32-page comic of the same name in 2007; this version is reformatted and, obviously, greatly expanded. See an 11-page excerpt right here.
Why looky what we have here, it's advance copies of the next two books in our EC Comics Library series!
50 Girls 50 and Other Stories collects Al Williamson's complete Weird Science & Weird Fantasy science fiction tales, with 3 written by Ray Bradbury, plus work by Frazetta, Krenkel, Torres, and more, backed up by expert EC essayists. Chock full of rocketships, weird aliens, time travel, bizarre planets, dinosaurs, and trademark EC twist endings, it's the classic, fan-fave stuff! Check out the table of contents and read 3 complete stories in our 22-page excerpt available here, where you can also pre-order your copy.
Good Lord! Choke! 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories collects the complete Jack Davis-illustrated, Al Feldstein-written Tales from the Crypt stories in one convenient, gore-drenched package bursting with your favorite monsters, grisly comeuppance, and severed body parts! The quintessential American horror comic drawn by its quintessential artist, backed by our usual scholarly bonus features. Sink your teeth into a 26-page excerpt with the table of contents and 3 complete stories, and pre-order your copy, right here.
And hey, we've arranged it so that you can save over 11 bucks when you order both volumes together! Isn't that nice?
Surely we're having fun by now! It's our 11th (!) collection of Bill Griffith's Zippy the Pinhead, The Dingburg Diaries, wrapping up production and going to the printer for release in May or so. With two and a half years' worth of daily and color Sunday strips under chapter headings like "Beatniks, Bowling, Laundry & Food," "Mr. The Toad," "Little Zippy," "Art, Music & Comics," "Zerbina & Other Relationships," and "God," you know it's got the good stuff you want. Plus the back cover is maybe one of the greatest Zippy drawings ever. Pour yourself a tall glass of taco sauce and take a gander at 21 pages' worth of strips right here.
We've just finished adding all of the books from our Spring-Summer 2013 catalog to the Upcoming Arrivals section of our website! The catalog itself is still posted here and available as a PDF download, but we already have some updates and corrections to book details, cover art, release dates, etc. so be sure to refer to our website listings for the most up-to-date information.
We've already announced a few books from our Fall 2013 - Winter 2014 season and we'll be plunging into adding the rest of the titles from that catalog over the coming weeks, so the impatient and/or hyper-vigilant among you will want to check back often for some previously unrevealed surprises!
Our advance copies of The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert & Pierre Bartier were delivered late last week and we couldn't be happier with our definitive English edition of this pop art classic! After much painstaking work this book is finally on its way to stores for an April shelf date. Containing the original comic, newly translated, restored and recolored in super-saturated, eye-popping tones, plus an extensive section — we can't even call it a "bonus" section because it stands on equal footing — on Peellaert's life and work of the period, it's a combination graphic novel and art book/monograph in one. Peellaert's fans ranged from Federico Fellini to Jim Steranko, and one look at this wild, eye-popping, sexy, satirical farce will tell you why. We can't wait to show you more; for now, take a 20-page sneak peek (evenly divided between the two sections) and pre-order your copy right here.
Blake (and us) are offering a free copy of the book and credit in the acknowledgments to anyone who can direct us to someone who has an unslabbed copy of either of these comics. (The owners of the comics will also get comp copies and acknowledgement.) See Blake's blog for more info.
