FLOG! Entries tagged 'FBI MINIs'

Good Dog, meet Bad Dog, the FBI�MINI by Graham Chaffee

mike

Graham Chaffee created a special companion short story for his new graphic novel Good Dog, titled Bad Dog, just for us! We're happy to make it the latest addition to our FBI•MINI series of free bonus minicomics. Order Good Dog from us (or $50 worth of other merchandise) and you can get Bad Dog for free! (It will also be included with the digital edition of Good Dog on comiXology when it's released there in May.)

Bad Dog stars Kirby, bulldog buddy of Good Dog star Ivan, in his very own adventure! Escaping from his yard, he travels far and wide, makes a new pal, and gets into some fur-raising scrapes. It's a charming, action-packed, wordless story with some surprising twists.

More Love at Fantagraphics Anniversary Gala

LarryR

The first 30 customers at Fantagraphics Bookstore's 6th anniversary party on Saturday will receive a free copy of the Before Love and Rockets minicomic, featuring Jaime's pre-Love & Rockets L.A. punk posters and an early Inez story by Gilbert. Have the Bros sign this and other rare merchandise we've uncovered for this momentous occasion, including affordable Love and Rockets posters, prints, tee shirts, and more - much of which has been unavailable for many years. See you all this Saturday at 6:00 PM.

Our Cyber Monday Sale is on NOW!

mike

Our Cyber Monday Sale discount has kicked in! See our announcement for all the details. The clock's ticking so don't miss out!

Our Annual Cyber Monday Sale - 30% Off 2012 Releases & More!

mike

Get ready — it's almost time for our fourth annual Cyber Monday sale! All day Monday, Nov. 26, 2012, all of our regularly-priced, currently-available and pre-orderable 2012 releases are marked down 30%! That's a fantastic deal on over 90 items, including but not limited to:

• Beautiful collections of classic comics material starring beloved characters like Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, Mickey Mouse and Pogo Possum, plus the perfect Charlie Brown gift book

• More gorgeous volumes of classic newspaper strips Buz Sawyer, Captain Easy, Krazy Kat, Mr. Twee Deedle, Nancy, Peanuts (two volumes and box set), Popeye, and Prince Valiant (and top it off with some Naked Cartoonists)

• You like European flavor to your comics? With names like Mahler, Sæteroy (Jason to you), Ott, Giandelli, Swarte, Tardi, Trondheim, and Mattotti, not to mention all the umlauts in our Nordic comics anthology, we've got you couveured

• Not to mention Weissman, Kaczynski, Rickheit, Carré, Kupperman, Regé, Van Sciver... ha, fooled ya, they're all 'Merican! They all have new graphic novels and story collections, along with Wright, Daly (South African!), and Simmons

• From the other side of the other ocean, beautiful manga by Moto Hagio and Shimura Takako

• The Alternative Comics Canon: brand new stories, collections and reprints by all-time greats Drew Friedman, Bill Griffith, Peter Bagge, Linda Medley, Spain Rodriguez, Gary Panter, Richard Sala, Diane Noomin, Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime & Gilbert, Jack Jackson, Daniel Clowes, Johnny Ryan, Jim Woodring, Rich Tommaso, R. Crumb, Crumb, and more Crumb, and C. Tyler, plus a historic collection of queer comics

• Explore the intersection of art & literature with art books by Flannery O'Connor & Malcolm McNeill (working with William S. Burroughs), a collection of visual poetry, the Significant Objects book... and plain old literature by Stephen Dixon and Monte Schulz

• Discover aspects of pop-cultural history, from Black Power to vintage skin flicks

• Deluxe collections of vintage comics material by a pantheon of greats: Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, Joe Kubert, Mort Meskin, Simon & Kirby, Basil Wolverton, Jack Davis, Wallace Wood & Harvey Kurzman in the EC Comics Library, MAD-inspired parody comics and the greatest Golden Age covers,

• And some other stuff too — see the whole selection here!

PLUS: You love our exclusive FBI•MINI comics we give away with qualifying purchases, but maybe there's some you've missed out on. Well during the sale you can get DOUBLE MINIs! That's right, order a book that has an accompanying MINI and get another one of your choice, or get two of your choice instead of one for your purchase of $50 and up. All for FREE! Just indicate your preferences at checkout. And we're announcing FIVE new MINIs just for the occasion:

Angelman Merchandise Catalogue by Nicolas Mahler
Thank You by Ron Regé, Jr.
Sigmund Freud by Hans Rickheit
Ralph Azham Covers by Lewis Trondheim
Even More Problematic by Jim Woodring (available in December)

Whew! 2012 has been our biggest year yet... and here's your best chance to get caught up and spread the love of comics with beautiful gifts for all your friends and family!

The sale runs all day Monday, November 26, and ends at midnight Pacific time. Don't miss out! Order online or by phone (1-800-657-1100; 206-524-1967 outside the U.S., 9AM-6PM Pacific time); this sale does not apply at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.

New FBI�MINI comics by Jaime Hernandez & Lorenzo Mattotti

mike

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that two of our newest releases come with two brand-new entries in our FBI•MINIs series of free bonus mini-comics:

"Ti-Girls: Roughs & Rejects" is a collection of preliminary and rejected pages for God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez. It's a rare peek into Jaime's creative process! We didn't have this comic ready when God and Science came out — heck, we didn't even know this stuff existed until Jaime mentioned it at San Diego last month! — but in addition to getting this as a free bonus when you order that book, you can also get it with any issue(s) of Love and Rockets: New Stories, including the brand-new issue #5, or (as with all of the FBI•MINIs) with any mail-order purchase of $50 or more.

Our second new FBI•MINI offering, "Crackle of the Frost: Sketches," is a selection of preliminary roughs and sketches by Lorenzo Mattotti for his and Jorge Zentner's book The Crackle of the Frost and comes free with purchase of that book (or any mail-order purchase of $50 or more). Thumbnails, layouts, alternate panel compositions and more, done in Lorenzo's energetic linear style prior to the final lush pastel renderings seen in the book.

Introducing a New FBI�MINI: SOH! by Joe Daly

kimt

SPECIAL BONUS! Order the new Dungeon Quest Book 3 from Fantagraphics and receive, absolutely free, the full-color, 20-page FBI•MINI "SOH!" featuring page after page of Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest character sketches, rough pencils, and other goodies, plus a hilarious, fully-finished, never-before-seen two-page story in the Dungeon Quest vein by Daly. Click here for more FBI•MINIs!

April Is Double-MINI Month at Fantagraphics!

kimt

(a partial assortment)

Last November, we introduced one of our most successful and acclaimed promotions ever: The FBI•MINI project, a series of mini-books exclusively available as premiums via Fantagraphics mail-order. Customers could secure these coveted collectibles either by ordering (or pre-ordering) specific books that went along with the FBI•MINIs, or just placing a general order (for $50 or more). We got in so many orders for FBI•MINIs (close to a thousand!) that we had trouble keeping up with demand!

The FBI•MINIs include first-time-in-English comics by Joost Swarte, David B., Raymond Macherot, and Jacques Tardi (the legendary, 21-page, never-completed Manchette collaboration FATALE); otherwise out-of-print early obscurities by the Hernandez Brothers, Peter Bagge, Bill Griffith, and Stan Sakai; some fantastic sketchbook material by Johnny Ryan, Jim Woodring, Stephen DeStefano, and Kim Deitch; as well as such oddities as a vintage 1938 POPEYE sequence by Segar's assistant, a collection of full-color Richard Sala horror portraits, a facsimile GIL JORDAN page by Maurice Tillieux in full color, Tony Millionaire's hilarious illustrated rant about a failed TV submission, a never-printed Joe Sacco comic strip/book report, and Ivan Brunetti's legendary NANCY try-out strips... and more. Go here for a complete list!

For the month of April we're "doubling down" with this promotion: If you place an order that qualifies you for one of the FBI•MINI's (by ordering one of the qualifying books, or ANYTHING of $50 or more), add a second FBI•MINI to your order. And if your order is $100 or more, you can order FOUR FBI•MINIs... and so on! If ordering by phone or mail, order the FBI•MINIs as you would any other item; if ordering online, list them in the "comments" section.

This special deal will be in effect throughout the rest of April 2012. Place your order today!

Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 by Ernie Bushmiller - Now in Stock

mike

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers:

Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945
by Ernie Bushmiller
introduction by Daniel Clowes

336-page black & white 8.5" x 8.5" flexibound softcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-360-6

See Previews / Order Now

A funny thing happened on the way to comic-strip immortality.

For many years, Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, with its odd-looking, squat heroine, nearly abstract art, and often super-corny gags, was perceived as the stodgiest, squarest comic strip in the world. Popular with newspaper read- ers, true — but definitely not a strip embraced by comic-strip connoisseurs, like Krazy Kat, Dick Tracy or Terry and the Pirates.

But then those connoisseurs took a closer look, and began to realize that Bushmiller’s art approached its own kind of cartoon perfection, and those corny gags often achieved a striking zen quality. In its own way, it turned out Nancy was in fact the most iconic comic strip of all. (The American Heritage Dictionary actually uses a Nancy strip to illustrate its entry on “comic strip.”)

Charter members of the Nancy revival include Art Spiegelman, who published Mark Newgarden’s famous “Love’s Savage Fury” (featuring Nancy and Bazooka Joe) in an early issue of RAW; Fletcher Hanks anthologist Paul Karasik; Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith; underground publisher Denis Kitchen, who released several volumes of Nancy collections in the 1980s; Understanding Comics’ Scott McCloud, who created the “Five-Card Nancy” card game; Joe Brainard, who produced an entire Nancy Book of paintings in 2008; and Andy Warhol, who produced a painting based on Nancy.

Beginning in the Winter of 2011, fans will be dancing with joy as Fantagraphics unveils an ongoing Nancy reprint project. Each volume will contain a whopping full three years of daily Nancy strips (a Sunday Nancy project looms in the future), collected in a fat, square (what else, for the “squarest” strip in the world?) package designed by Jacob (Popeye, Beasts!, Willie and Joe) Covey.

This first volume will collect every daily strip from 1943 to 1945. (Fantagraphics will eventually release Nancy’s first five years, 1938-1942, but given the scarcity of archival material for these years we are giving ourselves some extra time to collate it all.)

This first Nancy volume will feature an introduction by another stellar Bushmiller fan, Daniel Clowes (from whose collection most of the strips in this volume were scanned), a biography of the artist, and much more.

Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic as a FREE bonus! The very best dailies (and Sundays) from the legendary "audition" by Ivan Brunetti to take over the Nancy strip in a perfect Bushmiller style. Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Order Bushmiller's Nancy, get Brunetti's Nancy free!

mike

Oh hey! We (I) forgot to tell you when we (I) posted the previews to Nancy Is Happy: Complete Dailies 1943-1945 by Ernie Bushmiller: when you order that book from us, you'll get The Nancy Auditions V.1, one of our FREE bonus FBI•MINI comics, containing Ivan Brunetti's legendary tryout strips when he auditioned (unsuccessfully) to take over the strip! Ivan made his best, sincere go of it in perfect Bushmiller style and this is the first "official" release of these strips!

Buddy Does Seattle by Peter Bagge - 4th Printing in Stock Now

mike

Buddy Does Seattle: The Complete Buddy Bradley Stories from "Hate" Comics Vol. 1 (1990-'94)
by Peter Bagge

340-page black & white 6" x 9" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-56097-623-3

Back in stock in a new 4th printing — Order Now!

Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

These legendary stories, from the classic first fifteen issues of Bagge's Hate comic, are a defining icon of Seattle's early 1990s culture (the Seattle Weekly has written, "20 years from now, when people wonder what it was like to be young in 1990s Seattle, the only record we'll have is Hate."), as well as Generation X in general (as seen in such films as Kids and Pecker). This is the first time these hilarious stories, starring the hapless Buddy Bradley and his cast of loser cohorts, have ever been available under one cover, and never have they been available at such a low price (it would have cost at least three times as much to read all of these classic stories in any previous editions). Bagge's riotous tales of the early 1990s subculture are more hilarious now than ever, find out why he has been praised by R. Crumb, Matt Groening, John Kricfalusi, Publishers Weekly, Entertainment Weekly and many more. Comedy genius.

Don't Forget: Exclusive Swarte Comics When You Buy From Us!

kimt

Swarte collectors will want to buy their copy of Is That All There Is? directly from us, as every mail-order copy ordered from Fantagraphics will be accompanied by "Actually, That Wasn't All There Was," the FBI•MINI giveaway featuring a half-dozen hilarious Jurassic-era Swarte comics stories that have not been in print for over 40 years, and have never been seen in English! (Even I was totally unfamiliar with them.) I'd hate to pick favorites, but this may be the most collectible FBI•MINI of them all, showcasing Swarte's earliest, pre-Hergé-pastiche, more underground-y style. A revelation!

And if you've already pre-ordered your copy of Is That All There Is? from another source, remember that any FBI•MINI can also be obtained by simply placing an order for $50 or more with Fantagraphics (for any of our books) and picking it as your freebie.

Daily OCD: 12/1/11

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: Rick Klaw and Mark London Williams of The SF Site start counting down their top 10 favorite comics of 2011 in their "Nexus Graphica" column, with Rick placing Setting the Standard: Comics by Alex Toth 1952-1954 at #10 ("mandatory reading for any fan of the medium") and Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot by Jacques Tardi at #6 ("one of the finest examples of the genre")

• Review: "In an historical moment when a cross-section of the population is waking up to the reality of brutal inequalities and the limited set of levers by which that might be expected to change, being reminded of past permutations of those same societal ills may prove hopeful or unbearable. It's hard to say. Either way, these are effective comics. The Road to Wigan Pier never manages the dead-on power inherent in much of Sacco's best work, but it's certainly worth any comics fan's time." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

• Review: "...[I]t is thrilling to see such a vital, and nearly forgotten, work of comics coming back into print, cleaned up and reorganized and ready to surprise a new generation of former kids.... Nuts is one of the best works, and one of the few single book-length works, by one of our time's best and most idiosyncratic cartoonists -- ...it is for everyone who really remembers how terrible and lonely and infuriating it can be to be a child." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Plugs: Robot 6's ongoing "Holiday Gift-Giving Guide" survey of comics creators rolls on, with Joey Weiser suggesting "For the comic strip enthusiast: Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson – Super engaging strips that are full of life and very funny. I’m very glad that Fantagraphics is publishing these." Caanan Grall also recommends "Fantagraphics’s Floyd Gottfriedson Mickey Mouse and Carl Barks Donald Duck libraries."

• Plugs: Graphic Novel Reporter's "Holiday 2011 Gift Guide" features The Man Who Grew His Beard by Olivier Schrauwen, Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 1 - Through the Wild Blue Wonder by Walt Kelly, Willie & Joe: The WWII Years & Willie & Joe: Back Home by Bill Mauldin, 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente by Wilfred Santiago, and Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1 + 2 Boxed Set by Floyd Gottfredson

• Plug: Heroes Aren't Hard to Find's Andy Mansell rounds up some gift ideas for their upcoming holiday sale this weekend, including Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons: "This is one of the best books of the past year (or so). Gahan Wilson is the true heir apparent to New Yorker comic weirdo Charles Addams. His comics are twisted, macabre, beautifully rendered and above all–laugh out loud funny. This 3 volume set belongs in every serious comic fan’s library."

Daily OCD: 11/23/11

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: After appearing on Amazon.com's Best Books of 2011 — Comics and Graphic Novels top 10, Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 and Pogo Vol. 1 show up on Amazon.ca's list of the same name, in the #5 and #4 positions respectively

• Plug: At NPR's Monkey See, Glen Weldon recommends Pogo Vol. 1 as a "tryptophan-tastic tome" for your turkey-coma reading enjoyment: "Walt Kelly's seminal, satirical, exquisitely rendered, hugely influential (and, not for nothing, actually funny) comic strip is getting a deluxe treatment by Fantagraphics. Crisply reproduced at a generous size that makes it easier than ever to marvel over Kelly's marvelous linework, this book is everything fans and comics historians were hoping for."

• Review: "...[Tales Designed to] Thrizzle returns to form with lucky number seven — and of all things, it seems like Christopher Nolan’s Inception provided the catalyst.... I’ve described director Christopher Nolan’s movies as what stupid people think smart movies look like; Michael Kupperman’s comics are the opposite, stupid comics made by a smart person for smart people, so perhaps there’s some yin-yang resonance there. Regardless, Kupperman recognized Inception‘s Russian-nesting-doll structure of dreams within dreams within dreams as natural connective tissue for his stream-of-consciousness comedy... It’s nice to hold documentary evidence of Kupperman’s comic genius in my hands again." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal

• Review: "The authors [of Oil and Water] show admirable self-awareness in portraying their semifictional companions (and by implication, themselves) as naive voyeurs whose presence mostly irritates their subjects. 'Lemme get this straight,' says one character. 'They white. We black. They blue. We red. They rich…and I got $53 to buy a week’s worth of groceries. And they gonna tell our stories?' Actually, they do a fine job." – Ruth Brown, Willamette Week

• Review: "Full of endnotes, translating many phrases he quotes in their original languages, and graced by a few of the couple’s photos and Sarah’s plein air oil paintings, [Estonia: A Ramble Through the Periphery] provides a suitably quirky introduction to Theroux as an essayist and critic.... As the author of two Fantagraphics short studies on Al Capp and Edward Gorey, Theroux’s elliptical style and elongated perspective delineates an American tradition of satire that connects him to Thomas Nast’s political and cultural caricatures of a century and a half ago.... Catch the wit and the venom, the depth and the breadth, of this honest account of 'a strange, unlooked-for place at the back of beyond' where 'the fascination of its strangeness' renders it a fitting subject for a curious report by a memorably talented, ever off-kilter, chronicler of oddity. [Rating] 8/10" – John L. Murphy, PopMatters

• Plugs: Our FBI•MINIs have garnered attention from Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter ("I want as many as I can get my hands on"), J.K. Parkin at Robot 6 ("The big chain stores might have cheap TVs this weekend, but how many of them come with a Tony Millionaire mini-comic? Not nearly enough, I tell ya"), Alan Gardner at The Daily Cartoonist ("If you're already planning on picking out some titles for the holidays, might as well get the rare or unpublished work as well"), Paul Constant at The Stranger ("These books are a great idea; a special gift for your special comics fan")

• Scene: At The HeroesOnline Blog, read a recap of the Love and Rockets discussion group which we previously spotlighted here

• Interview: "I talked on the phone with Adam Witt of Comics Will Break Your Heart about the early days of the Mome anthology, serializing work, collaboration with other artists, film, and my inability to remember the dates of anything. I apologize in advance for the mumbling bits," says Paul Hornschemeier on his blog

• Analysis: At Robot 6, Matt Seneca examines the sequential imagery in a poster by Victor Moscoso: "The poster Moscoso created for SF-based motion picture company Pablo Ferro Films... is a watershed moment in the artist’s oeuvre, the place where his works in comics and posters unify with perfect elegance. It’s also a fascinating, formally audacious piece of comics, one that breaks rules and innovates furiously without giving up an iota of visual beauty."

Fantagraphics launches massive mail-order 'FBI�MINI' promo

kimt

(a partial assortment)

I always was very fond of the mini-comics format -- take two to four 8 1/2 x 11 sheets, fold them once, staple, and voilà! You have an adorable little 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 comic book for mere pennies. But I could never really figure out what to do with this old-school, low-tech format.

Until now!

For this catalog season, we have created 21 "FBI•MINI" booklets (most in this format, although there are a few oddities), as premiums for customers who order books directly from us. They are available free with the purchase of their "matching" book or books -- or for those customers who've already bought those books but are desperate to get the FBI•MINI, free with the purchase of $50 worth of any other Fantagraphics mail-order merchandise.

We've put together some pretty amazing stuff. For instances, there are four foreign FBI•MINIs featuring material that is being released in English for the very first time: an eight-page David B. story from the 1990s, an eight-page full-color Sibyl-Anne story by Raymond Macherot, a twelve-page collection of Joost Swarte's very earliest, most underground-y work -- the stuff that didn't make it into Is That All There Is? -- and most amazing of all, 21 pages of an abandoned Manchette/Tardi story that has only been printed once in an obscure French collection, and never in English. That's 49 page of prime European comics available here for the first time.

There are four sketchbook collections (an amazing gathering of Jim Woodring work preparing for Congress of the Animals, an intricate set of sketches and more by Stephen DeStefano for Lucky in Love, a collection of Kim Deitch's legendary pencilled conceptualization drawings... and a hilarious blurt of Prison Pit character doodles from Johnny Ryan).

There's a non-Segar Popeye strip from the Segar era that didn't make it into our Popeye series (since it wasn't by Segar)... a collection of terrific "coming attractions" pages from Golden Age comics to go with Greg Sadowski's upcoming Golden Age covers collection... a dozen great "Humorama" drawings that didn't quite get into the Humorama book... a striking facsimile of a Maurice Tillieux original Gil Jordan page, complete with watercolored color indications on the back... and a never-before published Joe Sacco strip.

Plus 16 pages of Alex Toth art from the Setting the Standard era, but here reproduced in crisp black and white from the original photostats... Tony Millionaire's hilarious illustrated essay on failing to secure a TV gig for Billy Hazelnuts, complete with a preview of his upcoming Billy Hazelnuts Volume 3... a collection of the legendary Ivan Brunetti Nancy strip try-out... and 12 gorgeous full-color pages of scary Richard Sala faces.

And we've also got some obscurities, such as 12 pages of Bill Griffith comics that got axed from his epochal Lost and Found, a never-before-reprinted Critters-era "Nilson Groundthumper" story by Stan Sakai, and some truly Jurassic-era comics from Peter Bagge and Los Bros. Hernandez.

If any of these catch your interest (and if you're reading this blog surely at least one of them will) you can click right on any of them to a more detailed listing on our website -- or just click right here and all 21 will pop up for you to peruse.