Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: George Herriman on The New York Times Best Sellers list! Krazy & Ignatz 1922-1924 debuts at #2 on the list for Paperback Graphic Books

• Review: "The white rabbit who serves as our guide suggests Alice in Wonderland, but despite fantastical touches, Interiorae is much more concerned with the world as it presents itself. Intertwining the lives of the people who live in an apartment complex, it’s in some sense a book-length meditation on a rather beautiful idea, that the day-to-day lives of all the little people aren’t just worth paying attention to, but are essential to the very fabric of the spaces we inhabit. Giandelli doesn’t entirely avoid mushy sentimentality nor the excesses of an open heart — absolutely no one is deserving of even so much as mild criticism here, which feels more naive than accepting — but her feel for our inner lives, as well as a visual style that evokes the richness of life as she sees it, win out in the end." – David Berry, National Post

• Review: "Nicolas Mahler’s childishly cute drawings put an adorable face on a satire with a pretty deep cynicism with the superhero comics industry. A creation of Korporate Komics, Angelman is pink dumpling with wings, blessed with the superpowers of sensitivity, open-mindedness and being a good listener, at least until focus groups and lagging sales put him through a gritty reboot and a some deep-seated neuroses about being a second-rate hero. Mahler’s points about corporate art certainly don’t aim for subtlety, but that doesn’t make them any less true, and a droll sense of humour keeps things from getting too preachy." – David Berry, National Post

• Review: "Athos in America... is another collection of graphic novellas and graphic short stories from master of deadpan presentation Jason in the style of Low Moon, and, as with the release of all new work from Jason, a cause for celebration.... This book is chock-full of examples of Jason’s inspired appropriation of classic trash pop culture, and his repurposing of it in formally experimental (or is playful a better word?) explorations of the human experiment.... Jason’s comics are among the hardest in the world to review, as it’s difficult to say anything beyond 'Well, that was perfect' in terms of assessment, and the specific magic he works is so difficult to describe in words, and so easy to communicate by simply pointing to a random volume of his work and saying, 'Hey, check this out.'" – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Robot 6

• Review: "For a list price of $39.99... this book [Amazing Mysteries] does a wonderful job of showing off Bill [Everett]’s early work and lets us learn a lot about the man. .... Bill was an enormous talent for telling stories. Bill’s work, often as writer and artist holds up much better then many other artists from his time. This volume is a lot of fun as you can flip through it and see how much Bill played with layouts and panel design.... Bill was an amazing talent.... Bill’s style is so distinct it is often easy to tell when he did all the work. Bottom line for a good collection of a master in his early days, this book is hard to beat." – Jim Martin, Comics and... Other Imaginary Tales

• Review: "There are only a handful of rock journalists who could have a collection of their work seem like a necessity, and Paul Nelson would be at the very top of that list.... Kevin Avery's book [Everything Is an Afterthought] gathers many of Nelson's finest pieces, most for Rolling Stone magazine... As amazing as all those stories are, it's also Avery's riveting biographical chapter on Paul Nelson that really takes a sledgehammer to the soul. Weaving together the recollections of many of Nelson's peers, the portrait we're left is of a man that struggled to maintain a hold on reality, finding higher enjoyment in the world of the mind.... Paul Nelson took what was already life-changing, and the way he saw it and could speak about it, made it even more thrilling. Now we can celebrate him all over again." – Bill Bentley, The Morton Report

• Profile: The lead-in to TCAF at Canada's National Post continues with David Berry talking to Zak Sally: "His latest book, Sammy the Mouse, had an original home as part of Fantagraphics’ Ignatz series, but is now being collected and bound by Sally himself, by hand in his Minnesota studio. The world of Sammy reflects this hands-on approach: it feels immediate and lived-in, almost less like a story than a tour of Sally’s internal brain architecture, with a slight misanthropy and freewheeling visual style that recall work like Chester Brown’s Yummy Fur. 'For me, finding those first underground comics was incredible,' says Sally, who got his start reading superhero tales, but was quickly turned. 'It turned comics into something you realized you could just do yourself: just get your s–t together and do it.'"

• Plug: There aren't enough shout-outs to Ted Jouflas. Here's one from The Comics Reporter

We're thrilled to present our signing schedule for this weekend's 2012 Toronto Comic Arts Festival in Canada!

First off, we're very sorry to report that artist Olivier Schrauwen will be unable to join us this weekend, but we look forward to hosting him at future events!

Joining us will be Jason and Gabriella Giandelli!

Saturday, May 5th
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Gabriella Giandelli
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Jason

Sunday, May 6th
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Gabriella Giandelli
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Jason 

You can find them with Fantagraphics at tables 119-121:

And don't forget to check out their panel on Saturday morning!

SATURDAY, MAY 5th

10:00–11:00 AM // International Perspectives
Comics creators from around the world come together in this panel to showcase the similarity and differences of their approaches to the comics medium. With Jose-Louis Bocquet, Gabriella Giandelli, Tom Gauld, Jason, and Hugues Micol. Moderator: Caitlin McGurk. (High Park Ballroom, located in the The Marriott Bloor Yorkville.)

All our TCAF details (including our scintillating debuts!) can be found here. We'll see you in Toronto this weekend! 

TCAF attendees and Toronto residents should join us tomorrow night for the opening night of Gabriella Giandelli: A Toronto Retrospective at the Italian Cultural Institute!

This retrospective exhibition will feature over 80 original drawings from this prolific Italian illustrator and graphic novelist, including work from the celebrated series Interiorae. And we'll be debuting the collection of Interiorae at TCAF!

Join us and Gabriella herself at the Italian Cultural Institute [ 496 Huron Street, Toronto ] this Friday, May 4th from 6:30 to 8:30 PM!  Opening remarks will be by Gianni Bardini, Consul General of Italy. This event is free and open to the public. The exhibit will run through Friday, September 14, 2012.

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

Interiorae
by Gabriella Giandelli

144-page full-color 7.75" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-559-4

See Previews / Order Now

A high-rise apartment building in an unnamed European city. Its inhabitants come and go, meet each other, talk, dream, regret, hope... in short, live. A ghostly, shape-shifting anthropomorphic white rabbit roams from apartment to apartment, surveying and keeping track of all this humanity... and at the end of every night, he floats down to the basement where he delivers his report to the "great dark one."

Lushly delineated in penciled halftones, this moody graphic novel was orig- inally serialized in Fantagraphics’ acclaimed "Ignatz" series of upscale saddle-stitched booklets in duotone form, but this complete edition restores the artist’s original striking full-color treatment.

"What makes Gabriella Giandelli's world unique is her brave rejection of the fashionable and the stereotypical. Intimate and poetic, sensitive and enigmatic, Interiorae is her masterpiece." – Lorenzo Mattotti

It's a quiet week for events.  I think most of us are either recovering from Stumptown and MoCCA, or gearing up for TCAF! 

Friday, May 4th

• Toronto, ON:  It's the opening night of Gabriella Giandelli: A Toronto Retrospective at the Italian Cultural Institute! Over 80 original drawings will be on display. More information about this wonderful (and free!) event is coming to the FLOG later this week.

Saturday, May 5th

• San Francisco, CA:  Mario Hernandez will be a special guest at the 2012 Latino Comics Expo! He'll be signing copies of Love & Rockets from 1:00 to 2:30 PM. (more info)

•  Toronto, ON:  Join Fantagraphics at the 2012 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, with special guests Jason, Gabriella Giandelli, and Olivier Schrauwen! (more info)

Sunday, May 6th

• San Francisco, CA:  Mario Hernandez will continue to be at the 2012 Latino Comics Expo!  From 1:15-2:00 PM, he'll be doing a very special reading from Love & Rockets, followed by a Q&A! (more info)

•  Toronto, ON:  It's your last day to visit Fantagraphics at the 2012 Toronto Comic Arts Festival, with special guests Jason, Gabriella Giandelli, and Olivier Schrauwen! (more info)

Monday, May 7th

• Toronto, ON:  The Italian Cultural Institute hosts another wonderful event with Gabriella Giandelli and music composer Marco Cappelli.  The two will engage in a conversation on their artist careers and the influence that music has on comics.  More details are coming soon to the FLOG!

Ain't no party like a Fantagraphics party 'cause a Fantagraphics party don't stop, and WE DON'T EVER STOP. We are now taking this party across the border for the 2012 Toronto Comic Arts Festival in Canada!

Join us this weekend, Saturday, May 5th and Sunday, May 6th, at the Toronto Reference Library. I love selling books in a library. Here are the debuts we'll be bringing that you will NOT find on the reshelving cart! (Unless we have to borrow it from Ab again.)

• Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli
• Dungeon Quest 3 by Joe Daly
• The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons

• God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez
• Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture (the fancy new printing!) by Jack Davis
•  Jewish Images in the Comics by Fredrik Strömberg

• New York Mon Amour by Jacques Tardi, Benjamin Legrand & Dominique Grange
• Out of the Shadows by Mort Meskin; edited and designed by Steven Brower
• Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch by Floyd Gottfredson; edited by David Gerstein and Gary Groth

Since this is an international show for Fantagraphics, we thought it'd be appropriate to bring even more foreigners with us.  Come by and say hi to:

• Jason
• Gabriella Giandelli
• Olivier Schrauwen

Update 5/3: We're very sorry to report that artist Olivier Schrauwen will be unable to join us this weekend, but we look forward to hosting him at future events!

Saturday, May 5th
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Gabriella Giandelli
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Jason

Sunday, May 6th
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Gabriella Giandelli
12:00 pm-3:00 pm        Jason 

Where can you find us? Why, tables 119-121:

SATURDAY, MAY 5th

10:00–11:00 AM // International Perspectives
Comics creators from around the world come together in this panel to showcase the similarity and differences of their approaches to the comics medium. With Jose-Louis Bocquet, Gabriella Giandelli, Tom Gauld, Jason, Hugues Micol, and Olivier Schrauwen. Moderator: Caitlin McGurk. (High Park Ballroom, located in the The Marriott Bloor Yorkville.)

3:15–5:00 PM // The Adventure Time Mega-Panel!
Who doesn’t love adventures?  TCAF presents: Adventure Time creators doing what they do best: making crazy-delightful comics about the series they work on.  Don’t miss this fun-filled live drawing session, accompanied by Q&A and general discussion. With Pendleton Ward, Ryan North, Bob Flynn, Andy Ristiano, Michael DeForge, Steve Wolfhard, and Jesse Moynihan. (High Park Ballroom, located in the The Marriott Bloor Yorkville.) 

SUNDAY, MAY 6th

11:30 AM– 1:00 PM // Thoughts on Panel Layout
This panel looks at the nitty gritty of layouts around the world—where and how scene breaks happen (middle of page, end of page, fade out, formulas for transition), panel shapes and page structures (even grids, angled, borderless), “camera” angles and staging, frequency of certain types of panels (all-text, scenery only, etc), trying to figure out patterns that would be useful to clarify for creators. We’ll talk about individual creators as interesting or notable examples, and look at a big spread of works from every market. With Bryan Lee O’Malley, Jesse Moynihan, Kim Hoang, Aaron Diaz, Emily Carroll, and Francis Manapul. Moderator: Angie Wang (1st Floor: Learning Center 1)

The Toronto Reference Library is located at 789 Yonge Street. The closest major intersection is Yonge & Bloor. The closest subway station is Yonge/Bloor Station.

Marketing Mix Master Mike Baehr and I will take that stuff to Canada. See you there!

Interiorae
by Gabriella Giandelli

144-page full-color 7.75" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-559-4

Ships in: May 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

A high-rise apartment building in an unnamed European city. Its inhabitants come and go, meet each other, talk, dream, regret, hope... in short, live. A ghostly, shape-shifting anthropomorphic white rabbit roams from apartment to apartment, surveying and keeping track of all this humanity... and at the end of every night, he floats down to the basement where he delivers his report to the "great dark one."

Lushly delineated in penciled halftones, this moody graphic novel was orig- inally serialized in Fantagraphics’ acclaimed "Ignatz" series of upscale saddle-stitched booklets in duotone form, but this complete edition restores the artist’s original striking full-color treatment.

"What makes Gabriella Giandelli's world unique is her brave rejection of the fashionable and the stereotypical. Intimate and poetic, sensitive and enigmatic, Interiorae is her masterpiece." – Lorenzo Mattotti

12-page excerpt (download 2.2 MB PDF):

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

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Every one of Giandelli’s surfaces -- walls, windows, bedspreads, books -- seems alive. Her colors almost wriggle. The darkness she draws is so black it’s wet. She approaches long corridors like David Lynch does in his films: not something you walk down, but something you’re swallowed by. Interiorae is engulfing.... In restored and essential color, this collected edition gives the mood the necessary space to simmer and boil -- just like poetry has the white of the page around it to slow you down and give it weight. Even before you notice the chapter titles are counting down to zero, you can feel that something about to happen. The men and women who live there can’t see it, but everything’s about to change.... In the end, Interiorae isn’t about either mundane, everyday reality or the vivid, symbolic realm of dreams. Its power’s in the precarious space between the two." – Martyn Pedler, Bookslut

• Review: "While Athos in America is as widely varied as the author's most recent collection, 2009's Low Moon, its stories employ less deadpan humor. In addition, this new volume presents some of Jason's most experimental comics yet.... One thing that hasn't changed is the ways in which Jason conjures up a kind of understated humor from his somber protagonists that serves to lighten up the serious situations they find themselves in. Athos in America may be darker and relatively more straight-faced than Jason's other work, but it shows that one of the more unique cartoonists today is continuing to evolve." – Phil Guie, CriticalMob

• Review: "The Big Town evokes a lost era through language and flamboyant characters reminiscent of Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Ring Lardner, etc. Yet it’s also eerily relevant to our own time with its study of the role of business, crime, morality, and love in our lives." – Jack Eidt, Wilder Utopia

• Interview: The San Francisco Chronicle's Julian Guthrie talks to Pat Thomas about Listen Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975: "The image of the Panther became something even Hollywood playfully played with. You had Tom Wolfe's book Radical Chic, and you had folks like Leonard Bernstein hanging out with the Panthers. Everyone wanted to get close to the heat."

• Feature: Junglecity, a website for Japanese visitors and residents of Seattle, spotlights Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery

• Scene: Paul Karasik has a report from his recent jaunt to DeKalb, IL — "The Museum at the University asked me to curate an exhibition that I had originally titled, 'Hey, Stoopid! Comix R Cool!', but which is now called, 'Graphic Novel Realism: Backstage at the Comics' (whatever that means!)." — with a video tour of the exhibit

You might not think our two latest preview-copy arrivals have much in common (aside from striking artwork and the fact that both have covers with dwellings in the background and trees in the middle ground), but you'd be wrong. They both feature mysterious, ethereal, supernatural characters observing the actions and fates of mankind! Pretty uncanny, no?

Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli collects her beautiful and haunting 4-issue "Ignatz" comic series with the art now presented in its original full color. We're hustling this one out to premiere at TCAF in May, where Gabriella is a special guest! It should be in stores shortly thereafter.

And here's Mysterious Traveler: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 3, the latest tome in editor Blake Bell's comprehensive series compiling Ditko's groundbreaking early work. We're not blowing smoke when we say this is some of the best work of his career. This should be hitting stores right around the same time as Interiorae.

Want to see more? We have sneak peek excerpts of both these books at their respective pages at the links above. We're trying out a new scrolling embedded preview in addition to the traditional PDF download for more instant gratification, so check it out. And of course we'll have more photos and video to come. (In fact, I owe you a lot of those previews.) Stay tuned!

The Toronto Comics Art Festival has announced the first batch of special guests for the 2012 fest, and we're excited to reveal that we'll be hosting the following global guests on May 5th and 6th:

Jason: You asked for him, you got him!  Jason was, hands-down, the most asked-about artist at TCAF 2011. See? Don't say we don't ever listen to you, Toronto. He will be signing his latest, Athos in America, along with many, many other books.

Gabriella Giandelli: We are absolutely delighted to be hosting Gabriella, all the way from Italy! This is a rare treat to meet this wonderful artist, and we'll be debuting the collection of her Ignatz comic Interiorae!

Olivier Schrauwen: And making his North American comic convention debut (we're pretty sure), it's Olivier Schrauwen! He'll be signing copies of The Man Who Grew His Beard, among other things.

And stay tuned to the FLOG as we announce which artists from this continent will also be joining us at the Fantagraphics table for TimBits! See you at TCAF!