Come see Gary Panter kill it at Death by Audio [ 49 South 2nd Street, Brooklyn ]!

He and his band Devin, Gary & Ross will be bringing their "stunning psychedelic chicken music" to this Brooklyn venue on Wednesday, September 26th.  Also on the bill are Sunfoot, Volunteers Park and Ice Balloons. Don't miss it!

Save the visit to the Library of Congress, which will come up later, these are THE pictures and thoughts on Small Press Expo 2012. We honestly were so busy that there was little time to make the rounds to other aisles and buy books or snag pics of our friends at this family reunion of a show. So please accept my apology for no SWEEPING landscapes of the table set-up as it was busy, busy, busy. SPX'sExecutive Director, Warren Bernard, ran a good show and David Michael Thomas could not have been better with convention previews and making sure we were comfortable throughout.

The Washington alt-weekly newspaper or insert covered the special guests of the con including the Hernandez brothers. Love and Rockets tattoos are the ink du jour as you can see along with Jughead hats and SUPER short skirts (even though we all know leggings that look like wormholes or intestinal tracts are really in this year). Drawing by Thomas Pitilli.

The signing at Politics and Prose in D.C. kicked off the 30th Anniversary Northeast Tour. With trusty escorts like Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds, PR Director Jacq Cohen and myself, what could go wrong? First things first though, toothpicks to make sure teeth are clean.

Lilli Carré's new book Heads or Tails was a smash hit and the first to sell out followed by Chris Wright's Blacklung, The Hypo, Ron Regé's Cartoon Utopia and many more. Here Carré and Van Sciver sell their books, librarian Caitlin McGurk from OSU's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum eager to read the newest, greatest books.

Chris Wright draws and signs Blacklung on his dedication page to dearly departed friend, Sparkplug's Dylan Williams.

Future Fantagraphics author Charles Forsman and his cartooning counterpart, Melissa Mendes , run their own micro-publisher Oily Comics. You just can't get enough of them or their comics.

Tom Spurgeon stops by the table to enjoy our multi-printed collection of Is That All There Is? by Joost Swarte.

Long lines formed for the Hernandez Brothers both days and were chock full of other exhibitors and cartoonists like First Second's George O'Connor.

Fans got books signed, bought drawings and got their SPX convention badges signed.

That night at the Ignatz awards, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez cleaned up. While humbly accepting their Herriman bricks, they thanked Daniel Clowes & Art Spiegelman for NOT having new stories this year. The Brothers won Outstanding Series for Love and Rockets while Jaime won Outstanding Artist and Outstanding Story for "Return for Me"of Love and Rockets: New Stories #4.

Author Phillip Nel sold his Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss biography to whet everyone's appetite for the Barnaby book. Rich Tommaso sold his The Cavalier Mr. Thompson, a Fantagraphics-distributed book about a 1920s hotel in Texas.

Fans and friends got their signatures and tiny drawings by Tommaso.

Cartoonist TJ Kirsch shows off his Daniel Clowes drawing in Twentieth-Century Eightball.

Despite his dour face, Daniel Clowes genuinely liked Gary Panter's Dal Tokyo while Charles Burns looks on.

John Porcellino (of Spit and a Half, King Cat and Drawn and Quarterly) soaked in the cross hatching glory of Van Sciver's The Hypo. Maybe he was enjoying it too much.

As always, my partner-in-crime Jacq Cohen and I accidentally dressed to match some of our favorite classic books, me with Nancy and Jacq with Peanuts.

Jacq and I ran off after the convention to eat some delicious food with our good friends. Clockwise from the bottom left: Gilbert Hernandez, me, Jaime Hernandez, Tom Neely of Sparkplug, Joseph Remnant of ZAP/Top Shelf, Noah Van Sciver and John Porcellino. Delicious!

And finally, a picture from 2010's MoCCA Fest where I'm handing Jaime minis as a fan. Now we get to argue about baseball uniforms and proper sock height while working the Fantagraphics table. Thank you everyone for coming to the Fantagraphics table to buy our books, talk to our artists and spread more of the convention cheer. See you next year!

Photos by Jacq Cohen and me. Attitude by Fantagraphics.

The newest hazelnuttiest spread of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Interview: Publishers Weekly and James Romberger stop Gary Panter during his busy drawing and teaching schedule to ask him questions about Dal Tokyo. Panter is quoted, "Being that this intends to be an experimental approach to comic making and drawing, like the Jimbo in Purgatory book, I don't expect the reader to get a normal story experience or the satisfaction that comes from skillful story traditional development. I hope the reader will get something else that they never got from a comic before: evidence of an investigation into the ways and means of cartooning and maybe a dizzy feeling."

• Review: Originally published in Danish in 2005, this review of Jimbo in Purgatory by Gary Panter was just translated into English on The Metabunker. Matthias Wivel says, "With humor and a spectacular visual imagination, Panter serves up a lavish and remarkably generous, but never chaotic book that reminds us of the way in which truth emerges socially –moved by the power of will, thought, and faith."

• Plug: Robot 6 weekly column 'Food or Comics?' mention picking up copies of  Mattotti's The Crackle of the Frost, Joost Swarte's Is that all there Is , the Hernandez Brothers' Love and Rockets New Stories #5 but mostly about the Fantagraphics-distributed book The Cavalier Mr. Thompson. "If I could splurge, I’d get go in with my fellow Food or Comic writers and get Cavalier Mr. Thompson by Rich Tommaso. . . . A 1920s crime story set on the dusty oil fields of West Texas? Sweet Jesus, this sounds great. And you can quote me on that, Fantagraphics," said Chris Arrant. Joe McCullough does something very similar over at The Comics Journal.

• Review: Publishers Weekly reviews Jorge Zentner and Lorenzo Mattotti's Crackle of the Frost. "Despite the depressing story line, Mattotti’s truly inspired lines, expressive forms, and wild visual imagination will captivate."

The humming un-tested electric fence of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: The Comics Journal reviews Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter. Joshua Glenn writes, "Panter’s draughtsmanship is fluid and permeable, it changes from week to week. . . Some installments are so crammed with detail and extraneous scribbles that the eye can’t possibly take it all in; others are stripped down, emptied out, haiku-like. In short, Dal Tokyo is absurd, unimaginable, and perfect."

• Interview: Jason Sacks from the Comics Bulletin caught up with Gary Panter at his Fantagraphics Bookstore signing this weekend and asked him some questions about Dal Tokyo: "I think that Dal Tokyo, because it's experimental, it's continually reminding you that it's being made. Whereas most comics they're trying to draw you into the illusion and keep you there. That's what comics are supposed to do and that's what popular comics do," Sacks points out.

• Review: North Adams Transcript looks and looks and looks again at Sexytime edited by Jacques Boyreau. John Seven laments, "The posters are the ephemera of an artifact called the porn theater that lurks in my ‘70s childhood. A place where sleaze was visible, but contained. . .If you can deal with it, "Sexytime" is a fun and often ridiculous reminder of a world that seemed so dangerous when many of us were kids, but is now gone."

• Review: Nick Gazin on Vice reviews Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 by Michael Kupperman: "It really feels like something you would dream about, except it is loaded with guffaws. . . This whole comic is basically the best ideas you've never thought of. After reading it you'll be all, 'That is so clever, why didn't I think of it? AND THESE JOKES!' "

• Plug: Rob at Panel Patter goes over some of the books he's looking forward to at SPX this month. "The Hypo is the book I'm most looking forward to. The deep thinker Noah Van Sciver taking on deep thinker Abraham Lincoln at the lowest point in his life?  SOLD." And Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 "finishes up the quirky comic from new Panel Patter favorite Michael Kupperman.  It's sure to be packed full of hysterical mashups and general insanity, based on pop culture and puns, both new and old."

• Review: Publishers Weekly reviews No Straight Lines again and is quite happy: ". . . who the volume is aimed at—the LGBT audience or a much wider one? Editor [Justin] Hall guns for the latter, but without softening the edges that define the genre, and he’s quite successful."

• Review: The SFCrowsNest reviews oldie-but-a-goodie The Hidden by Richard Sala. Aidan Fortune says, "The use of watercolours in the art gives it a children’s storybook feel that will stir up memories of reading horror stories underneath the covers by torchlight. Despite this warm look, ‘The Hidden’ is gripping, chilling and certainly not for children."

• Review: Dave's Strange World looks at Kevin Avery's Everything is an Afterthought, "Everything is an Afterthought is a loving tribute to a writer who deserved bigger and better success than his demons would allow. It’s clear from the testimonials and interviews given for this book how loved [Paul] Nelson was by his colleagues and friends."

Time to catch up with our busy, busy release schedule! As always, we have a slew of new books out with something for everyone, whether your tastes run to the literary, historical or just plain fun — or any combination thereof — and whatever your brow elevation. As a quick reminder, here's a rundown of all of last month's arrivals, including a few of our scheduled September releases which showed up a few days early! (Remember, our New Releases page always lists the 20 most recent arrivals, and our Upcoming Arrivals page has dozens of future releases available for pre-order.)

These books are all in stock in our mail-order department for immediate shipping, and we have nifty exclusive bonuses and special offers with some of them. Read on for all the details!

Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 3 (1938-1940)
by Roy Crane

152-page full-color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-529-7

See Previews / Order Now

Easy and Wash Tubbs discover a legendary creature in “Temple of the Swinks,” widely considered the absolute peak of the series! Plus treasure hunts and encounters with pirates, wild animals, and wilder women!

Order this volume and get Vol. 1 and/or Vol. 2 for $29.99 each; that's 25% off! Make your choice when ordering.

The Cavalier Mr. Thompson: A Sam Hill Novel
by Rich Tommaso

144-page two-color 6" x 9" softcover • $16.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-610-2
Published by Recoil Graphic Novels

See Previews / Order Now

Welcome To Big Spring, Texas and The Cavalier Hotel. The new hotel dick thought he had an easy patrol until a slick operator from Chicago named Ross Thompson came to town and turned everything upside down...

The Complete Peanuts 1985-1986 (Vol. 18)
by Charles M. Schulz

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-572-3

See Previews / Order Now

Peanuts reaches the middle of the go-go 1980s, a time of hanging out at the mall, “punkers” (wait until you see Snoopy with a Mohawk), killer bees, airbags, and Halley’s Comet. Introduction by Patton Oswalt.

The Complete Peanuts 1983-1986 Gift Box Set (Vols. 17-18)
by Charles M. Schulz

two 344-page black & white hardcover volumes in a custom 8.75" x 7.125" x 3" slipcase • $49.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-573-0

See Previews / Order Now

Collecting the seventeenth and eighteenth volumes of The Complete Peanuts (1983-1984 and 1985-1986) in one handsome collector's slipcase designed by the cartoonist Seth, this is the perfect gift book item.

The Crackle of the Frost
by Lorenzo Mattotti & Jorge Zentner

120-page full-color 8" x 10" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-543-3

See Previews / Order Now

Samuel fled his relationship with Alice when she stated her desire to have a baby. A year later, with her expecting, he embarks on a long journey to see her again. A sumptuous graphic novel masterpiece.

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

Dal Tokyo
by Gary Panter

220-page black & white 16.25" x 6.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-56097-886-2

See Previews / Order Now

The long-running punk/sci-fi strip finally collected in all its confounding visual and verbal richness in one giant volume. One doesn’t read Dal Tokyo; one is absorbed into it and spit out the other side.

Is That All There Is? (Softcover Ed.)
by Joost Swarte

144-page full-color 7.5" x 10.25" softcover • $25.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-628-7

See Previews / Order Now

The first English-language collection of this European master compiles all of his innovative comics work from 1972 to date, including his RAW stories, painstakingly restored and reproduced. Introduction by Chris Ware.

(Don't worry, the 2nd Hardcover Edition is arriving separately!)

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.

Love and Rockets: New Stories #5
by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez

104-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-586-0

See Previews / Order Now

The 30th Anniversary issue! Gilbert brings his current character "Killer" into the Palomar milieu in a much-anticipated homecoming; Jaime delves deeper into the sordid world surrounding Vivian "the Frogmouth."

Order this book and receive your choice of FBI•MINI comics shown here, Before Love and Rockets or Ti-Girls: Roughs and Rejects, as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.

Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur
edited by Jacques Boyreau & Peter Van Horne

96-page full-color 10.75" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-553-2

See Previews / Order Now

An oversized coffee table book celebrating the art of the 1970s porn movie poster, collecting over 100 of the most outrageously over-the-top examples of the era, pristinely remastered and accompanied by a brain-ripping narration.

 The sing-song-i-est new Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: Drawn Blog features a review of Steven Weissman's Barack Hussein Obama. Dustin Harbin says, "[the comics] seem less humorous and more like the slow aggregation of a large portrait, maybe not of the man, but of the time the man is living in." 

• Review: The Comics Reporter confirms that Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter is THE book to buy this week. Tom Spurgeon states, "This is really the only book you need this week . . . I've been wanting to read a collected version of Gary Panter's strip for a time longer than all about a dozen personal relationships I currently have."

• Review (audio): This week on Inkstuds, Robin McConnell interviews Eye of the Majestic Creature 's Leslie Stein. 

• Plug: Lots of book lust on the Collected Comics Library for the EC Library editions coming out soon featuring work from like Came the Dawn by  Wally Wood, Corpse on the Imjin! by Harvey Kurtzman and future reprints from Al Williamson and Jack Davis. Chris Marshall says, "EC Archives are Dead! Long Live the EC Library!"

• Plug: The sweet people over at Robot 6 on Comic Book Resources started flipping through Previews and flipped out over some of our new releases. John Parkin on Walt Disney's Donald Duck: A Christmas for Shacktown by Carl Barks: "Fantagraphics continues its series of high-end collections of the best of Carl Barks’ duck stories, with the Christmas-themed third volume arriving just in time to be stuffed in somebody’s stocking." Graeme McMillan on The Love and Rockets Reader: From Hoppers to Palomar by Marc Sobel: "As a latecomer to this classic series, I’m looking forward to Marc Sobel’s look back at the first three decades of the work of Los Bros Hernandez to help me get caught up on what I missed the first time around and really need to get in collected edition. I suspect this may end up being an expensive project."

Wednesday, September 5th

Friday, September 7th

• Dallas, TX: Josh Alan Friedman will be signing copies of the newly-reissued Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead Is Purely Coincidental, as well as playing some blues at The Mason Bar! Despite being a bar, it's an all-ages shindig! (more info)

Saturday, September 8th

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

Dal Tokyo
by Gary Panter

220-page black & white 16.25" x 6.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-56097-886-2

"...I’d definitely splurge on Dal Tokyo, Gary Panter’s wonderful sci-fi/punk comic strip, now lovingly collected by Fantagraphics." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Is there a greater splurge purchase this week that Dal Tokyo, the collected version of Gary Panter’s off-kilter comic strip? I plugged this book last week, but it deserves another one. I’ve been waiting for this book for awhile." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Gary Panter‘s Dal Tokyo has been dangled at the end of Fantagraphics’ stick for some time now, and there are people who don’t believe it’s ever going to materialise.... Believe!... The sci-fi/punk mash-up masterpiece is in the building, collected in one volume for the first time." – Gosh! Comics

"People often ask me, 'Joe, why don’t you write substantively about the Fantagraphics and PictureBox releases you rudely shove into the bottom of your column?' My reply is never quite the same, since it’s damn rare to see a release like Dal Tokyo, a 220-page compilation of Gary Panter strips accumulating since 1983 in U.S. and Japanese forums, making this tour of Texas-Tokyo Martian terraforming a bona fide adventure into manga fusion, if drawn as only Panter can. I’d say more, but the cops totally snatched my copy – this thing’s been in the works since circa The Flames of Gyro, or so it feels; $35.00." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"This is really the only book you need this week, the only book you need this week of the about five or six you need that are set to come out this calendar year. I've been wanting to read a collected version of Gary Panter's strip for a time longer than all about a dozen personal relationships I currently have. I almost gasped when I saw it for sale at San Diego. If your shop carries this please count yourself a lucky individual even if you need to go get it somewhere else." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"Rich and surreal, Dal Tokyo is great work from a great artist." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy

Sexytime: The Post-Porn Rise of the Pornoisseur
edited by Jacques Boyreau & Peter Van Horne

96-page full-color 10.75" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-553-2

"Fantagraphics have put together an oversized coffeetable book just for 'the porn classicist who knows his stag film history and lives by the credo, Veni ergo sum.' Is uh… Is that you? If so, this book is just for you. Fantagraphics said so. It’s a collection of remastered 70s porn posters, so if you like retro design or just saw that documentary Wadd once and want to see John Holmes in something other than a tragic pre-death interview: flick through this book. It’s a bit rude though, obviously." – Gosh! Comics

Many of you were first exposed to Gary Panter through his early "Jimbo" comix in Slash and RAW magazines. Or maybe through his brilliant work as set designer for Pee Wee's Playhouse. Old school Seattle residents recall his ubiquitous posters for the Screamers, plastered all over town by the late punk performance artist Tomato du Plenty. An industrial-strength adhesive allowed this alluring image to remain visible for the better part of a decade, becoming one of the enduring motifs of the Northwest punk school. Panter's comix appeared prominently in the seminal Seattle music magazine The Rocket. (Coincidentally, he later married former Rocket art director Helene Silverman.) Come meet Gary at his Dal Tokyo art exhibition and book signing this Saturday, September 8 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. We'll be taking attendance.

 The we'll-need-to-iron-these-papers Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Interview: Everything is coming up Barnaby this week. On the Westfield Comics, writer Philip Nel and Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds (both editors of the upcoming Barnaby collections) dish on this popular but hard-to-find strip comic by Crockett Johnson. Reynolds states, "If Peanuts was the Beatles, Barnaby was the Velvet Underground." Nel continues, "Yeah. Schulz read Barnaby. Bill Keane read it. Dan Clowes, Spiegelman, and Chris Ware are all fans of it. . . It was a strip the culturally influential loved. So it's important and influential, but it's not something that many people have read because it's not been available or hard to find."

• Review: Scripp News mentions the Barnaby book while conducting a concise account of creator Crockett Johnson's life: "Once a hugely popular comic strip, whose fans included columnist Dorothy Parker, jazz great Duke Ellington and actor W.C. Fields, 'Barnaby' now has been all but forgotten, except by comics aficionados.

• Interview: Jules from Seven Impossible Things to Do Before Breakfast interviews author Philip Nel on his Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss book.

• Interview: Creator Gabriella Giandelli of Interiorae was  interviewed on Sequential Highway by Will Scott. When asked if she sees the world a bit surreal, Giandelli said, "I try to focus on aspects of life related to the magical, the irrational. Life is hard; I place my hopes in finding all the things in the world that seem to be less harsh, less sad. I’m interested in the spirituality of many aspects of life."

• Plug: Chris Mautner mentioned in Food or Comics? on Robot 6 that he'd splurge and spend more than the $30 allotment for Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter. ". . . if my comic shop should happen to get an early copy, I’d definitely splurge on Dal Tokyo, Gary Panter’s wonderful sci-fi/punk comic strip, now lovingly collected by Fantagraphics."

• Plug: Dan Nadel of The Comics Journal boasts about Cartoon Utopia, "Ron [Regé] is one of our very best cartoonists and it’s been too long since we’ve had new material from him."

• Plug: Forbidden Planet gets excited about The Cavalier Mr. Thompson by Rich Tommaso, "It combines a great two colour fine-lined cartoon style, with the era and genre invoking a Darwyn Cooke Parker feel. . .it looks fantastic -lively and humorous. It’s been a while since I’ve been excited about an upcoming book after July’s deluge, so I’ll definitely be grabbing a copy."

• Plug: The Hypo's Noah Van Sciver and comics legend John Porcellino had a boy's night out and just went wild at the pottery painting place in Denver. Purchase your own special Van Sciver or Porcellino porcelain mugs, vases or clocks here. 

• Plug: Another drink inspired by Love and Rockets Ghost of Hoppers was created and featured at the Rye on Market in Louisville, KY today. Recipe by bartender Scott Kirkpatrick:

2 oz. Pampero Aniversario Rum (or another aged dark rum)
.5 oz Cynar
.5 oz Agave Nectar
.25 oz Ruby Port
3 dashes blood orange bitters

-combine ingredients in a mixing glass
-add ice and stir vigorously
-strain into a double glass filled with ice
-express and orange peel onto the cocktail and use as garnish

 Sounds delicious!