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.

New York Mon Amour
by Jacques Tardi, Benjamin Legrand & Dominique Grange

84-page black & white/duotone 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-524-2

"Four short stories by the French Tardi set in New York City. The biggest thing about Tardi is his range, even within the confines of a single story. He can effortlessly move from silly, mannered humor to explosive, gruesome violence. Tarantino, if he had become a cartoonist, would have wished that he could be this guy." – Ao Meng, Novi Magazine

"Among this week’s crop of new releases is another in Fantagraphics’ excellent and continuing series of extremely welcome English language editions of the diverse body of work by the great Jacques Tardi, surely one of the top exponents of the comic form.... I’m so glad the Fanta crew has been making these titles available again to English language readers." – Joe Gordon, Forbidden Planet International

"I mentioned New York Mon Amour last week, but how can you possibly cite Jacques Tardi too many times? All I know is that four NYC stories are included, in black, white & red; $19.99." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"If I had $30, I’d make the difficult choice between two top-notch offerings from Fantagraphics this week. One: New York Mon Amour, a collection of Manhattan-themed stories by the one and only Jacques Tardi, including the Kalfkaesque “Cockroach Killer.” The other would be the third volume in the ongoing Mickey Mouse collection, High Noon at Inferno Gulch. I’m an unabashed Floyd Gottfredson fan, so the Mickey book would probably win out. But I’d be sure to save my coins for next week so I can get the Tardi book then." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

Out of the Shadows
by Mort Meskin; edited by Steven Brower

200-page full-color 7.5" x 10.5" softcover • $26.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-532-7

"Assuming I don’t blow all my splurge dough on the Tardi book, there’s a number of solid options here [including] Out of the Shadows, a collection of Mort Meskin’s early non-DC work..." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Also dropping is Out of the Shadows, a 200-page collection of Golden Age comics by Mort Meskin, edited and designed by Steven Brower; $26.99." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"The Mort Meskin book is a must-have simply because of the way Meskin has muscled his way into the conversation about great and influential mainstream craftsmen -- I think maybe through a door left ajar a few places by Art Spiegelman, although I honestly couldn't tell you the exact provenance of his rediscovery." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch
by Floyd Gottfredson

280-page black & white/color 10.5" x 8.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-531-0

"These volumes have been a revelation, showing a generation who had only seen the dull, squeaky clean corporate Mickey exactly why he was the darling of the 1930s. Pure rollicking high-adventure, they’re also filled with background material and essays by cartoon scholars such as editor David Gerstein. A must for any cartoon fan collection." – Sean Gaffney, Manga Bookshelf

"...Fantagraphics’ hilarious little mascot returns for more Floyd Gottfredson-headed antics in Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol. 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch, boasting 60 or so pages of supplements toward a 280-page total; $29.99. " – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 (2nd Printing)
by the Hernandez Brothers

100-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-56097-951-7

Back in print!

The most-current Online Commentaries & Diversions: 

•Interview: MTV Geek questions Noah Van Sciver about his new graphic novel, The Hypo, and why he chose to focus on the man before the president. ". . . it’s important to see who [Lincoln] became, or I should say how he became is more spectacular when you think about who he was, and where he came from, because I don’t even know if that’s possible anymore, to come from nothing and then become a president, you know?"

•Review: Drew on ComicAttack.net reviews kid-friendly The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez. "It’s not quite Betty and Veronica, but it’s not quite Calvin and Hobbes; it’s that special place in between that catches that transition from childhood into adolescence, which doesn’t get captured on the comic book page much, and is a rare treat that Hernandez delivers here to such perfection."

•Interview (audio): ABC News Radio's Sherry Preston interviews Daniel Clowes (at the 30 minute mark) as his work is on display at the Oakland Museum of California. "I was more interested in kinda funny comics and comics about real life situations. And I thought it made no sense that there weren't comics about every subject you can imagine." You'll love the following story.

•Commentary: TURN IT OUT in clothes inspired by Daniel Clowes' Ghost World and America's two favorite juveniles on Trent.

•Plug: Follow the White Rabbit eloquently mentions Jacques Tardi's New York Mon Amour. A rough translation might say,  "Altogether, a perfect Edition for the lovers of this French author that already amazed us at 'The cry of the people,' 'The war of trenches' or 'The extraordinary adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec'."

 •Commentary: Chris Mautner of Robot 6 gives a nice mention to Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8. "A pretty solid issue overall, the best and funniest part being the opening segment, a parody of coloring books, this time involving trains that … well, it’s not fit for polite conversation, really."

•Review: Greg Burgas of Comic Book Resources breaks down one beautiful page by Archie Goodwin and Alex Toth from Blazing Combat. "This story shows off [Toth's] strengths very nicely, because it’s one of the bleaker stories in the volume (none of them are happy; I mean “bleak” in that the landscape is stripped of vegetation and is dotted with destroyed building, giving this story its post-Apocalyptic tenor) and Toth does very well with that." 

•Plug: The Daily Beast features an excerpt from Joe Sacco and Chris Hedges' new book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.  In this article, they "detail the effects of coal mining in West Virginia, a state destroyed by mountaintop removal."

•Interview: Peering from under a swell hat, Noah Brand from The Good Men Project interviews TCJ contributer and cartoonist Tim Kreider on the art of writing. "Cartooning also seems to allow me to express a much sillier, stupider, more puerile part of my personality than writing. I get all stiff and serious and writerly when I sit down to write prose."

•Commentary: Rick Klaw lists Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell as part of the comic book essentials. "Bell shines light on many diverse corners of the comics industry in an attempt to understand the reclusive Ditko."

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

New York Mon Amour
by Jacques Tardi, Benjamin Legrand & Dominique Grange

84-page black & white/duotone 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-524-2

See Previews / Order Now

Many years ago, Jacques Tardi was introduced to American audiences with “Manhattan,” a grim and grimy story of depression, madness and suicide in New York City whose appearance in the premiere issue of RAW magazine was instrumental in defining both that magazine’s virtuoso aesthetic and its dark sensibility. Three decades later, New York Mon Amour collects “Manhattan” and three other tales of the Big Apple — rendered by Tardi with just as much panache and you-are-there detail as Paris or the trenches of World War I in his other books — in one spectacular volume.

Aside from “Manhattan,” the centerpiece of the book is the graphic novel “Cockroach Killer,” written by Benjamin Legrand. This violent, surreal conspiracy thriller, starring a hapless exterminator named Walter, features a striking two-color black-and-red technique unique in Tardi’s oeuvre, and remains one of the cartoonist’s most startling, confounding works. New York Mon Amour is rounded off with two short stories written by Dominique Grange: “It’s So Hard” (starring John Lennon — but not that John Lennon — and never before published in English) and “The Killing of Hung” (a story of revenge and redemption).

New York Mon Amour is a crucial and unique addition to Fantagraphics’ acclaimed Tardi collection.

New York Mon Amour
by Jacques Tardi, Benjamin Legrand & Dominique Grange

84-page black & white/duotone 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-524-2

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

Many years ago, Jacques Tardi was introduced to American audiences with “Manhattan,” a grim and grimy story of depression, madness and suicide in New York City whose appearance in the premiere issue of RAW magazine was instrumental in defining both that magazine’s virtuoso aesthetic and its dark sensibility. Three decades later, New York Mon Amour collects “Manhattan” and three other tales of the Big Apple — rendered by Tardi with just as much panache and you-are-there detail as Paris or the trenches of World War I in his other books — in one spectacular volume.

Aside from “Manhattan,” the centerpiece of the book is the graphic novel “Cockroach Killer,” written by Benjamin Legrand. This violent, surreal conspiracy thriller, starring a hapless exterminator named Walter, features a striking two-color black-and-red technique unique in Tardi’s oeuvre, and remains one of the cartoonist’s most startling, confounding works. New York Mon Amour is rounded off with two short stories written by Dominique Grange: “It’s So Hard” (starring John Lennon — but not that John Lennon — and never before published in English) and “The Killing of Hung” (a story of revenge and redemption).

New York Mon Amour is a crucial and unique addition to Fantagraphics’ acclaimed Tardi collection.

9-page excerpt (download 3.7 MB PDF):

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

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Awards: Congratulations to Lorenzo Mattotti for the much-deserved Max and Moritz Prize Lifetime Achievement Award and to Joe Sacco for being awarded Best International Comic Book, as announced over the weekend at the Internationaler Comic Salon at Erlanger and reported by Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter, Torsten Adair at The Beat and Joe Gordon at Forbidden Planet International

• Review: At Boing Boing, as part of their "Mind Blowing Movies" series of guest posts, Amy Crehore examines the Ghost World film: "I knew it was going to be good, but I had no idea that the movie Ghost World (2001) would bathe me in such an uncanny sense of deja vu from start to finish. The characters are so real and familiar that they could have been based on my friends and me."

• Commentary: Ashok Karra has a short but thought-provoking analysis of elements of the Ghost World graphic novel: "A ghost world could be three things. Two of them are types of haunting: either by the past (nostalgia for childhood) or the present (the glow of the television). The third possibility is that you pass through as a ghost."

• Plug: At Flavorwire, Emily Temple includes Ghost World on the list of "30 Books Everyone Should Read Before Turning 30," saying "Clowes writes some of the most essentially realistic teenagers we’ve ever come across, which is important when you are (or have ever been) a realistic teenager yourself."

• Plug/Preview: At The Beat, Jessica Lee posts a 5-page sneak peek of New York Mon Amour by Jacques Tardi et al., saying "This newest Tardi release... is slated for a July release, just in time for Independence Day, where we can all revel in the patriotic depictions of New York that Tardi has provided — oh wait. True to his new realism style, 'Manhattan' retains the same kind of gritty aesthetic as his illustrations of WWI trench warfare as well as Parisian life."

• Review: "The 11 horror stories in [The Furry Trap] showcase Simmons’s possession of a dark and capable imagination, one that has discomfort down to an exact science.... Simmons is at his best in stories like 'Mutant' and 'Demonwood,' where rash decisions and chance encounters lead to nightmarish consequences ... Simmons’s brand of deep unease permeates all of [these stories], even in the opening story, 'In a Land of Magic,' which features a scene of sexual and physical violence that could lead to sleepless nights. The book is also filled with illustrations and short comics that just add to the pile of evidence that Simmons has a wide-ranging talent, with an artistic sense that brings to life his most ghoulish creations. These stories are, hopefully, harbingers of even stronger and more sinister work in the future..." – Publishers Weekly

• Review: "The action [in God and Science] ebbs and flows, but the story remains engaging and exciting. I had to read it all in one afternoon because I just couldn't put it down. I was enjoying it too much to stop reading.... [There]'s another great thing about this comic — there's some subtle philosophical questions nudged in that the characters (and reader) have to answer themselves.... I can't recommend this title enough. I can easily say that I want more Ti-Girls, or at least comic characters like them." – Sheena McNeil, Sequential Tart

• Review: "Prince Valiant Vol. 5 — As the war years draw to a close, the strip finds Valiant settling down — at least a little bit — by finally winning his true heart’s love, Aleta. There’s still enough brigands and evildoers to keep Val busy, but a lot of Vol. 5 is spent with the couple developing their relationship, and Harold Foster deepening and developing Aleta’s character in the process. ...[I]t remains a thrilling, boisterous work." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Review: "Dungeon Quest Book Three — Joe Daly’s faithful D&D fantasy by way of Harold and Kumar proceeds apace, with lots of bloody skirmishes with fierce animals and fiercer bandits and an abundance of jokes about penises, pot, hand-jobs and the like.... His incredibly detailed forest backgrounds are really quite exquisite, and the full panel sequences of his band of adventurers simply trekking along a forest path or walking through a stream were my favorite parts of the book." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Commentary: It's been interesting seeing the evolution of the "hey, they should bring Love and Rockets to the screen" article in the age of the serialized cable drama. Arthur Smith at The Paley Center for Media is the latest to add his voice to the chorus

• Plug: "Got this beautiful Popeye compilation book (Fantagraphics) a couple of days ago. Haven't had a chance to even crack it open, but my son is now running around going 'Arf, arf.' It's a hit." – Ruben Bolling

• Tribute: At The New York Times, Tim Kreider remembers the great Ray Bradbury: "Prescience is not the measure of a science-fiction author’s success — we don’t value the work of H. G. Wells because he foresaw the atomic bomb or Arthur C. Clarke for inventing the communications satellite — but it is worth pausing, on the occasion of Ray Bradbury’s death, to notice how uncannily accurate was his vision of the numb, cruel future we now inhabit."

• Tribute: Monte Schulz (seen above with Bradbury and Gary Groth at Comic-Con 2009 — click the image for a larger version) has a lovely memorial to Bradbury currently on the main page of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference website

Wouldn't you like to see a full-length steampunk animated feature designed by Jacques Tardi? Yeah, so would we. Here's a teaser trailer for just such a thing currently in development, from the studio that brought you PERSEPOLIS, called LE MONDE TRUQUÉ (co-written by Tardi's COCKROACH KILLER writer Benjamin Legrand, for good measure). In English, yet. Enjoy!

Things have been hectic around here and they're only going to get hecticer. Here are the advances and sample copies that have arrived at the office since the last sneak-peek update a few weeks ago, some of which have already been spotted out in public making their debuts during our current convention gauntlet and all of which should be available between now and July.

It's hard to tell from this angle but Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest Book 3 is thicker than Books 1 & 2 put together:

We already gave you this first glimpse of Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons:

The Furry Trap, the new collection of horror stories by Josh Simmons, is sure to turn heads and stomachs:

God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez collects his superhero fantasia from Love and Rockets: New Stories in this snappy hardcover (the back cover is a humdinger too):

New York Mon Amour wraps up Big Apple-flavored stories by Jacques Tardi and his collaborators under this striking cover:

Steven Brower follows up his biography of Mort Meskin with this collection of Meskin's comics, Out of the Shadows:

It's a new issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman, yaaay! It's also the last issue, waaah!

Shimura Takako's wonderful, acclaimed and beloved manga series continues in Wandering Son Vol. 3:

And we're expecting another half dozen deliveries pretty much any day now. How do we do it? I don't even know!

Three things I've read recently that you haven't:

(1) The first 42 pages of Jacques Tardi's next graphic novel, which looks like it's going to be one of his absolute masterpieces.

(2) All of Carol Tyler's astonishing, heartbreaking final installment of You'll Never Know.

(3) All of Jaime Hernandez's contribution to Love and Rockets: New Stories #5 (a.k.a. "What on Earth He Does for an Encore").

Sometimes it is good to be the publisher of the world's greatest cartoonists. Everyone have a great weekend envying me!

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:

• Angelman: Fallen Angel by Nicolas Mahler
• 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
• Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8 by Michael Kupperman
• Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man by Carl Barks Delayed at the printer, sorry!

We're excited to introduce another all-star cast of artists signing at our table:

Saturday, April 28th
12:00 pm-1:00 pm       Josh Simmons / Kim Deitch / Olivier Schrauwen
1:00 pm-2:30 pm         Drew Friedman
1:30 pm-3:00 pm         Nicolas Mahler
3:00 pm-4:00 pm        Michael Kupperman
3:00 pm-4:30 pm        Jason
4:30 pm-5:30 pm        Fredrik Strömberg / Hans Rickheit

Sunday, April 29th
11:30 am-12:30 pm      Fredrik Strömberg / Peter Kielland
12:30 pm-2:30 pm       Jason / Nicolas Mahler
2:30 pm-3:30 pm         Kim Deitch / Michael Kupperman
3:30 pm-4:30 pm         Hans Rickheit / Josh Simmons / Olivier Schrauwen

edit: We're sorry to report that Josh Simmons and Olivier Schrauwen won't be able to make it after all! 

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) 

The list of nominees for the 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was announced yesterday and we are pleased to report that our artists and publications received a total of 10 nominations in 8 categories:

Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga:

• Best Single Issue

Freeway by Mark Kalesniko:

• Best Graphic Album – New

Prince Valiant Vol. 3: 1941-1942 and Vol. 4: 1943-1944 by Hal Foster, edited by Kim Thompson:

• Best Archival Collection/Project – Strips

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1: Race to Death Valley & Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island (also available in the Vols. 1-2 Box Set) by Floyd Gottfredson, edited by David Gerstein & Gary Groth:

• Best Archival Collection/Project – Strips

Isle of 100,000 Graves by Jason & Fabien Vehlmann:

• Best U.S. Edition of International Material

Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Patrick Manchette:

• Best U.S. Edition of International Material

Wandering Son Vol. 1 by Shimura Takako:

• Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Asia

Congress of the Animals by Jim Woodring:

• Best Writer/Artist — Jim Woodring (Jim is also nominated for Best Short Story for "Harvest of Fear" in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #17 from Bongo)

The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, and The Comics Journal website, www.tcj.com, edited by Timothy Hodler and Dan Nadel:

• Best Comics-Related Journalism

Drawing Power: A Compendium of Cartoon Advertising 1870s-1940s, edited by Rick Marschall and Warren Bernard:

• Best Comics-Related Book

As announced in January, Bill Blackbeard (responsible for the Krazy & Ignatz series and so much more), Mort Meskin, Trina Robbins (underground legend and, for us, editor of The Brinkley Girls), and Gilbert Shelton (underground legend and contributor to Mome) are among the nominees for induction into the Eisner Hall of Fame.

An additional shout-out to Fantagraphics contributors, alumni and friends who received nominations for work with other publishers, including Stan Sakai, Ed Brubaker, Émile Bravo, Geoffrey Hayes, Roger Langridge, Anders Nilsen, Daniel Clowes, Al Jaffee, Rick Geary, Tom Orzechowski (who lettered Oil and Water), Ivan Brunetti, Eric Skillman (designer of The Comics Journal #301), and anyone I may have overlooked. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Friday, July 13, 2012 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Browse and order all of our 2012 nominated titles here, and see here for links to past years' award honorees.