• List: At MTV Geek, Brigid Alverson names Wandering Son by Shimura Takako one of The Best Manga Series of 2011: "Wandering Son is a delightful, quiet manga about a girly boy and a boyish girl.... This is not your typical gender-bender manga playing a gender switch for laughs (and fanservice); it's a quiet, subtle story of a boy coming to terms with himself."
• Review: "Believe it or not, music criticism was responsible for some of 2011's finest books, with Kevin Avery's impeccably researched Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson leading the pack.... Avery has done an outstanding job assembling a collection of the writer's work, fully illustrating why he was such an influential presence in his time. But, sadly, especially in our time, it also reads as something of a cautionary tale — ...you might wonder why on earth anyone would ever choose rock criticism as a career in the first place." – Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times
• Review: "I have no idea if it was part of cartoonist Johnny Ryan's overall plan for Prison Pit, but this latest book in the growing-to-classic-status series strikes me as a 'step-back' installment. This is where a series that was once less certain in the market place eschews some of the instant gratification of its first couple of books for the sake of layering in additional plot elements that look like they'll pay off further down the line. It's the kind of work that makes you think that its creator is thinking of the long-term as opposed to focusing solely on the short. Prison Pit had some of that particular swagger from the very beginning; this book seems even more settled and confident.... As was the case with the first two books, Johnny Ryan makes his case for mastery at a second, very specific genre, connected to the first through the extremes of expression involved." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
• Interview: At Memory Is Fiction, Craig Staufenberg talks with Wilfred Santiago: "Any subject or theme can work in comics, the narrative has unique, endless breakdowns. It’s a unique prism, anything that’s seen through it is distorted in a comic book way. The author, the cartoonist, just brings to light a particular side of that prism. I try to quit comics but it keeps pulling me back."
• Interview:Network Awesome Magazine has a fun Q&A with Richard Sala about the Invisible Hands animated shorts: "They used stop-motion. The staff would blow up my drawings onto colored paper and then cut out all the figures and movable parts. The pieces were then positioned on three layers of glass – to give depth – with the camera looking down. Next, the director, Denis Morella, carefully moved the pieces around – including the mouths, to match the dialogue – for each click of the camera. I grew up loving stop-motion – everything from Ray Harryhausen to Gumby – so, I thought doing the animation that way was pretty cool."
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.
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.
• Scene: At Examiner.com, Christian Lipski reports from the Oil and Water book release with Steve Duin, Shannon Wheeler, Mike Rosen and Tom Orzechowski at Bridge City Comics in Portland last Wednesday: "Wheeler described the give-and-take nature of his meetings with Duin, during which they would talk about the best way to illustrate the author's script. 'I'd push for certain things, and Steve would push back,' said the artist. 'Sometimes he'd want something more subtle and I'd think it would need to be more over-the-top, or the other way around. We had good discussions.'"
It's that time of year again! The time of year where a flock of Fantagraphics artists participate in the annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, and like last year, it will be curated by the inspirational husband-wife team of Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd.
The Giant Robot Post-It Show 7 runs from December 10th through 29th at GR2 [ 2062 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA ] with an opening reception event on Saturday, December 10th from 6:30 - 10:00 PM. It's "cash-and-carry," so don't forget your bag-and-board!
You can all have Female Trouble this coming Friday, November 11th as our friends at Meltdown Comics kick off their latest exhibit, Pretty? Pretty? A Divine Art Show -- a tribute to the one-and-only John Waters ingenue!
That's a sneak peek of one of Johnny Ryan's pieces above, and as he mentions on his blog, the other "is a 'mixed media' piece [he] can’t reveal just yet." (Mike Baehr to me, "I hope it's Johnny in drag!")
The opening reception for Pretty? Pretty? A Divine Art Show is from 8:00 - 11:00 PM, featuring a live DJ, free booze, drag’s finest performers and more special Divine-themed surprises. The exhibit runs through November 17th at Meltdown Comics [ 7522 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles ].
A fan named Ross Adams went and got himself a tattoo of the Caligulon symbol from Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book 3, and then Johnny went and tweeted about it. No word as to whether Adams can now shoot destructive/transfigurative rays from his shin.
• Tim Lane's poster for the St. Louis International Film Festival (along with its conceptual inspiration)
• Steven Weissman and Jordan Crane are putting together an elementary school haunted house for some LUCKY KIDS and here's Steven's flyer for it with Jordan's logo for the school (from Steven via email); also from Steven, his latest "I, Anonymous" spot and Stincker sketchin'
• A fun Dave Cooper gig poster for his friend's band (via Facebook)
