• Review: "...[L]ike Herge, another exemplary creator who made comics primarily for kids and later found an audience of devoted adults, Barks’ duck stories are richer, more compelling and smarter than a cursory glance might suggest... Most reprint projects worth their salt these days require some thoughtful essays and supplemental materials and [Walt Disney's Donald Duck:] Lost in the Andes is no different.... In short, this is exactly the book that Barks fans and the curious have been waiting for. ...Barks remains an exemplary cartoonist. His work is thrilling, funny and rather knowing about human nature without ever seeming trite or obvious, and despite the occasional pop culture reference it hasn’t aged much over the decades either. How good was Carl Barks? Pretty goddamned good." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
• Reviews: "First and foremost, Willie & Joe are funny. Fantagraphics has put the WW II years out in paperback, but I've got the also available hardcover, a great looking slipcase in army green with two fat volumes of his captivating artwork. Never having served (or even fired a gun), it's an absorbing glimpse into the day to day life of soldiers while it was happening and the end not known. It's easy to identify with: employees in any capacity gripe about their bosses. But the more specific Mauldin is, the more biting and fascinating his work is.... Finally, it's Willie & Joe: Back Home that moved me the most.... Mauldin is always funny, but those with a rosy image of WW II will be surprised by the complex world shown here... Fantagraphics has captured Mauldin's most enduring characters in two releases that do him justice." – Michael Giltz, Huffington Post
• Review: "Trondheim is my favorite cartoonist.... it made me feel good to see Trondheim waste time playing video games and fail repeatedly to deal with his growing belly [in Approximate Continuum Comics]." – Gene Ambaum, The Unshelved Book Club
• Commentary: On Amazon's books blog Omnivoracious, Alex Carr looks at Amazon's list of Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2011 and comments, "Perhaps most rewarding, though, are Jaime Hernandez’s short stories in Love and Rockets: New Stories Vol. 4. The longtime creator completes a long-running narrative without grandiose preening, and the art is full of expression and effortless charm. The final pages speed toward a finish that will satisfy new readers and bring bittersweet conclusion for fans. It’s the best feeling for a Love and Rockets devotee: not wanting the decades-long love story to end but being so pleased with the way it may have (if this truly is the conclusion)."
• Interview:Comics Bulletin's Jason Sacks talks with Kevin Huizenga about the new issue of Ganges: "I don't like [the term] 'experimental,' because it gives the impression that the usual qualities of a good story are less important to me than formal trickery. I'm trying to draw something that I want to read, that I haven't seen before and that is still nicely designed and readable."
• Plug: "I have just received my review copy of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: 'Trapped on Treasure Island' and as amazing as it sounds David Gerstein and Fantagraphics have managed to do it again: they have produced at the same time the best Disney comic book of 2011 and one of the best Disney history books of the year." – Didier Ghez, Disney History
• Review: "This collection of stories [The Man Who Grew His Beard] is a wonderful example of how an animator’s eye, artist’s hand, and storyteller’s vision can combine in a series of stylistic experiments that harken to a previous age of comics, but speak to the contemporary world we live in.... What’s impressive is the ease with which Schrauwen moves among various styles, affording him an extraordinarily wide range of visual tools... Sometimes looking like a throwback to vintage comics and sometimes like a clever homage to the Kama Sutra, this collection is, at all times, the work of a master storyteller." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
• Review: At Robot 6, Graeme McMillan compares and contrasts Kevin Huizenga's Ganges with the work of Eddie Campbell, concluding "Ganges #4 isn’t a quick read, and it isn’t necessarily an easy read. But it’s a great one, and it’s something that everyone should be picking up and reading. It’ll keep you awake at nights." McMillan also discusses Ganges #4 with co-host Jeff Lester on the new episode of the Wait, What? podcast
• Interview: At Publishers Weekly, James Romberger (who also happens to be a contributor to Mome) talks with Gary Groth about our series of Carl Barks collections and all things Barks: "Barks’ comics somehow flourished within the strictures he was given. His imagination allowed him to either use or ignore those boundaries to his advantage, just as, in a more interior way, [Charles] Schulz’s imagination allowed him so much play within the strictures he chose. Barks’ work could be absurdist, satirical, or farcical within an adventure setting, a travelogue, a domestic comedy while maintaining those small, innate human values that reposed within his characters."
• Profile: At Publishers Weekly, Steve Bunche, who says "Fantagraphics has done readers a great favor by releasing the first full collection of Nuts, the hilarious cult strip by famed Playboy and National Lampoon cartoonist Gahan Wilson," chats with Wilson about the strip: "...[P]eople seal off as they become adults and are no longer open to understanding. It's really sad to see happening. They get to take in less and less of what's around them and become more isolated. I mean, you go to your high school reunion and see the once-alive faces of the people you grew up with and you say, 'My god! What happened to Bob and Susan!' and whomever and it's just incredibly sad. Neil Gaiman's phrase, 'being surrounded by mad giants,' pretty succinctly sums it all up."
• Plug: "A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the comic strip Pogo. I lamented the lack of current Pogo anthologies — the old ones are practically rare books, and priced to match. Well, dog my cats, now comes a brand-new book, a compilation of the entire first year of strips, daily and Sunday, from Fantagraphics Books. Pogo: Through the Wild Blue Wonder by Walt Kelly may not be available in bookstores yet, but your friendly neighborhood bookseller would be happy to order it for you. It's a hefty volume, and will leave even the most dyspeptic Pogo fan wide-eyed with wonder and gratitude." – Jon Carroll, San Francisco Chronicle
• Commentary: "Not sure I'd seen the final-final cover design for Fantagraphics' shot at a complete Pogo series. I think it looks nice, and it's strangely reminiscent of the covers from their previous attempt at reprinting the series. It's very odd to live in times where something as monumental as a complete run at Pogo can almost be greeted as just another reprint project." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
• Plug: Last night when John Hodgman was in town on his current book tour we presented him with a copy of Tony Millionaire's 500 Portraits, in which a drawing of him appears and about which he subsequently had this to say in part: "This makes me astonished and happy and embarrassed, for Tony Millionaire is one of our true genii. And too, look, right there on the same page is my old friend John Sellers! And Borges! And you were there, too, Cthulhu! I don’t know how those other guys crashed our party, though. In any case, you should go out and get this book. It’s absolutely beautiful, painstaking, and weird, inside and out, just like I imagine Tony is himself: the ORIGINAL deranged millionaire."
• Commentary: At Comic Book Resources, Laura Sneddon, who is documenting her experiences in the postgraduate Comic Studies program at the University of Dundee in Scotland, looks at Joe Sacco's Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde as the course turns its focus to "Documentary Comics"
The Minneapolis Indie Xpo takes place this Saturday and Sunday at The Soap Factory, 514 2nd St. SE in (duh) Minneapolis! I don't think you need us to tell you this is a must-go. Appearing will be Kevin Huizenga, Tom Kaczynski (whose art adorns the poster above), Anders Nilsen, Jim Rugg, Zak Sally, Noah Van Sciver, and lots more of our friends and colleagues! Say hi to 'em for us.
• Review: "A powerful eco-report, Oil and Water also manages to be a report on the gap between classes that isn’t about who has what, but rather about what 'having' means to different groups of Americans.... The large black-and-white images are realistic and create individual characteristics for the cast; its smudged texture is an excellent vehicle for the intrusion of oil on beaches, birds, livelihoods, and prospects for the future. Quick to read, but of lasting weight for readers from either side of the divide." – Francisca Goldsmith, School Library Journal
• Review: "...Nelson wrote like Fitzgerald or O’Connor, his prose full of god and anxiety... Paul Nelson knew you were that kid that needed a noir detective to crack the case for you, to demystify the rock god world while not for a second taking the romance and realness out of it. He signed on for a pittance and wrote elegantly and truthfully about an industry that was usually nothing but awkward boasts and queasy lies.... I’m not kidding when I say that you need to get on [Everything Is an Afterthought] ASAP if you do any music writing at all. It’s the Scribes Sounding Off book of the year, in a pretty great year of them..." – Chris Estey, The KEXP Blog
• Interview:Comic Book Resources' Chris Mautner has a fascinating and playfully cantankerous Q&A with Kevin Huizenga about the new issue of Ganges: "I totally would rather work on a minicomic more than working on a 'real' project. Working on something where other people are involved really screws me up. It's some kind of disorder. I assume they're going to be disappointed, and I resent them for that in advance, and then I start to hate the work and half-ass the project. I'd much rather work on something that no one wants, that no one has asked for. This has not helped my career."
• Commentary:Eddie Campbell, still on his romance comics kick, writes about Bill Everett's work in the genre
• Review: "This slim volume is finely edited, and its narrative tone resides on the border between fairy stories and unbowdlerized folk tales. In other words, it is suffused with equal dismay and delight at the nature of the world. The drawings, printed in two crisp colors, would be worth the price of the book if it were stripped of words. Like Craig Thompson’s Habibi (which it precedes in its original publication date, pre-translation) and Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, it has a great deal of wonder in it, which it conveys in a surprisingly matter-of-fact way. Do note that the book is full of penises and violence (and I mean full), so you may not want to buy it for your ten-year-old niece, but if you are still under the spell of story, The Armed Garden will delight you." – Hillary Brown, Paste
• Reviews:Cosmic Treadmill begins their survey of the complete works of Jason with Hey, Wait... ("What starts out as a series of cute and fun moments of the protagonist’s childhood turns into one of the most memorable comic book moments I can think of.... This should be on everyone’s to-read list"), Sshhhh! ("utterly engrossing... another quite memorable book"), and The Iron Wagon ("Full of deceit, paranoia and some great characterisation, The Iron Wagon won’t soon be forgotten") — all of which are collected in What I Did
• Plug: "I loved [Mascots], and if you're the kind of person that this kind of thing might appeal to, I highly recommend it. It lands a tricky acrobatic mix of poetry, graphic design, painting, and general sketchbook goofballery." – Kevin Huizenga\
This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about it (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.
32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" comic book, with jacket • $7.95 Part of the Ignatz Series
"Kevin Huizenga has blessed us all with another issue of Ganges, totally unexpected and entirely wonderful. Let's not disappoint him." – Chris Butcher, The Beguiling
"...Ganges #4 seems to me to be the obvious choice for the $15 and under crowd, continuing everyman Glenn Ganges’ attempts to get some shuteye. This time he attempts to find a really dull book and the results are hugely entertaining." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
"I’ve been waiting for this one awhile, and glad to see it. $7.95 might seem like a lot for a 32 page book, but Huzienga’s craft really makes it worth it. It’d also be an ideal palette cleanser in case I read some unexpectedly bad books." – Chris Arrant, Robot 6
"I think the third issue of Kevin Huizenga’s series was either at the top of my list of favorite comics of last year, or at least very near the top, so this is one of my most anticipated releases not just for this week, but probably this year." – J.K. Parkin, Robot 6
"...Ganges #4 from Fantagraphics... has crept across this land’s shops like a heart attack down the spine of an insomniac; $7.95. Spooky." – Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal
"Every single thing that Kevin Huizenga does is a must-have for me. This is a continuation of the insomnia storyline." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
"Great fun as always from Kevin, he certainly knows how to spin a yarn out of almost nothing." – Jonathan Rigby, Page 45
Additionally!...
Congratulations to the great Stan Sakai, whose wonderful Usagi Yojimbo series reaches its milestone 200th issue (#141 of its current Dark Horse incarnation) this week!
And if you're picking up the big Someday Funnies book from Abrams ComicsArts this week, be sure to snag yourself a copy of The Comics Journal #299, which chronicles the long, strange history of this decades-in-the-making anthology.
Can you make an exciting comic out of insomnia? Kevin Huizenga rises to the challenge as he depicts his alter ego Glenn Ganges wrestling with sleeplessness, trying to trick it by reading a particularly abstruse book, obsessively breaking his past, present and future life down to ever more hallucinatory, complex grids, and wandering around his darkened house trying not to wake up his wife. Also: Loose cat action!
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. (Please note we have several additional explanatory notes below as well!)
352-page black & white/color 8.75" x 11.25" hardcover • $45.00 ISBN: 978-1-60699-513-6
NOTE: The hardcover edition is already sold out from the distributor! This means that once a shop sells out of their initial shipment, they won't be able to order more copies. So if you want it and your store has it, pounce!
"A new edition (in both hardcover and paperback) of Jim Woodring's early Frank stories, which are utterly wonderful -- the first one, 'Frank in the River,' is my single favorite comics story ever at least 20% of the time. I can't think of much other art that's both so unironically devoted to pleasure and entertainment (in this case, in the form of funny-looking animals doing amusing things in colorful, inventively odd settings) and so deeply, primally unsettling and ambiguous." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance
"...[I]f you're a fan of any and all good things in life you definitely want the Frank work by the great cartoonist Jim Woodring in as many forms as you can pull it across the table and into your lap." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
"A softcover edition of Woodring's landmark Frank features an anthropomorphic cat in a pyschedelic world." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy
"...I’d pick up the second volume of Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse. The first volume was a real treat, not just in terms of reintroducing myself to Gottfredson’s stellar work, but also in the sheer amount of incisive historical information about the strip, Gottfredson and his various Disney helpers. I’m sure Vol. 2 will be more of the same." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
"These Floyd Gottfredson-created adventure strips following the early years of the now-neutered corporate icon are everything you want from a feature like this: exuberant, lovely-looking and a lot of fun." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" comic book, with jacket • $7.95 Part of the Ignatz Series
NOTE: Again, this title is not on the official shipping list but we have confirmed reports that some stores received it last week and we believe it should be available everywhere tomorrow. Again, check with your local shop blah blah blah.
"Kevin Huizenga has blessed us all with another issue of Ganges, totally unexpected and entirely wonderful. Let's not disappoint him." – Chris Butcher, The Beguiling
"CONFLICT OF INTEREST RESERVOIR: My other favorite comic of 2011 so far is Jim Woodring’s Congress of the Animals, though I confess a lot of the effect it had on me (elation) was due to having lived with the mechanics and boundaries of Woodring’s wordless storytelling for so long that deviations from it proved meaningful – as luck would have it, new hardcover and softcover editions of The Frank Book are out this week to catch you up on most of the major stuff; $34.99 ($45.00 in hardcover). Elsewhere in ambulating creature-things, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Vol. 2: Trapped on Treasure Island offers more from Floyd Gottfredson and his hungry team of pre-Imagineers; $29.99. And while it’s still not on Diamond’s list, keep an eye out for Kevin Huizenga’s Ganges #4, which I understand has floated into a store or two, maybe; $7.95."
(I should also note that The Manara Library Vol. 1 is out this week from Dark Horse, translated by our very own Kim Thompson. I'd sure like to see his "Adventures in Translation" notes for THAT series.)
• Feature: At Maclean's, Jaime Weinman gets to the bottom of Pogo - Vol. 1 of the Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: Through the Wild Blue Wonder, talking to co-editor Kim Thompson and calling the volume "the first book that gives a full sense of what it was like to read Kelly’s pioneering strip from the beginning. The first volume goes up to 1950, when Kelly began to incorporate more pointed humour...; the McCarthy character hasn’t shown up yet, but allegories about Communist witch-hunting already pop up. But the darker daily strips alternate with cheerful Sunday installments, demonstrating that Kelly never lost his sense of charm and whimsy. And it helps that because of the book format, what San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll called Kelly’s 'love of high-flown language' is more legible than it often was in newspapers."
• Review: "...Kevin Huizenga's latest volume of Ganges [is] a work that is so inventive and playful and thoughtful and that offers such a breathtaking level of technical virtuosity that it makes me want to climb up onto a rooftop and scream at the top of my voice 'COMICS ARE FUCKING AWESOME' like some sort of lovesick geeky schoolboy in a bad 1980s teen comedy asking the prom queen to date him." – Jason Sacks, Comics Bulletin
• Plug: Mark Kaufman spotlights Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman at Illustration Age: "The very much alive Samuel Clemens’ story is told from WWI to the present. Twain details his careers as an ad man, astronaut, hypnotist, Yeti hunter, porn star, drifter, grifter and more. Find out why this book has been getting rave reviews from NPR to The Hollywood Reporter to Andy Richter’s Twitter stream."
• Commentary:Robot 6's Sean T. Collins takes note of the recent must-read Ron Regé Jr. interview at Vice
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