The Strand, who are obsessive about documenting all their events on video, bless 'em, have posted numerous clips from their pre-MoCCA "Strandicon" spate of comics-related panels and presentations, including The Comics Journal panel with (L-R above) Dan Nadel & Tim Hodler of TCJ.com, TCJ executive editor/Fantagraphics honcho Gary Groth, and token artist Kim Deitch. The Beat has already done all the heavy lifting of compiling and embedding the clips into a single blog post, so we'll throw it over there for all your viewing enjoyment.

Jason Polan surreptitiously sketched Stephen DeStefano, Mark Newgarden, Kim Deitch, and Paul Hornschemeier at at our MoCCA Festival table last weekend for his Every Person in New York project.

We're thrilled to present the Fantagraphics guide to the 2011 MoCCA Fest, happening this weekend Saturday, April 9th and Sunday, April 10th at the Lexington Avenue Armory in New York City! Print this out and use it as your shopping checklist and your weekend schedule!

First off, take a look at all the amazing new releases that we will be debuting at the show!  Many of these books won't be in stores for several more months, and copies are limited, so make our table your first stop, or risk missing out!

• Approximate Continuum Comics by Lewis Trondheim
• Captain Easy Vol. 2 by Roy Crane
• Celluloid by Dave McKean
• Congress of the Animals by Jim Woodring
• Hate Annual #9 by Peter Bagge
• Isle of 100,000 Graves by Jason
• Take a Joke by Johnny Ryan
• Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1 by Floyd Gottfredson [Unfortunately, this one won't make it after all!]
• Wandering Son Book 1 by Shimura Takako
• Yeah! by Peter Bagge & Gilbert Hernandez
• The Comics Journal #301, edited by Gary Groth
• Eye of the Majestic Creature by Leslie Stein

Secondly, check out our jam-packed schedule of awesome authors who will be signing at the Fantagraphics table over the weekend.  Not only will they be signing our books, but several of them will be bringing previews of works-in-progress!

Saturday, April 9th
11:30 am-12:30 pm     Derek Van Gieson / Nate Neal / Sara Edward-Corbett
12:30 pm-1:30 pm      Stephen DeStefano / Mark Newgarden
1:30 pm-2:30 pm        Kim Deitch / Peter Bagge
2:30 pm-3:30 pm        Gahan Wilson / Charles Burns / Tim Kreider
3:30 pm-4:30 pm        Michael Kupperman / Ted Stearn / Dash Shaw
4:30 pm-5:30 pm        Paul Hornschemeier / Leslie Stein

Sunday, April 10th
11:30 am-12:30 pm     Derek Van Gieson / Sara Edward-Corbett
12:30 pm-1:30 pm      Kim Deitch / Gahan Wilson
1:30 pm-2:30 pm        Leslie Stein / Michael Kupperman  / John Kerschbaum
2:30 pm-3:30 pm        Drew Friedman / Peter Bagge
3:30 pm-4:30 pm        Ted Stearn / Paul Hornschemeier
4:30 pm-5:30 pm        Stephen DeStefano / George Chieffet (tentative) / Nate Neal

update: George Chieffet will be unable to join us on Sunday, but John Kerschbaum has been added to the 1:30 pm slot that day!

another update: Tim Kreider will be joining us on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 pm before his panel at 4:30 pm!

All this and more awaits you at the Fantagraphics booth, located at #J1, J2, K1, K2. 

And finally, get a gander at all these great panels!  If you haven't already heard from The Daily Cross Hatch, they've added a second room this year, and they'll be doing more one-on-one conversations like the ones with Gahan Wilson and Peter Bagge listed below! You won't want to miss it!

Saturday, April 9th

11:30 am // Teaching Comics: Jessica Abel joins fellow panelists Bill Kartalopoulos and Tom Hart in a discussion from reading for content/visuals, to teaching how to “read” their visual rhetoric, to thinking about how to tell a story visually, what makes comics worth teaching? (Room A)

1:30 pm // Building a Book, From Start to Finish: Mark Newgarden moderates a panel with Stephen DeStefano (as well as Ben Katchor and Lauren Redniss), with an exploration of the blood, sweat, and tears that go into making a book. (Room A)

1:30 pm // Gahan Wilson: Playboy and Beyond: We explore the long, storied career of satirist Gahan Wilson. (Room B)

2:30 pm // Volunteer of the Year: Peter Kuper will present Al Jaffee with the Klein Award! (Room A)

2:30 pm // Dash Shaw and Brecht Evens in Conversation: Dash Shaw and Brecht Evens are among the most prodigious and prolific young artists working in comics today. Both began publishing ambitious work while still in school, and both have since gained notice for their lush, inventive, and thoughtful comics. (Room B)

4:30 pm //  The State of Editorial Cartooning: Brian Heater presents a panel with Tim Kreider (along with Ruben Bolling and Ted Rall) on the trials and tribulations of creating political cartoons in 2011. (Room A)

5:30 pm //  MoCCA Presents the Cross Hatch Carousel: Cartoonists and voice actors perform live comics readings, featuring our own Michael Kupperman and Ted Stearn, as well as Jeffrey Lewis, R. Sikoryak, Kate Beaton, Lisa Hanawalt, Julie Klausner, and more. (Room A)

Sunday, April 10th

12:30 pm // Almost True: Calvin Reid leads a discussion on where autobiography and fiction collide with Gabrielle Bell and Leslie Stein (and Joe Ollmann and Pascal Girard). (Room A)

1:30 pm // Peter Bagge: A History of Hate: Brian Heater spotlights Peter Bagge, in a one-on-one conversation with one of alternative comics’ most influential and enduring voices. (Room B) 

1:30 pm //  The Enterprising Will Eisner: Charles Brownstein leads a panel with Jules Feiffer, as well as Denis Kitchen and Paul Levitz. Come learn about who Will Eisner was as an entrepreneuring artist in a time when New York was the center of the commercial art universe, and how his art was shaped by that environment. (Room A)

3:30 pm // Ink Panthers Live: The popular podcast live, with special guests, like John Kerschbaum. (Room B)

So, get ready! -- and we'll see you at MoCCA!

The infamous Strand Bookstore in New York City is known for its "18 miles of books," and on Friday, April 8th, they're devoting at least one of those miles to Strandicon, a celebration of comics!

The Strand will be hosting an afternoon of special appearances (including a 6:00 pm appearance by Dash Shaw), and the evening concludes with a celebration of The Comics Journal, featuring a panel with editors Tim Hodler and Dan Nadel, along with founding editor Gary Groth and longtime cartoonist and TCJ interviewee Kim Deitch.

So, if you live in New York, or if you'll be town for MoCCA, join us at 7:00 pm for what's sure to be a spirited discussion! (Strandicon will take place in the Comics & Graphic Novels Department of the Strand, on the Second Floor at 828 Broadway / 12th Street.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Luminous really is the right word for the visuals here [in R.I.P.: Best of 1985-2004]: Their pure-white-on-pure-black construction makes every line and reverse-negative shading — carved out with scalpel precision — practically shine forth from the glossy black and white pages. Like Charles Burns’s inks or Drew Friedman’s stippling, Thomas Ott’s scratchboard work is art to be marveled at as much as read." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal

• Review: "This initial collection is the perfect means of discovering or rediscovering Crane’s second magnum opus — spectacular, enthralling, exotically immediate adventures that influenced generations of modern cartoonists, illustrators, comics creators and storytellers. Buz Sawyer: War in the Pacific ranks as one the greatest strip sequences ever created: stirring, thrilling, funny and moving tale-spinning that is unforgettable, unmissable and utterly irresistible." – Win Wiacek, Now Read This!

• Review: "Deitch is one of the great originals of comics: wordy and discursive, but always compelling, with a detailed pen-and-ink style that incorporates a thousand grotesques while remaining essentially sunny and full of wonders. [...] Simply put, it's lovely to be in a world that not only contains a Kim Deitch, but celebrates him and lets him continue to create stories like [The Search for Smilin' Ed]; his continued career is almost enough to make me believe in his wilder flights of fancy." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Plug: "Tardi created this sucker in 1974, and it’s amazing how modern and even slightly avant-garde [The Arctic Marauder] looks today. Man, those Frenchies can do some cool comics, can’t they?" – Greg Burgas, Comic Book Resources

• Plug: NME reports on EMP's upcoming Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses exhibit and mentions our accompanying Taking Punk to the Masses book

• Plug: Portable Grindhouse is the current Staff Pick of Strand Books' Miguel S.: "A deliciously low brow collection of VHS covers that should be in every artist or movie buff's bookcase. Witness in these pages gloriously smutty, cheesy art from days when one had to rewind your movies before returning them to the video store or face a $2 fine! Nostalgia indeed!"

• Commentary: At her Screened-in Porch blog, Carol Tyler takes a hardline stance on "frames" vs. "panels"

You've got a second chance to bid on these amazing original pages by Justin Green (above) and Kim Deitch (below), who asked us to sell their original artwork from last December's Medieval Thinkers exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on eBay. Bid on Justin's piece here and Kim's piece here, and see additional images here and here.

As previously reported, Fantagraphics is gearing up for the 2011 MoCCA Fest in New York City, April 9-10!

And not only will we be joined by Peter Bagge, Michael Kupperman, Ted Stearn, Leslie Stein, Stephen DeStefano, and Gahan Wilson, but we just added Kim Deitch, Drew Friedman, Mark Newgarden, Nate Neal, Derek Van Gieson, and Sara Edward-Corbett to our signing roster, too!

More details (along with a signing schedule) to follow soon!  See you there!

Justin Green (above) and Kim Deitch (below) have given us permission to sell their original artwork from last December's Medieval Thinkers exhibit at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on eBay. Bid on Justin's piece here and Kim's piece here, and see additional images here and here. Don't miss your chance to own these incredible pieces by two of underground comix' all-time greats!

Comic-Con International announced today the 2011 inductees into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame, including Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy) and Jack "Jaxon" Jackson! We, as you probably know, are collecting Nancy beginning late this year; we've published several Jaxon books in the past and (announcement!) we will be publishing Jack Jackson's American History: Los Tejanos & Lost Cause in early 2012.

In addition to the inductees selected by the judges, the nominees to be selected by voters and announced at Comic-Con this summer include comics scholar Bill Blackbeard, who edits our Krazy & Ignatz series, and Kim Deitch. You can also find the work of nominee Harvey Pekar in our Complete Crumb Comics series. Eligible voters can cast their ballot right here.

February 2nd 2011, for one day only, it's our "Undergroundhog Day" Sale with at least 30% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by Vaughn Bodé, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer , Rand Holmes, Jack Jackson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! The sale starts tonight and it'll be over before you know it, so get ready! (Discount not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. A big tip o'the hat to our own Ted Jouflas for the sale idea!)