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Category >> Oil and Water

This Week in Fantagraphics Events: 9/10-9/17
Written by janice headley | Filed under Steve DuinSpain RodriguezShannon WheelerOil and WaterLove and RocketsJim BlanchardJaime HernandezGilbert HernandezGabriella Giandellievents 10 Sep 2012 9:35 AM

Gabriella Giandelli: A Toronto Retrospective

Friday, September 14th

Toronto, ON: It's your last chance to see Gabriella Giandelli: A Toronto Retrospective at the Italian Cultural Institute! This retrospective exhibition features over 80 original drawings from this prolific Italian illustrator and graphic novelist, including work from the celebrated series Interiorae. I'll be writing more about it on the FLOG later this week! (more info)

Buffalo, NY: Buffalo, NY pays tribute to their proud native son Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez with Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution, an in-depth career retrospective! (more info)

Washington DC: Before their appearance at the 2012 Small Press Expo, you can catch Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez for a signing and celebration of 30 years of incredible storytelling at the Politics & Prose Bookstore! (more info)

Small Press Expo 2012

Saturday, September 15th

Betheseda, MD:  Get ready for Fantagraphics at the 2012 Small Press Expo! So many debuts! Awesome panels! And an incredible jam-packed signing schedule, which I'll announce, oh, let's say tomorrow. (more info)

Snoqualmie, WAIt's your last chance to see Jim Blanchard's art show Primitiva at The Black Dog! (more info)

Manzanita, OR: Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler will be the special guests at the Manzanita Writers’ Series to discuss what happened after the Deepwater Horizon spill with a reading and discussion of the acclaimed graphic novel, Oil & Water! (more info)

Sunday, September 16th

Betheseda, MD:  It's your last chance to visit Fantagraphics at the 2012 Small Press Expo! Some of our debuts won't be in stores 'til October or November -- don't miss your chance to get yours early! (more info)
Fantagraphics at San Diego Comic-Con 2012: Friday fun
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Trina RobbinstattoosShannon WheelerRobert GoodinOil and WaterNo Straight LinesMonte SchulzMark KalesnikoJustin HallJohnny GruelleJaime HernandezGilbert SheltonGary PanterDave McKeanCCI 15 Jul 2012 12:00 AM

Fell a little behind on my photo blogging but here are some sights from the floor at Comic-Con International yesterday:

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Sweet Maggie ink! Jaime was impressed with this one (as were we all).

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The line for the Gilbert Shelton & Dave McKean signing stretched all the way around the booth.

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Dave McKean and his cool watch (and hey, it's Anthony Vukojevich, Mome vet Rob Goodin and Tom Neely in the background).

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The dapper Mr. Shelton (and those guys again).

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Monte Schulz dropped by to chat with Gary.

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The No Straight Lines signing with Ed Luce, editor Justin Hall, Dylan Edwards and Trina Robbins.

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Somebody brought an old Who's Who in the DC Universe for Trina to sign the page with her Cheetah illustration. That lady's done it all!

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Another DC character also made an appearance at the No Straight Lines signing. (At least I think that's Poison Ivy.)

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Matt Groening showed off his pal Gary Panter's Dal Tokyo while Akbar & Jeff walked past in the background. Matt recounted for us how he helped save the strip from being dumped at the L.A. Weekly back in the 1980s by arguing that it's one of the greatest works of art of the 20th century.

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Eric shows off Johnny Gruelle's Mr. Twee Deedle to Matt, who was particularly taken with Gruelle's "birds-eye view" strips in the book and walked away with it under his arm.

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Shannon Wheeler was signing Oil and Water before he even had a chance to sit down.

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Shannon joined Mark Kalesniko at the signing table.

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Our homie John Roderick dropped by and picked up Significant Objects and the new softcover edition of Joost Swarte's Is That All There Is?, confessing that he'd love to have Swarte do the cover art for his next album.

By the way, my co-workers have photos & tales of their own that they'll be posting when they get back to the office... RIGHT GUYS?

Daily OCD 7/9/12
Written by Jen Vaughn | Filed under Tony MillionaireSteve DuinShannon WheelerRobert CrumbPeter BaggePaul NelsonOil and WaterKevin AveryJaime HernandezGilbert HernandezDaily OCD 9 Jul 2012 6:03 PM

The new prepackaged Online Commentaries & Diversion:

 Crumb by Aline

•Commentary: The Huffington Post made it over to the Robert Crumb exhibit called "Crumb: From the Underground to the Genesis" at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris: "Never one to shy away from his love-hate relationship with women, Crumb invited the world into his most perverted fantasies, one which includes riding on his mother's boot."

 Pete Bagge

•Interview: Zachary Hunchar of Technorati questions Pete Bagge about a long life in comics. "People expect their entertainment to be for free now," said Bagge. "Musicians compensate for it by performing live more often, but the only equivalent to that for cartoonists is more comic conventions."

 Tony Millionaire

•Interview: WTF Podcast with host Marc Maron digs into the essentials of Tony Millionaire's work: "[Marc's place] is like my place, I have a very small garage, built for a model T, and it's cluttered. I have all the corners I need to work in."

 Love and Rockets: New Stories #5

•Commentary: Tom Spurgeon is afraid of all the press releases for San Diego Comic-Con will overwhelm your normall-observant Hernandez Brothers' radar. On the Comics Reporter, he made an impassioned called for Love and Rockets coverage during the 2012 Comic-Con International: "It's vital for the medium we love . . . that we treat San Diego as a place where Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez have been in attendance more than 25 times each more than we treat it as a place Steven Spielberg has been to once. Both Jaime and Gilbert remain vital, exciting cartoonists. . ."

 Oil and Water

•Plug: Gene Ambaum of Unshelved touches on Oil & Water by Steve Duin, Shannon Wheeler and Michael Rosen: "[an] anti plastic activist and bird enthusiast,” who wears a strange cyclops-like lens to aid his bird watching, says he has 'the poop story to end all poop stories.' He doesn’t tell it until the end of the book, so I had to keep reading."

 Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson

•Review: From a rather rough translation of Swedien's second largest newspaper, Expressen, Jan Gradvall speaks on Paul Nelson from the book Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery: "Paul Nelson invested all of his feelings [in] records, books, movies. Them he could communicate with - not with live people."

Daily OCD: 2/1/12
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Walt KellyThe Comics JournalreviewsPrince ValiantPat ThomasOil and WaterMartiJohnny GruelleJoe SaccoJacques TardiHo Che AndersonHal FosterGreg SadowskiDaniel ClowesDaily OCD 1 Feb 2012 7:14 PM

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

Action! Mystery! Thrills!

Review: "Nearly every cover in this collection [Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers of the Golden Age 1933-45] sizzles like a good slice of breakfast bacon. Pop art and the peculiar modernist aesthetic that defined postwar American culture really started here, with the liberation of comics from the funny pages and their metamorphosis into this most dynamic and demented of mediums. As a result, every deli and newsstand in America became its own peculiar gallery exhibit, a nexus of transient mass culture. This magical and immersive communion is now a thing of the past, but flipping through the gory, scary, and often beautiful pages of this discerning and honest anthology is an intoxicating experience." – Publishers Weekly

Review: "If you think you've seen all the best early comic covers, this'll make you think again.... I have a bias here myself...I helped Greg put parts of this together, with rare and fun covers from my own collection. Here you find the really cool and offbeat stuff... And Greg writes a concise bio of every cover and cover artist, putting each in perspective. I can't wait to show this to my Golden Age collecting buddies, it's a must-have book. You have my word on it." – Bud Plant

Pogo Vol. 1

Review: "...[N]o publisher has done more to preserve the Great American Newspaper Strip than the Seattle-based Fantagraphics, which has undertaken an audacious program of reprints in the last decade.... The most recent addition to the Fantagraphics line is the most anticipated: Walt Kelly’s unassailable funny-animal strip about Pogo the possum and his cadre of friends and antagonists in the Okefenokee Swamp. ...[I]f the company can pull off a complete edition of Kelly’s masterpiece — especially a full series as lovely as the first volume promises — ...it will be a publishing masterpiece of its own." – Matthew Everett, MetroPulse

Listen, Whitey!

Review: "Is Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975 the coolest book ever published? Yes, it is. Just out from the stellar Seattle publisher Fantagraphics, Listen, Whitey! is a gorgeously designed and smartly written coffee table book... Author Pat Thomas has done major archeological work to unearth albums from the era; for people like me who love classic record designs from the 1960s and ’70s, it’s heaven.... The book is a joy to leaf through.... Black music, art, and culture has been assimilated, and it’s made America a better, stronger place. Listen, Whitey! is an archival project, not a modern one. To which I, a white guy, can only say: Right on!" – Mark Judge, The Daily Caller

The Cabbie Vol. 1

Review: "The page in [The Cabbie Vol. 1] where the cabbie brings his father’s sewage covered remains home and puts them in what’s left of the coffin and then puts the coffin on top of his mother’s recently deceased body tells you everything you need to know. Unless you’re a Prince Valiant dude, this is the best reprint of the year. Impregnable would be the best word, EXCELLENT! will have to do." – Tucker Stone, Savage Critics

Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944

Review: "Prince Valiant Vol. 4: 1943-1944 is not only a great book, I think it could also serve well as a good jumping-on point for those curious about the strip. By this point Foster has gotten a strong grip on his characters and the format of the strip, and with a new storyline beginning so early on in this volume you don’t have to worry about being lost. And while this volume doesn’t end at a conclusion for the last storyline (running a whopping 20 months in all, as it turns out, only the first 7 months are present here), there’s so much meat here that you’ll be eager for Prince Valiant Vol. 5 so you can find out how it ends. I, for one, can’t wait." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

Ghost World: Special Edition

Review: "Are you a fan of Ghost World? You might not have noticed that Seattle-based Fantagraphics has reduced the price of their Ghost World: Special Edition to a bargain-priced $25.... The Special Edition is packed with goodies sure to thrill the Ghost World geek.... It’s a great item to add to your Ghost World collection — or to get it started." – Gillian Gaar, Examiner.com

Oil and Water

List: At Library Journal, Bonnie Brzozowski presents a guide to graphic nonfiction for librarians, spotlighting works including Palestine, It Was the War of the Trenches, Oil and Water, and King, and recommending The Comics Journal as an online resource

Mr. Twee Deedle, Raggedy Ann’s Sprightly Cousin: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpieces of Johnny Gruelle

Plug: At Boing Boing, Mark Frauenfelder shares a beautiful Johnny Gruelle Mr. Twee Deedle panel (via The Pictorial Arts). Hey Mark, we have a whole book of that stuff coming out!

Daily OCD: 1/19/12
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Steve DuinShannon WheelerOil and WaterDaily OCDComing Attractions 19 Jan 2012 6:29 PM

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

Oil and Water

Feature: Jennifer Anderson, one of the participants in the PDX2GulfCoast project along with Steve Duin & Shannon Wheeler which resulted in Oil and Water, writes for the Beaverton Valley Times: "As the newspaper reporter character in the book, I can attest — 100-percent objectively, of course — that the book is at once tragic, funny, poignant and thought-provoking," and talks to some local experts and Duin himself about the book (via Bleeding Cool of all places)

Prince Valiant Vol. 5

Plugs: At Blog Martins Fontes Paulista, Raphael Fernandes runs down "10 Must-See Comics from Fantagraphics for 2012," saying (translated from Portuguese) "Possessing an enviable catalog of experimental and underground comics, Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher that deserves special attention."

Daily OCD: 12/27/11
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Wilfred SantiagoSteve DuinShimura TakakoRichard SalareviewsOil and WaterMichael KuppermanmangaLove and RocketsLos Bros HernandezLorenzo MattottiLeslie SteinKevin HuizengaJohnny RyanJim WoodringJasoninterviewsGilbert HernandezEdward GoreyDisneyDave McKeanDaily OCDCarl BarksBest of 2011Alexander Theroux21 27 Dec 2011 11:07 PM

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

Congress of the AnimalsMark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010Prison Pit Book 3

List: The first part of Comic Book Resources' Top 100 Comics of 2011 countdown includes Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals at #88...

"It takes a bit of daring to be willing to alter the status quo in a respected body of work and considerable talent to be able to do so in as assured manner as Woodring does here." – Chris Mautner

...Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman at #87...

"Through war, animal make-out sessions and film writing, Kupperman takes Twain through the ringer in a hilariously catastrophic epic that the real-life 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' author would surely have appreciated. Although reading it won't score you any points on a history-class term paper, the book will certainly open your eyes to one of the funniest writers working in comics right now." – Brian Warmoth

...and Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book 3 at #86...

"The excessive violence is still here, more refined, more imaginative, more disturbing. Ryan pushes himself artistically in the second half of the book, delivering a stunning sequence that still haunts me." – Chad Nevett

Love from the Shadows  Eye of the Majestic Creature

...and in the second part of CBR's countdown, Love from the Shadows by Gilbert Hernandez at #70...

"I picture Gilbert Hernandez approaching his drawing board these days like Lawrence of Arabia approaching a Turkish convoy: 'NO PRISONERS! NO PRISONERS!' In a year suffused with comics funneling pitch-black darkness through a combination of sex and horror, none were blacker, sexier, or more horrific than this gender-bending exploitation flick from Beto's 'Fritz-verse.'" – Sean T. Collins

...and Leslie Stein's Eye of the Majestic Creature at #61:

"Leslie Stein burst onto the comics scene this year when Fantagraphics published the collection of four of her self-published comics... The comic is both surreal and mundane, the story of a young woman who moves to a New York complete with humanoid animals and talking musical instruments. ...Stein [is] one of the best independent creators to emerge in recent years." – Alex Dueben

StigmataGanges #4Celluloid

List: Robot 6's Graeme McMillan picks his 5 favorite books of 2011, including Stigmata by Lorenzo Mattotti & Claudio Piersanti...

"Way back at the end of last year, I called this the best graphic novel of 2011, and if I’m now a little more reticent to make that claim, it has more to do with the high quality of a lot of other releases this year than anything else because this is still a masterpiece that, were I some kind of unlikely comics czar, I’d make compulsory reading for everyone interested in the medium. Just a breathtaking book."

...Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga...

"Another book that I raved about earlier this year, and another one that I’m still raving about as strongly months later. A tour-de-force of cartooning from a creator who just continually improves, and pushes at the medium in almost everything he does."

...and Celluloid by Dave McKean:

"It’s a disturbing book in many ways – questions about exploitation and power are very present in the text – but also a beautiful, seductive one. It’s a book that sticks with you for a long time afterwards, and for that alone, it’s one I’ve returned to many times since first reading it."

Wandering Son Vol. 1

List: Panel Patter's Rob McMonigal names his Best of 2011: Manga Edition, with Wandering Son Vol. 1 by Shimura Takako in the #5 spot: "This is one of the most serious manga series I've ever read, and I finished it unable to come to grips with the best way to review it. Dealing with two children who come to realize they are trapped in the wrong gender, it's a story of secrets, revelations, understandings, and occasional cruelty. The book handles the topic with care and respect, however, which is part of why it is so good."

Isle of 100,000 GravesThe HiddenMark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010

List: Another top-10 from Panel Patter's Rob McMonigal, whose Best of 2011: Indie Comics, is topped by 3 of our titles: Jason & Fabien Vehlmann's Isle of 100,000 Graves...

"Isle of 100,000 Graves has Jason's trademark deadpan humor, resolute protagonist, and ending that leaves the reader thinking."

...The Hidden by Richard Sala...

"At first, The Hidden feels like a typical apocalyptic story, albeit one painted amazingly well by Sala. But as things progress, the tale morphs and twists into one of the best horror comics I've read, with a twist towards the end that I never saw coming. That's what makes a comic stand out, and puts it near the top of my best of list."

...and Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman at #1:

"I laughed out loud so many times over this mixture of text and illustration. It's a pitch-perfect book with almost no mis-steps, and I hereby call it my Best Indie Comic of 2011."

Love and Rockets: New Stories #4

List: At the Forbidden Planet International blog, comics creator John Riordan names Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 as one of his 3 favorite comics of the year, commenting only "My… aching… heart…"

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente

Review: "I found myself turning back and re-examining the pages often, digging through the many details that the words and images delivered. The story unfolds in earth tone – sepia illustrations, not gaudy, in keeping with the artist’s respect for the story and the subject. Clemente’s early life is here and one gets a real feel for his family and friends, and not without humor.... [21: The Story of Roberto Clemente] should appeal to graphic novel fans, baseball fans,  anyone who likes a great 'bigger then fiction' story, and many others." – Mark Hodgens, Skyscraper Magazine

Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes

Review: "Fantagraphics is now giving Barks’ Duck comics a whirl, and based off this first volume alone if there’s any justice in the comics world, fame should finally (belatedly) be coming for the late, great Barks.... The reproduction on these strips are beautiful; Fantagraphics hired cartoonist Rich Tommaso to re-color the works, and Tommaso wisely uses gentle flat tones to keep with the overall feel of Barks’ crisp, classic art. I also appreciated the essays about the different stories in the back of the book.... Donald Duck: Lost in the Andes is a handsome looking book, and trust me when I say it’s just the first of many I plan on reading by Barks." – Greg McElhatton, Read About Comics

Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7

Review: "So cue the squeals, and scan the racks at your friendly neighborhood comics retailer for writer/artist Michael Kupperman’s Tales Designed to Thrizzle #7. Beyond a cover whose hilarity strangely if successfully depends on its all-day-sucker coloring — tangerine, lemon, lime — this dadaistic offering opens with a six-page excerpt from Scary Bathtub Stories, a faux-Golden Age comic, and thereafter spirals further and further into neo-psychedelic weirdness." – Bryan Hollerbach, PLAYBACK:stl

Review: "I like to imagine [Michael Kupperman] sitting in some tiny hellhole of a studio apartment packed deep into the bowels of New York -- these noble creatures lose their mystique when they own homes -- doing mutant Thrizzle pages until they stop paying him or until he gets a gig in the back pages of Vice. Some feminine if not female voice of reason hovers next to his desk, thumbing through the newest set as he leans back in his chair, wondering if Fantagraphics paid him enough to afford blowing the budget on a beer, wiping entirely imaginary sweat from his brow." – Patrick Tobin, Multiversity Comics

Oil and Water

Interview: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon talks to Oil and Water writer Steve Duin: "I'm too new to all of this to fully grasp how the perfect union of writer and artist is formed... and there were times when Shannon [Wheeler] and I struggled to find common ground. But a great deal of my understanding of what we were dealing with in the Gulf owes to Shannon's perceptions and his sketchbook. He was refreshingly aggressive in dealing with the BP clean-up teams disinclined to give us access. His original poster for the group -- a naked woman starring incredulously at the oil derrick in her bed, and saying 'What do you mean, it broke?' -- is brilliant."

The Strange Case of Edward Gorey [Expanded Hardcover Edition]

Interview: Bookforum's John Madeira, who says "...Alexander Theroux’s writing... is grandiloquently lyrical, dizzyingly erudite, and often acerbic," talks with Theroux about The Strange Case of Edward Gorey ("a smart, engaging, and insightful monograph asking as many questions about the quirky artist as attempts at answers") and other topics: "Edward Gorey was very ornate — Corinthian! — in his love of language, and when he was in a chatty mood his conversation, crackling with allusions, was rich and often rare, exaggerated, campy to a degree, invariably tinctured with lots of movie-love, sarcasm, irony. Mind you, it was not that the man was trying to be something, contriving, say, to appear a cavalcade of wit, merely that, rather like Dr. Samuel Johnson, he happened to have sharp, remarkable 'views' on all sorts of subjects, almost all worthy of note."

Fantagraphics Books logo - shield emblem by Daniel Clowes

Plugs: One more from Panel Patter's Rob McMonigal, who recommends some things to pick up in our current 40%-off Inventory Reduction Sale

Daily OCD: 12/21/11
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Steve DuinShannon WheelerreviewsPeanutsOil and WaterMickey MouseLove and RocketsLos Bros HernandezGahan WilsonFloyd GottfredsonDisneyDaily OCDCharles M SchulzCharles BurnsBest of 2011 21 Dec 2011 4:53 PM

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

Oil and Water

List: Oil and Water by Steve Duin & Shannon Wheeler is #5 on Comics Bulletin's Top Ten Best Graphic Novels of 2011, with Jason Sacks saying "This book is very much about misconceptions and preconceptions, about how we all can feel inadequate when facing enormous problems and how little we often feel we can do in when facing even the small incidents in our lives -- let alone the large ones."

Nuts

Review: Booklist's starred review of Nuts by Gahan Wilson (previously reported here) is now featured online: "The scenarios include summer camp, going to horror movies, being sick and obsessing about it, making models, eating too much, not knowing the answer (or even the subject) in school, selecting comics in the local cigar store, and other normal-enough stuff that holds the potential for humiliation, failure, and maybe worse. In Nuts, that potential is always realized and, as memory colors it, so uproariously that you just about choke with laughter. For sheer hilarity, this is Wilson’s masterpiece." – Ray Olson

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 1-2 box setLove and RocketsComplete Peanuts Boxed Set 1979-1982

Plugs: Comics Alliance's Andy Khouri runs down their Holiday Gift Guide to Deluxe Edition Comics and Art Books, including:

"You've read our effusive praise for the incredible cartooning and hilariously grim Mickey Mouse stories of Floyd Gottfredson, and this excellent two-volume set leaves you with few excuses for not reading these classic comics for yourself.... It's hard to go wrong with this as a gift for your comics fan friends (or yourself), as it's a superlative example of the form from one of its greatest masters."

"I can tell you from personal experience that even one of these books makes a fantastic present, but to give the gift of the complete Love and Rockets is to provide your friend or loved one with a reading experience richer than virtually any other."

"Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang are often associated with the holiday season (also with Halloween, and that counts), so there's no better time to give to yourself or your loved ones one or all of Fantagraphics' hardcover collections of Charles Schultz's beloved cartoon strip. Reprinted in chronological order with the highest production values, any one of these books would make an auspicious addition to any bookshelf."

The Complete Peanuts 1979-1980 (Vol. 15)

Plug: "Reading cartoons is a good way to relax and the latest volume of The Complete Peanuts covers the years 1979 and 1980.... The strips with Woodstock and Snoopy are particularly funny. This latest collection of Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts cartoons would make a nice gift." – Glenn Perrett, Simcoe.com

Elysian Nibiru label - Charles Burns

Plug: Robot 6's Chris Arrant takes note of our beery collaboration with Elysian Brewing, featuring the artwork of Charles Burns

Daily OCD Extra: this month's Booklist reviews, with a star for Nuts
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Walt KellySteve DuinShannon WheelerreviewsOil and WaterGahan WilsonDaily OCD 15 Dec 2011 12:26 PM

In this month's issue of Booklist you can find praise for three of our recent releases:

Nuts

Nuts by Gahan Wilson: "One of the greatest gag cartoonists, whose monthly contributions to Playboy may prove that magazine’s most durable legacy, Wilson gave National Lampoon something to be remembered for, too — his only comic strip, collected here. Titled to echo Charles Schulz’s great newspaper feature full of kids who think and talk like adults, the six-paneled Nuts develops a realistic situation from out of memory (the strips typically begin with the word “remember”). All the fully visible characters are children, mostly boys, but, contra Peanuts, what they say expresses kids’ enthusiasms, fears, and frustrations in the words grown-up memory gives them (the slightly precocious language is Wilson’s primary departure from naturalism, except for his loopy drawing, of course). The frustrations are particularly important, so much so that, despite the acorn next to it in every first panel, the strip’s title is best understood as a child’s curse, “Nuts!” The scenarios include summer camp, going to horror movies, being sick and obsessing about it, making models, eating too much, not knowing the answer (or even the subject) in school, selecting comics in the local cigar store, and other normal-enough stuff that holds the potential for humiliation, failure, and maybe worse. In Nuts, that potential is always realized and, as memory colors it, so uproariously that you just about choke with laughter. For sheer hilarity, this is Wilson’s masterpiece." – Ray Olson (Starred Review)

Oil and Water

Oil and Water by Steve Duin & Shannon Wheeler: "Four months after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a small group of Oregonians traveled to the Gulf Coast to assess the damage. In this graphic-novel recounting of their expedition, we follow the well-intentioned but naive activists as they meet scientists, crabbers, bird rehabilitators, the local head of Homeland Security (found shark fishing on a beach), and other locals whose lives were roiled by the disaster. ...[T]he work effectively sets forth the essential dilemma: the region’s economy remains dependent on the very industry that ravaged the coast; and the “hush money” paid by BP in the wake of the disaster ensures that most residents continue to see oil as the solution to their woes rather than the problem." – Gordon Flagg

Pogo Vol. 1

Pogo - The Compete Syndicated Comic Strips Vol. 1: Through the Wild Blue Wonder by Walt Kelly: "After numerous delays, this essential purchase for any collection that values comic-strip reprints is finally available.... In these... strips from the first two years of Pogo’s two-and-a-half-decades run, the direct political satire is mostly broadly focused (thinly masked approximations of headliners from McCarthy and Nixon to Castro and Khrushchev would all spend time in Okefenokee Swamp), but the inventive wordplay, idiosyncratic swamp patter, and goofy slapstick are all in full effect right from the start, as is the broad cast of loony critters that would eventually number upwards of 500 distinct characters. Due to run 12 volumes, this collection completes the holy trifecta, along with Charles Schulz’ Peanuts and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, of comic strips whose influence cannot be overstated." – Ian Chipman

Daily OCD: 12/14/11
Written by Mike Baehr | Filed under Walt KellySteve DuinShannon WheelerreviewsPeanutsOil and WaterMichel GagneMichael KuppermanLove and RocketsJoe SimonJoe DalyJaime HernandezJack KirbyJack DavisinterviewsDaily OCDCharles M Schulz 15 Dec 2011 12:38 AM

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

Pogo Vol. 1

Review: "The book is lovingly made and the strips presented with care and pleasure. But is it any good? Oh yes. It's funny and charming, bursting with witty wordplay and vivid characters you love immediately. You can see the influence the Marx Brothers and Krazy Kat and Mark Twain had on Pogo and its love of silly grammatical puns and Southern dialect. And you can see the influence Pogo had on Doonesbury and Calvin & Hobbes... In short, read Pogo and you can immediately see it slide into the pop cultural matrix and how it drew upon the work that came earlier, moved forward the art form of comic strips and influenced artists after it for generations to come. But most of all you'll laugh..." – Michael Giltz, The Huffington Post

Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture - A Career Retrospective

Review: "The only real problem with this beautifully produced book [Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture ] is that it’s much, much too short.... The art reproduces gorgeously, scanned in many cases from the original material, and the volume as a whole is an effort to give Davis the respect he deserves as a legitimate artist.... A few essays, slotted at the front and back of the back, rather than next to the art itself, place him in context and give some biographical details, but the work, with Davis’s fluid, effortless line and gift for characterization, speaks for itself." – Hillary Brown, Paste

Dungeon Quest, Book 1

Review (Audio): Joe Daly's Dungeon Quest Book 1 is featured on the latest episode of Boing Boing's "Gweek" podcast (we'll bring you more info when we get a chance to listen)

Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010

Review: At Greek site Comicdom, Tomas Papadimitropoulos looks at Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010 by Michael Kupperman: "Δεν είμαι σίγουρος αν είναι ο καλύτερος τρόπος για να γνωρίσεις τον Kupperman και τις ιδιαιτερότητές του, αλλά σίγουρα θα ικανοποιήσει (και θα χορτάσει) τους fans του (ίσως και αυτούς του Twain – ο Αμερικανός συγγραφέας δεν έγινε γνωστός για το συμβατικό χιούμορ του, άλλωστε), οι οποίοι θα βρεθούν σε γνώριμα μεν νερά, αλλά με κάποιες καλοδεχούμενες διαφορές."

Interview: There's a fun Q&A with Michael Kupperman at the 92Y website that ran just before his appearance there last week

Love and Rockets: New Stories #4

Review: At his blog Mandorla, Santiago Garcia looks at the latest chapters of Jaime Hernandez's "Locas" saga: "Estas últimas semanas he comentado que uno de los mejores tebeos que he leído en el 2011 ha sido 'The Love Bunglers,' historieta que Jaime Hernandez ha publicado en los números 3 y 4 de Love and Rockets: New Stories. Pero no había dicho nada sobre ella todavía, quizás porque es de esas historietas sobre las que uno se queda casi sin nada que decir. Son demasiado inmensas para encerrarlas en un puñado de palabras. Pero eso es lo que tenemos aquí, un puñado de palabras, así que vamos a dejar que lleguen hasta donde lleguen, al menos."

Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics

Interview: The writer of Straight 2 DVD blog talks with editor Michel Gagne about Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics: "I quickly realized that if someone didn’t make an effort to preserve this material, most of it would vanish into oblivion. That’s when it hit me! Perhaps I should be the one to start the ball rolling. I had been itching to do a comic book preservation project for many years and this would be the perfect opportunity."

Complete Peanuts Boxed Set 1979-1982

Plug: "Another comprehensive package is going to take a bit longer to collect: the complete Peanuts library from Fantagraphics.... Currently the collection has progressed to the early 1980s, where the strip is at its peak... There's nothing that says 'holidays' like the Peanuts gang. Didn't all of us watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving a thousand times?" – Andrew A. Smith, Scripps Howard

Oil and Water

Scene: At Examiner.com, Christian Lipski reports from the Oil and Water discussion group at Bridge City Comics recently, which was crashed by writer Steve Duin, artist Shannon Wheeler and editor Mike Rosen: "Those who had attended the team's convention panels and saw video clips from the trip tended to expect more of a straight travelogue, and were surprised by the addition of fiction to the equation. On the other hand, it was noted that the reader could identify with the observers as an entry into the story. The characters also allowed Duin to tell a side of the story through the reactions of outsiders. 'I think that Fantagraphics was as surprised as you guys,' the author confided."

Oil and Water Signing in Vancouver, WA This Saturday
Written by janice headley | Filed under Steve DuinShannon WheelerOil and Waterevents 6 Dec 2011 10:27 AM

Oil and Water

I Like Comics likes Oil and Water, and this Vancouver, WA comic shop will be hosting a signing this Saturday, December 10th!

Author Steve Duin, columnist for The Oregonian, and Eisner-winning artist Shannon Wheeler will be signing from 1:00 to 4:00 PM. And a personalized copy of Oil and Water would make an awesome holiday gift, y'know.

I Like Comics is located at 2101 E. 4th Plain Blvd, Vancouver WA.

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