FLOG! Entries tagged 'Seth'

Cover Uncovered: The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988 (Vol. 19) by Charles M. Schulz

mike

Hey Luuuucy! She's got her dander up about something on Seth's cover design for The Complete Peanuts 1987-1988 by Charles M. Schulz. It's the 19th volume in the series and we've reached the milestone point where Schulz switched from 4 uniform panels to a variable layout. And this volume's Foreword is by another comic strip legend, Garry Trudeau. You won't want to miss it when it comes out in March! We're giving you a sneak peek excerpt with all the strips from January 1987 which you can read right here.

Comics: Philosophy & Practice at the University of Chicago!

janice

Hey Chicago! Stop whatever you're doing (yes, that means reading the FLOG) and go register for this NOW! Space is limited, and you do NOT want to miss out.

It's the Comics: Philosophy & Practice conference at the University of Chicago, held May 18th-20th. And the line-up will make any comics-fan's head spin: it features Ivan Brunetti, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Gary Panter, Joe Sacco, Carol Tyler, and Chris Ware, as well as Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel, Phoebe Gloeckner, Justin Green, Ben Katchor, Françoise Mouly, Seth, and Art Spiegelman... WOW.

Oh, and did I mention it's FREE? Why are you still reading this?! Registration opens TODAY (Friday, April 13th), but space is limited, so don't delay!

Now in stock: The Complete Peanuts 1975-1978 Slipcase

mike

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1978 Slipcase
by Charles M. Schulz
designed by Seth

8.75" x 7.125" x 3" slipcase • $4.99

Add to Cart • More Info & Previews

Even if you purchased the fifth pair of volumes of The Complete Peanuts (1975-1976 and 1977-1978) separately rather than in the two-volume set, you can still have this handsome, durable two-volume slipcase designed by Complete Peanuts series designer Seth. This item is exclusively available directly from Fantagraphics. (Books not included.)

Now in stock: The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14) + 1975-1978 Box Set by Charles M. Schulz

mike

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14)
by Charles M. Schulz
introduction by Alec Baldwin

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-375-0

Ordering Info & Previews

As the 1970s wind down, the last two recurring Peanuts characters have fallen into place: Snoopy’s brother Spike and the youngest Van Pelt sibling, Rerun. But that doesn’t mean Schulz’s creativity has diminished; in fact, this volume features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new one- (or two-) shot characters!

For instance, in an epic five-week sequence, when Charlie Brown is found guilty by the EPA of biting the Kite-Eating tree, he goes on the lam and ends up coaching the “Goose Eggs,” a group of diminutive baseball players, Austin, Ruby, Leland, and — did you know there was a second Black Peanuts character, aside from Franklin? — Milo.

Also: a tennis-playing Snoopy ends up reluctantly teamed with the extreme Type “A” athlete Molly Volley... who then reappears later in the book, now facing off against her nemesis, “Crybaby” Boobie. (Honest!) Add in Sally’s new camp friend Eudora, the thuggish “caddymaster” who shoots down Peppermint Patty and Marcie’s new vocation, an entire hockey team, and a surprise repeat appearance by Linus’s sweetheart “Truffles” (creating a love triangle with Sally), all in addition to the usual cast of beloved characters (including the talking schoolhouse and the doghouse-jigsawing cat, who gets hold of Linus’s blanket in this one), and you’ve got a veritable crowd of characters.

It’s another two years of the greatest comic strip of all time, full of laughs and surprises.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 15-page PDF excerpt (688 KB) containing all the strips from January, 1977!

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1978 Box Set
by Charles M. Schulz
designed by Seth

two 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcovers in a custom slipcase • $49.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-376-7

Ordering Info & Previews

A boxed set of the thirteenth and fourteenth volumes of The Complete Peanuts, designed by the award-winning graphic novelist, Seth. Shipping shrinkwrapped, with volumes 1975-1976 and 1977-1978 packed in a sturdy custom box designed especially for this set, it's the perfect gift book item. (For more information on the contents of each volume, see the individual product listings linked above.)

"The Complete Peanuts has framed Charles Schulz’s enduring masterpiece about as well any lifelong fan could’ve hoped." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives", The A.V. Club

(Please note that The Complete Peanuts 1975-1978 Slipcase is arriving in a separate shipment next week.)

The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14) + 1975-1978 Box Set by Charles M. Schulz - Previews

mike

The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14)
by Charles M. Schulz
introduction by Alec Baldwin

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-375-0

Ships in: August 2010 (subject to change)
This item will be available for order on its release date. Stay tuned for updates.

It’s another two years of the greatest comic strip of all time, full of laughs and surprises.

Download an EXCLUSIVE 15-page PDF excerpt (688 KB) containing all the strips from January, 1977!

Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1978 Box Set
by Charles M. Schulz
designed by Seth

two 344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcovers in a custom slipcase • $49.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-376-7

"The Complete Peanuts has framed Charles Schulz’s enduring masterpiece about as well any lifelong fan could’ve hoped." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives", The A.V. Club

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

Also available:

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1978 Slipcase
by Charles M. Schulz
designed by Seth

8.75" x 7.125" x 3" slipcase • $4.99

Ships in: August 2010 (subject to change)
This item will be available for order on its release date. Stay tuned for updates.

Daily OCD: 4/2/10

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: We published 3 of "The 6 Most Underrated Comics of 2009" according to Robot 6's Chris Mautner, including Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life by Bruce Paley & Carol Swain ("Swain's low-key, nonchalant art fits perfectly with Paley's tales of hippie wanderings and punk-era decadence, stripping the stories of any rock glamor and tinging them with a genuine sadness. Really, this book just underscores how talented and sharp an artist Swain really is") From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the Third Millennium ("...Nikoline Wedelin's haunting, chilling Because I Love You So Much... still resonates with me months after I wrote this review. The unflinching regard for its subject matter is not going to have people beating a path to its door, but the sheer daring artistry on display deserved much more attention than it got") and Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons ("It's a testament, not only to Wilson's genius (the material never flags or gets rote, no matter what the decade) but also to Fantagraphics skill in presenting this material in such a stellar fashion. Really, it was the best retrospective collection of the year, and I wish more people had noticed it.")

• Review: In the interest of balance, Byron Kerman of PLAYBACK:stl loves Johnny Ryan but didn't care for Prison Pit Book 1

• Commentary: I don't check in with the TCJ message boards as often as I should -- there's some good discussion of the new volume of The Complete Peanuts going on over there (via ADD at Comic Book Galaxy)

• Panel: The concluding installment of The Comics Journal's presentation of a never-before-published panel discussion between Charles Burns, Chip Kidd, Seth and Chris Ware, moderated by Jeet Heer, that occurred October 29, 2005 at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Canada, turns things over to audience Q&A

Daily OCD: 4/1/10

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "There are two types of war stories: war as the great human drama, man accomplishing amazing feats in the most horrible of circumstances, or war as the great human tragedy, the ultimate loss of life without any rhyme or reason. Tardi’s book fits very firmly into the latter category. ... Ink-soaked and gory, Tardi’s detailed renderings drive home the grotesquery of the war and the ordeal of the young men fighting in it. ...It Was the War of the Trenches creates an aura of loss, regret and terror." – Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Interview: Listen to the Inkstuds roundtable on Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s with editor Michael Dowers and artists Mary Fleener, Wayno, and Colin Upton — I haven't tuned in myself yet but apparently there's dirt on the early days of Fantagraphics

• Panel: In the second part of The Comics Journal's presentation of a never-before-published panel discussion between Charles Burns, Chip Kidd, Seth and Chris Ware, moderated by Jeet Heer, that occurred October 29, 2005 at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Canada, discussion turns to Peanuts and Krazy Kat

• Appreciation: "There are lots of things to love about [Steven] Weissman: his art (from the kids-who-look-like-middle-aged-people of his early work, to the light, beautiful strokes that characterize his later stuff), his nuanced understanding of what it's actually like to be a kid, his intransigent weirdness. But the thing I've really been digging about him lately is the strangeness of his sound effects." – Ben Owen, Parabasis

• Photo of the week: Now that's some shelf porn

Daily OCD: 3/31/10

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "The quality of [Gilbert] Hernandez's cartooning is unassailable. Part of the reason [High Soft Lisp] is so hard to quantify is his uncanny ability to shift focus on a moment's notice, effortlessly jumping from one character to another, suggesting whole thought processes and histories with just a handful of images." – Jason Michelitch, Comics Alliance

• Review: "The sort of horror Columbia presents in Pim & Francie works even better without the trappings of recitation and the cause and effect on which they depend. This sort of dread-inducing fright functions without regard to the recognizable comforts of logic and the niceties of narration. This is visceral, elemental terror that generally festers below — or alongside invisibly — human reckoning. ... Frontwards, backways, sneak-a-peek sideways, it all packs a monumentally disturbing wallop." – Rich Kreiner, "Yearlong Best of the Year," The Comics Journal

• Plugs: The Gosh! Comics Blog highlights recent arrivals Penny Century by Jaime Hernandez ("This volume picks up right after Perla La Loca left off, beginning with the now out-of-print graphic novel Whoa Nellie! which is probably the best female wrestling comic in town") and It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi ("Since only a fraction of Trenches was ever available to us English-speaking folk it’s a nice to see the whole lot of it in one place.")

• Panel: The Comics Journal presents the first part (of three) of a never-before-published panel discussion between Charles Burns , Chip Kidd, Seth and Chris Ware, moderated by Jeet Heer, that occurred October 29, 2005 at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Canada

• Interview: The Daily Cross Hatch 's Brian Heater, who says "Released late last month, Fantagraphics’ massive collection, Newave, has already made a strong case for its place on 2010’s list of most essential reissues," talks to the book's editor Michael Dowers: "I’ve always been into art and stuff, so I thought that [minicomics] would be fun to do. I used to do paintings, I did a bunch of wood carving, I built a few stringed instruments. I was always doing things with my hands. It wasn’t until I discovered minicomics that it just all came together. I never dreamed that, 30 years later, I would be writing a book about this stuff."

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 (Vol. 13) by Charles M. Schulz - Previews

mike

Our contract with the Peanuts licensor stipulates that we can't pre-sell The Complete Peanuts books before they are relased, but we can still bring you these previews!

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 (Vol. 13)
By Charles M. Schulz

344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-345-3

Ships in: March 2010 (subject to change)

Good grief, Charlie Brown, we're halfway there! That’s right! With this volume, The Complete Peanuts reaches the halfway point of Charles M. Schulz’s astounding half-century run on the greatest comic strip of all time.

These years are especially fecund in terms of new canine characters, as Snoopy is joined by his wandering brother Spike (from Needles), his beloved sister Belle (from Kansas City), and... did you know he had a nephew? In other beagle news, Snoopy breaks his foot and spends six weeks in a cast, deals with his friend Woodstock’s case of the “the vapors,” and gets involved in a heated love triangle with Linus over the girl “Truffles.”

The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 features several other long stories, including a rare “double track” sequence with two parallel narratives: Peppermint Patty and Snoopy travel to participate in the Powderpuff Derby, while Charlie Brown finally gets to meet his idol Joe Shlabotnik. And Peppermint Patty switches to a private school, but commits the mistake of allowing Snoopy to pick it for her; only after graduation does she realize something’s not quite right!

Plus: A burglary at Peppermint Patty’s house is exacerbated by waterbed problems... Marcie acquires an unwanted suitor... Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty become desk partners... The talking school building collapses... Lots of tennis jokes... and gags starring Schroeder, Lucy, Franklin, Rerun, Sally, and that vicious cat next door. It’s another two years of Peanuts at its finest! Featuring an introduction by comedian Robert Smigel (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Saturday Night Live).

"The Complete Peanuts has framed Charles Schulz’s enduring masterpiece about as well any lifelong fan could’ve hoped." – "The Best Comics of the '00s: The Archives", The A.V. Club

Download an EXCLUSIVE 14-page PDF excerpt (1 MB) containing all the strips from January, 1975!

Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

First Look: The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978 (Vol. 14)

mike

The 1975-1976 volume of The Complete Peanuts is still a few months away (March 2010) but we just can't wait to bring you this first glimpse of the volume after that, 1977-1978, featuring cover star Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichardt (yep, that's her full name, as revealed in 1971-1972). Design, as always, by Seth. Note that this is a preliminary version and that some details may change between now and next Fall when the book is released.

Hey, let's have some fun: the first person in the comments to correctly guess the cover star for the 1979-1980 volume wins a copy of our Unseen Peanuts comic from Free Comic Book Day 2007! Winner revealed tomorrow.

Daily OCD: 12/17/09

mike

When these Online Commentary & Diversions posts get long enough I get an error message in our blogging interface; this is one of those, so buckle in:

• List: Heeb's Graphic Novel Gift Guide includes Popeye Vol. 4: "Plunder Island", which editor Jeff Newelt says contains "heartfelt masterpieces of illustrated slapstick adventure." (via Robot 6)

• List: Design Observer's recommended Holiday Books 2009 includes Abstract Comics: "...[T]his arresting book is like a scoop of primordial narrative, representational mud. Which is to say, it has vitaminic powers."

• List: Jason's Low Moon and Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 1 get shout-outs from our esteemed colleagues on the Matador Records/Beggars Group staff in their annual staff/artist end-of-year best-of Matablog megapost

• List: Comics-and-More's Dave Ferraro's Favorite Comic Book Covers of 2009 include Luba by Gilbert Hernandez (designed by Jacob Covey), Uptight #3 by Jordan Crane, West Coast Blues by Tardi & Manchette (designed by Adam Grano), Abstract Comics (designed by Jacob Covey), and The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974 (designed by Seth)

• Review: "Giraffes In My Hair: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Life... is my favorite graphic novel of the year, and it is marinated in a life lived through real rock and roll delivered via stories as wide-open and lung-puncturing as a two minute Ramones rant. Artist Swain is an alternative comics’ veteran... with an attractively scruffy style; storyteller Paley has an author-blessed background in the margins of the freak milieu... This comic book adaptation of a real life shows the biggest bruises and the smallest scars, but cuts out all the heroic flab. Again, one of the best graphic novels of the year, as well as one of the best rock books too." – Chris Estey, KEXP

• Review: "The Playboy cartoons collected [in Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons] demonstrate above all Wilson's phenomenal range in subject, style, and inspiration. ... The menace in domestic relations, the evil that kids are capable of, the outright nastiness that man inflicts on man: it's all here, drawn in Wilson's inimitable comic style. ... And Fantagraphics has also served Wilson well. This collection is a wonder of book design, with die-cut boards, marvelous color reproduction, and a fantastic slipcase. The clear plastic panel on one side reveals the laminated back board of the books, each one a different headshot photo of Wilson himself, his face smashed against the plastic, a prisoner in his own collection. It's a perfect expression of all the inspired madness within." – Thomas DePietro, The Barnes & Noble Review

• Review: "[Abstract Comics] is a great book for the comics enthusiast and visual artist alike." – Book Soup Blog (via the Abstract Comics Blog)

• Review: "The comics [in Abstract Comics] resemble IQ quizzes that test the ability to recognise patterns. But they are more difficult here — insanely difficult — as they replace simple geometric shapes with abstract comic lines, colours and collage. Solving them will no doubt provide tremendous pleasure but there are no answers given, of course." – Parka Blogs, who also have very nice photos and video of the book (also via the Abstract Comics Blog)

• Reviews: Érico Assis of Brazilian site Omelete has the rundown on the recently released Brazilian edition of The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 (Vol. 1): "But of course, the interest here is the historical value. Maybe time to recover, at least you remember the pop culture, were much simpler. If you like to do time travel, at least with the brain, Complete Peanuts gives you several hours of escapism for a past environment of children, a bit silly. And perhaps so happy." Also: "If Tales Designed to Thrizzle does not please a dedicated fan of Monty Python, I like my stuffed parrot. ... With the collection, it's time to conquer the world. At least the world of smart people who recognize the genius of Monty Python." (slightly broken English from Google translation)

• Review: "In The Great Anti-War Cartoons, Craig Yoe has gathered an amazing assembly of peaceful protests that seeks to prove that the pen is truly mightier than the sword. ... All of it is thought-provoking and deserves a look. And where else will you see a collection like this? Art Spiegelman, Robert Crumb, Rube Goldberg, Honore Daumier… my god. Even if you don’t dig the message, you gotta dig the art. In the end, it’s obviously a book that’ll stick with me and would make a worthy addition to your collection. ... Grade: A" – Chad Derdowski, Mania

• Review: "War sucks, and [in The Great Anti-War Cartoons] Yoe has selected a wide range of cartoons that make the point with elegance and grim wit. ...[I]n terms of craft, vision, and passion, political cartoons simply don't get much better." – Noah Berlatsky, Chicago Reader

• Review: Noah Berlatsky is the 4th writer at The Hooded Utilitarian to take a crack at Ghost World in their critical roundtable: "I’ve never been able to quite wrap my head around what about the book so thoroughly irritates me."

• Metacommentary: TCJ.com's Shaenon Garrity comments on the (TCJ-hosted) Hooded Utilitarian's critical roundtable on Ghost World: "...the other reason I like Ghost World: like it or hate it, you can talk about it endlessly."

• Profile: Turkish cartoonist Adem Mermerkaya looks at the work of Joe Sacco (autotranslation is little help I'm afraid but it looks fairly substantive if you read the language)

• Things to see: A whole mess of new stuff — sketches, gags, abstractions — on T. Edward Bak's art blog, plus an early character design and research for his current Mome story

• Things to see: Matthias Lehmann's latest addition to his art blog is particularly nice

• Democracy/fashion: Vote for the next Maakies t-shirt design from Waterloo

Daily OCD: 8/19/09

mike

Online Commentary & Diversions for the day:

• Analysis: For Comics Comics, Dash Shaw pens an appreciation of the work of Tim Hensley: "It’s like what he chooses to draw in the environment (and what he chooses not to draw) is determined by some graphic Feng Shui. When his comics are at their most beautiful, these environments function both as the story’s world and abstractly... With his best dialogue, a line that you first read as being surreally disconnected on a second reading is funny and on a third reading reveals a wider scope of the story."

• Review: "Yes, both of these books are like kryptonite to good taste. But there are a couple of big differences between what Johnny Ryan is doing in Comics Are for Idiots!, his latest Blecky Yuckerella strip collection, and what he's doing in Prison Pit, his ultraviolent action-comic debut... The four-panel Blecky strips often feel like a breakneck race to the punchline through some kind of bizarre obstacle course requiring the basic premise of the gag to get more ridiculous with each panel... Ryan's rep as altcomix's premier overgrown juvenile delinquent is well deserved--and don't get me wrong, you can absolutely enjoy Prison Pit on that level--but the poetic savagery he depicts here is the work of a grown-ass man." - Sean T. Collins

• Review: "[Delphine], Richard Sala's contribution to Fantagraphics's prestigious Ignatz Series, is some of his strongest and most personal work yet... He sets his pop-cultural influences aside this time to lead us down a grimmer path... As for the art -- well, what can I say? It's recognizably Sala's, and at the top of his game, but taken to the next level, in that the usual precision of his black-and-white work is here inflected with sepia washes that give an added visual dimension to the murkiness of the hero's experience... The heavy dustjackets, with such gorgeous full-color art not only front and back but on both big inside flaps, deliver a lush visual and tactile experience that no bonus gallery in a collection will be able to duplicate... By whatever route you get here, I highly recommend this." - Curt Purcell, The Groovy Age of Horror

• Review: "Even when she's not especially inspired, Dame Darcy creates superior goth comics: cheerfully mean-spirited, idiosyncratically stylish, and oozing with surreal ichor... In [Meat Cake #17], Darcy indulges her goth tropes and her feminism: men are tormented, sisterhood is affirmed, and light-hearted squick is relished by all. And, as always, Darcy's eccentric drawing is a joy, with perspective, proportion, and visual logic all flattened out to fit into geometrically obscure but oddly elegant patterns." - Noah Berlatsky, The Comics Journal (reprinted at The Hooded Utilitarian)

• Plug: "The big story here [in The Comics Journal #299] is Bob Levin's spectacular essay on Michel Choquette and his never-completed comics anthology... Sadly, the project never got off the ground, and Levin details in his typical stellar fashion why and how. It's a fascinating tale, one well worth your $12." - Chris Mautner, Robot 6

• Plug: "The new Comics Journal (#299) is in Direct Market stores today. I got mine a week ago and love it, especially the absolutely essential Bob Levin cover article." - Alan David Doane, Comic Book Galaxy

• Plug: "This is a particularly excellent issue of TCJ, thanks to Bob Levin's magnificent 50-page... history of 'The Someday Funnies'... You really need to read it." - Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance

• Interview: Seth continues discussing his design work for The Complete Peanuts in the final part of Brian Heater's interview at The Daily Cross Hatch: "Schulz’s work is right there in the book. Every line in those strips is his. But the design stuff is just design stuff. It’s a setting to put a gem in. The setting is not the gem."

• Things to see: At the Covered blog, Anthony Vukojevich does a Gilbert Hernandez Birdland cover

• Staff: The Comics Reporter and Publishers Weekly have the scoop on our newest hire, Jacq Cohen

Daily OCD: 7/10/09

mike

Heading into the weekend, here's your Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Carol Tyler’s You’ll Never Know [Book 1: A Good and Decent Man] mines similar territory to women graphic novelists before her -- the life of her father and its relationship to her own foibles -- and manages to make a work entirely her own, neither derivative nor overly familiar... with genuinely gorgeous illustration... It’s a gripping mix of biography and autobiography... There’s more for Tyler to explore in another volume, and she manages to make this one immensely satisfying on its own terms while alternately leaving you with anticipation for the next." - John E. Mitchell, North Adams Transcript

• Review: "...[Y]ou could do much, much, much, much, much, much worse than to spend 25 bucks and an inch on your bookshelf on yet agoddamnnother collection of murderously bleak and astonishingly well-executed high-concept existentialism [Low Moon], drawn with an unimpeachable clean line and colored like unto a thing of beauty. Time and time again during these five stories I was almost physically impacted by Jason's skill as a storyteller ...his skill and his bravado left me shaking my head with amusement and/or amazement time and time again. He's one of the best, as is this book." - Sean T. Collins

• Interview: Seth talks a bit about his design work for The Complete Peanuts in an interview with Alex Carr at Amazon's Omnivoracious blog. Sample quote: "The series was meant to be a setting for the jewel that is Schulz's masterpiece. I wanted to make sure that Schulz's work was treated with the utmost seriousness and dignity."

• Interview: Al Jaffee answers Tim Hodler's question about cartoon vomit at Comics Comics

• Plug: In an interview with Robot 6, MoCCA Festival organizer Karl Erickson singles out Humbug's Arnold Roth & Al Jaffee and Mome's Derek Van Gieson & Sara Edward-Corbett as highlights of the 2009 festival

Daily links: 4/27/09

mike

Due to the somewhat obsessive nature of my link gathering, I had the idea to start calling these posts "Daily OCD: Online Commentary & Diversions." What do you think, readers? Too cutesy-poo? Offensive to sufferers of real OCD?

• List: The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon names "The Ten All-Time Best Long-Running Comics Series," with Love and Rockets Vol. I at #2 ("The best long-running and organic artistic achievement in serial comic book form... The Hernandez Brothers inspired and outworked a greatest generation of comics auteurs. Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez are each among that handful of artists who must be given serious consideration when talking about the best cartoonists working. In Love & Rockets each created fictional worlds for the ages and used them as a vehicle for enormous artistic development, lapping the majority of their peer group. One so inclined could argue with seriousness a top 25 of American graphic novels where 1/3 of the titles listed came from this series") and Acme Novelty Library at #8 ("...a mind-bending achievement... ACME punched right in the scrotum the notion that every issue of a single comic book series had to look like the others... Its primary value is that it presented [Chris] Ware's giant talent to enough of an audience to bring him thousands of hardcore fans... Ware can dream up a single-page that if it were the only thing he ever published people might still know his name")

• List: The A.V. Club's Noel Murray offers commentary on Spurge's list ("There’s no one definitive L&R storyline; it’s just story after amazing story, accumulating over the past three decades like personal correspondence. [...] Ware... turn[ed] comic books into a kind of readable sculpture...") and lobbies for the inclusion of Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comix

• Review: "Miss Lasko-Gross' self-caricature in her autobio stories [in A Mess of Everything] is an interesting mash-up of a typical teen with low self-esteem and that of an indignant outsider determined to make her increasingly confident voice heard -- and loudly. [...] Lasko-Gross' greatest strengths as an artist are her character design, gesture and use of body language. It's the way she stages her characters that makes looking at each page interesting... I love the touch of the exaggerated and the grotesque that she injects into her drawings, distorting faces and bodies to reflect emotional tumult." - Rob Clough

• Review: "I read Leah [Hayes]’s whole book, Funeral of the Heart [in one sitting]; I couldn’t stop reading. It’s a beautiful, engrossing book... Amazing." - Anika in London

• Review: "Formerly-suppressed, entirely classic, these stories [in Blazing Combat] are all solid examples of comic storytelling and craftsmanship... [T]he teams here make things look too easy. Not surprising since we’re talking about master artists like Toth, Frazetta, Severin, Crandall and others. The stories have all aged surprisingly well... Highly recommended..." - Matt Maxwell, Robot 6

• Reviewer: At that same Robot 6 link, Miss Lasko-Gross reviews books by Osamu Tezuka and Gabrielle Bell

• Reviewer: Alexander Theroux's latest book review, for Closing Time by Joe Queenan, is up at The Wall Street Journal

• Plug: Biblioteca del Instituto Internacional (an American-English library in Madrid) recommends Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

• Preview: Monster Brains presents 3 pages from Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit Book One (due this fall)

• Profile: The Walrus's article on Seth discusses his design work for The Complete Peanuts in depth

• Events: Portland, your Free Comic Book Day cup runneth over, as Andrice Arp and the other contributors to the excellent free anthology comic Bird Hurdler will be appearing at various locations throughout town -- Andrice has the full itinerary and details on her blog

• Things to see: Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine has an uncollected Boody Rogers story for ya

• Things to see: Three recent illos from the ever-busy Drew Friedman

• Things to see: Another fantastic new story page from Tim Lane

• Things to see: In the next panel, Big Bird kicks Freddy Krueger in the nuts

• Things to see: Ragged Claws Network presents a few of Jeffrey Jones's Jones Touch strips which can be found in the out-of-print collection of the same name from our Eros Comix imprint (NSFW)

First look: The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974

mike

Here's the world premiere of Seth's cover design for The Complete Peanuts 1973-1974, this Fall's volume in the series. This is a preliminary version; the final printed version will likely have minor changes. If you'd been wondering (like I had) how Seth was going to handle the scale issue for the Woodstock cover, here's his beautiful solution. And watch out: the 1971-1972 volume (with Sally on the cover) is looking like it will arrive earlier than expected!

Your Non-Graphic Novel of the Month

Eric

From two of our favorite people in the book world, Joshua Glenn and Seth (we're sure Mr. Kingwell is a wonderful fellow, as well; for a layabout, anyway). Who better to offer sage advice about post-hypercapitalist living than two lifelong experts on idling, goldbricking, scrounging, dawdling, quitting, napping, mooching, laying about, and dreaming? Get it here.

Sketchbook #49

Eric

Courtesy Seth:

Seth is Da Man

Eric

Last week's New Yorker cover: