FLOG! Entries tagged 'Spain Rodriguez'

Stumptown Photos

TheJenVaughn

Holy comicsolly! Here's photos from the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, OR. Dash Shaw was in attendance with New School, which flew off the table. WHY THE WAIT on pictures? We forgot our own con rules. To remain human you must 5-2-1-I: At least 5 hours of sleep, 2 meals a day, 1 shower and Ibuprofen at night. Four hours of sleep one night wrecked this gal and boy, did she pay for it.

Lots of our Fantastaff came to the show since it was so close! Me, Designer Emory Liu, PR Director Jacq Cohen, Dash and Office Manager Steph Rivers.

Table service: Dash Shaw signs the fore pages of Bottomless Belly Button.

Patrick Rosenkranz held some long, lovely conversations with fans of comics history and his book Rebel Visions. Patrick also led a Spain Rodriguez tribute panel, if you can ever take a class by him bring a recorder!

Dash talks to fans, cartoonists and the awesome Ming Doyle (who is both).

Obligatory "WE LOVE THESE BOOKS" shot, I'm holdin' Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez, Jacq is rockin' Ulli Lust's Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life.

Talking comics and Fantagraphics with Julia Gfrörer (Black is the Color coming out in September), Patrick Rosenkranz and Dash.

Jacq sells Love and Rockets.

This cutie was all about the Carl Barks' Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge books.

Portland is awesome because there are cartoonists everywhere. And by everywhere I mean at bars or restaurants. We ran in to Greg Means, Alec Longstreth and Claire Sanders at the Red Flag on the way to the Top Shelf party.

Having the warehouse van proved useful driving home slightly drinky cartoonists. James Kochalka, Rachel Foss and Dash Shaw hold court in the back.

ACCESSORIES. We saw quite a bit. Ed Luce rocked some additional tags.

Dash signed the Stumptown sketch poster HIS WAY.

Patrick Yurick had the best NEW comics-related tattoo. It even has the Wattersonesque dropped panel borders for that comic beat.

Speaking of PANELS: Dash tickled the audience with this animation and comic panel. He's got comedic timing DOWN.

Here I am looking goofy alongside some of the smarter people in comics on a submissions panel: Allison Baker of MonkeyBrain Comics, Jamie S. Rich (talking about old Oni days), Bob Schreck and Sina Grace of Image and Skybound. Panel photo by Glenn Peters.

Our Kristy Valenti, Patrick Rosenkranz and Tom Spurgeon gave a beautiful Spain Rodriguez tribute panel. Photo by someone who still rocks a flash.

Book Appreciation! James Kochalka is a Jim Woodring fan!

Karl Stevens ooohhs and aaaahhs over Dash Shaw's New School.

Dark Horse's Brendan Wright caught Bark-handed!

INTERN POWER. We had several interns tabling with their own comics. Low-res intern Kevin Uehlein and Ben Horak on the edges of a beautiful comics table, Beth Hetland and Pat Barrett in the middle. Ben's shy so all you get is his sideburns.

Intern Nomi Kane and her comic spread. The Back of Ben Horak.

Dead dog after dinner at Hungry Tiger Too with Dash Shaw, Bayard Baudoin, Tom Neely, Zack Soto, Benjamin Marra and his lovely lady.

Tom Kaczynski gets goofy when others aren't watching.

Thanks for coming out! Olan Mills family photo by Joshin Yamada with me, Dash, Jacq and Tom Kaczynski of Beta Testing the Apocalypse.

Eisner Awards Nominations

TheJenVaughn

We love all of our books but are especially happy for the creators of the Eisner-nominated books. You can vote until June 12 online. If you haven't read all of them, check 'em out individually or via our list!

Best Short Story: "Moon 1969: The True Story of the 1969 Moon Launch," by Michael Kupperman, in Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8

"Rainbow Moment," by Lilli Carré, in Heads or Tails

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot): Tales Designed to Thrizzle #8, by Michael Kupperman

Best Humor Publication: Naked Cartoonists, edited by Gary Groth

Best Anthology: No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall

Best Reality-Based Work: You'll Never Know, Book 3: A Soldier's Heart, by C. Tyler

Best Graphic Album-New: You'll Never Know, Book 3: A Soldier's Heart, by C. Tyler

Best Graphic Album-Reprint: Cruisin' with the Hound, by Spain

Heads or Tails, by Lilli Carré

Best Archival Collection/Project-Strips: Mister Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin, by Johnny Gruelle, edited by Rick Marschall

Pogo, Vol. 2: Bona Fide Balderdash, by Walt Kelly, edited by Carolyn Kelly and Kim Thompson

Roy Crane's Captain Easy: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips, vol. 3, edited by Rick Norwood

Best Archival Collection/Project-Comic Books: Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man, by Carl Barks, edited by Gary Groth

Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's Romance Comics, edited by Michel Gagné

Best U.S. Edition of International Material: Athos in America, by Jason

New York Mon Amour, by Benjamin LeGrand, Dominique Grange, and Jacques Tardi

Best Writer/Artist: Gilbert Hernandez, Love and Rockets New Stories, vol. 5

Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets New Stories, vol. 5

C. Tyler, You'll Never Know, Book 3: A Soldier's Heart

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art): Lorenzo Mattotti, The Crackle of the Frost

Best Lettering: C. Tyler, You'll Never Know, Book 3: A Soldier's Heart

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism: tcj.com, edited by Timothy Hodler and Dan Nadel

Best Publication Design: Dal Tokyo, designed by Gary Panter and Family Sohn

Mister Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin, designed by Tony Ong

Still no sure which to read? Heidi MacDonald, Cal Reid and company discuss the nominations on the Publishers Weekly podcast. Meanwhile, Chris Sims, Matt D. Wilson and more of War Rocket Ajax discuss the nominations, although I'm not sure how long the podcast will be up at this link.

Some of the nominations gather in our mail room. See you in JULY!

Daily OCD 5/2/13

TheJenVaughn

The tantric release of Online Commentaries & Release:

• Review: The LA Times and Noel Murray interviews Gilbert Hernandez about Julio's Day, Marble Season (from D&Q), plus the future books Love and Rockets: New Stories #6 and Maria M. LA Times: Gilbert says " ‘Julio’s Day’ is very simple. I mean, there’s a lot of heavy stuff going on, but I wanted it to read like a very simple, direct story."

• Interview: comiXology interviews Gilbert Hernandez about his most recent comic Julio's Day on their podcast.

• Review: Tom Spurgeon looks at Gilbert Hernandez's latest work, Julio's Day, on the Comics Reporter. "I found Julio's Day moving at times, again for reasons I'm not really certain I can fully articulate. The idea that we may be known as much for the choices of those around us and things that happen in proximity to ourselves as much as if not more than by the choices we make is either the ultimate comfort or the first back-of-throat rumblings of an existential howl."

• Plug: Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez is listed as one Amazon's Best Books of the Month.

• Plug: Publishers Weekly lists Julio's Day as a pick of the week: "A marvelous and tightly scripted epic whose last page is a heart-stopper."

Review: Charles Hatfield of The Comics Journal flips through Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez. "When it comes to Beto, the lightning keeps striking, and if it doesn’t strike exactly the same place twice, it does testify to the same divided genius…It is the great lost Beto comic, belatedly given new form and new life.

• Review: Grovel's Andy Shaw reads Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez. "Just buy it now. This is Gilbert Hernandez at his finest, distilling a lifetime into a single volume of pleasure and pain. Julio’s Day is a literary classic, and another incredible piece of work from a true master of comics."

• Plug: Largehearted Boy plugs Julio's Day. "Gilbert compresses the history of the 20th century as well as the life of a man into a riveting, masterful story," writes Benn Ray.

• Plug (audio): Julio's Day is discussed on Daily Rios.

• Review: The A.V. Club looks at The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert. "The essays-which at 80 pages take up more of the book than Jodelle-are this volume's real selling point... Peellaert foregrounded the eroticism of advertising, and exposed how pulp imagery affects the public's understanding of everything from politics to gender. And he did it without resorting to polemics. The Adventures Of Jodelle book-both the comic strip and the supplemental material-is a delight both visually and intellectually," writes Noel Murray.

• Plug: Largehearted Boy plugs The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert. "Think of Barbarella animated in that Yellow Submarine style and you get the idea of what Jodelle's adventures look like. This is comics as art."

• Plug: Comics Worth Reading plugs The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert vis a vis a photo of ME holding it. Eat your heart out, actually eat Jodelle - with your eyes.

• Plug: Angel House Press is celebrated National Poetry Month with a focus on visual poetry, inspired by latest collection of it The Last Vispo, edited by Nico Vassilakis and Crag Hill. Check here for a month of visual poetry.

• Review: Heroes Complex at the LA Times looks at 50 Girls 50 by Al Williamson. Noel Murray writes, "These pieces are classic EC: punchy, knowing and ironic in the best sense of the word, in that they force readers to examine their own expectations. The best stories in '50 Girls 50 have readers rooting for heels, or celebrating war, all while framing the situation in such a way that readers question their responses." In reference to the whole EC Comics Library line, Murray writes, "All of these books are essential purchases for comics fans, but for those on a budget who are looking to prioritize…These are the books that best show off how EC took genre stories seriously, striving to create comics that didn’t treat readers as naive or ignorant."

• Plug: Boing Boing mentions our EC books, 50 Girls 50 and 'Tain't the Meat so you should probably buy them. "Fantagraphics released two beautiful hardbound books that collect the work of two of their superstars: Al Williamson and Jack Davis. The reproduction quality is superb," writes Mark Frauenfelder.

• Review: Fangoria reviews the next two EC books. Rick Trembles enjoys 'Tain't the Meat by Jack Davis. "Jack Davis’ dark comedic touch is all over this collection, diffusing the ghastly nature of the stories somewhat, an aspect to his work that was obviously lost on his opponents." Meanwhile with Al Willliamson's 50 Girls 50, Trembles writes "here we’re dazzled by romanticized sci-fi heroics and delicate line-work of the ilk of FLASH GORDON’S original artist Alex Raymond, Williamson’s main inspiration. Dinosaurs, spaceships, and outlandish otherworldly creatures populate the flora of faraway worlds, accompanied by buxom, exotically garbed beauties."

• Review: Nick Gazin sets his VICE sights on 'Tain't the Meat by Jack Davis. "Even though he wasn't a perfectionist, Jack Davis's laziness is better than most people's best work. When Davis does invest himself in a drawing it's just a mind bender. This is a must have for anyone who loves horror, EC, Jack Davis, any of that stuff."

• Interview (audio): Beginnings with Wrestling Team interviews Bill Griffith about underground comix up to his most recent release, Zippy: The Dingberg Diaries.

• Plug: Weird Universe highlights Zippy: The Dingberg Diaries on their site after Paul interviewed Bill Griffith at MoCCA 2013.

• Plug: Comics to find at MoCCA listed on AM New York. Zippy: The Dingburg Diaries and 50 Girls 50 are on the list of books to check out.

• Review: Comics Bulletin looks at 3 New Stories from Dash Shaw. "This is a short, floppy-sized comic, but it's incredibly rich in complexity and depth. Shaw delivers an amazing collection of stories here."

• Interview: DigBoston and Clay Fernald talk to Dash Shaw about 3 New Stories, New School, Bottomless Belly Button and more. Shaw says, "Words and pictures are very different. They don't sit comfortably next to each other. Some cartoonists try to bring them closer together. Ware is like that. I like that space between things. I want the differences between things to be activated."

• Plug: Largehearted Boy hosts Atomic Books look at new comics included 3 New Stories. "Dash Shaw is a modern comics master. He experiments with everything from structure to narrative to color. If you're unfamiliar with his work, he's sort of like Gary Panter illustrating a Chris Ware story, or, in this case, 3 stories of dystopian societies," writes Benn Ray from Atomic Books.

• Review: Nerds of a Feather enjoys Tom Kaczynski's Beta Testing the Apocalypse. Beta Philippe Duhart states "The thin lines, sharp angles, and rigid geometry…brings a clarity and simplicity that expertly balances the abstractness of the themes at the heart of Beta Testing the Apocalypse…One doesn’t need to have read �i�ek to grasp Beta Testing’s themes and criticisms. One only needs to have only gone apartment hunting."

• Interview: Comics Bulletin and Keith Silve interview James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook on 7 Miles A Second. Van Cook remembers, "David was a poet of the soul, there was always a tension between beauty and the vileness of what society did to anyone who was not of the mainstream. I once asked him what he did with the money he got from hustling when he was so young and he told me he would take a bus to the country and walk around. We thought it was so ironic that selling one's body and selling art had many of the same qualities. We laughed rather darkly, about how the body and art are commodified and priced so arbitrarily."

• Review: Publishers Weekly podcast looks at 7 Miles a Second in the time after MoCCA.

• Interview (video): Back in January, Carol Tyler spoke to University of Southern California Provost's Professor Henry Jenkins and students as part of the USC Visions and Voices series. Mike Lynch was good enough to blog about it as soon as USC put up on the internet. She speaks about personal life and drawing comics, including the You'll Never Know series.

• Plug: Manga Bookshelf lists its first quarter favorites of 2013 and include Moto Hagio's newest book. "The Heart of Thomas was my most eagerly anticipated manga of the year, and while its January release date set the bar perhaps unfairly high for the year to come, I can’t bring myself to be sad about that."

• Review: Comics Worth Reading pulls out the Castle Waiting Vol. 2: Definitive Edition by Linda Medley. Johanna Draper Carlson writes "…it’s engrossing and beautifully drawn. I was surprised, reading the whole thing at once, how much of what figures in the final chapters was mentioned very early on. It gave me new appreciation for Medley’s long-term storytelling."

• Review: Calgary Public Library's Teen Blog speaks out on Castle Waiting Vol. 1 and 2 by Linda Medley. Adrienne writes, "Castle Waiting is a great comic book that takes elements from fairytales such as 'Sleeping Beauty' and combines them with a good dose of humour and plots about bearded ladies, two-headed girls, pregnancy and hidden libraries..I highly recommend her"

• Review: Strange Journal reviews Castle Waiting. "I’ve really fallen for it, it’s what they’d call a triple threat in show business: It can sing, dance AND act…In the tradition of Jeff Smith’s Bone and the better parts of Dave Sim’s Cerebus, Medley has conjured an amazing and beautiful world and filled it with flawed, interesting folks eking out their existence in a castle on the edge of the world," states Adam Blodgett.

• Interview: Slice Radio interviews Michael Kupperman on life and Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2.

• Review: Delphine by Richard Sala is reviewed on Comics Bulletin. Jason Sacks "We're used to fairy tales telling the story of a journey by a girl from innocence to the real world. Delphine inverts the gender of those classic tales, but uses those familiar tropes to tell a familiar story. Richard Sala treads a world of metaphor and allusion, a world that feels as familiar as Grimm's Fairy Tales and as mysterious as our own heart."

• Review: Nick Gazin sets his VICE sights on Out of the Shadows by Mort Meskin (edited by Steven Brower). "Shadows everywhere. The stories are just a lot of old timey chatter where people call each other chum and stuff but the compositions and choices that Mort Meskin made are pretty sophisticated."

• Interview: The Comics Journal posts an article titled Crockett Johnson and the Invention of Barnaby. Philip Nel writes about it all including the creation of fairy godfather, Mr. O'Malley's favorite catchphrase. Barnaby is coming so soon, we'll all cry "Cushlamochree!"

• Review: iFanboy hypes up Impossible Tales: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 4 (by Steve Ditko and edited by Blake Bell) coming out this May. Josh Christie states: "Steve Ditko is one of those guys you could picture on the Mount Rushmore of comics creators…Like so many of the great comics from the 1950s, the drug-fueled, macabre scenes look more like something out of an alternate dimension rather than from the states’ apple pie and bubblegum past."

• Review: Arkham Comics reviews Messages in a Bottle by B. Krigstein (edited by Greg Sadowski). A rough translation states, "Messages in a Bottle is a magical book, a timeless and stunning clarity: a lesson in comics as we do not meet every day."

• Review: Noah Van Sciver's The Hypo is reviewed on We Read Comics "Sciver absolutely nails it…We see Lincoln's plain spoken style, his humbleness, his self-doubt, and his honesty here with so much fucking economy and elegance."

• Interview: Noah Van Sciver appears on Comic Impact to talk about The Hypo and his newest comics project.

• Review: Lilli Carré's Heads or Tails is reviewed on French podcast Dans ta bulle.

• Plug: The End of the Fucking World (Spoiler alert!) on The Chemical Box. "Similar to Derf’s analysis of Jeffery Dahmer in 'My Friend Dahmer', you can see James (along with Dahmer) struggling with their basic instincts."

• Plug: The Beat waxes on about Julia Gfrörer and Black is the Color. Zainab Akhtar writes, "Gfrorer’s work is consistently excellent, featuring themes of myth, folk lore, mysticism and spirituality, coupled with her fine-lined, evocative art."

• Plug: Demencha calls Ed Piskor a Hip Hop Archeologist and more in reference to Hip Hop Famiy Tree. "His classic indie comic composition and narrative ease make the strip readable, informative (who knew Rammelzee went tagging with Basquiat?), and respectful to the art forms and artists it covers," writes J.P. McNamara.

• Review: In an oddly religious review, Mirrors of Christ looks at Eye of the Majestic Creature by Leslie Stein. "Sadly in this story the lyre (guitar) did not participate in the worship of God but in the desire of the flesh."

• Review: Orgasm reviews Sexytime edited by Jacques Boyreau. "…if you want an oversized coffee-book that your guests might enjoying flipping through the pages as you bring refreshments, Sexytime is for you. And hey, it might even get you laid."

• Review: Josh Simmons' story from The Furry Trap, 'Mark of the Bat' is reviewed on Vorptalizer. Seat T. Collins comments, " 'Mark of the Bat' picks and picks and picks at our dovetailed drive for cruelty and need to feel superior to others until the fingernail tears off. It leaves a mark."

• Plug: Comics Workbook enjoys reading The Portable Frank digitally thanks to comiXology.Leah writes, "Woodring’s way of transitioning images between panels (in, ya know, a pretty trippy way) lends itself really well to the panel by panel viewing of the digital reader."

• Plug: Tucker Stone mentions the new issue of The Comics Journal on the Comics Journal, not trying to get to incestuous. "The new issue of the Journal is pretty good; the Tardi interview is great."

• Plug: Textures of Ether looks at Abstract Comics. "Do Abstract Comics artists need to be aware of comics history?…Molotiu’s articles explore the theory behind Abstract Comics and are always interesting to read. They would make a welcome addition to any future AC anthology."

• Review: Nick Gazin checks out Cruisin' with the Hound by Spain Rodriguez on VICE. "Spain's comics always feel lively and real and there's this sense that he was probably too cool to be making comics but somehow he was. You can tell he was for real because he put the most energy into drawing motorcycles and cars and his people always look kinda like they're secondary to their machines. Great book from a great artist and story teller."

• Plug: Musical notation in Peanuts is analyzed on the Hooded Utilitarian. "In this sense, Schulz again collapses into Charlie Brown — locked out of high art virtuosity and romantic opportunities, disappointed in art as in love.…Schulz has, perhaps, found a way to invert Lichtenstein," writes Noah Berlatsky.
• Plug (video): Al Jaffee and Robert Grossman are interviewed on the Imperium about the Harvey Kurtzman retrospective at the Society of Illustrators. Jaffee states, "His concepts were, to us at the time, revolutionary because he was breaking the third or the fourth wall, whatever you want to call it."

• Plug: And finally, Peanuts and Persian literature.

Fantagraphics at Stumptown Comics Fest 2013 in Portland!

janice

Join us this weekend for the 10th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest at the Oregon Convention Center this Saturday, April 27th and Sunday, April 28th!

We're thrilled to announce that we'll be joined by special guests Dash Shaw, in town all the way from New York, and Portland's own Patrick Rosenkranz!

Speaking of Dash, we're also excited to present the debut of his latest books, along with a few other exciting debuts! Such as...

• 3 New Stories by Dash Shaw

• New School by Dash Shaw

• Castle Waiting Vol. 2: Definitive Edition by Linda Medley

• Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez

• Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust

• Walt Disney's Donald Duck: The Old Castle's Secret (The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 6) by Carl Barks

• 50 Girls 50 and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) illustrated by Al Williamson et al.; written by Al Feldstein et al.

• 'Tain't the Meat... It's the Humanity! and Other Stories (The EC Comics Library) illustrated by Jack Davis; written by Al Feldstein

Our artists will be partaking in programming throughout the weekend, so check out their panels!

Saturday, April 27th

12:00-12:45 pm // Meathaus Reunion: Becky Cloonan, Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple and Dash Shaw: A reflective spotlight on Meathaus luminaries, Becky Cloonan, Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple and Dash Shaw whose work has appeared in various Meathaus anthologies since 2002. These artists have each maintained their own strong modern stylistic identity receiving both critical and commercial acclaim. Marc Arsenault (Alternative Comics) will introduce the panel with a look at the SVA art groups and graduates that led to the creation of the Meathaus comics collective. (Room B114)

1:00-1:45 pm // Angels and Demons: The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson: Mythology may be the key to understanding the work of highly influential underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson, from the self-mythology that Wilson invented and polished over the years as a dashing and dangerous figure, to his personal inner landscape where his archetypal characters dwell when they arena gracing the pages of Zap Comix, Thrilling Murder, or Insect Fear, to the body of language and lore passed down from his hillbilly ancestors. With Patrick Rosenkranz. (Room B117)

2:00-2:45 pm // Two-Faced Artist Lives Double Life in Single Body!: The joys and perils of straddling the worlds of fine art and comics with cartoonists Jon McNaught, Julia Gfrörer, and Daniel Duford, moderated by Chloe Eudaly. Join us for a conversation with our panel of artists, each of whom are experienced in the realms of fine art and comics. We'll explore how they came to work in two seemingly disparate mediums, how their work in each converges with, diverges from, and influences the other, and the the sometimes arbitrary or artificial distinction between the two. (Room B117)

5:00-5:45 pm // Dylan Williams Tribute Panel: Share some time with the friends and colleagues of comics' best friend as we all recount our favorite stories about the late Sparkplug publisher's life and celebrate his philosophy and work as an artist, scholar and publisher. Time permitting, we will also attempt to make sense of his passion for unsettling any and everyone who dared point a camera at him at festivals like this one. Panelists include: T Edward Bak, Julia Gfrörer, Tim Goodyear, David Lasky, Tom Neely; moderated by Milo George. (Room B114)

Sunday, April 28th

1:00-1:45 pm // Submissions Do's and Don'ts: Jen Vaughn (Fantagraphics), Jamie Rich (formerly Oni Press), Bob Schreck (Legendary Comics), Allison Baker (Monkeybrains Comics), and Sina Grace (Image/Skybound) will share their experiences slogging through the submissions pile, everything from finding a diamond in the rough to bartering with the mailman to stop delivering submissions. Your questions? Answered! Your comics published? We'll see. (Room B114)

2:00-2:45 pm // Dash Shaw's New School: Dash Shaw is a cartoonist and animator whose graphic novel New School debuts at Stumptown from Fantagraphics Books. In this spotlight presentation, he will screen and discuss his animations, including his Sigur Ros video and Sundance short Seraph, and show slides of the process behind creating New School as well as some of his other comics. Moderated by Fantagraphics' Jen Vaughn. (Room B111)

4:00-4:45 pm // DIY Publishing: For many micropublishers, making good books is easy; it's the marketing and the selling that's hard. Panelists Tom Kaczynski (Uncivilized Books), Zack Soto (Study Group), Chloe Eudaly (Reading Frenzy), Jason Leivian (Floating World Comics), Keenan Keller (Drippy Bone), and moderator Milo George will look at different printing processes and their costs and compare notes on production/distribution issues including pricing and sustainability. (Room B111)

5:00-5:45 pm // Spain Tribute Panel: Spain Rodriguez, legendary underground cartoonist, tore his way into hearts of readers like the beloved motorcycles that grace the pages of his comics. Patrick Rosenkranz, Jen Vaughn, Eric Reynolds, and Charles Brownstein take you though the wild days of Spain's work from his groundbreaking ZAP anthology contributions to adapting the life of Che Guevara. Get acquainted with this revolutionary cartoonist and his award-winning work. (Room B117)

So, stop by the Fantagraphics Booth this weekend at Stumptown, Booth Q1 right down the aisle when you first walk in!

The Oregon Convention Center is located at 777 NE ML King Blvd, several blocks away from the Lloyd Center Shopping Mall, and conveniently located next to a Portland Tri-Met MAX Line stop for accessibility.

Daily OCD 3/22/13

TheJenVaughn

The longest, unabridged edition of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: The Village Voice is almost hospitalized while reading Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2. "Kupperman heaps absurdity upon absurdity…The result is a jubilant rococo, the strips all thrilling ornamentation…No exaggeration: I coughed hot soup out of my nose while reading the new hardbound volume of deadpan dadaist Michael Kupperman…" states Alan Scherstuhl.

• Review: Comic Book Resources looks at Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 by Michael Kupperman. Brian Cronin loves the Moon 69 story. "The devolution of the ads as the story continues might be my favorite part…The second collection of Kupperman’s individual Thrizzle issues JUST came out and it includes [Moon 69]! So go buy it, dammit!"

• Review: Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 by Michael Kupperman shines at The AV Club. "Kupperman's work only gets funnier when read in bulk... Kupperman's comics take pre-existing popular culture-TV shows, advertising, other comics-and tweak them just a little until they become hilariously absurd," states Noel Murray.

• Plug: Time Out New York analyzes Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. 2 with one interactive panel. Cool!

• Review: Glen Weldon reviews The Comics Journal #302 on New Republic, exclusively the Maurice Sendak interview conducted by Gary Groth. "Why on earth would I want to read 100 pages of caustic carping? Because Sendak is funny. Deeply, passionately so. Read in full, Sendak’s zingers lose their venom and evince a sincere and surprising warmth. He comes off as bitter, but not embittered—a fine distinction, perhaps, but a real one."

• Plug (video): Mark Judge made a music video for TCJ #302. Trust me, you'll want to see this.

• Plug: USA Today's Pop Candy mentions TCJ #302. "This week I've been reading the wonderful (and massive) issue No. 302, which contains a huge Maurice Sendak tribute as well as his final interview"

• Revew: Chris Estey of KEXP writes on some of our new titles like The Comics Journal #302, edited by Gary Groth, Kristy Valenti and Michael Dean. "Probably my favorite single issue magazine of 2013, it is actually a freakily-elevated edition of the long-running only-trustable trade magazine devoted to comics…it gives us a chance to sample the gamut of an ever-evolving and surprisingly inspiring art-form."

• Revew: Chris Estey of KEXP reviews our newest book of music criticism The Grammar of Rock by Alexander Theroux. "Ripping through this hilarious rage on banality and unexpected pleasures I thought, they don’t make writers like this anymore…Drop that boring band biography and fetch this, if only for the mountains of lists of rarely-heard missing gems he has sampled and tasted beforehand for you."

• Review: Pop Matters has to tune into The Grammar of Rock by Alexander Theroux. John L. Murphy writes, "Naturally, the fun of The Grammar of Rock lies in its acerbic prose as well as its aesthetic insight…You’ll either laugh or you won’t. I laughed."

• Review: Washington Independent Review of Books also looks at Alexander Theroux's The Grammar of Rock. "Reading Alexander Theroux’s The Grammar of Rock is like hitching a ride with a suspiciously awake truck driver who talks endlessly for hours…All in all, this book is a very cold love letter," says DJ Randy Cepuch.

• Plug: Wired runs 10 sketches by Janet Hamlin featured in her upcoming book, Sketching Guantanamo. Hamlin remembers sketching Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "He would turn and pose — a deliberate turn, facing me, holding very steady."

• Review: Julio's Day by Gilbert Hernandez gets reviewed on on The AV Club. "Julio's Day(Fantagraphics) is as much about what's not on the page as what is...Fashions, mores, and technologies change; but desires and disappointments do not," writes Noel Murray.

• Review: Nerds of a Feather give an outstanding rating and review a recent reprint of Jack Jackson's work. Philippe Duhart writes, "Los Tejanos and Lost Cause are the products of serious historical research, and as such they are clear exhibitions of comics' potential as a viable media for academic and journalistic work…I appreciate that Johnson sticks with the perspective of the “losers” -- Juan Seguin's struggles against racism following Texas’ rebellion and Texan Confederates' struggle to regain a sense of honor following the defeat of their cause."

• Review: Fingers on Blast reads Linda Medley's Castle Waiting Vol. 1. "The tales weave their way together seamlessly thanks to Medley's art. There is no simple way to describe it, but to say it draws you ever deeper into the story."

• Revew: Chris Estey of KEXP writes on some of our new titles Peter Bagge's Other Stuff which" features Bagge doing some sharp-witted journalism (on comedy festivals, especially) and historical stories…it is an electric, howlingly funny, bona-fide classic mangle of manic music history, prickly satire, and perfectly rendered cartooning."

• Review: Novi Magazine picks apart feminist storytelling in Moto Hagio's The Heart of Thomas. "While Thomas depicts male characters, Hagio codes femininity into every element of the story, with every effort towards drawing in her assumedly female audience…" writes Dan Morrill. •Review: BookDragon plugs The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. "…it’s certainly proved its lasting effects. Never mind the rockets, sometimes turbulent feelings can take you much, much further…" writes Terry Hong. • Plug: Comics Forge is looking foward to The Adventures of Jodelle by Guy Peellaert as much as we are! "This was one of the trend setting 1960’s comics that you will see echoed worldwide during that time and when this style of pop art was raging as the most important thing since sex was invented…It looks like it is going to be a beautiful book, like most of the books that Fantagraphics puts out, you can feel the love."

• Review: Scoop covers Buz Sawyer Vol. 2: Sultry's Tiger by Roy Crane in one hell of a history lesson on newspaper and adventure comics. "Buz Sawyer may be the peak of the adventure strip as a genre…Crane’s ability to walk a fine line between hyper-realism while still incorporating an easy to read and understand style places him among the greats in comic history," says Mark Squirek.

• Review: Scoop covers Mort Meskin's Out of the Shadows. "He is so skilled at body language that without reading a single word you can see the kid’s enthusiasm for his grandfather’s story grow across the first three panels," writes Mark Squirek.

• Interview: Comic Book Resources and Alex Dueben interview Tom Kacyznski about his books. Kacyznski says, "There's an easy willingness to imagine the collapse of everything instead of small changes in the political system that could fix a lot of the problems that we're having. Those kinds of themes interest me."

• Review: Beta Testing the Apocalypse by Tom Kaczynski gets a look-see on B-Sides & Rarities. Elizabeth Simins writes, "Kaczynski’s style involves a pretty dedicated commitment to setting scenes with lyrical descriptions as much as imagery, which is something I associate with the space between “regular” fiction and comics…You should read it."

• Review: Grovel reviews The Hypo by Noah Van Sciver. "It’s a surprising but fascinating insight into the psyche of a man that outsiders would normally assume to be a sort of political superhuman, but Sciver adds depth and soul to the two-dimensional image of the man with half a beard and a top hat," penned Andy Shaw.

• Review: Comic Pusher enjoys their read of Chris Wright's new book: "In Black Lung Wright presents a world of ceaseless violence and pain, his reflectively brutal cartooning interwoven with elegiac prose, with the very syntax of comic storytelling breaking down under the memory and transformative agony of loss and obsession," says Jeffrey O. Gustafson.

• Review: Warren Leming over at Logos Journal reviews Everything is an Afterthought: The life and times of Paul Nelson. "Author Kevin Avery has done us a great service in bringing Paul Nelson’s woefully neglected story and life on the music culture scene into focus. This is a book for all those interested in what made 20th Century American music an anthem for the world."

• Plug: Jade at D&Q Bookstore digs into Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me by R. Crumb. "The extraordinary title is only matched by the incredible insight into the iconoclast’s mind and the ultra-snazzy portrait of an early Crumb on the cover, sporting a corduroy jacket and tie… A definite must-read for any Crumb fan."

• Review: The Comics Journal digs Black is the Color by Julia Gfrörer. Sean T. Collins writes, "Gfrörer’s most moving comic to date, Black Is the Color eroticizes suffering not to glamorize it, but to endure it."

• Interview: Robin McConnell interviews Julia Gfrörer about her webcomic and soon-to-be-in-print book, Black is the Color on Inkstuds.

• Review: Comics Bulletin loves Charles Forsman's The End of the
Fucking World. Geoffrey Lapid writes "Instead of allowing you to step back and look at James and Alyssa through wistful adult hindsight, Forsman's fluid and subdued linework take us right into those moments that you only understand when you're 17 years-old, proudly oblivious and doomed…James and Alyssa feel like real, substantial characters rather than simple broad strokes alluding to a deeper history."

• Interview: Ed Piskor is interviewed by Jackie Mantey for Columbus Alive during his Ohio art residency and on Hip Hop Family Tree. "The purity of intent is something that’s important to me with anything I come across," Piskor believes.

• Interview: Kelli Korducki interviews Jaime Hernandez on behalf of Hazlitt about Love and Rockets. Jaime answers, "I like the way women react to situations. Guys in a certain situation mostly try to keep it cool, keep their cover, keep things in control. With a lot of women I know, you get eight different reactions to a situation."

• Review: Jon Longhi looks at Spain Rodriguez in Having a Book Moment. Cruisin' with the Hound, a recent collection, is "it's all gang fights, hot rods, teenage mayhem and its wonderfully entertaining and beautifully illustrated."

• Plug: Craig Fischer on the Heroes Online Blog now looks at Messages in a Bottle: Comic Book Stories by B. Krisgstein. "Thanks to Sadowski, I’m now crazy for Krigstein."

• Plug: Earth Science Picture of the day is Elephant Feet, Arizona, (shot by Stu Witmer) as seen in the comic pages Krazy Kat by George Herriman.

• Plug: Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat enjoyed Tom Spurgeon's interview with Gary Groth. Tom also put up a visit of Fantagraphics in pictures, but you know, didn't include the new office.

• Plug: The LA Times and David Ulin say some touching things after the announcement of Kim's cancer diagnosis. Thank you.

YEE-HAW! Digital Comics Corral

TheJenVaughn

Since Fantagraphics and comiXology shook hands that fateful weekend last summer, the hits just keep a-galloping through the gate. Here are the books we have kickin' around in our digital stable ready to be rode hard, combed down and fed oats (in the form of your high-star ratings).

Here's a run-down of the digital comics we currently have available to read on your tablets, iPads, eReaders, myPads, ThinkTouches and more. Click on titles to be taken to their page at comiXology.

Life is Rough and Tales of Misspent Youth

Cruisin' with the Hound by Spain Rodriguez
7 Miles a Second by David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger, and Marguerite Van Cook

Memoirs of the artist's misspent youth. Raunchy, hilarious, and often violent as hell, an unsentimentally nostalgic trip to half a century ago — the anti- Happy Days, set to a true rock ’n’ roll beat. - See more at: http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?keyword=cruisin%27+with+the+hound&search_type=titles&Search=Search&Itemid=62&option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse#sthash.zYJMZj3B.dpuf7 Miles a Second by David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook.

Night Fisher by R. Kikuo Johnson
Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw

Tales to scare you, like rip your face off scary

Folly by Hans Rickheit
The Grave Robber's Daughter by Richard Sala

Dark tales on a journey

Blacklung by Chris Wright
Weathercraft by Jim Woodring

Michael Kupperman's comedy hour: Tales Designed to Thrizzle

Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. One by Michael Kupperman
Tales Designed to Thrizzle Vol. Two by Michael Kupperman
Individual issues of Tales Designed to Thrizzle also available

Johnny Ryan's yukks, chuckles and face punches

Prison Pit: Book One by Johnny Ryan
Prison Pit: Book Two by Johnny Ryan

Prison Pit: Book Three by Johnny Ryan
Prison Pit: Book Four by Johnny Ryan

Angry Youth Comix Issues 1-14 by Johnny Ryan

Historical and Presidential comics

The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln by Noah Van Sciver
Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman

No Straight Line: Four Decades of Queer Comics edited by Justin Hall
Oil and Water by Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler

Love and Rockets' Palomar series by Gilbert Hernandez

Heartbreak Soup (Love and Rockets: Palomar Book 1) by Gilbert Hernandez
Human Diastrophism (Love and Rockets: Palomar Book 2) by Gilbert Hernandez

Beyond Palomar (Love and Rockets: Palomar Book 3) by Gilbert Hernandez
Amor Y Cohetes by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez

Love and Rockets' Locas series by Jaime Hernandez

Maggie the Mechanic by Jaime Hernandez
The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S. (Love and Rockets: Locas Book 2) by Jaime Hernandez

Perla La Loca (Love and Rockets: Locas Book 3) by Jaime Hernandez
Penny Century (Love and Rockets: Locas Book 4) by Jaime Hernandez

Esperanza (Love and Rockets: Locas Book 5) by Jaime Hernandez
Amor Y Cohetes by Jaime Hernandez

Love and Rockets New Stories

Love and Rockets New Stories: #1-5 by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez

God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls by Jaime Hernandez

A new take on Fairy Tales

Castle Waiting Vol. 1 by Linda Medley
Delphine by Richard Sala

The Hidden by Richard Sala

Jason. The Jason

Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason

One Man Anthologies

Abandoned Cars by Tim Lane
Happy Hour in America by Tim Lane

Uptight by Jordan Crane

Kidppropriate!

The Adventures of Venus by Gilbert Hernandez

Note that most of these books are available at your local comic book store or our website in print form but we know you have to save that shelf space. Every Wednesday we have 1-2 new digital releases, sometimes same-day releases as the book. Buy a book for yourself or someone you love today.

SPAIN: LA Times Book Prize Finalist

TheJenVaughn

Spain Rodriguez is on the list of finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize award in Graphic Novel. A winner will be chosen this April at a public ceremony at the University of Southern California's Bovard Auditorium. Spain's book Cruisin' with the Hound is listed along with works by Alison Bechdel, Leela Corman, Chris Ware and Sammy Harkham.

The press release has more information: "The event is the prelude to the 18th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the largest public literary festival in the nation, to be held on USC’s campus on April 20th and 21st." Fingers crossed.

Cruisin' with the Hound at comiXology

TheJenVaughn

Fantagraphics and comiXology presents the late great Spain Rodriguez and his graphic novel, Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote.

"They were all there, the pimps, the fags, the whores, the curious, the alcoholic, the weird of the late '50s... blues lovers, Canadian bikers, thrill seekers, junkies, insomniacs, hepcats..." So begins "Down at the Kitty Kat," one of the 20-plus never-before-collected memoirs and yarns by Spain, one of the original gang of Zap Comix provocateurs. Although he's best known for his two-fisted tales of the chopper-riding Trashman, Spain's blunt graphic style and uncompromising gift for caricature, rendered in eye-punishing slabs of black and white, work equally well for more subtle fare -- such as these memoirs of his misspent youth.

For $17.99, you can read this newly-inducted Eisner Hall of Fame cartoonists' work on life, hogs, and the fifties on your world of tomorrow devices.

"Rodriguez was a kind of incorrigible rebellious type. . . when abstract expressionism with its two-dimensionality principle was dogma—he was into three-dimensionality, in spades—and his blue-collar employment in Buffalo area manufactories, where the curriculum was the much more interesting subject to him of simmering socioeconomic class warfare." -Jack Foran, ArtVoice

"Spain Rodriguez is one of the legends of the original underground comics wave, and he tells his own origin story in Cruisin’ with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté, a collection of short stories about coming of age in Buffalo in the ’50s and ’60s. ...Cruisin’ with the Hound... gives a real flavor both of Rodriguez’s work — which was so different in its point of view than the other underground comics of the late ’60s and early ’70s — and from whence it came." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

Daily OCD 2/6/2013

TheJenVaughn

The most intricate house sigil of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: The LA Times enjoys their reading of 7 Miles a Second by David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook. "Part of the power of Wojnarowicz’s work is that he dealt with such concepts accessibly; he didn’t have time to waste. It was the source of his restless imagination, his willingness to experiment with unexpected forms," writes David L. Ulin.

• Plug: NY1 (New York 1) and Don Kois talk about 7 Miles a Second David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook. "…this graphic novel is an amazing document of the gaudy, dangerous world of clients and johns and artists and thugs downtown in the 1980s."

• Interview: Nick Hanover of Comics Bulletin interviews Tom Kaczynski on Beta Testing the Apocalypse. Kacyznski writes, "All these stories started to feel like they were linked and eventually things like the noise stories and the themes of sound started to kind of inject themselves into the rest of the material…I'm interested in utopias, and utopian societies. And a lot of what Communism is is essentially an attempted utopia that failed. "

• Review: Terry Hong of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center writes about Wandering Son Vols. 2 and 3 by Shimura Takako. "The discordant contrast of Shimura’s winsome visuals against the sharp growing pains of her tweenagers imbues her series with urgent solemnity."

• Review: Art Rocker and Wee Claire look at Delphine by Richard Sala. "Delphine is arguably Richard Sala's darkest tale to date and a brilliant gateway for those new to his whimsical storytelling style…There are comparisons to Snow White dotted throughout the story but Sala's indie-goth execution tinged with a 70s horror atmosphere make for a much more interesting tale."

• Review: The Toronto Star reads and reviews our books like Heads or Tails by Lilli Carré. "Carré’s work, fittingly titled Heads or Tails, probes choice, ambivalence and fate; in her stories, there’s a flip side to everything, rendered in full and brilliant colour,"says Laura Kane.

• Review: Noah Bertlatsky on the Hooded Utilitarian looks at the art of Lilli Carré comics from Heads or Tails through the gendered lens of Bart Beaty. "If art is both hyperbolic masculine swagger and small-scale feminized detail, though, for Carré the form that mediates between the two is something that looks a lot like comics."

• Interview (partial): Dan Nadel of The Comics Journal posts part of the interview of Jacqes Tardi by Kim Thompson from TCJ 302.

• Plug: "It's astonishing to me that The Comics Journal will have outlasted Wizard, Hero Illustrated and CBG, but I'm happy for that fact," says former TCJ editor, Tom Spurgeon. TCJ 302 was co-edited by Kristy Valenti and Mike Dean.

• Review: Mort Meskin gets the full hello-how-are-ya when his collections are reviewed, edited by Steven Brower. "Out of the Shadows was such an enjoyable find that when it ended we were hungry for more of Meskin’s work." So Scoop turns to From Shadow to Light, "Meskin is so skilled in portraying body language that he doesn’t need a face to tell us know exactly what someone is thinking…a thorough and very detailed look at a man’s life, his family and the work he valued."

• Plug: Spain Rodriguez and Mort Meskin have been automatically inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame as posted on The Beat. And of course, Fantagraphics will be at San Diego Comic Con with copies of their books, Cruisin' with the Hound and Out of the Shadows. Other Fantagraphics' greats have been nominated as well like Trina Robbins , Bill Griffith, Jacques Tardi and Gary Panter.

• Plug: Kotaku and Evan Narcisse get teary-eyed over Peanuts Every Sunday by Charles M. Schulz. "The daily black-and-white comics were great but the full-color Sunday strips gave Schulz a big, beautiful canvas to let his expert pacing and amazing linework breathe in a rainbow of color…it's really the entire mix of characters …and their mix of adult prickliness and childlike naiveté that made Charles Schulz's iconic comics strips so timeless."

• Interview: MTV Geek interviews Charles Forsman about The End of the Fucking World and life. Forsman answers Eddie Wright's question, "I do love sparse cartooning. Like Schulz which I think comes through in mine a bit. I've heard people descibe this stuff as "Peanuts" all grown-up and violent."

• Review: Nerds of a Feather look at Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree, to be printed later this year. Philippe Duhart gives it a rare 10 out of 10, "…those familiar with the genre can attest, it's difficult to separate the music from other elements of the "culture" -- b-boying, graffiti, lingo, style. Piskor demonstrates an affectionate respect for the interrelations between these phenomenon, telling a story of a culture, rather than a musical genre."

• Review: Anime News Network reviews and givest The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio an 'A-'. Rebecca Silverman writes, "The Heart of Thomas may be the grandmother of the boys' love genre, but it would be shortsighted to simply classify it as such…Heartfelt and dreamlike, it is a window into the lives of those affected by the sudden death of one of their own."

• Plug: Publishers Weekly lists their top 10 most anticipated books of the spring. Dash Shaw's New School makes the list. They also mention Good Dog; Wake Up, Percy Gloom; Lost Cat; and Fran.

• Review: The Toronto Star reads and reviews our books like The Cartoon Utopia by Ron Regé, Jr. The Cartoon Utopia "is visionary, but also unmistakably influenced by ’70s psychedelia… the thrilling, one-of-a-kind art will stretch your imagination and, at the very least, make you believe in the power of comics to explore the impossible," writes Laura Kane.

• Review: The Toronto Star reads and reviews our books like Came the Dawn by Wallace Wood and Corpse on the Imjin! by Harvey Kurtzman. Laura Kane writes, "In dark shadows, bold lines and intense close-ups, [Wallace Wood] perfectly illustrates the stories — which ran the gamut from B-horror to confronting social issues such as racism, anti-Semitism and sexism." As for Corpse on the Imjin!, "In these violent, blood-spattered pages, [Kurtzman] lays bare the devastation of war."

• Review/Commentary: Eddie Campbell on The Comics Journal compares and contrasts recent reviews of the EC Comics being reprinted at Fantagraphics and how critics struggle and feel the need to analyze comics at literature. Distilling the article to a mere quote is abhorrent so we tried but please read it. "If comics are any kind of art at all, it’s the art of ordinary people. With regard to Kurtzman’s war comics, don’t forget that the artists on those books were nearer to the real thing than you and I will ever be."

• Review: Elliot Bay Books reviews No Straight Lines, edited by Justin Hall. Dave Wheeler writes, "Impossible to be even close to a complete collection of the genre, No Straight Lines instead seeks to trace the parallel trajectories toward visibility for both comics and LGBTQ identities…these are the stories of real people, or they are people transfigured by folklore."

• Plug: Greg Akers of the Memphis Flyer enjoyed reading Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 by Jaime Hernandez and Gilbert Hernandez. "Jaime breaks me every time. The conclusion to "The Love Bunglers" is an all-time great. Tears in my eyes, destroyed emotionally."

• Plug: Joost Swarte sings the blues at Angouleme, thanks to Paul Karasik.

• Review: SequArt looks at Black Hole by Charles Burns. Faith Brody Patane point out "…it’s a story that’s meant to be devoured with intent to possibly make you have freaky nightmares. Black Hole is one of those stories that lingers long after you read it…This group of teens is far from Riverdale and far more desperate."

Undergroundhog Day Sale 2013 - 30% Off Underground Comix!

mike

Take the plunge! Starting right now and running through Sunday, February 3, 2013, it's the third annual edition of our "Undergroundhog Day" Sale with at least 30% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer, Bill Griffith, Rand Holmes, Jack Jackson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! Yes, this includes new and recent books like Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 1958-1977, Jack Jackson's American History: Los Tejanos & Lost Cause, Malcolm McNeill's The Lost Art of Ah Pook Is Here, Diane Noomin's Glitz-2-Go, and Spain Rodriguez's Cruisin' with the Hound, plus to-be-released books like upcoming reprints of The Complete Crumb Comics volumes (and don't forget, most of our Crumb books come with an option for an exclusive signed bookplate)! The sale starts now and continues through the weekend. (Discount not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.)

This Week in Fantagraphics Events: 1/14-1/21

janice

Friday, January 18th

• Rochester, NY: The Nazareth College Department of Art launches their exhibit "Good Work," featuring our own Steve Brodner, Debbie Drechsler, Drew Friedman, and Richard Sala! (more info)

Sunday, January 20th

• Buffalo, NY: It's your last chance to catch the exhibit, Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution, an in-depth career retrospective on the late, great Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. (more info)

Remembering Spain Rodriguez

TheJenVaughn

The comics world lost a great cartoonist this month as Spain Rodriguez drove his wild hog one last time. As an influential members of underground comics, his reach was large. The New York Times wrote an excellent obituary on Spain and Bruce Weber profiled him as "part of a wave of artists — including R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson and Bill Griffith, who created the character Zippy the Pinhead — who established the irreverent, profane, highly sexed, antiwar, anti-capitalist spirit of underground comics (often, in this context, spelled comix)." Below is a sketch Spain made for Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds.

From the Latino Comics Expo, Ricardo Padilla remembers some of his favorite moments. "We were touched by his generous spirit, his kindness, and his willingness to support and encourage artists and their dreams. He even agreed to be part of our Art Show, LA RAZA COMICA, which premiered at the Cartoon Art Museum after our Expo. . . I will always treasure these memories of Spain Rodriguez and will never forget the encouragement and support he lent to the Latino Comics Expo. He was a True Revolutionary and and an honorable man. My fondest memory is of him in the Museum's 'green room' after his panel discussion, smiling with his wife and daughter. . . savoring one of my mom's 'chile verde' burritos. . ."

Stephen R. Bissette and Skip Williamson taught me everything I needed to know about the history of underground comics including Zap comics and Spain Rodriguez, from there I went on to read his collected comics, thanks to Last Gasp and Fantagraphics. While not everyone was able to meet this amazing creator, we can remember him through friends' stories of Spain and the stories he created. Tom Spurgeon of the Comics Reporter made a thorough list of all the links, stories and pictures of Spain in his collective memory.

For the curious, a retrospective of Spain's career has been hanging at the Burchfield Penney Center in Buffalo, NY since September and will be up through January 20th. Jack Foran of ArtVoice recently visited the exhibit and had this to say, "Rodriguez was a kind of incorrigible rebellious type. . . when abstract expressionism with its two-dimensionality principle was dogma—he was into three-dimensionality, in spades—and his blue-collar employment in Buffalo area manufactories, where the curriculum was the much more interesting subject to him of simmering socioeconomic class warfare." His art will live on.

(The first photo is a panel from Cruisin' with the Hound by Spain released earlier this year while the last on is page six from Hard-Ass Friday Nite).

Daily OCD 10/9/12

TheJenVaughn

The freshiest, just cleaned kitten of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Plug: TIME Magazine talks about You'll Never Know Book Three: Soldier's Heart by C. Tyler. "The book is as much about empty spaces--in history and on the page--as it is about the details she can fill in." See it in print next week!

• Review: Dal Tokyo by Gary Panter is listed in The Times of UK as one of the essential books for Chris Ware. Ware says "Gary Panter is the William Blake of comics; a true poet who sees and feels what the rest of us can't, and he's done more to expand the power of drawing in the medium thatn probably anyone else alive." Original article here.

• Interview: Cartoonist and creator of Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth Chris Ware is interviewed by Phawker by Rita Book.

• Commentary: ArtVoice visits the Spain Rodriguez retrospective at the Burchfield Penney Center in Buffalo, NY. Jack Foran says,"Rodriguez was a kind of incorrigible rebellious type. . . when abstract expressionism with its two-dimensionality principle was dogma—he was into three-dimensionality, in spades—and his blue-collar employment in Buffalo area manufactories, where the curriculum was the much more interesting subject to him of simmering socioeconomic class warfare."

• Review: Rob Clough of High-Low reposted his Seqart post on Megan Kelso and The Squirrel Mother. Cough states, "What makes Kelso one of my favorite artists is her total devotion to the medium and a constant desire to improve. . . Kelso's art is all about the narrative. Every word and every line advances the story; there are no extraneous pyrotechnics. Indeed, Kelso's line is more elegant than spectacular."

• Review: Publishers Weekly enjoys Love and Rockets New Stories #5. "In the 30 years they’ve been writing and drawing Love and Rockets, Los Bros Hernandez have created wonderfully complex story lines and characters. . . This web of superior magical-realistic storytelling involves readers in the perplexed yearnings of a huge cast of unforgettable characters unaware of their own capacity for general self-delusion and occasional self-discovery."

• Commentary: Hannah Means-Shannon contines her SPX coverage with more on the Bros on The Beat. On the "Life After Alternative Comics" panel, Jaime Hernandez and Daniel Clowes spoke about the past and present of their comics-making environment. "Dan Clowes addressed the 'wasteland' of comics in the early 1980’s and the origin of his LLOYD LLEWELLYN series and the strange, often intriguing piles of fan mail he received from readers and prison inmates."

• Interview: Also on Phawker is an interview of Charles Burns, creator of Black Hole. He weaves stories by "paying close attention to the way my brain functions. I sit and write every day and it amazes me how often I repeat myself – come up with the same “brilliant” solution to a plot thread only to discover notes from years earlier where I’ve already clearly laid out the same ideas."

This Week in Fantagraphics Events: 9/10-9/17

janice

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)

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, WA: It'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)

Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution in NY This Fall!

janice

Buffalo, NY pays tribute to their proud native son Manuel “Spain” Rodriguez with Spain: Rock, Roll, Rumbles, Rebels, & Revolution, an in-depth career retrospective opening Friday, September 14th.

The exhibition will be hosted by the Burchfield Penney Art Center, and will include both original drawings and reproductions representing all stages of Spain’s comix career (East Village Other, Zodiac Mindwarp, Zap Comix, Subvert, Anarchy, Weirdo, Zero Zero, Blab, American Splendor, et al.), including prints from his poster designs for the San Francisco Mime Troupe (1974–2011), with particular emphasis on his mature work of recent years in which he explores both his personal history of growing up in Buffalo in the 1950s and early ‘60s.

The Burchfield Penney Art Center is located at 1300 Elmwood Avenue, in the heart of Buffalo's Museum District. This exhibit will run through Sunday, January 20th, 2013.

Daily OCD 6/21/12

TheJenVaughn

The up-to-the-minute Online Commentaries & Diversion:

•Plug: Our newest Jacques Tardi release, New York Mon Amour is out and available at your favorite comic shops. One of our such shop, Forbidden Planet, is very excited to have it in stock. Joe says, "I’m so glad the Fanta crew has been making these titles available again to English language readers."

•Interview: WMFU host of Too Much Information, Benjamin Walker, questions Michael Kupperman about comics as a serious form of literature at his MIT Center for Civic Media conference talk. Kupperman: "You see high points. You have to build to that humor. Sometimes there's just enough for three panels—I like to keep it short, keep the audience wanting more. It's kind of—there can be a central idea I need to do it."

•Review: On The Comics Journal, Jeet Heer takes a close look at Spain Rodriguez's newest collection of stories. In Heer's words, Cruisin' with the Hound : The Life and Times of Fred Toote "is a splendid book, a startling view of a plebeian world that tends to be submerged by the North American tendency to pretend that class doesn’t exist. The book is also evidence of the strength of the autobiographical comics tradition, which has room not just for minute introspection but also for stories of lively brutality."

•Review: Comics Worth Reading sits down with the latest issue (#16) of Linda Medley's Castle Waiting series. Johanna Draper Carlson glowingly states, "it’s [Medley's] character work, the small bits of perfectly realized dialogue, that make this series so rewarding."

•Plug: The ineffable Bud Plant mentions the brand-new Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch on his website: "Mickey Mouse was at his best in the 1930s newspaper daily and Sunday pages of Floyd Gottfredson."

Daily OCD: 6/5-6/6/12

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Awards: Congratulations to the great Joost Swarte, awarded the 2012 Marten Toonder Prize and its concomitant fat cash prize by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, as reported by Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter

• Review: "One of the first comprehensive comic strip reprint projects of the current era, and arguably the most important, has achieved completion with the publication of the thirteenth and final volume in Fantagraphics’ series collecting George Herriman’s Krazy Kat Sunday pages in their entirety.... I expect I will be reading from this library for years to come. I am as grateful for this body of work as, I expect, readers of Emily Dickinson were when her complete works were first published in full." – Bill Kartalopoulos, Print

• Review (Audio): Inkstuds host Robin McConnell is joined by Paul Gravett, Joe McCulloch and Tom Spurgeon for a roundtable discussion of Cruisin' with the Hound by Spain Rodriguez and other books

• Review: "Here are the early ejaculations from the primordial form of what was to become one of the great American writers. Here is Flannery O'Connor as she is formulating her unique vision of America and all that it entails.... What value does Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons have inherently? I think the answer to that question is entirely subjective. ...I personally wish to thank Fantagraphics for going out on a limb and publishing this book, if for no other reason than to put Flannery O'Connor back into the pop culture discussion for however briefly it may be." – Daniel Elkin, Comics Bulletin

• Review: "Anyone can be grotesque and horrifying. To truly get under the skin of the audience is an ability not many have. Someone who does is Thomas Ott, and he uses his ability to the highest effect in Cinema Panopticum. ...[I]f you are looking for an unsettling horror story rendered beautifully by an expert craftsman there is no doubt this should be in your collection." – Taylor Pithers, The Weekly Crisis

• Interview (Audio): Spend 3 minutes with Michael Kupperman as Tom Gambino of Pronto Comics talks to Michael from the floor of last April's MoCCA Fest on the ProntoCast podcast

• Film Studies: At Boing Boing, Jim Woodring writes about the 1931 Fleischer Bros. short that expanded his young mind: "I might have come to grips with the overwhelming mystery of life in a rational, organic manner if it weren't for a cartoon I saw on my family's old black and white TV in the mid '50s when I was three or four years old. This cartoon rang a bell so loud that I can still feel its reverberations.... Whatever [the creators'] motivation and intent, 'Bimbo's Initiation' became my prime symbolic interpreter, the foundation of my life's path and endlessly exploding bomb at the core of my creative output."

• Gaming: Thanks to intrepid Fantagraphics intern Michael Fitzgerald for passing along this article at Hardcore Gaming 101 about something that I've been very curious about, the Usagi Yojimbo "Samurai Warrior" game for Commodore 64

Daily OCD Extra: May 2012 Booklist reviews

mike

In this month's issue of Booklist you can find reviews of two of our recent releases, excerpted below:

Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez: "Rodriguez... had the perfect youth for reality comics. He grew up in an ethnically mixed working- and lower-middle-class neighborhood of Buffalo, and he was self-directed from early on. He went to religious instruction on his own initiative (his parents were indifferent) until a boozy priest chewed him out without hearing his story. He attended public school, discovered EC Comics, turned teenager just as R & B turned to rock ’n’ roll, went to art school after high school, dropped out to do factory work, and, most important, hot-rodded around to dance bars with his friends and then joined a motorcycle club. How cool is that? Answer: extremely, especially since all that time he was honing his drawing skills into the thick-outlined, carefully detailed style (like R. Crumb’s but without broad caricature) for which he is universally envied and beloved. This collection of autobiographical stories, accompanied by a long excerpt from a biographical interview with him, is one of Fantagraphics’ best production jobs as well as a helluva satisfying window on an era — the fifties — that American culture can’t let go of." – Ray Olson (Starred Review)

Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now by various artists, edited by Matthias Wivel: "Like many regions of the world, Scandinavia has a vibrant alternative-comics scene that’s essentially unknown to even the most well-informed American comics fan. This eye-opening collection of recent work from some two dozen artists is a welcome step toward rectifying that ignorance. As with any anthology, the lineup is uneven and the wide range of approaches, from dauntingly experimental to borderline mainstream, makes for an eclectic bunch.... The strips contain few Nordic signifiers, making them eloquent testaments to the universal language of comics." — Gordon Flagg

Cruisin' with Spain Rodriguez at the Latino Comics Expo This Weekend!

janice

We're excited to announce that Spain Rodriguez has been added as a special guest at this weekend's 2012 Latino Comics Expo in San Francisco!

He'll be making a rare convention appearance to sign copies of the brand-new release Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Toote!

Plus, on Saturday, May 7th, Ricardo Padilla will host a conversation between friends Spain and our own Mario Hernandez at 3:00 PM! This is not to be missed!

As previously reported, Mario will also be signing Love & Rockets from 1:00 to 2:30 PM that Saturday. And on Sunday, May 6th, from 1:15-2:00 PM, he'll be doing a very special reading from Love & Rockets, followed by a Q&A!

The Cartoon Art Museum [ 655 Mission Street between New Montgomery and Third Streets ] is around the corner from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a dozen other museums which comprise the Yerba Buena Gardens cultural district of San Francisco’s South of Market area.

Daily OCD: 4/30/12

mike

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Austrian cartoonist Nicholas Mahler cheerfully spoofs superheroes and modern comic-book publishing with Angelman... These kinds of jokes about the venality of superhero industry have been made many times before, but Mahler’s little squiggly characters are adorable, and his gags are genuinely funny, especially as poor little Angelman gets more and more loaded down with quirks and complications. Angelman is a satire, yes, but it also revels to some extent in the goofiness of revamps, retcons, and all the other gimmicks that keep mainstream comics afloat." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

• Review: "The Matthias Wivel-edited anthology Kolor Klimax: Nordic Comics Now offers a generous sampling of recent work by new and veteran cartoonists from Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark.... Overall, it’s a fine survey of creators who are largely unknown here in the States." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

• Review: "Spain Rodriguez is one of the legends of the original underground comics wave, and he tells his own origin story in Cruisin’ with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté, a collection of short stories about coming of age in Buffalo in the ’50s and ’60s. ...Cruisin’ with the Hound... gives a real flavor both of Rodriguez’s work — which was so different in its point of view than the other underground comics of the late ’60s and early ’70s — and from whence it came." – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

• Review: "It's over. And I am so sad. Fantagraphics's breathtaking reprints of some of the greatest comic strips of all time -- E.C. Segar's fabulously wonderful Popeye -- comes to a conclusion with this amazing sixth volume, a perfect collection of comics art that brings joy literally from cover to cover. From the latest spectacular die-cut front cover to the awesomely odd letter reprinted on the inside back cover, the final volume of the adventures of the sailor man and his friends, enemies and pets is pure joy and bliss, a deliriously charming collection... There was no world quite like the insane world that E.C. Segar created in Popeye. And that world is pure magic." – Jason Sacks, Comics Bulletin

• Review: "One of the most beloved comic strips of all time, Charles Schulz's Peanuts chronicled the adventures of Charlie Brown and friends for nearly five decades. Fantagraphics has been working for a few years now on a massive reissue of the entire strip, and their latest edition, The Complete Peanuts 1983-1984, collects work from the post-'classic' Peanuts era of the '60s. While it wouldn't be unfair to expect a bit of staleness at this stage, these later comics remain consistently witty and entertaining, and reflect Schulz's continued mastery of comedic timing within a four-panel layout.... Consistently subtle yet always timely, after 30 years, Schulz still had a winning formula on his hands." – Phil Guie, Critical Mob

• Interview (Audio): Podcaster Jason Barr: "Johnny Ryan guests on this addition of A.D.D. We talk about political correctness, illustration, growing up outside Boston, religion, wanting to be a priest, childhood loves, hating Doonesbury, having a funny family, not giving a shit, confrontational art, marriage & why people are afraid of Johnny Ryan among many other topics."

• Feature: "Love and Rockets has probably been my favorite comic book series for over a decade now. Though it’s been running since the early '80s, I didn’t discover it until Penny Century #1 came out in the late 90s -- I was immediately drawn to the cover art (as seen here), and the story within wasn’t at all what I expected. Of course, I immediately started reading all the collections starting from the beginning, so I could figure out who these characters were and discover their rich backstories." – Alicia Korenman, Chapelboro

• Plug: "Available now is an exceptional collection that just might have missed your attention. I have particularly enjoyed [The Sincerest Form of Parody].... This collects the 30 best stories from all the wild comics that came out to compete with EC's original Mad Comics, in 1953-55.... Plus I enjoy every project editor John Benson writes about. He offers fascinating insights into each of these disparate titles, interesting facts about the artists and even what they were spoofing." – Bud Plant

• Plug: On YALSA's The Hub blog, Emily Calkins includes Wandering Son by Shimura Takako on their list of graphic novels featuring LGBTQ characters