The unbroken bottom ring of your three-ring binder Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: Patrick Smith over at Spandexless cracks his knuckles and reads all of The End of the Fucking World mini-comics by Charles Forsman. Smith states,"Overall though, it’s a story about extremes and the kind of nihilistic worldview that only a teenager could have, while also adding on certain discerning touches that separates this book from so many other teenage melodramas." Forsman's complete The End of the Fucking World is slated for release in 2013.

• Review: Zap #2 gets Boing-Boinged. Adam Parfrey speaks on the series of ZAP comics that we will publish next year. "Throughout the book were pages of strange nightmare scenes in an quasi-psychedelic art style I had never seen before and didn't really understand."

• Plug: Banned Book Week is here! The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund posted about the most often banned comic book and Daniel Clowes' Eightball 22 is smack dab on there. The damn thing got a teacher fired!

• Interview: Print Mag posted the second part of their Roger Langridge interview where he mentions, "Top of the list right now is a Fred the Clown graphic novel. I'm thinking it might be a good time to return to the character, because I've had critical success, if not commercial success, with a couple of other things now."

• Plug: More pictures of Noah Van Sciver and The Hypo on John Porcellino's blog.

• Interview: Patrick Smith interviewed upcoming Fantagraphics artist Ed Piskor on his work including Hip Hop Family Tree at Spandexless.

Tomorrow, February 2, 2012, through Sunday, February 5, 2012, it's the return of our "Undergroundhog Day" Sale with at least 30% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by Vaughn Bodé, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Joyce Farmer, Bill Griffith, Rand Holmes, Jack Jackson, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! Yes, this includes brand new books like Bill Griffith's Lost and Found and the hardcover Fritz the Cat collection, plus not-quite-out-yet books like Diane Noomin's Glitz-2-Go, Spain Rodriguez's Cruisin' with the Hound and the expanded edition of The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 1! The sale starts tonight and continues through the weekend. (Discount not valid at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.)

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• List: After appearing on Amazon.com's Best Books of 2011 — Comics and Graphic Novels top 10, Love and Rockets: New Stories #4 and Pogo Vol. 1 show up on Amazon.ca's list of the same name, in the #5 and #4 positions respectively

• Plug: At NPR's Monkey See, Glen Weldon recommends Pogo Vol. 1 as a "tryptophan-tastic tome" for your turkey-coma reading enjoyment: "Walt Kelly's seminal, satirical, exquisitely rendered, hugely influential (and, not for nothing, actually funny) comic strip is getting a deluxe treatment by Fantagraphics. Crisply reproduced at a generous size that makes it easier than ever to marvel over Kelly's marvelous linework, this book is everything fans and comics historians were hoping for."

• Review: "...[Tales Designed to] Thrizzle returns to form with lucky number seven — and of all things, it seems like Christopher Nolan’s Inception provided the catalyst.... I’ve described director Christopher Nolan’s movies as what stupid people think smart movies look like; Michael Kupperman’s comics are the opposite, stupid comics made by a smart person for smart people, so perhaps there’s some yin-yang resonance there. Regardless, Kupperman recognized Inception‘s Russian-nesting-doll structure of dreams within dreams within dreams as natural connective tissue for his stream-of-consciousness comedy... It’s nice to hold documentary evidence of Kupperman’s comic genius in my hands again." – Sean T. Collins, The Comics Journal

• Review: "The authors [of Oil and Water] show admirable self-awareness in portraying their semifictional companions (and by implication, themselves) as naive voyeurs whose presence mostly irritates their subjects. 'Lemme get this straight,' says one character. 'They white. We black. They blue. We red. They rich…and I got $53 to buy a week’s worth of groceries. And they gonna tell our stories?' Actually, they do a fine job." – Ruth Brown, Willamette Week

• Review: "Full of endnotes, translating many phrases he quotes in their original languages, and graced by a few of the couple’s photos and Sarah’s plein air oil paintings, [Estonia: A Ramble Through the Periphery] provides a suitably quirky introduction to Theroux as an essayist and critic.... As the author of two Fantagraphics short studies on Al Capp and Edward Gorey, Theroux’s elliptical style and elongated perspective delineates an American tradition of satire that connects him to Thomas Nast’s political and cultural caricatures of a century and a half ago.... Catch the wit and the venom, the depth and the breadth, of this honest account of 'a strange, unlooked-for place at the back of beyond' where 'the fascination of its strangeness' renders it a fitting subject for a curious report by a memorably talented, ever off-kilter, chronicler of oddity. [Rating] 8/10" – John L. Murphy, PopMatters

• Plugs: Our FBI•MINIs have garnered attention from Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter ("I want as many as I can get my hands on"), J.K. Parkin at Robot 6 ("The big chain stores might have cheap TVs this weekend, but how many of them come with a Tony Millionaire mini-comic? Not nearly enough, I tell ya"), Alan Gardner at The Daily Cartoonist ("If you're already planning on picking out some titles for the holidays, might as well get the rare or unpublished work as well"), Paul Constant at The Stranger ("These books are a great idea; a special gift for your special comics fan")

• Scene: At The HeroesOnline Blog, read a recap of the Love and Rockets discussion group which we previously spotlighted here

• Interview: "I talked on the phone with Adam Witt of Comics Will Break Your Heart about the early days of the Mome anthology, serializing work, collaboration with other artists, film, and my inability to remember the dates of anything. I apologize in advance for the mumbling bits," says Paul Hornschemeier on his blog

• Analysis: At Robot 6, Matt Seneca examines the sequential imagery in a poster by Victor Moscoso: "The poster Moscoso created for SF-based motion picture company Pablo Ferro Films... is a watershed moment in the artist’s oeuvre, the place where his works in comics and posters unify with perfect elegance. It’s also a fascinating, formally audacious piece of comics, one that breaks rules and innovates furiously without giving up an iota of visual beauty."

Fantagraphics Books President and Co-Publisher Gary Groth announced today at Comic-Con International that the Seattle-based publisher has entered into an agreement to publish The Complete ZAP Comix in Fall of 2012.

ZAP remains the best-known and most influential underground comic of all-time, and in many ways is Ground Zero for the entire field of underground, alternative, literary and art comics that exists today. Created by Robert Crumb, it was one of the defining events in the counterculture of the 1960s and singlehandedly launched the “underground comix” era.

“ZAP took comics from children to adults, crushing The Comics Code Authority in the process,” proclaimed ZAP artist Victor Moscoso.

The Complete ZAP Comix will be published as a two-volume, slipcased hardcover set, printed slightly larger than the original comics, and shot from the original negatives to the comic books, ensuring the finest reproduction ever seen of the material. It will also include the rarely-seen ZAM, a one-shot mini-comic/jam spinoff of ZAP from 1974, as well as other supplementary features, interviews with the artists, and other surprises.

“ZAP may be the most significant series in the history of American comics,” said Fantagraphics President and Co-Publisher Gary Groth. “Its cultural preeminence is the result of artistic merit, not collectibility or economics and that sets it apart from most comics series that have achieved this level of public awareness or notoriety. The artists that Crumb invited into ZAP each proved to be a stylistic virtuoso with a unique point of view and an uncompromising vision. ZAP was the vanguard of a movement that segued into the alternative comics of the ’80s and the graphic novels of the ’00s. We couldn’t be prouder to collect this landmark series in its entirety in a beautifully packaged two-volume set.”

Originally printed by Beat writer Charles Plymell in an edition of around 3,500 copies, ZAP #1 was the first title published by the late Don Donahue under the Apex Novelties imprint, and was infamously sold on the streets of Haight-Ashbury out of a baby stroller pushed by Crumb’s ex-wife, Dana. Over time, the series’ 16 issues have sold millions of copies.

Although R. Crumb had initially created ZAP as a showcase for his own work, the success of the first issue led him to open up the pages of subsequent issues to several other artists. He invited his peers S. Clay Wilson, Robert Williams, “Spain” Rodriguez, Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin to join him, effectively creating an artists’ collective that has remained mostly constant in the subsequent decades; when Rick Griffin died in 1991, the artist Paul Mavrides was invited to join the group.

“Fantagraphics’ The Complete ZAP Comix, as designed by Victor Moscoso, will be a classy item for the bookshelves of underground comics fans — those who can afford it, that is,” said ZAP artist Gilbert Shelton. “I imagine most of the original readers wish they still had their copy of the first edition of ZAP #1, which sells for over ten thousand dollars now, if in perfect condition. But part of the secret of the success of underground comix was that they were cheaply produced and turned yellow and fell apart quickly, and also that they were borrowed and never returned by one’s friends, thereby forcing you to buy another copy. This will not happen with the new collected edition, which will be produced under the most rigorous of quality control.”

“Much as the effect EC’s MAD had on the mid-20th Century, ZAP was equally influential and disruptive to cultural mores at the end of the 20th Century, but without the hindrance of the old comic book code that cramped graphic novel expression for 40 years,” said ZAP artist Robert Williams. “I’m very pleased that Fantagraphics will release this long-awaited compendium of ZAP Comix.”

“When Robert Crumb started ZAP in 1968, no one had any idea that it would still be alive 45 years later,” Shelton added. “This exercise in anarchy — there were never any rules, restrictions, or editorial policy — is still the flagship of the underground comics movement. I tried, and failed, to get my fellow ZAPsters to correct their spelling errors, but they would not be subjected to such editorial tyranny. I also wanted to let other artists into the group, but it was decided to restrict the number of contributors to seven. So be it. Spell free or die, I now say.”

Fantagraphics will be publishing the The Complete ZAP Comix in Fall of 2012.

The Complete ZAP Comix
By: R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Robert Williams, Spain Rodriguez,
Gilbert Shelton, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, & Paul Mavrides
Release Date: Fall 2012
Page Count: 800 PP
Black & White • Two-Volume, Slipcased Hardcover Set

ZAP is a registered trademark of Zap Comix.

Sorry for the short notice on this must-see exhibit which opens tonight at Andrew Edlin Gallery in NYC:

"Andrew Edlin Gallery is pleased to present Zap: Masters of Psychedelic Art, 1965-74, curated by Gary Panter and Chris Byrne. The exhibition will include works by the seven artists from the original Zap lineup: Robert Crumb, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez and Robert Williams. The focus of the show is the early days of Zap, when these artists begat their visionary deconstruction of the comic book with remarkable innovations in storytelling and drawing. An accompanying catalogue is being published by the gallery."

'Nuff said! (Well, if it's not 'nuff, there's more info and links to preview the artwork here.)

UPDATE: More on the show from Gary at his blog!

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

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday we're celebrating independence and freedom of speech by taking at least 20% OFF almost every book and comic in our Underground Comix category, including books by Vaughn Bodé, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch, Victor Moscoso, Spain Rodriguez, Frank Stack, Robert Williams and more! The sale is over at the end of the day on Friday, July 9, so don't delay!

PLUS...

We still have a large selection of backlist titles at great discounts of 1/3 to 1/2 off the cover prices in our Clearance Sale and Closeout Deals sections.