The organizers of the Festival International de la Bande Desinée in Angoulême France (you know, the big one) have announced their Official Selections for the festival, including the French edition of The Man Who Grew His Beard (L'homme qui se laissait pousser la barbe) by Olivier Schrauwen, which we will be publishing in English in August 2011. Congratulations Olivier! (The list also includes recent books by our homeys Charles Burns, Dan Clowes, Joe Sacco & Dash Shaw. Nice work, boys.)

Congratulations to Monte Schulz, whose 2009 novel, THIS SIDE OF JORDAN, published by Fantagraphics, was the Award Winner in the "Fiction: General" category of the 2010 Best Book Awards sponsored by USA Book News! 

Look for Schulz's next novel, THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER, in December from Fantagraphics.  

The nominations for this year's Lulu Awards have been announced and Miss Lasko-Gross & Carol Tyler are both in the field of candidates for Lulu of the Year, "For the creator, book or other entity whose work best exemplifies Friends of Lulu’s mission statement." Congratulations to both! The online ballot is here.

We are pleased to report that Ganges by Kevin Huizenga, which was nominated for all 3 major industry awards this year (Eisner, Harvey & Ignatz), took home the Ignatz brick for Outstanding Series at the award ceremony at SPX this past weekend. (See the complete list of winners in all categories here.) Congratulations!

To celebrate, all 3 issues of the series are now 20% off for a limited time! There's never been a better time to fill in the gaps in your collection or catch up on the whole series at once!

No lie: just a couple days ago I was wondering when they were going to announce this year's Ignatz Award nominees, and lo and behold, here they are today! Our artists & books received 8 nominations in 5 categories, and as per our typical M.O., we've put all the nominated titles on sale for a limited time! Congratulations to all; see the complete list of nominees here.

Outstanding Artist: Al Columbia, Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days
Outstanding Graphic Novel: Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days by Al Columbia

Outstanding Artist: John Pham, Sublife
Outstanding Series: Sublife by John Pham
Outstanding Comic: Sublife Vol. 2 by John Pham

Outstanding Series: Ganges by Kevin Huizenga

Outstanding Story: "John Wesley Harding," The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, by Joe Daly

Outstanding Story: "Untitled", Mome Vol. 16, by Laura Park

(Additional congratulations to Noah Van Sciver, nominated for Outstanding Comic for Blammo #6, and to Lilli Carré and Martin Cendreda, both nominated for Outstanding Mini-Comic.)

We all knew it, but now it's official! Congratulations to Jim Woodring for being awarded this year's Stranger Genius Award in Literature. Announcing the award on The Stranger's blog Slog, Paul Constant says "Woodring is the first Stranger Genius of Literature who has been published by local publisher Fantagraphics Books (they've been ardent promoters of Woodring's work from the very beginning of his career). Quite simply, that's insane: They're the best comics publisher in the world. They publish geniuses on a regular basis, and many would argue that Woodring is the greatest cartooning genius on the Fantagraphics roster. We agree with that sentiment." Well thanks Paul! Read the rest of the announcement for more info, including what Jim plans to do with the $5000 prize money.

(Photo by The Stranger's Kelly O.)

This is somewhat belated news, but we didn't get the photo uploaded until just now: Peter Bagge, Moto Hagio and C. Tyler were all awarded with Inkpot Awards at Comic-Con this year! Above, Peter and Carol pose with their trophies; Moto didn't bring her trophy to her signings, so if anyone has photos of her receiving or holding the award, we'd love to see them!

Update: found at Comicsgirl!

I thought I could keep up with Online Commentary & Diversions while at Comic-Con. Ha ha ha ha ha.

• Coming Attractions: At Robot 6, Chris Mautner takes a look through the 46 (!!!) upcoming books listed in our Fall/Winter catalog (note: listed release dates may no longer be accurate and are all subject to change)

• History/Profile/Review: "What A Drunken Dream reveals is an author whose childhood passion for Frances Hodgson Burnett, L.M. Montgomery, and Isaac Asimov profoundly influenced the kind of stories she chose to tell as an adult. ... For those new to Hagio’s work, Fantagraphics has prefaced A Drunken Dream with two indispensable articles by noted manga scholar Matt Thorn. ... Taken together with the stories in A Drunken Dream, these essays make an excellent introduction to one of the most literary and original voices working in comics today. Highly recommended." – Katherine Dacey, The Manga Critic

• Review: "Anyone interested in the historical development of manga and the women who’ve contributed to the art form should read this book. I hope A Drunken Dream sells well enough for Fantagraphics or other publishers to consider putting out some of Hagio’s longer works. Her short stories are great, but I’d love to see what she does with a longer storyline." – Anna Neatrour, TangognaT

• Plug: "What Osamu Tezuka is to shonen and seinen manga, Moto Hagio is to shojo manga -- a true innovator who challenged and stretched the conventions of the medium by created touching, memorable and truly artistic comics stories. ...  Fantagraphics had copies of the absolutely gorgeous hardcover edition of A Drunken Dream available for sale at their [Comic-Con] booth..." – Deb Aoki, About.com: Manga

• Interview: The Comics Journal's Shaenon Garrity sat down with Moto Hagio & translator Matt Thorn for a conversation at Comic-Con International: "I find it very embarrassing to read my very early work, but when you see the stories arranged chronologically it gives a good overall impression of my career.  In Japanese, too, it’s common to present an author’s works in a sample spanning his or her whole career, so it’s turned out very much like that."

• Review: "Deadpan dialogue, drawings that move from panel to panel with the strange and deliberate force of kung fu performance art, and a subtle interweaving of humor and angst come together to make [Werewolves of Montpellier] a brief knockout of a book." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

• Review: "...[T]his cartwheeling shaggy-dog story begins, like a lot of metafiction, with the semblance of reality... But by the time a frog demon reanimates a 19th-century French peasant whose brains it has eaten, it’s fairly clear that Deitch is making stuff up. The fun of [The Search for Smilin' Ed] is the way it constantly darts back and forth across the line between genuine show-business lore (a favorite Deitch theme) and delirious whole-cloth invention. There are stories within stories, unreliable explainers, secret passageways that lead from one part of the tale to another." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

• Review: "Wally Gropius is a book that’s constantly lying to the reader, with a terrifying chaos roiling just immediately below its surface. The book is a flood of visual and textual information, but the information itself is near constantly false. ... For me, it’s a book that lies constantly, that lies at its very core, but that nevertheless ends up getting at a greater truth of things. And so, yeah: I thought that was pretty neat." – Abhay Kholsa, The Savage Critics

• Review: "There’s more derring-do [in Prince Valiant Vol. 2: 1939-1940] than you can shake a sword at! Foster’s stories are filled with vivid, colorful characters, none more engaging than the aptly named Valiant and his never-ending quest for adventure. The artwork is breathtaking. Foster’s figures are handsome and graceful whether eating a sumptuous feast or fighting on a crowded battlefield. ... Even if the age of chivalry is not your flask of ale, Foster’s art and storytelling will win you over." — Rich Clabaugh, The Christian Science Monitor

• Review: "This book is why Fantagraphics is one of the best and most important comic publishers in the business today. [Blazing Combat] is a series that could have easily been forgotten to the ages but Fantagraphics always is at the forefront of making sure important works of sequential art are remembered. ... This is a brilliant collection of stories that should be required reading. Intelligent, gripping stories and fantastic art! Grade A +" – Tim Janson, Mania and Newsarama

• Review: "Formally inventive and emotionally acute, Bottomless Belly Button indeed proves to be all those things: as fascinating and affecting a depiction of family ties as Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections or Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums." – Ed Park, Los Angeles Times

• Plugs: Alex Carr of Amazon's Omnivoracious blog has Weathercraft by Jim Woodring ("I am woefully ignorant when it comes to Woodring’s Frank comics, and this looks like the weirdest place to start") and Dungeon Quest Book 1 ("After The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, I will read anything Joe Daly produces") on his summer vacation reading list

• History: For the Los Angeles Times, Ben Schwartz compiles an oral history of the 1980s heyday of L.A. alternative comics with Matt Groening, Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez, David Lynch (!), and Gary Panter

• Comic-Con: ICv2 provides a few additional details (including price and publishing schedule) and The Beat, Cartoon Brew, The Daily Cartoonist, Disney Comics Worldwide, disZine, Publishers Weekly cover our announcement about publishing Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse strips; Sean T. Collins wins for best commentary: "Given Disney's relationships with both Boom and Marvel I'm a little surprised, but only a little. I imagine that if you walk into a conference room with an armful of the Complete Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, Popeye, Krazy & Ignatz, etc., you probably walk back out with a handful of contracts."

• Comic-Con: Anime News Network reports on Moto Hagio being awarded an Inkpot Award last week

• Comic-Con: Read Blake Bell's daily reports from San Diego: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 

• Comic-Con: The San Diego Union Tribune talks to our own Eric Reynolds and other publishers on the floor of Comic-Con about the recent surge in classic comic-strip collections

• Comic-Con: Publishers Weekly's "Photo Mania" from the floor of Comic-Con includes nice shots of Moto Hagio, C. Tyler and Natalia Hernandez with Tio Jaime taken at our booth

• Comic-Con: Bad Lit's Mike Everleth reports on Peter Bagge's Comic-Con Spotlight Panel

• Comic-Con: Making the scene at the USA Today Pop Candy meetup, Dame Darcy

• Comic-Con: Scan The Comics Reporter's "Notes from the Convention Floor" posts for more various tidbits: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

The nominations for the 2010 Harvey Awards have been announced and we're pleased to report that our artists and publications have been honored with 5 of them:

Best Continuing or Limited Series: Ganges by Kevin Huizenga
Best Single Issue or Story: Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga

Best Domestic Reprint Project: Humbug

Special Award for Excellence in Presentation: The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons from 1913-1940, edited by Trina Robbins, designed by Adam Grano

Best Biographical, Historical or Journalistic Presentation: The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean and Kristy Valenti

Our normal M.O. with award nominations is to put the nominated titles on sale — conveniently, all of these titles are already on sale because they are also 2010 Eisner Award nominees. Still, browse and shop our 2010 Harvey Award nominees here.

Several of our worthy pals also picked up nominations for their non-Fantagraphics work, including but not limited to Robert Crumb, Roger Langridge, Joe Sacco, Seth & R. Sikoryak — congratulations to all. The complete list of nominees can be found here.

Various news outlets have reported the winners of the annual National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards; congratulations are due Steve Brodner, division winner for Advertising Illustration.