With its long-awaited second volume, Linda Medley's witty and sublimely drawn fantasy eases into a relaxed comedy of manners as Lady Jain settles into her new life in Castle Waiting.
Unexpected visitors result in the discovery and exploration of a secret passageway, not to mention an epic bowling tournament. A quest for ladies' underpants, the identity of Pindar's father, the education of Simon, Rackham and Chess arguing about the "manly arts," and an escape-prone goat are just a few of the elements in this delightful new volume.
The book also includes many flashbacks that deepen the stories behind the characters, including Jain's earliest romantic entanglements and conflicts with her bratty older sisters, the horrific past of the enigmatic Dr. Fell, and more.
Originally released in a slightly shorter version when the series ceased publication, this new edition includes over 60 pages' worth of brand new additional story and epilogue, and the entire book has been re-lettered in a livelier, more inviting style for an even more engaging reading experience.
Cathy Malkasian's debut graphic novel Percy Gloom netted her the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award at the 2008 Eisner Awards. Now we're pleased to present the sequel, Wake Up, Percy Gloom! In it, our diminutive, bulb-headed hero seemingly pulls a Rip Van Winkle. Awakening in an unfamiliar land, he embarks on a quest to find his mother; fantastical happenings ensue. Whether you were beguiled by the first book or you're meeting Percy for the first time, you'll be sure to find his gorgeously-illustrated new adventure full of delight, wonder, humor and pathos. The book's at the printer for release later in Spring. We have a 17-page teaser for you, and you can pre-order a copy right here.
You'll be able to pick up your FREE copy of this special comic exclusively at participating comic shops on Saturday, May 4, 2013. Lots of shops have sales on FCBD so it'll be a great time to pick up available volumes in our Prince Valiant series!
Are you ready to get Groove-y? Our new, redesigned, remastered paperback edition of the great Gene Deitch's The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove is just a couple months away and we have advance copies in house to show off. Collecting Deitch's jazz illustrations and cartoons from The Record Changer magazine 1945-1951 in an oversized coffee table book, it's a jazz fiend's, vinyl collector's, midcentury illustration lover's, retro-phile's dream! Right now you can groove on an 18-page excerpt and pre-order a copy (at 30% off through March 18 as part of our Art & Illustration sale!) right here.
We've just uploaded a 16-page excerpt (comprising the entire first chapter) of Goddamn This War! by Jacques Tardi & Jean-Pierre Verney for your perusal. This section of Tardi's second WWI masterwork covers 1914, the first year of the war, told from the somewhat jaundiced (though not completely despairing yet) point of view of a French infantry soldier, illustrated in Tardi's loose-yet-precise pen and striking watercolors. View the preview in the embedded reader here or get the PDF directly. We've just approved the printer's proofs which means the book should be hitting shelves in June or so — you can get it a little sooner if you pre-order direct from us.
During the 1990s and 2000s, Peter Bagge worked mostly on his "Buddy Bradley" stories in Hate and a series of standalone graphic novels (Apocalypse Nerd), but in-between these major projects this ever-energetic cartoonist also cranked out dozens of shorter stories, which are now finally being collected in this riotously anarchic book.
Peter Bagge's Other Stuff includes a few lesser-known Bagge characters, including the wacky modern party girl "Lovey" and the aging bobo "Shut-Ins" — not to mention the self-explanatory "Rock 'N' Roll Dad" starring Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys. But many of the strips are one-off gags or short stories, often with a contemporary satirical slant, including on-site reportage like "So Much Comedy, So Little Time" (from a comedy festival) and more. Also: Dick Cheney, The Matrix, and Alien!
Other Stuff also includes a series of Bagge-written stories drawn by other cartoonists, including "Life in these United States" with Daniel Clowes, "Shamrock Squid" with Adrian Tomine, and the one-two parody punch of "Caffy" (with art by R. Crumb) and "Dildobert" (with art by Prison Pit’s Johnny Ryan)... plus a highlight of the book, the hilarious, literate and intricate exposé of "Kool-Aid Man" written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bagge. (Other collaborators include the Hernandez Brothers and Danny Hellman.)
Bagge is one of the funniest cartoonists of the century (20th or 21st), and this collection shows him at his most free-wheeling and craziest... 50 times over.
Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.
With its pitch-perfect blend of laughs, terror, and gore, as delineated by some of the finest cartoonists to ever draw a rotting, reanimated corpse, Tales from the Crypt (1950-1955, R.I.P.) remains the quintessential horror comic of all time.
And no cartoonist better encapsulated the grand-guignol spirit of Tales from the Crypt than Jack Davis, who, even at the earliest stage of what would become a six-decade career, possessed a level of skill that would elude most other cartoonists during their lifetimes. His maniacs were more homicidal, his victims more terrified, his dismemberments bloodier, and his werewolves more feral than anyone else's.
'Tain’t the Meat... It's the Humanity and Other Stories collects all of Davis's Tales from the Crypt classics, from EC's wicked revenge fantasies ("The Trophy!" and "Well Cooked Hams!") through the outright supernatural (the voodoo yarn "Drawn and Quartered!" and "Concerto for Violin and Werewolf") to the origin of the Crypt-Keeper ("Lower Berth") — and the legendary splatter gross-out of the title story.
This volume also includes biographical notes and essays, and an ultra-rare EC bonus: Davis's completely redrawn 3-D version of "The Trophy!" — back in print for the first time since its original appearance 60 years ago (and for the first time in regular, easy-on-the-eyes 2-D).
"...I have a spot in my heart for Jack Davis. I mean, that guy just makes me laugh. Even when he's drawing a gross-out, he just makes me laugh. I love his shoes, the way he draws shoes, and knuckles... there's just something about Jack Davis' stuff that blows me away." – George A. Romero
Order this book and receive the Jack Davis's Tales from the Crypt Halloween mini-comic shown here as a FREE bonus! Limit one per customer while supplies last.
Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid to reckon with — as he proved again and again in the stories he created for EC's legendary "New Trend" comics, in particular Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.
As a result of Williamson's focus, it's possible to compile all of Williamson's "New Trend" EC work into one book — which Fantagraphics is finally doing here. Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50 features three of EC's legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including "I, Rocket" and "A Sound of Thunder" — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from a short story submitted by a teen-aged Harlan Ellison.
Williamson ran with a gang of like-minded young Turks dubbed the "Fleagle Gang," who would help one another out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story ("Food for Thought") where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta's Shock SuspenStories short "Squeeze Play"; Krenkel's meticulous "Time to Leave"; and Angelo Torres's "An Eye for an Eye," an EC story that famously fell prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 also includes extensive story notes by EC experts.
164-page full-color 10.25" x 13.25" hardcover • $45.00 ISBN: 978-1-60699-530-3
Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now
Ensconced in the avant-garde of the extraordinary social and cultural upheavals that were drawing 1960s Europe into the building wave of postmodernism, a Belgian advertising dropout, fed up with the corporate world, conceived the first "adult comic book" virtually off the top of his head.
By creating The Adventures of Jodelle, a deluxe comics album that wore its revolutionary Pop sensibility on its sleeve, Guy Peellaert obliterated the conventions of what had up to that point been a minor, childish medium. Ironically appropriating the face and body of the teen idol Sylvie Vartan, he fashioned a new kind of heroine, a sensual, parodically beautiful spy. For his setting he chose a defiantly anachronistic Roman Empire, into which irrupted the most flamboyant symbols of a conquering America, the originator of all fantasies.
Every page of this fascinating saga features a flood of topical references and in-jokes, operating playfully on the border that separated so-called "high" and "low" cultures. Peellaert drew from the most exciting stimuli of his time, subjecting them to his powerful formal innovations: Pop Art, extreme fashions, strident advertising, shock graphics, and cinematic techniques all collided in virtuoso compositions of extreme sophistication, whose inspirations ranged from classical paintings to Gottlieb pinball machines.
Published to thunderous acclaim in France in 1966 and then throughout Europe and in the U.S., Jodelle was an instant classic, whose influence would spread far beyond the confines of comics. It also triggered Guy Peellaert's "Pop Period," a creative whirlwind marked by his 1967 creation of PRAVDA, an unforgettable character that has since been acknowledged as a major component of the European Pop movement.
Completely remastered and featuring a new translation, this long-awaited reprinting of The Adventures of Jodelle is accompanied by an 80-page, lushly-illustrated textual supplement created in partnership with the artist's estate which traces the creative path travelled by this maverick artist, who multiplied his chosen means of expression, skipping from comics to cinema and moving through fashion, periodicals, and television, including collaborations with many of the great figures of mythical 1960s-era Paris, from Serge Gainsbourg to Yves Saint Laurent.
"Guy Peellaert was to Europe what Andy Warhol was to America — except Guy had more talent!" – Jim Steranko
"Peellaert's comic strips were the literature of intelligence, imagination and romanticism." – Federico Fellini
"Lusciously designed flat color patterns and a dizzying forced perspective reminiscent of Matisse and Japanese prints. Graphically, Jodelle sets a new record in comic-strip sophistication." – New York magazine
"Peellaert's contribution to comics was as fleeting as it was unforgettable. It was he who brought Pop Art into the Ninth Art. Intensity and velocity, these would be the core principles of this unclassifiable, extraordinary artist." – Pierre Sterckx
"The artist seems to perpetually reinvent the comics form anew, without carrying the weight of any previous tradition." – Thierry Groensteen
"As an art student in the Swinging Sixties, I discovered the first adult-oriented comics, like Barbarella and Guy Peellaert's The Adventures of Jodelle. At that very moment a whole new universe opened up to me. Having grown up in a home where comics were banned and considered mindless, that discovery was really one of adulthood and maturity." – Milo Manara
344-page black & white 8.5" x 7" hardcover • $28.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-634-8
Ships in: March 2013 (subject to change)
So what do we have for Peanuts fans this time around?
An ill-considered attempt at flirting sends Charlie Brown to the school doctor... Linus's ongoing romance with the too-young "Lydia" of the many names continues... Snoopy is joined in the trenches by his brother Spike... Sally engages in a career as a playwright by penning the school Christmas play but mixes up Gabriel and Geronimo... A hockey mishap sends Snoopy to the doctor for knee surgery, in a (clearly autobiographical) sequence that lasts only until everyone figures out that dogs don’t have knees... Linus and Lucy’s kid brother Rerun begins to take on the greater role that will lead to him being one of the dominant characters in the 1990s... and Snoopy, inevitably, writes a "kiss and tell" book.
As we reach the 19th (!) book in this epochal, best-selling series collecting arguably the greatest comic strip of all time and head toward the end of the 1980s, Charles Schulz is still as inventive, hilarious, and touching as ever... and this volume even features a surprise format change, as the daily strip switches from its trademark four-square-panels format to a more flexible one-to-four-variable-panels format which, along with Schulz's increased use of gray tones, give this volume a striking, distinctive look.
This volume's introduction is by a fellow comic strip legend, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.
