FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS
UNCLOTHED MAN IN THE 35TH CENTURY A.D.
By Dash Shaw
104 pages, color and black-and-white, 7” x 9”
$19.99 Hardcover
THE NEW BOOK FROM THE AUTHOR OF BOTTOMLESS BELLY BUTTON
One part MOME collection, one part authorized IFC Channel spinoff, the first quarter of this jacketed hardcover will collect the work — storyboards, scripts, character designs, etc. — that Shaw has created for a series of original
shorts to begin airing on IFC in Nov. 2009. The latter 3/4ths will collect his
acclaimed short stories from MOME, as well as several little-seen stories from elsewhere, and a new 20 page story.
The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.d. is Shaw’s first book since his breakthrough graphic novel of 2008, Bottomless Belly Button, which was named Publishers Weekly’s best graphic novel of 2008, one of Entertainment Weekly’s top ten books of 2008, and one of Amazon.com’s top ten graphic
novels of the year, amongst numerous other accolades. The book also collects Shaw’s acclaimed, genre-bending short stories from MOME, including “Look Forward, First
Son of Terra Two,” a remarkable story of two lovers traveling in opposite directions… in time. Also featured: “Galactic
Funnels,” the 2008 Ignatz Award nominee for “Outstanding Story,” about the parasitic relationship between an artist and his lover/mentor; “Satellite CMYK,” a sci-fi mindwarp that ingeniously drives the narrative through Shaw’s masterful control of color, and “Making the Abyss,” a fictionalized story of a surreal film set filled with nuclear tanks, hot tubs, and blind ambition.
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BOTTOMLESS BELLYBUTTON
By Dash Shaw
720 pages, monochrome, 6" x 8.5"
$29.99 Paperback (MAR083712)
In this atmospheric, nuanced 700+ page comedy-drama, the announcement of a planned divorce by Maggie & David Loony sparks a week-long family reunion at the dysfunctional family's creepy (and possibly haunted) beach house. PUBLISHER WEEKLEY'S GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR FOR 2008!!!
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SUBLIFE #2
By John Pham
48 pages, two-color, 8 1/4” x 6 3/4”
$7.99 Paperback
THE 2nd ‘ISSUE’ OF ONE OF 2008’S MOST ACCLAIMED DEBUTS
The acclaimed graphic novel anthology continues with sublife, Volume 2. Creator John Pham enlarges the scope and expands the style of his series with an all-new collection of stories and strips.
“The Kid” is a self-contained short story set in an eerily familiar post-apocalyptic future. Bloodthirsty marauders roam the blasted desert. A nomad and his dog, scavenging the road for gas and supplies, stumble upon a sealed bomb shelter, the contents of which will test whatever humanity he has left, as the marauders pursue him to a violent, frenetic climax.
“Deep Space” continues the atmospheric science fiction serial begun in Volume 1. In this episode, Captain Ho, Commander Wallach, and their newly adopted space-faring companion Deek attempt to harness the power of an alien crystal with the hopes of finding a way back home. But will their best-laid plans survive Captain’s fragile mental state and impulse-prone behavior?
In “221 Sycamore St,” teenage runaway Phineas accompanies his uncles on a training session with their dog Freya, but what they’re training Freya to do illustrates the disturbing lengths to which his uncles will take their racist ideology. This chapter builds and expands upon the characters and themes established in the first volume, showcasing a vision of Los Angeles that is sometimes dark and fractured, inhabited by a quirky cast of characters.
As if that were not enough, the artist includes various, stand-alone short strips including “Socko Sarkissian,” a single-page gem about baseball’s greatest fictional Armenian slugger, “St. Ambrose,” a fractured memoir about the author’s parochial school alma mater, and “Mort,” a story that answers the burning question, what happens when a jealous blogger encounters his nemesis?
Sublife Volume 2 is filled to the brim with a dizzying variety of stories and styles, all of which surprisingly coalesce into a unified reading experience thanks to their shared themes and motifs, much like Chris Ware’s annual ACME Novelty Library. Dogs, missed connections, ad hoc family units, desert landscapes are all elements that pop up and recur among the different stories. It makes each volume of sublife eminently readable on its own, and proves why Pham is among the most compelling new voices in comics today.
SUPERMEN! THE FIRST WAVE OF COMIC BOOK HEROES—1936-1941 (SECOND PRINTING)
Edited by Greg Sadowski
192 pages, Full Color, 7.5" x 10.5"
$26.99 Paperback (NOV084059)
The enduring cultural phenomenon of comic book heroes was invented in the late 1930s by a talented and hungry group of artists and writers barely out of their teens, flying by the seat of their pants to create something new, exciting, and above all profitable. The iconography and mythology they created flourishes to this day in comic books, video, movies, fine art, advertising, and practically all other media. Supermen! collects the best and the brightest of this first generation, including Jack Cole, Will Eisner, Bill Everett, Lou Fine, Fletcher Hanks, Jack Kirby, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Basil Wolverton. If the reader is expecting to find an All-American group of altruistic do-gooders, he in for quite a jolt. As Jonathan Lethem writes in his Foreword, “A collection like Supermen! works like a reverse-neutron bomb to assumptions about the birth of the superhero image: it tears down the orderly structures of theory and history and leaves the figures stan! ding in full view, staring back at us in all their defiant disorienting particularity, their blazing strangeness.” Beautifully designed and produced in full color, Supermen! contains twenty full-length stories, ten full-sized covers, a generous selection of vintage promotional ads, and comprehensive end notations by editor Greg Sadowski, making it indispensable to anyone interested in the origins of superheroes and the history of the comic book form.
COMPLETE CRUMB COMICS VOLUME 7 SC (NEW PRINTING)
By R. Crumb
144 pages, b/w with 16 pages of full-color, 8 1/2” x 11”
$19.99 Paperback
Back in print after a several-year absence, and with Crumb’s popularity ever-rising, the seventh volume of The Complete Crumb Comics spotlights Crumb’s work from 1970 and 1971, the peak years of Crumb’s hippie stardom which led to “the grip of paralyzing, crippling self-consciousness that for years became increasingly harder to push past,” as Crumb writes in his introduction. Included from this era is the entirety of Crumb’s work from underground classics such as ZAP, The East Village other, Bijou, Mr. Natural, Uneeda, Esquire, and much more, including strips featuring classic Crumb characters like Fritz the Cat, Flakey Foont, Angelfood McSpade, Bo Bo Bolinski, and Shuman the Human.
THE COMICS JOURNAL #301
Edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean & Kristy Valenti
$11.99 squarebound magazine
200 pages per issue, in color and black-and-white, 7 1/2” x 9 1/4”
Comics artist Kevin O’Neill explains how he broke into the comics field at 16 and discusses how his artistic vision meshes with writer Alan Moore’s on the hit series League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the title’s switch from DC to indy publisher Top Shelf. Syndicated political cartoonist and Academy-award-nominated animator Bill Plympton also talks about his long and varied career.
THE DEFINITIVE PRINCE VALIANT COMPANION SC
by Brian M. Kane
160 pages, color and back-and-white, 8 1/2” x 11”
$24.99 Paperback
THE DEFINITIVE PRINCE VALIANT COMPANION HC
by Brian M. Kane
160 pages, color and back-and-white, 8 1/2” x 11”
$39.99 Hardcover
THE ULTIMATE BOOK FOR PRINCE VALIANT COLLECTORS
Out of print for over a decade, The Prince Valiant Companion has become a Holy Grail for collectors of the series. Now, in anticipation of the seventy-fifth anniversary of comics’ longest-running adventure strip, and to celebrate their own just-launched reprinting of the strip’s classic earliest years, Fantagraphics is proud to present an expanded version of this hard-to-find collector’s item. Compiled by award-winning Foster biographer Brian M. Kane, The definitive Prince Valiant Companion beautifully showcases the careers of artists Hal Foster, John Cullen Murphy, and Gary Gianni.
In addition to updating the original version’s story synopsis section with over thirty years of material, The definitive Prince Valiant Companion also contains rare and new articles. Included in this volume is a never before reprinted newspa per feature from 1949, Foster’s final interview conducted by Arn Saba, an extensive interview with John Cullen Murphy, and a new interview with the current Prince Valiant creative team of Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz. The Companion also contains a new, in-depth article by Kane on Foster’s artistic influences, as well as a Foreword by comics historian Brian Walker, and an Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ray Bradbury.
A special feature of The Companion is a sixteen-page color section of carefully selected strips from the entire run of the comic. Showcasing this section are eight pages by Foster, scanned and digitally restored from original color engraver’s proofs that had been carefully stored and preserved for over forty years. For the first time ever, collectors will be able to see Prince Valiant as Foster intended it to be seen, with all of his fine inked line work intact. Rounding out this section are four John Cullen Murphy pages from the Murphy family’s collection of proofs, and four Gary Gianni pages that were selected by the artist and digitally recolored under his supervision.
Proceeds from the sale of The definitive Prince Valiant Companion will go to The Friends of Hal Foster Society to aid in the creation of the Prince Valiant statue in Foster’s birthplace of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
PORTABLE GRINDHOUSE
Edited by Jacques Boyreau
192-256 pages, full-color, 5 1/2” x 9 1/4”
$19.99 Paperback; Slipcased in VHS facsimile box
LIKE HAVING YOUR VERY OWN DRIVE-IN... AT HOME!
Harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the advent of rental videos astonished the movie-going consumer who could only feed his addiction by going to the theatre or watching chopped up movies in bewteen commercials on TV. Like vinyl, here is the revenge of another analog cast-off: the VHS is once again insinuating itself into American culture, and this book celebrates the anarchic design art of those early VHS boxes.
The Lost Art of the Vhs (Vol. 1) reprints some of the most louche, decadent, minimo-pervo artwork to ever grace a VHS box, featuring such movies as From Beyond, Penitentiary II, Beast of the Yellow Night, Cop Killers, Bay of Blood, Escape from death Row, and Cocaine Wars. A feast for exploitation cognoscenti, The Lost Art of the Vhs is a portable grindhouse. Readers will be agog at the plethora of supertrash movie titles, and then move on to rediscover the anarchic box designs. Throughout, editor and cultural historian Jacques Boyreau succinctly narrates the household-piercing story of VHS: “On par with the jukebox, disco, and neon, VHS reformatted the world’s product-intake and boosted a libertarian aesthetic that conquered TV in the same way TV conquered comic books in the 1950s, and allowed us to hold movies in our hands. Posters in the lobby could advertise, even fetishize a movie; credit sequences could identify the participants, but somehow, VHS box-art ‘became’ the iconic equivalent of the movie.”
The Lost Art of Vhs is published in a VHS “format,” slyly packaged inside a facsimile VHS box, and contains almost a hundred reproductions of VHS art with commentary.
GANGES #3
By Kevin Huizenga
32 pages, two color, 8.5" x 11"
$7.95 Deluxe Comic Book
In the third issue of Kevin Huizenga's Eisner Award nominated comic (the best selling "Ignatz" ongoing series), Glenn Ganges still can't get to sleep. In "Mind and Body" Glenn tries lying still, but his mind—The Wanderer—keeps thwarting his plans! In "Getting Things Done" he gives up trying to get to sleep and tries to get some things done...until the cops show up! All executed in Huizenga's strikingly crisp, lovely two-color "clear line" style.
SUBLIFE #1
By John Pham
64 pages, two color, 8.25" x 6.75"
$8.99 Paperback (JUN083958)
A variety of stories told in a range of styles and voices, all demonstrating a singular vision. Issue one features the first self-contained chapter of "221 Sycamore St." as well as "Deep Space," a semi-comical sci-fi odyssey.
GANGES #1
By Kevin Huizenga
32 pages, two color, 8.5" x 11"
$7.95 Deluxe Comic Book (NOV052934)
Everyman Glenn Ganges joins the "Ignatz" family. Huizenga's elegant neo-clear-line style brings crispness and humor to these low-key slice-of-life stories, and the gray-blue duotone gives the art a new depth and complexity. Bestowed with the lauded Igntaz Award for "Best Story" in 2006 Keven Huizenga's series GANGES is considered the...
GANGES #2
By Kevin Huizenga
32 pages, two color, 8.5" x 11"
$7.95 Deluxe Comic Book (JAN083618)
Everyman Glenn Ganges ruminates on the simple times of the dot-com era when the reality of business was propped up by the unreality of addictive technology and hope, in the form of networked first-person shooter video games.
2009 Eisner Nominee for "Best Short Story"
FLESK PUBLICATIONS
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O/A THE PRINCE VALIANT PAGE HC
(W) Gary Gianni
With a Foreword by Mike Mignola and an introduction by Robert Wagner, The Prince Valiant Page offers a look Gary Gianni’s rendition of the Prince Valiant Sunday strip. After 25 years as a professional illustrator, Gianni describes his new role as an assistant to John Cullen Murphy (who assisted Hal Foster — Prince Valiant's creator), continuing with in-depth knowledge of the strip’s creative process.
HC, 9x12, 208pgs, PC SRP: $29.95
FUN PUBLICATIONS INC
G.I. JOE VS. COBRA FALL SPECIAL: CRIMSON STRIKE
(W) Greg Sepelak, S. Trent Troop (A) Sheldon Goh, Josh Perez
In the Argentinean jungle, the Baroness and the Crimson Twins hatch a new plot. With the aid of the Crimson Strike Team, the plan for a quick lucrative money grab seems foolproof. But the Baroness will soon learn though that G.I.Joe isn't the only highly trained special missions force in the world! Greg Horn provides an amazing cover for this story, based on the 2009 G.I. Joe convention exclusive figure set!
32pgs, FC SRP: $4.95
TRANSFORMERS TIMELESS FALL SPECIAL: WINGS OF HONOR
(W) Forest Lee, Rik Alvarez (A) Various
Eons ago, young recruit Kup was assigned to one of the Autobot's transport ships. What was meant to be nothing more than a simple recon mission soon turned into an adventure of "elite" proportions! A mysterious container has been lost on the planet Beta-9, and if the Decepticons get to it first the Great War will be over before it even starts! With the fate of the Autobots and Cybertron in his hands, can Kup and the rest of his crewmates overcome the odds and retrieve the precious cargo?
32pgs SRP: $4.95