FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS
NEW RELEASES
THURSDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER
The Children of Palomar is Gilbert Hernandez's much-anticipated return to the small Central American town of Palomar, more than a decade after his last "Heartbreak Soup" story. Originally released as a three-issue magazine series titled New Tales of Old Palomar in the acclaimed international "Ignatz" format, these stories are finally collected into one handsome book.
All of these stories deal with the classic characters of Palomar such as sweet Pipo, her sharp-tongue sister Carmen, sheriff Chelo, and the gang of boys who help start it all: studious Heraclio, tall and fey Israel, disfigured but goodnatured Vicente, and girl-crazy Jesús and Satch.
In the first story, "Children of Palomar," mysterious, fast-moving thieves are stealing food from wherever they can grab it; Sheriff Chelo and some citizens do their best to solve this mystery, but nobody seems to be able to catch these bandits in action until Pipo puts her soccer-trained legs to work and goes after them herself. In the second, Gato, Soledad, Guero, Pintor, and Arturo go exploring a bottomless chasm and come face to face with... well, we won’t spoil the surprise. The third and last story focuses on one of Palomar’s most beloved characters, the gorgeous but troubled Tonantzín: Everybody in Palomar seems to take the supernatural with a grain of salt, but young Tonantzín is determined to uncover the mystery of the laughing baby that only appears to her, haunting her daily life. What is the baby’s link to the giant stone idols that stand outside the small town...?
Eye of the Majestic Creature Vol. 2 is the second book collecting Leslie Stein's loose, funny and charming autobiographical narratives that combine idiosyncratic fantasy and stark reality. Larrybear, our hero, has moved from the countryside to the city, where she finds work as a shop girl. Quotes from Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie are sprinkled throughout the story to add humor and poignancy. Stein then takes us back to a childhood in the '80s filled with odd experiences including joining a rock band with older people, sitting in on her mother's AA groups, and the mystery of the disappearing gumballs. Finally, a fun story in which Larrybear and her new friend Poppin the Flower go on a strange trip to see his father. Let us not forget that Marshmallow, Ping-Ping and Mimolette, Larry's walking and talking instruments, have adventures all their own. Stein's gorgeous cartooning, highlighted by incredibly detailed stippling, and her dry sense of humor combine to make one of the most unique and immersive narrative experiences in comics. "Leslie Stein's comics give readers privileged access to a complete and wholly original world of gently skewed wonders." – Jim Woodring "Part cute, part kind of creepy art-wise.
The writing is serious and smart, slightly contradicting what the art is saying but this makes the work good. And real. And slightly creepy." – Gilbert Hernandez
Gahan Wilson is probably best known for his macabre Playboy cartoons, filled with charming monsters, goofy mad scientists, and melting victims, and his cutting-edge work in the National Lampoon, but he's also one of the most versatile cartoonists alive whose work has appeared in a wide range of media venues. Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics is Wilson's assault from within: His little-known syndicated strip that appeared in America’s newspapers between 1974 and 1976.
Readers must have been startled to find Wilson's freaks, geeks, and weirdos nestled among family, funny-animal, and soap opera offerings. (The term "zombie strip" — a strip that has long outlived its original creator — takes on a whole new meaning in Wilson's hands.) While each strip, at first glance, appears to be a standard, color Sunday strip (albeit without panel borders), each Sunday Comic is a collection of one-panel gag cartoons, delineated in Wilson's brilliantly controlled wiggly-but-sophisticated pen line. The last gag cartoon on each Sunday is part of a recurring series, either "Future Funnies" or "The Creep." Some Sundays are a freewheeling mélange of board meetings, monsters, and cavemen (with cameos by Wilson's Kid character from Nuts, his gimlet-eyed view of childhood, collected in 2011 by Fantagraphics), while others riff on a topic or subject (clocks, plants, wallpaper, etc.). As is his wont, Wilson mines the blackest of black comedy in the banal horror of human nature.
Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics collects, for the first time, each and every one of these strips, luxuriating across a 12" x 6" landscape format, with Fantagraphics' trademark high production values, innovative design, and succinct historical commentary.
Since the 2004 publication of The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora, the once-forgotten illustrator has gained recognition as one of the foremost pioneers of a raucous, cartoonish style of commercial art that defines the Mid-Century aesthetic. Two follow-up volumes, The Curiously Sinister Art... (2007) and The Sweetly Diabolic Art... (2009), captured Flora's largely unseen fine art works, spotlighting a variety of themes such as architecture, cats and dogs, science, cars, trains — and the occasional swerve toward gratuitous violence. But one of Flora's sustaining loves was music. His 1940s Columbia and 1950s RCA Victor record covers, in which legendary musicians were routinely afflicted with mutant skin tints and bonus limbs, are considered classics of outlandish post-Cubist caricature. During this period Flora also produced an enormous amount of promotional ephemera, including new release monthlies, trade booklets, ads, and point-of-sale novelties. The now out-of-print Mischievous Art featured Flora’s known album covers. (No complete discography existed.) Since that book’s publication, more covers have been found, as well as rough drafts and unused designs. So Flora co-archivists/authors Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon have compiled a complete collection of Flora covers (including recent discoveries) and unpublished sketches in one volume, augmented by music images not included in previous volumes. The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora is the definitive anthology of the maestro's visual compositions, reflecting jazz, classical, and Latin music. Regarding his jam-packed canvases Flora once said he "couldn't stand a static space." There’s nothing static about the images in The High Fidelity Art: they wail, dance, bounce, and swing from the chandeliers. Flora had a knack for grooving with a paintbrush, making art to which you can tap your toes and snap your fingers. -
A "Notable Comic" in The Best American Comics 2011
An anachronistic parable for the convulsive elite — now in paperback.
What is The Squirrel Machine?
• An immutably strange and haunting narrative that transcends known logics and presumptive dream-barriers;
• A distillation of subconscious beauty and inspired madness;
• A dangerous object for the incautious;
• A revelation for the undernourished crypto-seeker;
• The virgin caress of unconsummated apocalypse;
• The unspeakable thing that you always knew.
It’s also the legendary obscurantist cartoonist Hans Rickheit’s most ambitious graphic novel to date. Exquisitely rendered, strange, and hauntingly beautiful, this evocative and enigmatic book will ensure the inquisitive reader a spleenful of cerebral serenity that will require vast quantities of mediocrity to banish from memory.
Set in a fictional 19th Century New England town, the narrative initially details the relationship and maturation of Edmund and William Torpor. But the two brothers quickly elicit the scorn and recrimination of an unamused public when they reveal their musical creations built from strange technologies and scavenged animal carcasses. Driven to seek a concealment for their aberrant activities, they make a startling discovery. Perhaps they will divine the mystery of the squirrel machine.
ALL TITLES IN STOCK
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