Fantagraphics Announces Its Fall 2008/Winter 2009 Books List

The venerable alt-comics institution Fantagraphics has sent to press people and booksellers its Fall 2008/Winter 2009 catalog, as Chris Mautner noted the other day. I've listed their new comics releases here. Here are ten projects from the publisher I'm particularly interested in seeing.

*****



BEASTS! BOOK TWO, EDITED BY JACOB COVEY, HARDCOVER, 9781560979494, OCTOBER 2008, $34.99
The first volume of this book was one of the more fun art books of the century thus far, and I look forward to more of the same.

*****



BLAZING COMBAT, ARCHIE GOODWIN AND VARIOUS, HARDCOVER, 9781560979654, 200 PAGES, DECEMBER 2008, $22.99
It's a pretty grand year that includes a huge Bill Mauldin Willie and Joe collection and a smart-looking compilation of Archie Goodwin's super-solid 1960s genre comics magazine. If I was limited to buying one comic in their new catalog, I'd regret not getting this book more than any other when I picked up the new Love and Rockets.

*****



BOODY: THE BIZARRE COMICS OF BOODY ROGERS, EDITED BY CRAIG YOE, SOFTCOVER, 9781560979616, 124 PAGES, FEBRUARY 2009, $19.99
SUPERMEN! THE FIRST WAVE OF COMIC BOOK HEROES (1939-1941), EDITED BY GREG SADOWSKI, SOFTCOVER, 9781560979715, FEBRUARY 2009, $24.99
Two that seem to be working the same portion of the comics shop staked out by Paul Karasik's popular Fletcher Hanks book. This might be a danger sign for some publishers, but Craig Yoe and Greg Sadowski are super-solid designers and editors with fine track records when it comes to their book projects.

*****



DEITCH'S PICTORAMA, KIM/SETH/SIMON/GENE DEITCH, PAPERBACK, 9781560979524, SEPTEMBER 2008, $18.99
You had me at "Deitch."

*****



FUZZ AND PLUCK: SPLITSVILLE, TED STEARN, HARDCOVER, 9781560979760, 280 PAGES, NOVEMBER 2008, $24.99
I think Ted Stearn's works is idiosyncratic and charming and funny as crap, and it's hard for me to believe that someone who has created a neighborhood that you can imagine bus lines entering from the worlds of Gary Panter, Jim Woodring and Kaz isn't at least a little bit super-popular. Okay, maybe I do understand it, but it still sucks. (image is one of the comic book covers)

*****



LOVE AND ROCKETS: NEW STORIES #1, LOS BROS HERNANDEZ, PAPERBACK, SEPTEMBER 2008, $14.99
I'll miss the comic books, but who doesn't want more Love and Rockets? The Jaime Hernandez superhero comic promised for this debut looks beautiful and odd, and Gilbert Hernandez has been crushing it every time out of the box for a half-decade now.

*****



MODERN SWARTE, JOOST SWARTE, HARDCOVER, 9781560979531, OCTOBER 2008, $29.99
Swarte's wonderfully-designed comics and projects are so affecting that I know people that clip them out of any place they find that runs them, like it was the 1940s and Swarte did an elegant-looking comic strip. What a pleasure to have more of his work over here for bookstore consumption.

*****



PETEY & PUSSY, JOHN KERSCHBAUM, HARDCOVER, 9781560979791, OCTOBER 2008, $19.99
Kerschbaum was the first talent where I felt the collapse of the alt-comics model really hindered his career, as he had the chops and the prolific nature to become a four-time-a-year popular cartoonist on the level of anyone out there in the early- to mid-1990s. His work is as potent as any humor cartoonist's since Will Elder.

*****



SUBLIFE #1, JOHN PHAM, PAPERBACK, 9781650979463, SEPTEMBER 2008, $8.99
Pham's career path reminds me a bit of Dash Shaw's in that he's abandoned some of the surface glitz and potential breakout appeal of his earlier works in search of a more meaningful and significant way to tell comics stories. I can't imagine not rooting for him to succeed.

*****
*****

Note: I'd like to run more publishing news on the site, and will endeavor to do so. I'm happy to run an article like this with just about any major publisher that announces a bunch of books in a season, and .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
 
posted 8:02 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives