SEVEN NEW BOOK COLLECTIONS OF CLASSIC COMIC BOOK MATERIAL

Fantagraphics Books is proud to announce that it has struck a deal with comics historian and editor Greg Sadowski to produce seven new collections of classic comic book material for the Seattle publisher. Sadowski is a Harvey and Eisner Award-nominated editor who has previously overseen the publication of the acclaimed collections SUPERMEN: THE FIRST WAVE OF COMIC BOOK HEROES 1936-1941, as well as B. KRIGSTEIN and B. KRIGSTEIN COMICS. He is a former staff editor and designer for Fantagraphics Books and currently works freelance from his home on San Juan Island in Washington State’s Puget Sound.

Fox Orders ‘The Bradleys’ Pilot

According ICv2: The Fox Network has ordered a pilot for an animated prime time TV series based on Peter Bagge’s The Bradleys. Bagge, who has had a developmental deal with the network for sometime, is writing the script for the pilot episode. Eric Reynolds, who broke the news on the Fantagraphics Website, reports that the [...]

Jimbo in Purgatory

Using Dante’s myriad of “shout-outs” to antiquity as inspiration, Gary Panter has created a beautiful and complex interpretation of the middle poem of The Divine Comedy: Purgatory.

Replacing Dante and Virgil is Jimbo. A punk/skater Everyman wearing nothing but a loincloth, Jimbo explores the stations of Purgatory, guided by Valise, his “parole robot.” As conveyed in Panter’s black and white “ratty line” style, Purgatory is a mammoth “infotainment testing center,” where participants seek, not cleansing, but a degree in Literature. To move up to Paradise, one must recite a passage that relates to the theme of a canto from Dante’s trilogy, along with a nod to Boccacio’s Decameron (which was written as a bawdy response to The Divine Comedy). These characters are detached and robotic, more interested in showing off knowledge than sharing any concrete wisdom. As Panter observes (quoting Ben Jonson): wisdom without honesty is meere craft… and therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten; which cannot be, but by living well. A good life is a maine argument.” In short, don’t talk the talk unless ya walk the walk.

Castle Waiting

Most clever children wonder what happens after a fairy tale has come to an end. What happens to the kingdom after Sleeping Beauty goes off with Prince Charming? What does “happily ever after” look like? And where does it take place?

In Linda Medley’s Castle Waiting, which collects 17 issues of the comic published between 1996 and 2001 published, most of the action takes place in the titular castle. This is the place where major and minor fairy tale characters end up after their stories are told, where funny, domestic, happily-ever-afters happen.

The Frank Book

or someone who’s hip to the alternative comics scene, the name Woodring should ring many bells. After a critically acclaimed debut in the eighties with the self-published Jim — later to be picked up by Fantagraphics– Woodring paved his own path to notoriety. For a cartoonist who sought therapy and was refused consultation by a number of shrinks who read his feverish comics, it only seems fitting his work is a wondrous journey of self-realization looked through the beauty of stained glass.

Hey, Wait…

For me, age 10 was one of the hardest years of my life, and the remainder of childhood didn’t get much easier. It was fun, but not easy. We forget that kids can be dark, nasty, manipulative creatures. Refuge from that and the world of shitty parents, crazy puberty trips and general confusion comes from one’s best friend. Heather and I strung together our own world then stayed there until grade nine. Then something happened, high school probably, and we lost our connection. Hey, Wait…, by Norwegian cartoonist Jason, is one of the most moving novels, graphic or otherwise, I’ve read in recent memory. It deals with the bond between kids, and what happens when we lose that bond. And although childhood probably isn’t as great as we remember it, its loss is mourned, and it’s this sense of mourning that Jason brilliantly captures.

Low Moon

The latest offering from the brilliant Norwegian cartoonist Jason is this hardcover book that contains his Low Moon story that was serialized in the New York Times Sunday Magazine “Funny Pages” section. It also contains four other short stories, each as entertaining as the last.