New Spring Books Coming From Fantagraphics
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on Oct. 18, 2005 Sign up now!
By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 10/18/2005
Castle Waiting, a much-praised fantasy work; a Dan Clowes tie-in for the film release of Art School Confidential; a collection of Joe Sacco comics on music; and a history of the house itself by comics journalist and blogger Tom Spurgeon are among recent acquisitions that will be released by Fantagraphics Books in 2006. Fantagraphics is an indie comics publisher becoming known as something of a farm team for New York trade book houses—six former Fantagraphics artists now publish with larger New York houses—and its list always bears close watching.
Next spring, Fantagraphics will also release a full-color work by the one-named Spanish artist Max; a collection of long out-of-print Our Gang comics by Pogo creator Walt Kelly; and a collection of gag panel work by long-time playboy cartoonist Eldon Dedini, published in collaboration with Playboy magazine
Linda Medley's Castle Waiting will be published in May.Originally published in periodical form in 1990s by Jeff Smith's Cartoon Books imprint, Castle Waiting is a 450-page fantasy fable about the restoration of a castle by an eccentric cast of fairytale characters. Generally cited for the quality of Medley's illustration, Castle Waiting will include a final chapter that was never published. Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics publicity, says that Medley and Fantagraphics will restart the series as a bimonthly periodical comic in July
"It's very strong. It's a fantasy work, something most folks would say is not likely to come from Fantagraphics," says Reynolds.
The Sacco work, But I Like It, compiles the early music-related comics of the acclaimed comics journalist. The book will be released in May and, says Reynolds, will come with a CD-ROM of live music from the 1980s European tour of the Miracle Workers, the band and the tour chronicled by Sacco in the book.
Reynolds says that Art School Confidential, the much-anticipated film based on Clowes's hilarious sendup of life in art school, will be released in April. The tie-in book will be released at the same time.The book is essentially Clowes's screenplay, along with photographs of the film's production and the four-page comics story originally published in a 1996 issue of Clowes's periodical Eightball, rendered in color for the first time by Clowes. Clowes will tour to promote the film and Reynolds admits that "we're going to piggyback on the film tour" to promote the book.
After he left Disney animation and before he created the legendary Pogo comic strip, Walt Kelly created 58 issues of comics based on MGM's 1940s Our Gang movies. He wrote and drew the issues. Fantagraphics will publish a series of books collecting the comics and, says Reynolds, well-known movie expert Leonard Maltin will write an introduction to the series.
The Spanish artist Max is an important comics figure in Spain, says Reynolds, publishing a series of comics anthologies that feature the work of many American indie artists. The book by classic Playboy cartoonist Dedini will collect hiswatercolor gag panels in addition to featuring "lots of nymphs and satyrs," says Reynolds. Playboy is licensing the work to Fantagraphics and Reynolds says it's first in a series of books to be published in collaboration with Playboy.
Finally, look for Tom Spurgeon's History of Fantagraphics, a look at the press and, of course, its news and critical publication, the Comics Journal.Like Grove Press or New Directions in the prose world, Fantagraphics and TCJ have been instrumental in defining the state of the comics medium, pissing off fans and detractors alike since it was founded in 1976.Reynolds will edit the book and says, "I want it to be funny, but Tom is not going to write a fluff piece. He's going to talk to us, but he's also going to talk to all the people out there that hate us."
