Tag: graphic novels

Fantagraphics launches their Cyber Monday sale early

Get 40% off almost everything on their website for today only.

Technically Cyber Monday is next week, but Fantagraphics doesn’t care — they’ve launched their Cyber Monday sale today, offering 40% off on “just about everything” on their website, plus free USPS media mail shipping on orders over $75.

It includes both backlist titles and new releases, including Jordan Crane’s incredible Keeping Two, Barry Windsor Smith’s award-winning Monsters, their collection of Liniers’ Macanudo comic strip and more from Daniel Clowes, Megan Kelso, Simon Hanselman, Jim Woodring, the Hernandez Brothers and lots of other wonderful creators.

That’s it — that’s the post. Go check out the sale, which ends at 11:59 p.m. Pacific.

Brubaker + Phillips’ ‘Night Fever’ arrives next year

The award-winning duo have a new graphic novel in the works at Image Comics.

Image Comics has announced a new graphic novel from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips that’s coming out next year. The publisher describes Night Fever as a “Jekyll-and-Hyde story of a man facing the darkness inside himself.”

Colorist Jacob Phillips, who has worked with the duo in the past as well as on his own projects like That Texas Blood, will join them on the project.

“Night Fever is a story that’s been scratching at the back of my skull for a long time now and man, is this a weird one,” said Brubaker. “Inspired partly by old Black Lizard noir novels and weird and sexy European comics from the 70s, this book is a dark trip into what being alive right now feels like, but hopefully a thrilling one for our readers, too. I know it’s the best art of Sean’s entire career, which feels almost unbelievable. But it’s true.”

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Comixology will release Liniers’ ‘The Ghost of Wreckers Cove’ this Tuesday

The Middle Grade graphic novel will feature ghosts, pirates and magic on the coast of Maine.

Comixology Originals will release The Ghost of Wreckers Cove, a “wildly imaginative” Middle Grade graphic novel that blends historical fiction and magical realism, on their platform this Tuesday. The new story is by Liniers (The Big Wet Balloon, Good Night, Planet, Written and Drawn by Henrietta), his frequent collaborator Angelica del Campo, colorist Christian Argiz and editor John Lind.

The new graphic novel about two young girls on the coast of Maine will feature ghosts, pirates, stolen treasure, seashells, swimming and a young lighthouse keeper. 

“Liniers’ work is so profoundly beautiful, spirited, and touching,” Bryce Gold, Comixology Originals Lead, said in the press release. “It is an honor to bring The Ghost of Wreckers Cove to English language audiences worldwide for the first time and my hope that readers of all ages, alive, spectral, or otherwise, enjoy it.”

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Comedian Chris Farley’s childhood will be explored in ‘Growing Up Farley’

The new graphic novel from Z2 Comics will be co-written by Kevin Farley, Chris’s brother.

Before becoming a standout among the cast of Saturday Night Live and starring in films like Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, comedian Chris Farley performed in places like the Red Arrow Camp, the Arc Theatre in Wisconsin and The Second City in Chicago. Those early adventures with his brother Kevin will be explored in a new graphic novel Growing Up Farley, coming next fall from Z2 Comics.

“Laughter was always a big part of growing up Farley,” Kevin Farley said in the press release. “I’m excited to partner with the team at Z2 Comics to share all the humor and humanity of growing up with my brother, Chris, in 1970s Madison, Wisconsin and the huge influence our Dad had on our decision to go into comedy.”

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Smash Pages Q&A | Rich Koslowski on ‘F.A.R.M. System’

The creator of ‘Three Fingers’ and ‘The King’ returns with a new graphic novel from Top Shelf in November.

Rich Koslowski is best known by some as the creator of Three Fingers, The List and The King, three graphic novels released in the 2000s that showed off not only his creativity and wit, but also his skill as an artist. Others know him as the creator of The 3 Geeks, which later became Geeksville and was published by Image Comics. And still others likely know him from his long-running work at Archie Comics, where he has drawn or inked everyone from Jughead to Sonic the Hedgehog to the rock band KISS, among many others.

It’s been several years now since we’ve seen him write and draw an original graphic novel, but he’s back at Top Shelf with a new project, F.A.R.M. System, which arrives in stores Nov. 8. Like Three Fingers and The King, it’s a satire that mashes together the world of superheroes with baseball farm teams, as new heroes vie for spots in the Big Leagues.

Koslowski was kind enough to answer some questions about the project, his love of baseball and what else he has in the works.

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‘Planet Divoc-91’ comes to print

The webcomic funded by several UK science organizations arrived in the early days of the pandemic.

An early webcomic inspired by COVID-19 is coming to print later this month, courtesy of Velocity Press.

Back in July of 2020, in what could still be considered the early days of the COVID pandemic, several UK-based scientific organizations funded the creation of a sci-fi satire that drew its inspiration from what the world was going through at the time. Planet Divoc-19 debuted on Webtoon and featured stories and art by Charlie Adlard, Alex Paknadel, Marco Finnegan, Matt Kindt, Hannah Berry, James Devlin, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, Elsa Charretier and more.

“Although the topics we’re discussing in the series are incredibly serious, Planet Divoc-91 is full of humor and is occasionally ridiculous,” said Sara Kenney, who wrote the first chapter. “We’re aiming for more of a District 9 or The Good Place feel than, say, Star Trek.”

The print edition of Planet Divoc-19 is a not-for-profit publication, with 100% of profits go towards helping young creatives in South Africa, India and UK. It arrives in UK bookstores today; those of us outside the UK can order it directly from Velocity.

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Rich Koslowski explores money, fame and super powers in ‘F.A.R.M. System’

The creator of ‘Three Fingers’ returns with a new graphic novel from Top Shelf this November.

It’s been more than a decade since Top Shelf released a triple threat of creative graphic novels from Rich Koslowski — Three Fingers, the faux “behind the scenes” mockumentary about the world of animation and a certain iconic mouse; The King, about an Elvis impersonator who just may have been more than that; and BB Wolf and the Three LP’s, with writer J.D. Arnold, which mixed the tale of the Three Little Pigs with a blues aesthetic.

Since then, he’s certainly kept himself busy with other work for various publishers, including Archie Comics, but this November he’ll return to Top Shelf for F.A.R.M. System, a new graphic novel that combines baseball’s minor league set-up with superheroes.

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Comixology Originals will publish the debut graphic novel from Xavier Saxon

‘Night at the Belfry’ arrives on the platform Oct. 18.

Comixology Originals has announced plans to publish Night at the Belfry, the debut graphic novel by writer and artist Xavier Saxon.

The story is about a 73-year-old former postman who starts remembering his time as a recreational boxer in the 1980s and “hatches a life altering plan to regain the control he believes he’s lost.”

“Night at the Belfry is my first book and I am super proud of it, but it is not where I would have expected myself to start off in the world of comics,” Saxon said. “I don’t have much of an interest in boxing, I’m not a seventy-plus year-old retiree (yet), and my preferences in terms of fiction have always skewed more towards the fantastical, genre-based stuff. “The idea came from a few places. It started purely visually, the idea of a boxing match in a church belltower. But as I developed the story I became fascinated with the idea of applying undue importance to an, in retrospect, insignificant period of one’s own life. Mostly, though, the book came from a place of frustration. I wanted to finish something. And now that I have, I hope what I’ve made will resonate with readers.”

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McNamara + Massaggia explore history, privacy + serial killers in ‘Past Tense’

The new graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics arrives next year.

Jason McNamara and Alberto Massaggia will team up for a new graphic novel, Past Tense, that’s set to come out from Dark Horse next year. They’ll be joined by colorist Paul Little and designer Sonia Harris on this new story about serial killers and the loss of privacy.

“To me, horror works best when it reflects real-world concerns,” McNamara said. “If we have a modern bogeyman, it is our loss of privacy. I wanted to couple that with my fascination with unsolved mysteries. What if we could send a hidden camera back through time, not to change history, but to view it as it truly occurred?”

McNamara is the writer of Ghost Band, The Cicada, Sucker, The Rattler and many other graphic novels and comics that feature monsters, serial killers, dystopian futures and more. So he’s no stranger to horror — they probably play pool together. Massaggia, meanwhile, is the artist of the Behemoth Comics series Hotline Miami: Wildlife.

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D + Q will publish Winnie-the-Pooh by Travis Dandro next year

The graphic novel adaptation of the A. A. Milne/E. H. Shepard classic will wander into stores next year.

Drawn and Quarterly has announced that Travis Dandro, the creator of Hummingbird Heart, is working on a new Winnie-the-Pooh graphic novel for the publisher.

“It’s amazing to see Travis make a turn from his hilarious and heart-rending autobiographical series of graphic novels to one of the most sublime children’s classics. Seeing a cartoonist of this kind of skill reinterpreting great literature is rare and thrilling,” said Executive Editor Tom Devlin.

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‘The Girl from the Sea’ wins a British Fantasy Award

The awards recognize fantasy and horror lit across a variety of categories.

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag and published by Graphix has won a British Fantasy Award in the Best Comic/Graphic Novel category.

The British Fantasy Awards recognize fantasy and horror literature across a range of categories, including the “Best Comic/Graphic Novel” category. You can see the complete list of winners across all categories on the British Fantasy Awards website.

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Guggenheim + Chaykin re-team for ‘Too Dead To Die’

The original graphic novel will return to the world of Simon Cross, a faux comic published in the 1980s.

Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin, who previously worked together on Marvel’s Blade and Wolverine titles almost two decades ago, will reunite for Too Dead To Die, a new graphic novel coming from Image Comics.

Guggenheim said the story of a 1980s spy set in the world of today is an idea he’s been planning for years.

“Too Dead To Die is one of those ideas I’ve been thinking about for years before the COVID quarantine gave me the opportunity to actually write it,” Guggenheim said. “I started off writing ‘on spec’ without any particular artist in mind. But 10 pages in, I realized that all the images I was seeing in my head were illustrated by Howard, whom I had the good fortune to collaborate with on Blade and Wolverine. I was writing with Howard in mind without realizing it. Fortunately, Howard was amenable to coming aboard and I love how he’s brought Simon’s story to life. It’s very exciting to be getting Too Dead To Die out into the world after all this time.”

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