134-page b&w/color 8.5" x 11" softcover, $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-56097-061-3 http://www.fantagraphics.com/completecrumb7 Back in print in a new 2009 softcover edition! This superb collection of work by Robert Crumb continues into the '70s with another 120-page slab of pure Crumb work, all topped off with a brand new Crumb cover (featuring Mr. Natural) and a two-page introduction by Mr. Sketchum himself! This volume includes all the Crumb work from Zap! #5, Bijou #4, and San Francisco Comic Book #3, as well as the complete reprintings (including the covers in full color) of Uneeda (which includes one of Crumb's more eccentric creations, Bo Bo Bolinski, as well as the classic "Honeybunch Kaminski, the Drug-Crazed Runaway"), Mr. Natural #1, and Hytone #1 (with "Pete the Plumber" and "Horny Harriet Hot Pants"). But that's just the tip of the iceberg! For true-blue collectors, this volume includes several ultra-rare greeting cards (reproduced in full color); Crumb's illustrative contributions to Esquire and Playboy in that period (both in full color); drawings from Promethean Enterprises and the East Village Other; and, most tantalizing of all, the original, never-printed cover to Zap! #5! 1992 Harvey Award Winner, Best Domestic Reprint Project In stock: November 2009 (subject to change) In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

144-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover, $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-56097-107-8 http://www.fantagraphics.com/completecrumb9 Now back in print in a new softcover edition! Robert Crumb's long day's journey into the '70s continues with this volume of classic material from 1972 and 1973. The sunny psychedelic era is a fading memory for the counterculture, and Crumb's work of that period reflects a darker, more introspective artist at work. This volume includes Crumb's first collaboration with Harvey Pekar — a long partnership that would help turn Pekar into an alternative comics star. This politically incorrect volume spotlights some of Crumb's most outrageous strips, including the complete contents of XYZ Comics, plus selections from Zap #6, Tales from the Leather Nun, San Francisco, and others. This volume also includes the ultra-rare drawings from the 1972 cookbook Eat It written by Crumb's ex-wife (20 pages' worth — a bonanza for Crumb lovers), rare and unpublished album cover art, and (in full color) Crumb's funny spoof of fellow undergrounder Jay Lynch's Nard 'n' Pat. All this, plus an all-new cover and introduction by the ol' Pooperoo himself — is it any wonder this is one of the most highly acclaimed and best-selling collections of classic comics ever released? In stock: July 15, 2009 In stores: July 29, 2009

136-page b&w/color 8.5" x 11" softcover, $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-56097-264-8 http://www.fantagraphics.com/completecrumb12 Back in print in a new 2009 softcover edition after a several-year absence, the 12th volume of The Complete Crumb spotlights Crumb’s first collaborations with national treasure Harvey Pekar, which appeared in the legendary American Splendor. This collection also includes a skeptical report-in-comics on an aerospace symposium (commissioned by CoEvolution Quarterly, it comes off like one of Michael Moore’s cocky documentary films), Crumb’s encounter with an interviewer from High Times magazine, an evocative period piece featuring 1930s jazz musicians, another of Crumb’s collaborative “jams” with Aline Kominsky, and everything else that’s established R. Crumb as the master catoonist of his time! Makes a great gift and doubles as an evocative educational tool, teaching our youth what it means to be American (from the guy that moved to France)! In stock: November 2009 (subject to change) In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

192-page b&w/color 9" x 12" softcover, $24.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-150-3 http://www.fantagraphics.com/antiwarcartoons For centuries, cartoonists have used their pens to fight a war against war, translating images of violent conflict into symbols of protest. Noted comics historian Craig Yoe brings the greatest of these artists together in one place, presenting the ultimate collection of anti-war cartoons. Together, these cartoons provide a powerful testament to the old adage, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and remind us that so often in the last couple of centuries, it was the editorial cartoonist who could say the things his fellow newspapermen and women only dreamed of, enlightening and rallying a nation against unjust aggression. Readers of The Great Anti-War Cartoons will find stunning artwork in a variety of media and forms (pen-and-ink, wash, watercolor, woodcut — single images and sequential comic strips) from the hands of Francisco Goya to Art Young, from Robert Minor to Ron Cobb, and from Honoré Daumier to Robert Crumb, as well as page after page of provocative images from such titans as James Montgomery Flagg, C.D. Batchelor, Edmund Sullivan, Boardman Robinson, William Gropper, Maurice Becker, George Grosz, Gerald Scarfe, Bill Mauldin, Art Spiegelman and many more (see below for a complete list of contributors). The book also includes an Introduction by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus and a Foreword by Library of Congress curator Sara W. Duke. This book is neither ideological nor parochial: The cartoons range across the political spectrum from staunch conservative flag-wavers to radicals and hippies, and span two centuries and the entire globe (Australia, Russia, Poland, France...). But their message remains timeless and universal. In stock: November 2009 (subject to change) In stores: November 2009 (subject to change)

160-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover / hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-305-7 / 978-1-60699-306-4 http://www.fantagraphics.com/valiantcompanionsc http://www.fantagraphics.com/valiantcompanionhc Out of print for over a decade, The Prince Valiant Companion has become a Holy Grail for collectors of the series. Now, in anticipation of the seventy-fifth anniversary of comics’ longest-running adventure strip, and to celebrate our own just-launched reprinting of the strip’s classic earliest years, Fantagraphics is proud to present an expanded version of this hard-to-find collector’s item. Compiled by award-winning Foster biographer Brian M. Kane, The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion beautifully showcases the careers of artists Hal Foster, John Cullen Murphy, and Gary Gianni. In addition to updating the original version’s story synopsis section with over thirty years of material, The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion also contains rare and new articles. Included in this volume is a never before reprinted newspaper feature from 1949, Foster’s final interview conducted by Arn Saba, an extensive interview with John Cullen Murphy, and a new interview with the current Prince Valiant creative team of Gary Gianni and Mark Schultz. The Companion also contains a new, in-depth article by Kane on Foster’s artistic influences, as well as a Foreword by comics historian Brian Walker, and an Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ray Bradbury. A special feature of the Companion is a sixteen-page color section of carefully selected strips from the entire run of the comic. Showcasing this section are eight pages by Foster, scanned and digitally restored from original color engraver’s proofs that had been carefully stored and preserved for over forty years. For the first time ever, collectors will be able to see Prince Valiant as Foster intended it to be seen, with all of his fine inked line work intact. Rounding out this section are four John Cullen Murphy pages from the Murphy family’s collection of proofs, and four Gary Gianni pages that were selected by the artist and digitally recolored under his supervision. Proceeds from the sale of The Definitive Prince Valiant Companion will go to The Friends of Hal Foster Society to aid in the creation of the Prince Valiant statue in Foster’s birthplace of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In stock: December 2009 (subject to change) In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

88-page full-color 11.5" x 13.25" softcover, $24.99 / signed hardcover, $49.99 
ISBNs: 978-1-60699-299-9 / 978-1-60699-300-2 http://www.fantagraphics.com/conceptualrealismsc 
http://www.fantagraphics.com/conceptualrealismhc

 Conceptual Realism: In the Service of the Hypothetical is a catalog accompanying Robert Williams’ Fall 2009 solo exhibition of new work at New York City’s prestigious Tony Shafrazi Gallery; the show will continue on in 2010 to galleries in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and elsewhere. The book features approximately 25 new paintings, complete with essays on each piece by the artist, insights into the process behind each painting (including sketches, underpaintings, etc.), photos of sculptures in progress, and other surprises, including an introduction by painter, tattoo artist and international tattoo cultural advocate Don Ed Hardy.

 The alternative art movement of the late 20th Century found its most congealing participant in one of America’s most opprobrious and maligned underground artists, the painter, Robert Williams. It was Williams who brought the term “lowbrow” into the fine arts lexicon, with his groundbreaking 1979 book, The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams. It was from this point that the seminal elements of West Coast Outlaw culture slowly started to aggregate.

 Williams pursued a career as a fine arts painter years before joining the art studio of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth in the mid-1960s. And in this position as the famous custom car builder’s art director, he moved into the rebellious, anti-war circles of early underground comix. In 1968, Williams linked up with the infamous San Francisco group that piloted the flagship of the miscreant cartoon world, Zap Comix. Along with Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, S. Clay Wilson, Spain Rodriguez, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin, Williams learned to function as an artist outside the walls of conventional art.

 Known as the “artist’s artist,” in early punk rock art shows held in after-hours clubs, Williams soon pioneered the first break-away art movement in California since the Eucalyptus School’s estrangement from Impressionism in the late 1920s. His bold use of underground cartoon figuration, paired with harshly contrasted psychedelic colors set a style that was an easily recognizable hallmark throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Williams’ new paintings, on display in Conceptual Realism, take the viewer into the world of subjective theory — a mock realm of violated graphic physics, and the next logical step into abstract thought. 

In stock: November 2009 (subject to change) 
In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

104-page full-color 7" x 9" hardcover, $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-307-1 http://www.fantagraphics.com/unclothedman One part MOME collection, one part authorized IFC Channel spinoff, the first quarter of this jacketed hardcover collects the work — storyboards, scripts, character designs, etc. — that Shaw has created for a series of original shorts to begin airing on IFC in Nov. 2009. The latter 3/4ths collect his acclaimed short stories from MOME, as well as several little-seen stories from elsewhere, and a new 20 page story. The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. is Shaw’s first book since his breakthrough graphic novel of 2008, Bottomless Belly Button, which was named Publishers Weekly’s best graphic novel of 2008, one of Entertainment Weekly’s top ten books of 2008, and one of Amazon.com’s top ten graphic novels of the year, amongst numerous other accolades. The book also collects Shaw’s acclaimed, genre-bending short stories from MOME, including “Look Forward, First Son of Terra Two,” a remarkable story of two lovers traveling in opposite directions... in time. Also featured: “Galactic Funnels,” the 2008 Ignatz Award nominee for “Outstanding Story,” about the parasitic relationship between an artist and his lover/mentor; “Satellite CMYK,” a sci-fi mindwarp that ingeniously drives the narrative through Shaw’s masterful control of color, and “Making the Abyss,” a fictionalized story of a surreal film set filled with nuclear tanks, hot tubs, and blind ambition. Befitting the restless experimentation and innovation of Shaw's work, this slim hardcover features a first for Fantagraphics: a clear acetate overlay dust jacket, meant to evoke an animation cel. In stock: November/December 2009 (subject to change) In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

200-page full-color 5.5" x 9.25" softcover with slipcase, $19.99 ISBN: 978-1-56097-969-2 http://www.fantagraphics.com/portablegrindhouse Harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the advent of rental videos astonished the movie-going consumer who could only feed his addiction by going to the theater or watching chopped up movies in between commercials on TV. Like vinyl, here is the revenge of another analog cast-off: the VHS is once again insinuating itself into American culture, and this book celebrates the anarchic design art of those early VHS boxes. Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box is a feast for exploitation cognoscenti, reprinting some of the most louche, decadent, minimo-pervo artwork to ever grace a VHS box, featuring such movies as From Beyond, Penitentiary II, Beast of the Yellow Night, Cop Killers, Bay of Blood, Escape from Death Row, and Cocaine Wars. Readers will be agog at the plethora of supertrash movie titles, and then move on to rediscover the anarchic box designs. Throughout, editor and cultural historian Jacques Boyreau succinctly narrates the household-piercing story of VHS: “On par with the jukebox, disco, and neon, VHS reformatted the world’s product-intake and boosted a libertarian aesthetic that conquered TV in the same way TV conquered comic books in the 1950s, and allowed us to hold movies in our hands. Posters in the lobby could advertise, even fetishize a movie; credit sequences could identify the participants, but somehow, VHS box-art ‘became’ the iconic equivalent of the movie.” Portable Grindhouse is published in a VHS “format,” slyly packaged inside a facsimile VHS box, and contains almost a hundred reproductions of VHS art with commentary. In stock: November 2009 (subject to change) In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

288-page b&w/color 7.5" x 9.5" squarebound softcover magazine, $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-187-9 http://www.fantagraphics.com/tcj300 A spectacular anniversary issue featuring intergenerational dialogues between the cream of the cartooning biz: Alt wiz Kevin Huizenga and reigning Maus king Art Spiegelman; indy comics publisher/cartoonist/musician Zak Sally and Love and Rockets co-creator Jaime Hernandez; Bottomless Belly Button auteur Dash Shaw and Asterios Polyp elder auteur David Mazzucchelli; inflammatory muckraker Ted Rall and editorial cartoonist Matt Bors; super-popular Zits! cartoonist Jim Borgman and newly syndicated Keith “Knight Life” Knight; Martin Luther King chronicler Ho Che Anderson and American Flagg! creator Howard Chaykin; cartoonist/Kramer's Ergot helmer Sammy Harkham and Eurocomics great/L'Association co-founder Jean-Christophe Menu; superhero neo-mythologizer Frank Quitely and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons; award-winning Fun Home cartoonist Alison Bechdel and Slow Storm wunderkind Danica Novgorodoff; mainstream writing powerhouses Denny O'Neil and Matt Fraction; and Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai and cartoonist/educator Chris Schweizer. Plus reviews of Acme Novelty Library #19 and Asterios Polyp, the usual columns and features, and Noah Van Sciver penetrates the Fantagraphics ivory tower for a hilarious cartoon interview with TCJ honcho Gary Groth. In stock: November 2009 In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

208-page b&w/color 7.5" x 9.5" squarebound softcover magazine ISBN: 978-1-60699-147-3 http://www.fantagraphics.com/tcj299 The Pirates and the Mouse author Bob Levin tracks down the El Dorado of comics, a lost collection of unpublished strips by 190 of the world’s most important cartoonists, including Will Eisner, Vaughn Bodé, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, Art Spiegelman, Arnold Roth, Bill Griffith, Ralph Steadman, Don Martin, Gahan Wilson, Jeff Jones, Guido Crepax — even William Burroughs, Tom Wolfe and Frank Zappa! The comics were assembled in the 1970s by Michel Choquette (creator with Neal Adams of National Lampoon’s Son o’ God comics) for a book called Someday Funnies, which never saw print. Levin and Choquette reveal for the first time the whole catastrophic story of what might have been the comics anthology of the century. Also in this issue: Sean T. Collins interviews Skyscrapers of the Midwest’s Josh Cotter; Noah Van Sciver's cartoon interview with King Cat's John Porcellino; our classic comics section features Myron Waldman’s Eve, with an introduction by Mark Newgarden; our usual smattering of insightful and incisive columns; reviews of Kramers Ergot 7, The Times of Botchan, Chaykin, Clowes, Tezuka and many more! In stock: July 31, 2009 In stores: Aug. 19, 2009

48-page two-color 8.5" x 7" softcover, $7.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-309-5 http://www.fantagraphics.com/sublife2 The acclaimed graphic novel anthology continues with Sublife, Volume 2. Creator John Pham enlarges the scope and expands the style of his series with an all-new collection of stories and strips. “The Kid” is a self-contained short story set in an eerily familiar post-apocalyptic future. Bloodthirsty marauders roam the blasted desert. A nomad and his dog, scavenging the road for gas and supplies, stumble upon a sealed bomb shelter, the contents of which will test whatever humanity he has left, as the marauders pursue him to a violent, frenetic climax. “Deep Space” continues the atmospheric science fiction serial begun in Volume 1. In this episode, Captain Ho, Commander Wallach, and their newly adopted space-faring companion Deek attempt to harness the power of an alien crystal with the hopes of finding a way back home. But will their best-laid plans survive Captain’s fragile mental state and impulse-prone behavior? In “221 Sycamore St.,” teenage runaway Phineas accompanies his uncles on a training session with their dog Freya, but what they’re training Freya to do illustrates the disturbing lengths to which his uncles will take their racist ideology. This chapter builds and expands upon the characters and themes established in the first volume, showcasing a vision of Los Angeles that is sometimes dark and fractured, inhabited by a quirky cast of characters. As if that were not enough, the artist includes various, stand-alone short strips including “Socko Sarkissian,” a single-page gem about baseball’s greatest fictional Armenian slugger, “St. Ambrose,” a fractured memoir about the author’s parochial school alma mater, and “Mort,” a story that answers the burning question, what happens when a jealous blogger encounters his nemesis? Sublife Volume 2 is filled to the brim with a dizzying variety of stories and styles, all of which surprisingly coalesce into a unified reading experience thanks to their shared themes and motifs, much like Chris Ware’s annual ACME Novelty Library. Dogs, missed connections, ad hoc family units, desert landscapes are all elements that pop up and recur among the different stories. It makes each volume of Sublife eminently readable on its own, and proves why Pham is among the most compelling new voices in comics today. In stock: November 2009 (subject to change) In stores: December 2009 (subject to change)

240-page full-color 7.25" x 10" hardcover • $39.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-289-0 http://www.fantagraphics.com/strangesuspense Before the Amazing Spider-Man, before the mysterious Dr. Strange, before the black-and-white world of the Ayn Rand-inspired Mr. A, the legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko was conjuring all manners of horrors at his drawing table. In his first two years in the industry (1953 and 1954), Ditko drew tales of macabre suspense that were not yet hobbled by the imminent Comics Code Authority (adopted in Oct. 1954). These stories featured graphic bloodshed, dismemberment and blood-curdling acid baths as the ugly end to the lives of the dark and twisted inhabitants of Steve Ditko’s imagination. Following up on Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, Blake Bell’s 2008 best-selling critical retrospective of Ditko’s career, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 features, for the first time, spectacular full-color reprints of every story from those first two years of his career. Beginning with Ditko’s very first story to Ditko’s short stint in the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby studio, to Ditko’s eventual encampment at the Charlton Comics operation in 1954, readers will see the initial works of an artist already at a level of craftsmanship that exceeded most of his peers. The book also features editor Bell’s insightful introduction, providing historical background and speaking to Ditko's influence and his unique craft. In stock: October 2009 (subject to change) In stores: November 2009 (subject to change)

168-page color/b&w 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $29.99 ISBN: 978-1-60699-169-5 http://www.fantagraphics.com/popeye4 With this fourth volume of our beloved series, Segar’s Popeye reaches one of its highest peaks in “Plunder Island,” the glorious, epic-length Sunday-continuity adventure that ran for eight months and pitted the intrepid sailorman against the malevolent Sea Hag and her terrifying, grotesque sidekick the Goon — helped, and sometimes hindered by, the easily corruptible J. Wellington Wimpy. “Plunder Island” is presented here for the first time in its complete, full-color, uncut glory! Meanwhile, in the “dailies” section of Popeye Volume 4, Popeye visits “Poodleburg” and gets involved in a quest for both “Romance and Riches.” Other stories include “Unifruit” (featuring the return of King Blozo), the western epic “Black Valley” (with the unforgettable sight of Popeye in drag), “The Pool of Youth” (featuring the return of the Sea Hag... and her sister!); and the beginning of the extended six-month-long yarn “Popeye’s Ark”! Comics historian Richard Marschall rounds off this volume with a long article on Segar’s storytelling skills and narrative strategies, focusing in particular on the “Plunder Island” sequence. Rediscover an American treasure in this handsomely designed series to be enjoyed by comic fans of all ages. In stock: October 2009 (subject to change) In stores: November 2009 (subject to change)

112-page color/b&w 7" x 9" softcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-153-4 http://www.fantagraphics.com/mome16 This issue features several of our favorite alternative comic artists of the last 15 years, bringing us great joy. Archer Prewitt is the first, with an all-new “Funny Bunny” strip created in between his active musical career. “The Moolah Tree” is the new Fuzz & Pluck graphic novel from Ted Stearn, following Fuzz & Pluck and Fuzz & Pluck: Splitsville, beginning serialization here. We are equally proud to debut new work from Renée French, whose work is also featured on the front and back cover of this issue. And Nicholas Mahler debuts to ask "What Is Art?" (translated by secret weapon Kim Thompson). Also: the second chapter of T. Edward Bak's "Wild Man - The Strange Journey - and Fantastic Accounts - of the Naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, from Bavaria to Bolshaya Zemlya (and Beyond)"; a new "Cold Heat" story by the team of Ben Jones, Frank Santoro & Jon Vermilyea; Dash Shaw interprets an episode of "Blind Date" into comics form; and new stories from Lilli Carré, Conor O'Keefe, Laura Park, Nate Neal, and Sara Edward-Corbett, with incidental drawings by Kaela Graham. In stock: September 28, 2009 In stores: October 2009 (subject to change)

112-page color/b&w 7" x 9" softcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-152-7 http://www.fantagraphics.com/mome15 MOME 15 spotlights the first, 20-page chapter of T. Edward Bak's (Best American Comics 2008) new graphic novel, "WILD MAN - The Strange Journey - and Fantastic Accounts - of the Naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller, From Bavaria to Bolshaya Zemlya and (Beyond)", as well as the final chapter (3 of 3) of legendary Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers creator Gilbert Shelton's first graphic novel in 20 years, "Last Gig In Shnagrlig." Also featured: the final installment of Tim Henlsey's hilarious "Wally Gropius," and new work by Dash Shaw, Andrice Arp (who also provides the cover), Sara Edward-Corbett, Conor O'Keefe, Noah Van Sciver, Robert Goodin, and Paul Hornschemeier. Finally, the icing on the cake of this issue is a 16-page full-color minicomic by Spanish legend Max (Bardín the Superrealist), bound into each issue! In stock: July 7, 2009 In stores: July 29, 2009

196-page black & white 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-294-4 http://www.fantagraphics.com/youarethere The satirical masterpiece that ushered in the graphic novel era to European comics… finally available in English. One of the earliest full-length, standalone graphic novels to be published in Europe, and certainly one of the best and most original, Ici Même was serialized in the adult French comics monthly (A suivre) in the early 1980s and then released in book form. A quarter of a century later, this dark, funny, consistently surprising masterpiece has finally been translated into English. An unexpected yet smoothly confident collaboration between the darkly cynical Jacques Tardi and the playful fantasist Jean-Claude Forest (of Barbarella fame), You Are There is set on a small island off the coast of France, where unscrupulous landowners have succeeded in overtaking the land from the last heir of a previously wealthy family. That heir, whose domain, in a Beckettian twist, is now reduced to the walls that border these patches of land he used to own, prowls the walls all day, eking out a living by collecting tolls at each gate. His seemingly hopeless struggle to recover his birthright becomes complicated as the government sees a way of using his plight for the sake of political expediency, and the romantic intervention of the daughter of one of the landowners (who has her own sordid history with the politician) engenders further difficulties, culminating in an apocalyptic, hallucinatory finale. Set in Tardi’s preferred early 20th century milieu, You Are There is drawn in his crisp 1980s neo-“clear line” style, gorgeously detailed, elegantly stylized, with impossibly deep slabs of black: You Are There is a feast for both the eyes and the brain. "You Are There is a masterpiece — a work unique in the history of comics, one of those books one reads and re-reads." – David B. (Epileptic) In stock: September 28, 2009 In stores: October 2009

134-page b&w/color 7" x 10.5" hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-165-7 http://www.fantagraphics.com/likeadog One man’s heartfelt and irreverent record of his time on this rock, Zak Sally’s unflinchingly veracious book, Like a Dog, is both direct and oblique, which we find rather miraculous considering the messy and murky waters of human experience it manages to navigate. Like a Dog is among the few comic book testimonials burdened by the yen to understand and articulate the mundane and the magnificent. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself laughing and crying as you claw your way through each hard fought page! Of all of Sally’s creative pursuits (including a career in music spanning 15+ years), Like a Dog is the one he’s been working a lifetime toward. This hardcover book collects the best of his acclaimed short stories from the past 15 years, created in between band tours and recording sessions, published in his Eisner-nominated self-published series Recidivist (the first 2 issues of which are reprinted here in their entirety) and in publications like Mome, The Drama, Your Flesh, Dirty Stories, and more. Like a Dog spotlights Sally’s uncanny ability to create emotional havoc out of claustrophobic images, situations and dialogue. Stories like “Don’t Move,” “The War Back Home,” and “Two Idiot Brothers” share little in common on the surface but are united by Sally’s forbidding style, creating a sense of dread that permeates almost every page. Sally also turns his eye towards nonfiction in Like a Dog, including “At the Scaffold,” the story of the imprisonment and trial of Fyodor Dostoyevsky for allegedly subversive behavior, and “The Man Who Killed Wally Wood,” a story about Sally’s brush with a former publisher of the legendary comic artist (who, contrary to the title of this strip, took his own life after a long battle with alcoholism). It also includes two collaborations: “Dread,” written by NEA Fellowship recipient, Edgar Award finalist, and O. Henry Award winning author Brian Evenson (Altmann’s Tongue); and "River Deep, Mountain High," co-created with fellow cartoonist Chris Cilla. Like a Dog also includes extensive “liner notes” by the artist, previously unpublished material, an introduction by John Porcellino (King Cat), and other surprises.

224-page full-color 8.5" x 11" softcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-160-2 http://www.fantagraphics.com/youshalldie Fletcher Hanks was the first great comic book auteur. That is, he wrote, penciled, inked, and lettered all of his own stories. He completed an astonishing 48 stories in three years from 1939-1941. As a one-man-cartooning-band, his work packs the wallop of a unique and unified artistic vision. He was a true comics visionary. In the earliest days of the comic book, before censorship, it was “anything goes!” — and in the tales of Fletcher Hanks, anything went! The superhero Stardust gazes down at evil-doers from space and doles out ice cold slabs of poetic justice with his wizardry. A villain out to kidnap all the heads of state gets turned into a giant head, himself… no body, just a head! The jungle protectress, Fantomah, looks like Jean Harlow in a skin-tight black negligee. But when she sees an evil scientist drugging gorillas to become slaves, her head transforms into a flaming skull and she tosses the villain to the gorillas who proceed to graphically tear the guy limb from ragged limb. Although the early comic books were meant for the kiddies, today’s mature readers are stunned by their pop surrealism and outright violent mayhem. The first volume of Fletcher Hanks stories, I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets! (in multiple printings) was an Eisner Award-winning smash hit and a staple on “Best of the Year” lists. Comics fans were thrilled to come upon a cartoonist of this caliber whom they had never heard of before. Non-comics fans who read about the book in The Believer and other journals were stunned to discover an Outsider Artist in comic book form. Edited by cartoonist Paul Karasik (who also provides an insightful introduction), this second volume, You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!, collects all of the rest of Hanks's comic book work. That’s right... ALL! The 31 tales in this book (more than TWICE as many as in the first), when combined with the first volume, comprise The Complete Fletcher Hanks! In stock: July 9, 2009 In stores: July 22, 2009

180-page full-color 11" x 10" softcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-159-6 http://www.fantagraphics.com/flora3 A third collection of amusing nightmares from the demonic wand of Jim Flora Jim Flora (1914­-1998), long admired for boisterous 1940s and '50s record cover illustrations and a later series of best-selling children's books, has been rediscovered in recent years as an alchemist of bizarre and politely disturbing imagery. The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora burnishes the reputation of one of the great overlooked paintbox fantasists of the twentieth century. Like its two predecessors (The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora and The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora), this anthology celebrates a visionary whose work is steeped in vari-hued paradox. Flora's figures are fun while threatening; playful yet dangerous; humorous but deadly. His helter-skelter arabesques are clustered with strangely contorted critters of no identifiable species, juxtaposed amid toothpick towers and trombones twisted into stevedore knots. Down his streets lurch demonic mutants sporting fried-egg eyes, dagger noses, and bonus limbs. Yet, despite the raucous energy projected in these hyperactive mosaics, a typical Flora freak circus often projects harmony and balance — an ordered chaos. Like the first two volumes of Floriana, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora features paintings, drawings, and sketches from the 1940s through the 1990s — many never previously published or exhibited; more artifacts from the artist's 1940s tenure in the Columbia Records art department; and vintage newspaper and magazine illustrations. This collection also heralds the first publication of an early, abandoned book for youngsters, "The X-Ray Eye of Wallingford Hume," which Flora drafted in 1943. Equally fascinating are original roughs, overlays, and concept images for his 1950s and '60s published kid-lit. In a curious inversion from art to objet d'art, these partial illustrations — intended to be layered for a printer's composite — are impressive, in their curious minimalism, as stand-alone masterpieces. A gallery of 1940s pen and pencil sketches invokes a catacomb of nightmarish apparitions and inscrutable petroglyphs. Sweetly Diabolic also collects for the first time between covers a sideshow of science widgetry from a short-lived, now-obscure mid-1950s monthly, Research & Engineering, for which Flora served as art director. Chronicles of Flora's career, personal vignettes, and mementos from the family archives augment the images. Although a lot of his work appears cartoonish, Flora didn't draw comics. He always projected a veneer of sophistication that elevated his images to the level of fine art, even when grinding out topical illustrations for newsstand weeklies. Flora deftly merged the well mannered with the maniacal — eyeball jazz that bops and bounces in unfathomable meters. In stock: June 26, 2009 In stores: July 2009

120-page full color 10.5" x 14.25" hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60699-141-1 http://www.fantagraphics.com/princevaliant1 HAROLD FOSTERS LEGENDARY MEDIEVAL EPIC, FINALLY IN ITS DEFINITIVE EDITION Universally acclaimed as the most stunningly gorgeous adventure comic strip of all time, Prince Valiant ran for 35 years under the virtuoso pen of its creator, Hal Foster. (Such was its popularity that today, decades after Fosters death, it continues to run under different hands.) The giant Sunday-funnies pages (Valiant ran only on Sundays) gave Foster a huge canvas upon which he was able to limn epic swordfights, stunning scenes of pomp and pageantry, and some of the most beautiful human beings — male and female — ever to appear in comics. And he matched his nonpareil visual sense with the narrative instincts of a born storyteller, propelling his daring young hero from one crisis to another with barely a panel to catch ones breath. Prince Valiant has previously been widely available only in re-colored, somewhat degraded editions (now out of print and fetching collectors prices). Thanks to advances in production technology and newly available original proof sheets, this new series from the industry leader in quality strip classics is the first to feature superb restored artwork that captures every delicate line and chromatic nuance of Fosters original masterpiece. Comic strip aficionados will be ecstatic, and younger readers who enjoy a classic adventure yarn will be bowled over. Volume One is rounded out with a rare, in-depth classic Foster interview previously available only in a long out-of-print issue of The Comics Journal, as well as an informative Afterword detailing the production and restoration of this edition, which you can read in its entirety right here on our website. In stock: June 17, 2009 In stores: July 8, 2009