i’ve always been a fan of comics and more specifically, graphic novels. i owe this to Hunter, no doubt. i regularly check things out from the main branch of the Dixon Free Semi-Public Library. well, back in 2002, when Top Shelf Comics had there main distributor go kaput, leaving them in the lurch for fifty-large, i thought i’d get off my freeloading arse and buy a copy of Alan Moore’s spectacular From Hell (yes, the basis for the movie of the same title). Turns out Top Shelf was flooded with orders and I now have a copy of a great book of my own that I will no doubt read over and over.

Fast-forward to today (or last week, really), and I get an email from Warren Ellis (via his Bad Signal mailing list) that Fantagraphics, a publisher of many, many comics and graphic novels (read more here) was having problems — due in good part to yet another distributor fall-through among other problems — I, the foul-weather purchaser, sprang into action.

‘What did I buy?’ you ask. Well, let me say that I found quite a few things that I wanted when I was at Chicago Comics with Nick and Hunter. One of the most striking things was this book entitled Ssssh!. I won’t attempt to explain it any better than my link does — but I loved it. For whatever reason, I didn’t buy it. Well, I get home, do a little searching on google for “Sssh” (how many S’s should I use? I dunno!) and “Jason”, and as you might expect, I came up with diddly-squat. Well, I fumbled over to ArtBomb (a graphic-novel intensive review/exposure site pointed out to me by h\m/d a while back. I can’t remember exactly why I went there – it may have been on suggestion of Warren Ellis as there was a free, online comic he raved up. Well, anyway, what should be #2 on their “BOOK FEED” list? That’s right, Ssssh!. Hey, cool, I’d love to own that. Hey, I wonder if Fantagraphics carries that…. Hah! They do (good luck browsing their inventory for it, though. Just put in “Jason” in their search engine). Oh, wow — you can get the original Norwegian version in hardcover for $5 more! Awesome. So yeah, I bought that and his first book, Hey Wait! which garnered great reviews. Yeah, I’ve never read anything other than the wordless “Ssssh!”, but I thought I’d take a shot in the dark to help out a community that I’ve profited (non-monetarily, mind you) from for quite some time. My note in the “comments” field when ordering the books from Fantagraphics: “here’s to saving your ass! good luck!”

Now, I could have ordered Ssssh! from Amazon, if I wanted to. But that’s not what Fantagraphics needs — they are trying to get rid of overstocks that they’ve printed directly. Also, *technically*, Amazon doesn’t have the Norwegian hardcover, but whatever — I figure my support is more direct that way.

You want to know who is published by Fantagraphics? Well, here are some of the most recognizable:

Chris Ware
Dan Clowes – of Ghost World fame.
Peter Bagge

and last, but certainly not least:

Robert Crumb – you know, Fritz the Cat and all that stuff, but quite possibly the reason that alternative comics even have a place in this world.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Go and check out Fantagraphics and see if there is anything you want, and further, check out ArtBomb for reviews/inspiration/etc.

update: Warren Ellis has summed up the whole Fantagraphics issue quite well in his column Brainpowered over at Artbomb. Check it out, it’s an interesting read.