Fantagraphics Debuts For San Diego Comic-Con In 2016 – Meat Cake, Hip-Hop And Cosplayers

Meat Cake Bible

By Dame Darcy

Dame Darcy is one of the sui generis artistic talents of the past two decades — musician, actress, fortune teller, dollmaker, Gen X/feminist icon, and last but not least, cartoonist to the core — and has been bewitching readers for more than 20 years with her neo-Victorian horror/humor/romance comic Meat Cake. Alternating between one-off (often cruelly tragic) fairy tales and ongoing romps starring her eclectic cast of characters, including Effluvia the Mermaid, the roguish rou. Wax Wolf, Igpay the Pig-Latin pig, Stregapez (a women who speaks by dispensing Pez-like tablets through a bloody hole in her throat), the mischievous Siamese twins Hindrance and Perfidia, Scampi the Selfish Shellfish, the stalwart Friend the Girl, and the blonde bombshell Richard Dirt, all delineated in her inimitable luxurious scrawl, Meat Cake is like a peek into the most creative, deranged dollhouse you ever saw. The Meat Cake Bible is the definitive collection of the series, collecting every story from all 17 issues (1993-2008) — including "Hungry is the Heart," Darcy's legendary collaboration with Alan Moore — as well as new stories from the unpublished 18th issue.

Cosplayers

By Dash Shaw

Cosplayersis cartoonist Dash Shaw's ode to that defining element of fandom, the "costume play" of so many anime and comic conventions. Artfully celebrating both the culture's obvious theatricality and uniquely D.I.Y. beauty, as well as its often awkward conflation of fantasy and reality, Cosplayers explores these delicate psychological balancing acts via a series of seven interconnected short stories surrounding two talented young women who combine their love of cosplaying with their love of social media and film in order to deepen their relationship with the popular culture they celebrate. Cosplayersdepicts their stories in an affectionately funny way, celebrating how much more inclusive and humanistic fandom can be than most of the stories and characters it is built upon. Featuring plenty of easter eggs for fans of the broader culture as well as being the perfect entry point for those completely befuddled by it, Cosplayers is another distinctive, instant classic from one of the most acclaimed voices of his generation, and will be released around the same time as Shaw's feature directorial debut, the independent animated feature My Entire High School…Sinking into the Sea starring the voice talents of Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, and Susan Sarandon.

Garden of Flesh

By Gilbert Hernandez

As only the unfettered Id of Gilbert Hernandez could conceive,Garden of Flesh is a sexually explicit retelling of the story of Adam and Eve up to Noah's Ark. Hernandez presents a straightforward adaptation of the Bible parable, but one that also blurs the lines between erotica and pornography, as only Hernandez can. In the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve are youthful and beautiful, is sex is a source of happiness, even when it's psychologically and spiritually fraught? Leave it to Hernandez to explore the story of original Sin from a perspective you didn't get in Sunday school. As an added bonus, longtime Love and Rockets fans will recognize some beloved characters/actors portraying key players.

Hip Hop Family Tree Book 4: 1984–1985

By Ed Piskor 

Book 4 of the best selling series showcases: The rise of Def Jam records! The birth of Dr. Dre's record career leading to Straight Outta Compton! Introducing new branches on the tree such as Will Smith, Salt N Pepa, Rakim, and Biz Markie. Hollywood also takes notice and releases loads of films like Breakin', Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, Beat Street, Krush Groove and more, all highlighted within this jam packed edition.

Hip Hop Family Tree Gift Box Set: Book 3 & 4

By Ed Piskor

We are releasing our gift box set of Books 3 and 4, in time for the holidays. Exclusive with this box set is Piskor's crash course comic, Understanding Hip Hop and Comics, a documentation of how the two media have intersected over the past 40 years, spanning graffiti, to album covers, and to actual comics collaborations between cartoonists and rappers.

Otherworld Barbara

By Moto Hagio
In the latest English-language release from one of the most influential manga creators of all time, Tokio is a "dream pilot," a detective who enters criminals' dreams to discover their motives. While investigating Aoba, who killed her parents and ate their hearts when she was nine, he discovers a phantom island named Barbara. Then there's a mysterious and missing geneticist, an eccentric clergyman, a grieving grandmother granted temporary youth, a psychologist killed by a freak tornado… Hagio offers a sci-fi explanation for these seemingly random paranormal elements, and makes it all matter with believable characters in complex and subtle relationships. Fantagraphics Books is proud to present the first volume (of two) of Moto Hagio's Otherworld Barbara, which won the "Nebula Award of Japan" (Nihon SF Taishō Award) in 2006.

Real Deal Comix

By Lawrence Hubbard and H.P. McElwee

Real Deal Comix trades in what it calls the genre of Urban Chaos — a satiric depiction of the madness that occurs in the urban centers of America. Each story details the everyday struggles of the urban dwellers who go off on each other out of the rage and futility that their lives bring them. These people live on the edge of a precipice, where everyday tasks like going to the store or buying gas requires a stand-or-back-down attitude to survive. Every story ends in mayhem. Join G.C, Ace Brogan and Slick Willie in their adventures in da' hood, and remember, they live a real man's life: no matter what, they never back down. Real Deal Magazine ("More Rage per Page, More Slaughter for your Dollar") was a self-published independent comic book created in the 1990s by Lawrence Hubbard (a.k.a "Raw Dog") and H.P. McElwee (a.k.a. "R.D. Bone") and inspired by magazines like Mad and traditional superhero comics but satirizing Blaxploitation movies with a cast of convicts, hustlers, drug addicts, crack whores, car thieves, and murderers. Real Deal has achieved cult status over the years, especially among underground artists and counterculture circles, and has even been featured in a line of t-shirts from Stüssy, but has never been collected… until now.

Blubber #3

By Gilbert Hernandez

Unleashing the unfettered Id of the great Gilbert Hernandez! Absurd, explicit, and profanely comical, Blubber makes all other comics blush. Pupusi (last seen in Gilbert's Garden of the Flesh) gets it on with a hideous monster, a couple of lustful faun follow suit, an alien takes a substantial bowel movement, a guy with a large member gets it on with a little alien, and so much more!