Fantagraphics December 2026 Solicitations

“Curse me kilts!” When Scrooge activates an ancient spellbook called the Horrorkomikon, the McDuck Money Bin gets magically infested with dragons, banshees, and pirates! The only cure lies with long-lost horror novelist H.P. Hatequack… but only Professor Ludwig Von Drake can find him, and Scrooge’s ghostly evil twin is standing in the way! Join us for this feature-length thriller drawn by Giorgio Cavazzano—and then hang around for “Intern Affairs”: super-inventor Gyro Gearloose hires a new helper, but über-nerd Myron Orpington is not the best duck to mix with hi-tech!

Wak! When Scrooge McDuck can’t find the world’s rarest cocoa beans, the Three Caballeros leap into action, with mostly fearless Donald, José Carioca, and Panchito Pistoles prowling Mexico’s dankest rainforests on Christmas Eve! But Pralina Trufflesniff, a wily warthog chocolate mogul, wants the super beans first... and she’s ready to roast a few ducks, chickens, and parrots if they get in her way! Then fan-favorite talents Stefan Petrucha (The X-Files) and Paco Rodriguez return for “Nibbling Gold”: when Donald and Scrooge go treasure-hunting in Germany, the mystic “Earring of the Nibblequack” transports them to a parallel world of magic and monsters!

Grab your swords and shields—wild European Disney adventure comics invade North America with Disney Masters Vol. 25: Mickey Mouse: The River of Time by Corrado Mastantuono and Vol. 26: Donald Duck: Tales of Andold Wild Duck by Marco Rota! First: Who sank Steamboat Willie? See how a standoff between Mickey, Peg Leg Pete, and jewel thief Jeb Fishbone sank that infamous riverboat—and lost Mouseton’s most valuable gem in the roaring rapids! Then Donald battles a bombastic new rival in “Boomer Buff’s Big Boost”; and in “Mouse in the Mirror,” Mickey faces off with Ricky Rodent, an evil twin who seems to be a better detective! Next: charge into Donald Duck’s past life as his own Arthurian ancestor! When Viking raids capture half of Scotland, it’s up to Commander Andold “Wild Duck” Temerary (played by Donald himself) and his super-strong knightly pal, Little Bo, to battle barbarians at the gates! Then hang on for modern-day Donald and Scrooge McDuck thrills and chills, including a hunt for ancestor Donaldin’s cursed pirate treasure on the “Night of the Saracen!”

Shortly after launching his men’s adventure line of comic books in 1949 (and just before he published his first war title), Atlas publisher Martin Goodman found, in the middle ground between crime and men’s adventure, the sneakier, conspiratorial sub-genre of spy comics. The first title was Spy Cases (soon followed by Spy Fighters and Kent Blake of the Secret Service) and the contents were Cold War noir stories, as Doug Grant, Secret Agent, protected America’s interests, fighting commies from behind the Iron Curtain. Led by superlative action/adventure artwork by Al Hartley (later Bill Savage) and supported by Atlas titans including Gene Colan, Bill Everett, Russ Heath, Jerry Robinson and Joe Maneely, America ferrets out sinister threats in thrillers like: “The Traitor!,” “Discs of Death,” “Frame-Up in Red,” and “The Case of the Missing B-29!” All spy comics had healthy runs and by 1952, the Korean War made its presence felt in every adventure title. Patriotic, but also subtler, darker and more sinister than the familiar costumed hero titles, the spy genre is a little-seen aspect of Marvel’s deep history.

Carl Barks: The Fantagraphics Studio Edition collects Barks’ preliminary pencil pages —or storyboards—of comics he wrote after he retired from penciling and inking, serving as a perfectly legible graphic storytelling map the finishing artist could follow. These are fully written and designed stories —which include Barks’ hand lettering— and can be read as easily as the rendered final versions. The advantage to these original art renditions is that the reader can not only appreciate but positively savor Barks’ gorgeous, nuanced penciling. These pages display the architecture beneath Barks’ final inked pages, revealing how fluid, vital, and effortless his finished panel-to-panel storytelling was, and how the subtlety of his character’s facial expressions were baked into the pencil work. Writing the story and breaking down the page graphically is the cartoonist’s first step to creating a comic, and here is an opportunity to see one of the 20th century’s greatest cartoonists thinking as drawing. This book includes “King Scrooge the First,” the last Uncle Scrooge story Barks wrote and one of his best, as well as “Pawns of the Loup Garou” and many others. The pages are reproduced from high resolution color scans and printed at the actual size they were drawn. The fidelity to the original art is so uncannily realized that a page framed under glass would be indistinguishable from the original. Every page convincingly conveys the quality and expressivity of Barks’ pencil linework. Also included are several cover sketches and finished pencil drawings that were never published, and covers that were bought, finished, and submitted but never published. An introduction by Barks expert and editor Kim Weston provides background information and aesthetic commentary on the stories.

In Fall 2026, Fantagraphics launches The Complete Corto Maltese with Volume 1: The Ballad of the Salt Sea, Corto’s premiere adventure and the story that introduces him to the world. Pratt plunges us right into the action with Corto bound to a makeshift raft adrift in the Pacific Ocean in 1913. In short order, he is rescued by the Russian privateer Rasputin (yes, that Rasputin), and things only get more complicated and more treacherous from there. In addition, this volume also presents Pratt’s tale of Corto’s youth, when, in 1904 at the age of 16 in Manchuria, he is asked by his friend, Jack London (yes, that Jack London) to help rescue a young Russian deserter named Rasputin in the midst of the Russo-Japanese War. A modern Ulysses whose wanderings in the early decades of the 20th century take him to the most fascinating places on Earth, Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese is a hard-luck, hard-driving iconoclastic anti-hero who values freedom and independence more than wealth and status. Treasure hunter, storm-tossed sailor, and itinerant adventurer, the irascible and indefatigable Corto Maltese has earned his status as one of the most popular characters in European comics.

There scarcely was an underground comics world before Robert Crumb's classic solo first issue of Zap in 1968. By Zap #2, he had begun assembling a Seven Samurai of the best, the fiercest, and the most stylistically diversified cartoonists to come out of the countercultural kiln. All of them were extremists of one sort or another, from biker-gang member Spain Rodriguez to Christian surfer Rick Griffin, but somehow, they produced a decades-long collaboration: a mind-blowing anthology of abstract hallucination, throat-slashing social satire, and shocking sexual excess that made possible the ongoing wave of alternative cartoonists like Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Charles Burns. The Complete Zap Comix collects every issue of Zap — every cover and every story — in a three-volume slipcased softcover set. They're all here — from Zap #0, a solo Crumb issue, through Zap #16, the final issue with work by R. Crumb, Victor Moscoso, S. Clay Wilson, Spain Rodriguez, Gilbert Shelton, Paul Mavrides, Rick Griffin, and Robert Williams.

Here, for the first time, in a deluxe two-volume collection, is the best compilation of the covers from EC Comics. From the company’s earliest days of its earnest Picture Stories titles to its kiddie, Western, and romance titles of the 1940s, through the heyday of such titles as Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Weird Science, Shock SuspenStories, Crime SuspenStories, Two-Fisted Tales, and Piracy, through its “New Direction” and “Picto-Fiction” period with titles such as Aces High, Extra, Impact, Terror Illustrated, and Confessions Illustrated — they’re all here! These covers were drawn by the greatest array of artistic talent ever assembled at one comic book company (excepting Fantagraphics, of course). Their names are legend — Craig, Crandall, Davis, Evans, Feldstein, Frazetta, Ingels, Kamen, Krigstein, Kurtzman, Orlando, Severin, Torres, Williamson, and Wood. And most of these covers are colored by the equally legendary Marie Severin. Each of the hundreds of full-color covers is lovingly scanned from pristine original comics and presented in a lush, oversize format to show off with spectacular precision every meticulous line, brushstroke, and nuance of chromatographic splendor. But it doesn’t end there. This unique collection also showcases alternate covers, original artwork, paperback covers — even unpublished, “what if” covers by EC “grand old man” Angelo Torres that have never seen print before. The Crypt of Covers: The Complete EC Covers Compendium takes you on a curated tour of the history of EC Comics through its cover art from start to finish, guided by EC expert Grant Geissman. Each cover in this stunning collection is worthy of gallery or museum display.

Who’s got the sweetest disposition? Not Donald—but that’s why we love him! Over the decades, Duckburg’s feistiest fowl transformed from a gawky, goosey figure into one of comics’ most emotive, visually streamlined stars. Now Fantagraphics invites you to trace this evolution artist by artist, with all of Donald’s greatest in attendance! Al Taliaferro brings us a 1934 comics adaptation of Donald’s first screen role in “The Wise Little Hen!” Beloved “Duck Man” Carl Barks sends Donald to the circus in our 1950s title tale, “Big-Top Bedlam,” then goes on to pit him against witches, Uncle Scrooge—and himself! Don Rosa’s Donald tackles Neighbor Jones on Halloween in “Fit to Be Pied”; then Freddy Milton combines Ducks with dragons in “The Big Sneeze”! Each epic tale comes with new commentary by Disney historians Jim Fanning, David Gerstein, and Simone Cavazzuti, an interview with modern Duck designer Paco Rodriguez—and the inside scoop on every makeover Donald has received.

Part sketchbooks, part biography, part tutorial, part memoir—Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant Sketchbooks are an unprecedented revelation of Foster’s personal life and creative process during his final nine years on the strip, as well as a fascinating look behind the curtains as Foster coached and interacted with his chosen successor: John Cullen Murphy. Beautifully, meticulously designed and produced with the full participation of the Murphy family, this series is a testament to author and Prince Valiant historian Brian M. Kane’s research prowess and determination to bring Foster’s aesthetic and storytelling strategies to light. Over the course of these volumes, Kane annotates with painstaking clarity and thoroughness 366 penciled layout pages, 40-character sketches, and 577 text pages of Foster’s descriptions of each panel. Also featured are an additional 143 pieces of art, mostly by Foster, 100 photographs detailing his life and career, and 123 personal letters and notes, all adding immeasurably to this exploration of Foster’s life and art, as well as his collaboration with Murphy.

This season's Carl Barks Library slipcased gift box set collects two of our earlier volumes in this popular series: Walt Disney's Donald Duck "Mystery of the Swamp" (Barks's first foray into his signature series of adventures in "lost civilizations'' takes the Ducks deep into the Everglades, where they find themselves bedeviled by the enigmatic Gneezles) and Walt Disney's Donald Duck: "Maharajah Donald" (Through a series of trade-ups, the nephews turn Donald's old pencil stub into — a steamship ticket to India!). More than 470 pages in two volumes snugged into a sturdy slipcase at a special price that even Uncle Scrooge couldn't resist!

Do your fellow comics fans call you too flouncy and pouncy? Do fussy Rabbits see you coming and panic? Don't change your stripes, don't hide your head in a hunny pot—maybe you're a Tigger! And now you can join us for tons of Tigger comics tales, anthologized from the classic American Winnie the Pooh comic book and Disney magazines around the world! Fronted by a feature-length adaptation of The Tigger Movie (2000), then filled up with dozens of stupendous shorts, this catty collection finds Pooh, Piglet, Roo, and Eeyore hunting Tigger's feline family members, running (and bouncing!) in marathons—even building "purrposterous" statues in ice! But the most wonderful thing about The Tiggerific Comic Collection is… it's the only one!