If you haven’t heard by now, legendary independent comic/graphic novel publisher Fantagraphics is being sued by legendarily outspoken science fiction writer Harlan Ellison for libel over a couple anecdotes in Fantagraphics’s not-yet-pubbed autobiography We Told You So. A basic description of the whole hubbub can be found here.

Like any publishing company, Fantagraphics doesn’t make any money whatsoever and relies on a skeleton crew for its daily operations. So, they could use some cash to fight this ludicrousness, which seems to boil down to Ellison regretting that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut at a time when he should have, but that’s my admittedly kind of uninformed opinion.

Anyway, if you’ve ever thought about expanding your comic book horizons beyond the usual, now would probably be a decent time. Fantagraphics is the premier publisher of “literary” graphic novels, and I recommend picking up anything by Jim Woodring, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, Robert Crumb, Charles Burns, and just about anybody on Fantagraphics’s incredible roster. I’d be happy to make more specific recommendations if you like. Pick something up from their website if you get a chance: www.fantagraphics.com.

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