Fantagraphics to publish Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree as a book

This is great news: Fantagraphics announced it will be publishing the anthology edition of Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree, which appears weekly on Boing Boing. Congrats, Ed!

What started out as a web comic Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree traces the foundation of hip hop from its Bronx origins with DJ Kool Herc and DJ Hollywood through Doug E. Fresh, Run DMC and beyond in four color fury. The comic easily transitions from depictions of live shows to breaking in the streets to the foundation of record companies, eager to spread the music. Currently published weekly at the epicenter of cool, Boing Boing, Piskor's work will be collected and printed by Fantagraphics next year.

The full-color book will be around 112 pages, collecting the first year's worth of comic strips spanning 1975-1980. As a beautiful backup to Piskor's story, ten beat-friendly cartoonists are providing pin-ups of their favorite hip hop artists and rappers. The overarching theme of comics delving deep into music culture make Hip Hop Family Tree and Ed Piskor make a happy addition to works of cartoonists like Peter Bagge, R. Crumb, Joe Sacco, Mary Fleener, the Hernandez Brothers and authors like Pat Thomas, Jacob McMurray and Kevin Avery.

Piskor is best known for his works like self-published and then Top Shelf published hacker comic, Wizzywig. Piskor also worked with late, great Harvey Pekar in the collection, The Beats. Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds said, "Hip Hop Family Tree is not only a great read, it's a wonderful visual history of the important genre of music of the past 30 years. We're excited to publish it." After all the paperwork was signed Piskor said, "While working on the this project, I began to feel like the belle at the ball, in a matter of speaking, because lots of different publishers started getting in touch. They had certain ideas that would have required compromise. Fantagraphics is one of the only publishers I personally sought out, because I thought they might facilitate my exact vision, and it feels like I was right. Basically, I'm a huge brat and I want what I want, and Fantagraphics is down for the cause."

You can see Piskor and Fantagraphics this weekend at SPX and keep your eyes and ears open for more jammin' comics by Ed Piskor. Start clearing away space now next to your turn table for Hip Hop Family Tree.

• [McDrunk]

  Excellent, hardback or paperback this will be one book I pick up on the day of release!  

• [David Pescovitz]

  Right on, Ed! Fantagraphics is the greatest comix publisher in the world! 

• [Al Corrupt]

  Great news indeed. :D

• [Ian Wood]

  Good.

• [BarBarSeven]

  Perfect example of the historic graphic novel format. Congrats!

• [noah django]

  AWWWWWW YEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
  Yo, Ed–run a *power move* on ‘em.

• [oldtaku]

  I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, ah you don’t stop. Rock it out baby bubbah to the boogie da bang bang the boogie to the boogie da beat. Check it out, I’m the E-d-the-Pis-kor and the rest is f-l-y.

  Yeah, I’m buying. This has been great.

• [SedanChair]

  I can only rain plaudits on Ed Piskor. Hip Hop Family Tree should win like 3 Pulitzers. 

• [sxip shirey]

  This makes me VERY happy.

• [kuanes]

  Good for you, Ed.  Well-deserved.

• [benenglish]

  I love the panel in the summary.  A marching cadence is being vocalized and the three participants are drawn completely out of step.  Maybe it’s the early hour and my screwed-up sleep patterns playing with my brain but, holy cow, that’s hilarious.

• [Halloween_Jack]

   Very cool. I was a little confused at first because I thought that the “beat-friendly” cartoonists were being listed further down the paragraph, and I thought, “Peter Bagge–what?” Seriously, I hope that Jim Mahfood is one of the cartoonists providing pin-ups.

  • [Ed Piskor]

    *cough* Bambaataa *cough*

• [Ben Hammy]

  What? After I’ve been printing out each issue weekly? ;0)
  Great news!

• [benher]

  Awesome! Hope Fantagraphixxx does what it does well with print and includes a pull out poster mimicking the progressive “flowchart” at the bottom of each strip. (

• [Oz Vinyljunkie]

  Cant wait. I imagine a deluxe edition with a gatefold double Lp attached.

• [grs]

  Kudos Ed. I look forward to the final product.

• [Robert Goldman]

  I look forward to buying this, too.  Extra bonus would be if someone could assemble sources for some of the tracks referenced or, even better, an anthology MP3 or CD collection could be offered.  I remember dancing to lots of these tracks on singles, and I would love to have them to listen to along with the book.

  It’s a great project!  Thanks to Boing Boing and Fantagraphics for making it available.

• [jesse l mabus]

  bravo and congratulations.

• [Steve White]

  I has a Happy.