Fantagraphics has announced that for the first time in 39 years, the publisher will release its first monthly series focusing on the history of hip-hop.
Ed Piskor’s Hip Hop Family Tree is getting new covers splash pages, and a “director’s commentary” will arrive in August.
The first issue traces the very beginning of hip-hop: it spotlights the breakdancers, graffiti artists, DJs, and MCs who formed hip-hop culture in the tenement rec rooms of the south Bronx in the 1970s. Hip Hop Family Tree is the history of hip-hop as told through comics. Piskor can’t stop, won’t stop until the entire story is told. Painstakingly researched, Ed Piskor is delivering the most thorough account of the who, what, where, and when of the most infamous music genre the world has ever seen.
“We’ve found that the existing treasury editions are most popular through the book trade and we thought it would interesting to make an effort to do some outreach with the direct comic shop reader,” stated Ed Piskor in a prepared press release. “Our Free Comic Book Day editions were highly sought after at the comic shops who carried it and we took this as a good sign to try some unprecedented moves.”
Fantagraphics also plans a series of exclusive variant covers that will go out to stores who order 1,000 copies of the series.
Each variant cover by Piskor riffs on the beloved Marvel 25th Anniversary cover promotion from 1986 and spotlights a different figure from the history of Hip Hop. Fantagraphics and Piskor will also be producing a convention exclusive variant available only from Fantagraphics or Piskor himself.
Hip Hop Family Tree #1 is 32-pages, and has a $4.99 cover price.
