read yourself RAW - Previews: December 2007

DECEMBER 2007
Books | Art & Illustration | Comics | About Comics | Manga

	BOOKS:
	Blue Pills by Frederik Peeters Houghton Mifflin Company $18.95 One summer night at a house party, Fred met Cati. Though they barely spoke, he vividly remembered her gracefulness and abandon. They meet again years later, and this time their connection is instantaneous. But when things become serious, a nervous Cati tells him that she and her three-year-old son are both HIV positive. With great beauty and economy, Peeters traces the development of their intimacy and their revelatory relationship with a doctor whose affection and frankness allow them to fully realize their passionate connection. Then Cati's son gets sick, bringing Fred face to face with death. It forces him to question the meaning of life, illness, and love - until a Socratic dialogue with a mammoth helps him recognize that living with illness is also a gift; it has freed him to savor his life with Cati. "[Frederik Peeters'] elliptical, atmospheric storytelling style creates waves of surprising emotion." Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home "Passionate and celebratory... Profound questions are embraced in delicate details and quiet moments of pleasure." Craig Thompson, author of Blankets "...he is widely celebrated as the author of the autobiographical tour de force Pilules Bleues (Atrabile, 2001). For six years when people ask me 'What is the book that you think most needs to be translated from French to English?' my answer is always the same: Pilules Bleues , the true story of a young man and his romance with a woman living with HIV." Bart Beaty at The Comics Reporter - Read the full article here. "A landmark in autobiographical comics publishing, Peeters' Pilules Bleues is one of the most painfully honest and genuinely affecting comics ever created. Executed in a lush, loose drawing style, this book masquerades for some time as a simple love story before, just at its midpoint, not-so-subtly kicking the reader in the teeth. Yet the beauty of Peeters' tale resides not in its shock value — which is, after all, minimized by the second half of the book — but by the skilful manner in which visual metaphors are mobilized. We are drawn deeply into Peeters' reality through his magnificent use of unreality, through his incorporation of an extraordinary wit into the mundanity of everyday life. Pilules Bleues is a tour-de-force through the cartoonist's subconscious, a visual representation of the process of coping and adjusting that ranks among the best comics published anywhere in the world in the past few years." The 20 Best European Comics You Never Read, Indy Magazine - Read the full article here.
	Incognegro (HC) by Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece DC/Vertigo $19.99 Incognegro is both a page-turning mystery and a disturbing exploration of race and self-image in America. In the early 20th Century, when lynchings were commonplace throughout the American South, a few courageous reporters from the North risked their lives to expose these atrocities. They were African-American men who, due to their light skin color, could "pass" among the white folks. They called this dangerous assignment going "incognegro." Zane Pinchback, a reporter for the New York-based New Holland Herald barely escapes with his life after his latest "incognegro" story goes bad. But when he returns to the sanctuary of Harlem, he's sent to investigate the arrest of his own brother, charged with the brutal murder of a white woman in Mississippi. With a lynch mob already swarming, Zane must stay "incognegro" long enough to uncover the truth behind the murder in order to save his brother, and himself. He finds that the answers are buried beneath layers of shifting identities, forbidden passions and secrets that run far deeper than skin color.
	J Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography by Rick Geary Hill & Wang $16.95 In the hands of cartoonist Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover's life becomes a timely and pointed guide to eight presidents - from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon - and everything from Prohibition to cold war espionage. From a nascent FBI's headlinegrabbing tracking down of Dillinger and Machine Gun Kelly in the 1930s to Hoover's increasingly paranoid post-WWII authorizing of illegal wiretaps, blackmail, and circumvention of Supreme Court decisions, J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography provides a special window into the life of an outsized American and a bird's eye view on the twentieth century.
	Students For A Democratic Society: A Graphic History by Harvey Pekar & Gary Dumm Hill & Wang $22.00 1962 at a United Auto Workers' camp in Michigan, Students for a Democratic Society held its historic convention and prepared the famous Port Huron Statement, drafted by Tom Hayden. This statement, criticizing the U.S. government's failure to pursue international peace or address domestic inequality, became the organization's manifesto. Its last convention was held in 1969 in Chicago, where, collapsing under the weight of its notoriety and popularity, it shattered into myriad factions. Through art and they were-there dialogue, Pekar and Dumm illustrate the tumultuous decade that first defined and then was defined by the men and women who gathered under the SDS banner. Students for a Democratic Society: A Graphic History captures the idealism and activism that drove a generation of young Americans to believe that even one person's actions can help transform the world. "My own radical journey began with Mad Magazine, so it feels great that SDS should enter the culture of comic folklore thanks to Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle. May this graphic history be an informing contribution as a new generation of SDS writes its own story." Tom Hayden, founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society
	Lifelike by Dara Naraghi, Irapuan Luiz, Shom Bhuiya, Marvin Mann, Neil Errar, Jason Scott Jones, Jerry Lange, Tom Williams, Steven Spenser Ledford, Adrian Barbu & others IDW $19.99 Lifelike is a diverse collection of slice of life stories... and beyond. Each vignette presents a glimpse into a different corner of the world outside our window. From the sentimental to the shocking, the familiar to the unknown, it's all here. Lifelike's stories are not limited to the cliched autobiographic tales so often associated with the genre. Instead, the stories range in content from noir crime to love stories to war memoirs to humorous conversation pieces. A multicultural, multiethnic cast of characters infuses the book with a realism often missing from today's comics.
	The Last Musketeer by Jason Fantagraphics Books $12.95 A unique mash-up of Alex Dumas (Three Musketeers) and Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon). Jason's fourth full-color album may feature his loopiest premise yet. Set in the present, The Last Musketeer stars the by-now centuries old (for no explained reason... and it doesn't matter) musketeer Athos, who has been reduced to a suavely dressed but useless near-panhandler trading on his now almost extinct fame. (Aramis has forsaken his musketeering ways, and Porthos...well, Porthos isn't around any more. Don't ask.) All this changes when one day the Martians attack Earth. Suddenly there is a need for swashes to be buckled, and Athos leaps back into the fray with a vengeance. Robots, evil alien emperors, beautiful alien princesses, rayguns vs. swords, treachery, secret corridors, insanely cool-looking robots... The Last Musketeer is vintage sci-fi adventure with a unique twist.
	Angst: The Best Of Norwegian Comics by Jason, Cristopher Nielsen, Lars Fiske, Steffan Kverneland, Tor Aerlig, Rui Tenreiro & others Jippi Comics £6.99 A collection of new Norwegian comics fronted by the leading artists of the Norwegian comics scene.
	Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads From Seattle's Stranger (HC) by Ellen Forney Fantagraphics Books $19.95 Ellen Forney's follow-up to her I Love Led Zeppelin is a collection of cartoons celebrating the sometimes stunningly crude, sometimes surprisingly sweet online world of personal classifieds. Forney has for several years been illustrating the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger 's "Lustlab" classified ads by interpreting the most interesting, outrageous, or idiosyncratic ad in that week's paper, that is awarded the appellation "Lustlab Ad of the Week." "Lustlab" is the category encompassing the kinkiest personal ads in the paper, and every week the page attracts Seattle's finest lovers, kinksters, perverts, and the perv-curious, and each week, Forney chooses one ad, edits the text, and creates a comic combining that text and imagery. She uses her brushwork in many different styles—bold and graphic, fine and detailed, cartoony, or elegant, depending on the tone of the ad. She uses a variety of resource materials for inspiration, from early erotic photography to Tom of Finland to Wacky Packages-style send-ups of consumer products to original designs. Exhibitionists, voyeurs, threesomes, moresomes, tops, bottoms, switches, rope-lovers, spankers, spankees, bi-curious men, bi-curious women, lesbians with prison fantasies, masturbation clubs—Forney illustrates them all in her bemused, affectionate, witty, and elegant style. In addition to the text and illustrations, the author embarked upon the rare journalistic feat of interviewing six enthusiastic Lustlab subscribers, who provide background, context, and hilarity (intentional and unintentional) by discussing their participation in the Lustlab network and their lusty experiences with the lovers for whom they advertised. Thrill to their outré sexual quests! Live vicariously through their sexual adventuring! To cap it off, the collection includes an introduction by the notorious sex advice columnist and novelist (and Stranger editor), Dan Savage.
	The Best Erotic Comics of 2008 edited by Greta Christina, featuring Belasco, Marzia Borino, Mauro Balloni, Susannah Breslin, Katie Carmen, Cephalopod Products, Daniel Clowes, Vince Coleman, Colleen Coover, John Cuneo, Dave Davenport, El Bute, Jessica Fink, Ellen Forney, Phoebe Gloeckner, Daphne Gottlieb, Diane DiMassa, Justin Hall, Gilbert Hernandez, Molly Kiely, Ralf Konig, Dale Lazarov, Steve MacIsaac, Michael Manning, Erika Moen, Quinn, Sandez Rey, Trina Robbins, Toshio Saeki & Dori Seda Last Gasp £14.99 A literary and artistic exploration of human sexuality -- and a fun dirty book, featuring today's smartest, raunchiest, funniest, filthiest, most beautiful, and most arousing adult comics! Best Erotic Comics 2008 smashes the divide between literary/art comics and adult comics by including both the hottest work from the literary/art comics world -- and the highest-quality work from the adult comics world. The wide variety includes work that's kinky and vanilla, sweet and perverse, and straight, lesbian, and gay. Features recent comics, a handful of vintage Hall of Fame gems all-new comics.
	MOME Vol 10 by Jonathan Bennett, Sophie Crumb, Andrice Arp, Paul Hornschemeier, Kurt Wolfgang, Eleanor Davis, T. Edward Bak, Zak Sally, Tom Kaczynski, Joe Kimball, Ray Fenwick, Tim Hensley, Al Columbia, R. Kikuo Johnson & Jim Woodring Fantagraphics Books $14.95 MOME is an accessible, reasonably priced quarterly running approximately 120 pages per volume, mostly in color, and spotlighting the most exciting new storytellers in comics along with special surprises. MOME Vol 10 includes a 45-page Jim Woodring graphic novella, The Lute String. This story, previously published only in Japan, features Woodring's signature characters - Frank, Pupshaw, and Pushpaw - in a universe-bending saga that finds the trio in a very unexpected world of flying, shrieking demons and bulbous-faced monsters.
	El Diablo by Brian Azzarello & Danijel Zezelj DC/Vertigo $12.99 Collecting the hard-hitting Western miniseries by Eisner Award-winning writer Brian Azzarello and artist Danijel Zezelj. Small-town sheriff Moses Stone is running from his past, and from something even worse: the legendary El Diablo, a relentless, violent gunman who has unearthed the skeletons in Stone's closet. Is El Diablo a man on a mission, or is he a spirit of atonement avenging the ghosts of the past?
	Midnight Sun by Ben Towle Slave Labor Graphics $14.95 In 1928, an Italian airship expedition to the North Pole mysteriously disappears. As the standard crew of the airship prepares for an extended stay on the drifting icepack where they've crashed, a dispassionate American newspaper reporter is dispatched to cover the event from aboard a Russian rescue ship.
	Jeff Hawke: Overlord (HC) by Willie Patterson & Sydney Jordan Titan Books $16.99 Widely considered one of the most important sci-fi comic strips ever published, Jeff Hawke is a benchmark in intelligent, adult-oriented storytelling. Jeff Hawke's not your average space-hero; focused on reasoning, diplomacy and moral virtues instead of brute force, he is frequently forced to be the ambassador - rather than the saviour - of mankind. His universe is populated with alien species that meet humankind by accident or for commerce, but hardly ever for invasion. Patterson's subtle wit makes the strip's plots and characters as fascinating as they are amusing, and Jordan's highly expressive style fully captures the strangeness of the weird and wonderful aliens of Jeff's universe.
	Devil Quest by Matt Wagner Dark Horse $14.95 Out of print for over decade, the deadly cyborg Grendel-Prime pursues the past with singular purpose, even while the decadent and decaying world he has forsaken hunts him for reasons of its own. Each of the seven chapters is a twisted relation to the children's rhyme, "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief" and this tightly crafted work is an essential piece of the Grendel canon, and a tie-in to Wagner's popular Batman/Grendel series.
	Tales Of The New Gods by Mark Evanier, Jeph Loeb, Steve Rude, Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons, Arthur Adams, Erik Larsen, John Byrne, Walter Simonson, Mark Millar, Steve Ditko, Mick Gray and others DC $19.99 Collecting the New Gods short stories by a who's who of all-star creators. Recognized as one of Jack Kirby's greatest creations, the New Gods now play an integral role in the DC Universe. Rediscover the classic tales of young Scott Free, Darkseid, Orion and more in this softcover collecting stories from Mister Miracle Special, Jack Kirby's Fourth World #2-20, and Orion #3-4, #6-8, #10, #12, #15, #18-19. Plus, a never-before-published short story by writer Mark Millar with art by Steve Ditko and Mick Gray.

To Top	ART & ILLUSTRATION:
	Where Madness Reigns: The Art Of Gris Grimly by Gris Grimly Baby Tattoo Books $24.95 Showcasing Gris Grimly's skill in executing his macabre visions, this book delves far beneath the surface of Grimly's well-known illustration work, and uncovers a wealth of humourous, emotional, satirical and thought-provoking imagery.
	Milk Teeth by Julie Morstad Drawn & Quarterly $9.95 In this collection of illustrations, Vancouver artist Julie Morstad spins fairy tales infused with dreamlike innocence and a touch of the macabre. Milk Teeth's surreal universe is populated by animals, flowers, peculiar objects and disembodied heads.

To Top	COMICS:
	Crickets #2 by Sammy Harkham Drawn & Quarterly $4.95 The second issue of Crickets, Sammy Harkham regular comic book series with D+Q, continues Black Death, the ongoing serial about a man shot full of arrows who is curiously not dead, and finds himself lost in the woods, and becomes bound to a mysterious Golem. Together they encounter a father and son engaged in a grim task. Sammy Harkham is one of the most exciting new talents to have emerged in recent years, listed among "L.A.'s hottest names in comics" by the L.A. Times , as well as one of Utne's "comic book artists to watch out for."
	Berlin #14 by Jason Lutes Drawn & Quarterly $3.95 Berlin is a historical novel with cinematic sweep, documenting the lives of 1920s Weimar Berlin's glamorous and downtrodden denizens as they criss-cross in the cold city streets and change the city's destiny forever. "... a comic of impressive scope...one of the most appealing things about Berlin is Lutes' love of the comics medium. His story is full of novel combinations of text and pictures, shuttling (a la Wings of Desire) between impassive bird's-eye cityscapes and diary-like internal monologues." San Francisco Chronicle Book Review "It will be the longest, most sophisticated work of historical fiction in comics... this book has the density of the best novels." Time.com
	Some New Kind Of Slaughter #1 by mpMann & A. David Lewis Archaia Studios $3.95 A new imagining of flood crises on modern, mythic and biblical scales. Like Noah, sea-bound Ziusudra and other heroes across time must strive against the coming Floods and the baffling will of the gods. "This sure-handed, character-driven telling of our shared flood mythologies offers us hope of averting, or at least surviving the deluge ahead..." Douglas Rushkoff
	Northlanders #1 by Brian Wood & Davide Gianfelice DC/Vertigo $2.99 Christian/Islamic conflict. Technological revolution. Fear of the end of the world. Sound familiar? It should. But it's not the world of 2007... it's the world of Europe, circa 1000 AD. The world of Brian Wood's brand-new monthly series, Northlanders, a fresh take on Vikings. Northlanders tells the epic tale of Sven, an exiled Viking prince who's been living the decadent, high life in Constantinople - the 11th century's answer to Las Vegas - but now must return to the desolate lands of his birth in the frigid islands of the North Sea to reclaim his vast inheritance. Intending only to take his money and run, he finds more than he bargained for as his former family and friends are enslaved at the hands of Gorm, his ruthless uncle. What follows is not only a bloody quest to free his people, but also a young man's struggle to discover where he belongs in a rapidly changing world…and what awful sacrifices it will take to make a Prince into a King.
	Infinite Horizon #1 by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto Image $2.99 A reimagining of The Odyssey, a soldier's long journey home after years of war in the Middle East. In the not too distant future a small group of abandoned soldiers are lead home by one man: the Captain. To get back he will have to cross half the globe and endure deadly encounters with many enemies including the cyclops and the sirens... but first he will have to survive the final hours of the war. "The Infinite Horizon feels like art and poetry and pain and longing and confusion all at once, and in all the right ways. Duggan and Noto are staking out dangerous territory and proving they're more than up to the task. I can't wait to read more." Ed Brubaker
	Doctor Who Classics #1 by Pat Mills, John Wagner & Dave Gibbons IDW $3.99 Classic Doctor Who comics reprinted from the UK weekly comic... the first issue reprints Doctor Who & The Iron Legion.

To Top	ABOUT COMICS:
	The Comics Journal #287 Fantagraphics Books $11.95 The essential magazine of comics news and criticism. In this issue: - Interview with Clumsy and Unlikely creator Jeffrey Brown. - Greg Rucka discusses Whiteout, Quuen & Country and his mainstream comics work. - Classic 'non-Krazy Kat' comics from George Herriman. - Plus the usual news, reviews and elitist criticism. - Find out about the latest issue here.
	The Adventures Of Hergé: Creator Of Tintin by Michael Farr Last Gasp $29.95 Following on from his best selling Tintin: The Complete Companion, Michael Farr portrays the little known but fascinating life of Herge, the remarkable artist behind Tintin, the boy reporter who continues to thrill and delight an ever-widening audience. In seven separate sketches he presents his picture of a man whose life is the key to his creation. A hundred years after his birth, Georges Remi, better known as Herge, is celebrated for creating Tintin, the dauntless young reporter-hero of this strip cartoon he first introduced in 1929. The Adventures of Tintin remain a constant source of reference throughout this new book, which draws on fresh material found in the extensive archive held by the Studios Herge, as well as a series of interviews with those who knew him intimately, friends, and colleagues who worked with him. Generously illustrated (color and b&w), this hardcover book examines the life and passions of a man who, despite his international fame, preferred to avoid the limelight, finding inspiration in modern art, the latest scientific developments and world affairs, and seeking enlightenment in Zen Buddhism and philosophy. It considers his role as the European pioneer of the strip cartoon and establishes his role played by contemporary cinema in his development of it, from the slapstick of the 1920s, through the drama and suspense of the pre-war Hitchcock thrillers, to the early works of Steven Spielberg - the one filmmaker he believed could successfully bring Tintin to the large screen. Apart from the strip cartoons that made his name, Herge was an accomplished graphic designer and typographer and his - at times - highly advance work for advertising is reviewed, as well as his later, less successful, aspirations to become an abstract painter. Not only was he fascinated by modern art, he also became an avid collector. He greatly admired the pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein - buying major works of theirs - and they in turn paid tribute to him.

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MANGA:

Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures In Japan
by Aimee Major Steinberger
Go Media
$16.99
Join Aimee Major Steinberger on the ultimate fangirl vacation in Japan. Animator Aimee documents her visit to Japan and her personal discovery of its culture in her manga diary. This rapid-fire adventure is full of everything fans dream of seeing: cosplay on the infamous Harajuku Street, fantasy restaurants, maid cafes, Tokyo's largest doll store, beautiful shrines, bookstores full of manga, outrageous all-female Takarazuka musicals, cherry festivals, hot springs, special ceremonies, and more.