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The Troublemakers (HC) by Gilbert Hernandez Fantagraphics Books $19.99 Low-life drug dealer Dewey Booth has $200,000 that even-lower-lifes want. Wes is a rock and roll loser that only wants to buy a club where nobody can tell him he can't sing or perform. He's known Dewey for years, but that isn't enough to get his dough. Wes needs help. Nala is an über-stacked bombshell whose pleasure in life is to seduce and then humiliate men dumb enough to fall for her. For half the dough, she agrees to help Wes get Dewey's ill-gotten goods. Things don't go so well when a wily grifter from Wes's past shows up to complicate things. Vincenze is another troublemaker who enjoys wrecking people's plans and wants the Dewey dough, too. In the end, deadly fires ignite, heads literally roll, eyes are shot out and - all Wes wants to do is sing in a rock and roll club. |
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The Lindenbergh Child by Rick Geary NBM $15.95 After his daring solo crossing of the Atlantic, fame and fortune came quickly to Charles Lindbergh, as well as marriage into wealthy family. But soon after the newly-weds build themselves a dream home far from the madding crowd, tragedy strikes: their baby is abducted. Geary retraces all the different highly publicised events, blackmail notes, and the string of colourful characters wanting to 'help'. A fascinating story, replete with savoury details and unsavoury people as only Geary can masterfully relate. |
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Bluesman (HC) by Rob Vollmar & Pablo Callejo NBM $24.95 This story, structured like a traditional twelve bar blues song, with three sections each made of four chapters, follows blues musician Lem Taylor's harrowing journey across Arkansas of the late twenties, hunted for a crime he didn't commit. "An explosive and emotional climax. Bluesman mixes the mythic and dramatic with
the nitty-gritty reality of the hard parts of life, just like a good blues song
does." "Callejo's woodcut-like style portrays the magic realist climax and documentary
coda particularly brilliantly. Consider Bluesman a worthy shelf mate for such
other historical graphic novels as James Vance and Dan Burr's Kings
in Disguise and Kim Deitch's Boulevard
of Broken Dreams." |
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Nat Turner by Kyle Baker Abrams $12.95 The story of Nat Turner and his slave rebellion - which began on August 21, 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia - is known among school children and adults. To some he is a hero, a symbol of Black resistance and a precursor to the civil rights movement; to others he is monster - a murderer whose name is never uttered. In Nat Turner, Kyle Baker depicts the evils of slavery in this moving and historically accurate story of Nat Turner's slave rebellion. Told nearly wordlessly, every image resonates with the reader as the brutal story unfolds. "Intricately expressive faces and trenchant dramatic pacing
evoke the diabolic slave trade's real horrors." "Baker's suspenseful and violent work documents the slave
trade's atrocities as no textbook can, with an emotional power
approaching that of Maus." |
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Cola Madness by Gary Panter Picture Box $24.95 Cola Madness is a graphic novel masterpiece by Gary Panter circa 1983. Starring a young Jimbo just trying to get an ever lovin' cola, Panter's drawing is at its most minimal here, his ratty line delineating a cosmic/comic world of nature, technology and junk food. "This delightfully
inane story offers a selection of Panter's themes: humanity's troubled
relationship with nature and technology; the tension between restraint
and the uncontrollable urge; family relationships; and Jimbo's
endearing, comical self-doubt. Panter's black and white "ratty
line" drawing style offers great economy while suggesting a broad
range of graphic style from art brut to bathroom graffiti, and
calls to mind the works of legendary cartoonists Jack Kirby and
Osamu Tezuka." "Panter's nervy, muscular mark-making almost carved out of paper,
was the defining graphic counterpart of US punk rock. It marked
a rejection of traditional and empty polish, as radical a break
with the sex-and-dope underground comix as punk music was with
hippie rock groups. Shifting from street-level Slash to
New York no-wave graphix mag Raw, Jimbo
became Panter's outraged hero-vehicle who possesses him to this
day." |
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What It Is (HC) by Lynda Barry Drawn & Quarterly $24.95 How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry's compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: 'The ordinary is extraordinary.' "Barry is, underneath the wonky handwriting and the quirky, naïve
drawings, a great memoirist... Like [Tobias] Wolff and [Dave]
Eggers, she finds a tone that accommodates self-criticism and self-irony
without tipping over into self-loathing... but what she is particularly
good at is resonance." |
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Johnny Boo: The Best Little Ghost
In The World by James Kochalka Top Shelf $9.95 Johnny Boo is the best little ghost in the whole world, because he's got Boo Power. This means that he can go "BOO" really loudly. His pet ghost, Squiggle, has Squiggle Power, which means that he can fly and do really fast loop-the-loops. Together they have the world's greatest ghost adventures! When the giant pink and yellow Ice Cream Monster bumbles into their lives, they go into a mad panic... until they discover that he's actually quite friendly. |
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The New York Four by Brian Wood & Ryan Kelly DC/Minx $9.99 Just starting her freshman year at NYU, Riley is about to find out what an adventure - and a mystery - living in New York City can be. The ultimate insider's guide to NYC is seen through the eyes of Brooklyn-born Riley. Raised by stuffy, literati parents, Riley's a shy, straight-A student who convinces three other NYU brainiacs to join a research group for fast cash. |
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Army@Love Vol 2: Generation Pwned by Rick Veitch & Gary Erskine DC/Vertigo $12.99 Collecting issues #6-12 of the incisive Army@Love, a series writer Rick Veitch describes as Desperate Housewives meets the war. This volume, leading into the upcoming Army@Love season 2, follows the exploits of rivals Loman and Flabbergast, as well as Switzer, the woman they both love. "...the series I'm following religiously right now is Rick Veitch's
Army@Love. I read the collection of
the first six issues on the train down to SPX,
and enjoyed it even more as a collection than I did in the single
issues. Army really reads like a 21st Century update on Dr.
Strangelove, except as an acidly funny, cutting satire of
the current war and the information consumption that characterizes
American culture. That's one I can't wait for between issues, and
when I get them, that I can't even wait to get home to read. I've
gotten lots of odd looks on the subway for laughing aloud at this
comic." |
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DMZ Vol 5 by Brian Wood, Riccardo Burchielli & Danijel Zezelj DC/Vertigo $12.99 Collecting issues #23-28 of the acclaimed series by writer Brian Wood. The world and characters of the DMZ are expanded and enriched in this volume as Matty Roth turns his attention to several locals - a guerilla artist, a former ally who's now worse off than a homeless person, the powerful head of an organization within the DMZ and more. |
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Displaced Persons by Derek McCulloch & Rantz A. Hoseley Image $19.99 "It's a kind of puzzle book, which presents a special challenge when trying to summarize it. There's a very fine line between being utterly cryptic and giving too much away, but I'll try. The story is told in three parts, each in a different time period: 1939, 1969, and 1999. The 1939 story is a hardboiled detective story. The 1969 story is about drugs and sibling rivalry. The 1999 story is about domestic abuse, the dotcom bubble, and real estate. Each of these stories intrudes on the other in ways that I probably shouldn't say here." Derek McCulloch - Read the full interview at Comics Bulletin. |
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Strange Embrace by David Hine with Rob Steen Image $19.99 A tortured, modern gothic tale of pain and sorrow, obession and damnation, of madness, death and sexual longing. The world of Strange Embrace twists and pollutes the lives of all that enter it.
"Delving deep into childhood fears the starkly powerful Strange
Embrace establishes
David Hine as one of Britain's most exceptional talents." |
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Turing Points: Little Rock Nine by Marshall Poe & Ellen Linder Simon & Schuster $7.99 Little Rock Nine tells the famous story of the nine African American students who were the first to attend a previously all-white high school in Arkansas after the Brown v Department Of Education ruling began the process of desegregation in American schools. Ripple effects of this historic occasion are dramatised through the points of view of two fictional children - one white and one black - who become involved with the event. |
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Turing Points: Sons Of Liberty by Marshall Poe & Leland Purvis Simon & Schuster $7.99 In Sone Of Liberty, Nathaniel Smithfield is a ten year old boy living with his family in Boston, MA, in 1768, when tension heats up between those who are loyal to the British Crown - like Nathaniel's father - and those who believe the people of America are being treated unfairly. Over the following years as he grows into a teenager, Nathaniel must decide where his own beliefs lie, and how far he will go to fight for them, no matter what the consequences. |
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EC Archives: Frontline Combat Vol 1
(HC) by Harvey Kurtzman & Others Gemstone Publishing $49.95 At EC Comics, Harvey Kurtzman produced what are probably the best war comics ever printed. In collaboration with artists like Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Will Elder and John Severin, he refused to romanticise war and he was a stickler for historical accuracy. "I didn't want to be a preacher,
but I did want to tell the truth about things... I was absolutely appalled
by the lies in the war books that publishers were putting out... This trash
had nothing to do with the reality of life." "Kurtzman's war stories... are superb pieces of storytelling and art. 40 years
has not dimmed their resonant, haunting drama and their dynamic, often jarring
graphic impact." |
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Scorchy Smith & The Art Of Noel
Sickles (HC) by Noel Sickles IDW $49.99 Noel Sickles drew comics for three brief years, yet his groundbreaking work on the 1930s aviation adventure series Scorchy Smith is a milestone in the history of newspaper comic strips. Over the past 70 years, however, readers have seen only occasional excerpts of this seminal work. Scorchy Smith & The Art of Noel Sickles is a comprehensive, oversized volume that collects, for the first time, every Sickles' Scorchy strip, from December 1933 through November 1936. "The term 'artist's artist' is woefully overused, a cold
comfort to an artist who finds himself publicly praised by his
better-known and wealthier peers - in some cases, the source of
that success being work created in or inspired by his style -
to no discernable improvement in his own fame and fortune. Noel
Sickles (1910-1982) casts a long shadow. He wrote the first draft
- if not the final version - of the book on the Milton Caniff
school of adventure-comics art; an impressionistic approach to
inking, sure-handed chiaroscuro and a cinematic eye for staging
action, as well as an almost painterly approach to Zipatone. His
never-ending artistic restlessness and the stinginess of newspaper
syndicates drove Sickles out of the comics field and into magazine
illustration at an early age, but his influence - both direct
and indirect - continues to be felt today." |
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The Prince Valliant Page (HC) by Gary Gianni Flesk Publications $29.95 The Prince Valiant Page is the first book collection featuring Gary Giannis work on Prince Valiant. This book gives a well-rounded informative look at both Giannis rendition of the Prince Valiant Sunday strip and his own working procedures. Further, he explains the usage of his tools and provides many tips learned during the course of his career. |
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Beetle Bailey Vol 1 (HC) by Mort Walker Checker Books $22.95 From the very first Beetle Bailey strips on a college campus through Beetle's enlistment in the U.S. Army, this volume contains the first two years of Mort Walker's famous strips encompassing September 1950 through June 1952. Enjoy two separate casts of quirky characters, the first based on Mort Walker's fraternity brothers at the University of Missouri and the second on his Korean era stint in the Army. These are the strips that won him the Ruben Award in 1953. |
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Robin Hood: The Complete Adventures by Frank Bellamy Book Palace $24.99 Reprints every single episode of Frank Bellamy's strips Robin Hood and His Merry Men and Robin Hood and Maid Marion. "...drawn by Frank Bellamy for Swift in 1956-57. The strip ran a total of 67 episodes and featured some
of Bellamy's finest work in black & white. This is the first
time the strip has been reprinted complete and unbowdlerised." |
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Best Of Roy Of The Rovers: The 1980s by Tom Tully & David Sque Titan £9.99 Britain's most famous fantasy footballer, Roy Race, returns in this first bumper volume collecting the very best of Roy's thrilling escapades, featuring the cream of Roy's matches and adventures from the '70s and '80s. Thrill once more to the roar of the crowd, as Roy and Melchester Rovers face trials and tribulations on and off the pitch. |
| To Top | ART & ILLUSTRATION: |
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Archetype: The Art Of Tim Bradstreet
(HC) by Tim Bradstreet Desperado Publishing $49.99 A retrospective volume devoted to the entire career of Tim Bradstreet. This book offers a chance to witness his career from the early days to the present, offering glimpses of previously never-before-seen material from his files and sketchbooks, his comic work, art from his career in movie design and posters, his gaming illustrations, as well as beautifully reproduced images of his personal favorites with insights into his life and creative process. |
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Mostly True: The Story Of Bozo Texino by Bill Daniel Microcosm Publishing $8.00 In this companion book to the film Who Is Bozo Texino? (shot entirely aboard speeding freight trains), Daniel mixes experimental and documentary to provide a captivating look at a little-known art form - hobo boxcar graffiti. Tracing the origins to boxcar graffiti from over 100 years ago, Daniel follows rail graffitis' evolution to modern day hobo gatherings, freight hopping trips and secret hobo jungles. Along the way Daniel interviews numerous old timers who have spent years on the rails drawing their monikers, among them graffiti legends Colossus of Roads, The Rambler, Herby (RIP) and yes even the ever-illusive Bozo Texino. The interviews provide a fascinating glimpse into the harsh realities of tramp life. |
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Mateki: The Magic Flute by Yoshitaka Amano Radical Publishing $29.95 Mateki tells the tragic story of young prince Shanna battling evil forces to rescue his love, Kouran, from the evil lord of darkness, Yasha. Yasha was jealous of Shanna's ability to play the magic flute. Yasha felt betrayed by Kouran and desired revenge, for Kouran was created by Yasha to betray Shanna, something she could not do - for she too had fallen in love. |
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Frazetta: The Definitive Reference by James A. Bond & Dr. David Winiewicz Vanguard Productions $39.95 Enter the world of Frank Frazetta - with more than 800 illustrations. The work of Frank Frazetta, the greatest fantasy artist of all time, has influenced generations of artists, fans, designers, and movie directors. Now, collected in Frazetta, The Definitive Reference, are essays and illustrated data in a one-of-a-kind volume tracing the entire arc of Frazetta's career with more than 800 of his unforgettable images. From his early 1950s comics, to Tarzan, Pellucidar, and John Carter of Mars book covers; to his 1960s monster mags, Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella; to his major movie posters, including After the Fox and What's New Pussycat; to, of course, his revolutionary Conan paintings - it's all here. Endorsed by the artist, Frazetta overflows with fantastic images, insightful commentary, and the most complete index of artwork ever compiled on this fantastic icon. |
| To Top | COMICS: |
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Haunt Of Horror: Lovecraft #1 of 3 by Richard Corben Marvel $3.99 Horror comics legend Richard Corben returns with a new 3-issue limited series that offers eerie new spins on the poems and short stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Each issue features three adaptations - beautifully rendered in black and white with gray tones as only Corben can do it - along with a printing of the original source text by H.P. Lovecraft. In issue #1, Corben brings you Dagon, Recognition, and A Memory. It's classic creepy Lovecraft with a new twist. |
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Lucky Vol 2 #2 by Gabrielle Bell Drawn & Quarterly $3.95 In this issue of Lucky Gabrielle travels with two fellow cartoonists up the West Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle, collecting little stories along the way in Oakland, Berkeley, Eureka and Portland. Back in New York, she and sidekick Tom discover the secrets of Roosevelt and Governor's Island. Later, they go deep sea fishing with comedienne friend Edith. Also included is a bonus story about Gabrielle at eleven years old, when she tried to run away from home and live alone at a summer camp during the off-season. "Born in London, brought up by pot-farming parents in the isolated
mountains of California's Mendocino County, Gabrielle Bell escaped
into reading, drawing, and making her own comics. Growing up into "kind
of a loner" suits her methods of observing and recording her life
and that of her friends, searching for apartments, jobs, fulfilment,
love in Brooklyn. Lucky, her modest
photocopied graphic diaries, are living up to their name now that
three have been compiled into a hardback collection from Drawn & Quarterly
and are being hailed as some of today's most sharp yet subtle vignettes
of twenty-something urban ennui in any medium. She is working on
a new collection of her fictional and fantastical short stories,
which she contributes to anthologies like Kramers
Ergot, Scheherazade,
Drawn & Quarterly
Showcase, Sturgeon White Moss and Mome." |
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Uptight #3 by Jordan Crane Fantagraphics Books $2.50 With Uptight #3 Jordan Crane continues to map uncharted territory of graphic melancholia with his masterpiece-work-in-progress Keeping Two. Jordan also continues to build upon his ghost story obsession with a moody tale following an undead man as he revisits his former life. "I'm not going to kid myself that there's going to be a resurgence
in comic books or anything like that. I'm sure the comic book is
a fucking relic. It's a relic that I love. I love it. It'd be cool
if it had a baseline life, and didn't die. I don't know that it's
going to die. I'm sort of an alarmist. I'm hoping that it has a
baseline life, and I'm sure there's a couple thousand people out
there interested in buying it. You know?" |
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Baobab #3 by Igort Fantagraphics Books $7.95 "Igort's first Baobab proves the belle of the initial Ignatz ball, mostly for the lovely and expressive art and a story with a solid premise that's just offbeat enough it's hard to say where exactly it will go. For now, Igort is dealing with two different setting on different sides of the world in the last days of the Edwardian era. Both threads of the story engage with fantasies -- one early printed comics, the other folk tales -- which gives Igort a chance to stretch his works with both wild imagery and suggestive representation of objects. While the story could definitely go to hell in future issues, the first volume of Baobab does exactly what it should do: intrigues with its potential and impresss with a bit of finely crafted follow through. It's the one I'm going to watch most closely." Tom Spurgeon reviews Baobab - Read the full review here. |
| To Top | ABOUT COMICS: |
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How To Draw Stupid & Other Essentials Of Cartooning by Kyle Baker Watson-Guptill $16.95 Draw stupid, succeed big! This one is pretty much idiot-proof. Even you should be able to figure out How to Draw Stupid & Other Essentials of Cartooning... simple enough for even the simplest readers. Author Kyle Baker, presents a hard-working instruction book that provides artists with the essential skills needed for success. From the principles of drawing to turning those principles on their ear (or their rear), from conveying movement to creating a step-by-step sequence, from idea sketch to finished drawing, How to Draw Stupid & Other Essentials of Cartooning is the smartest purchase any aspiring artist can make, regardless of mental acuity. |
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Drawing Words & Writing Pictures by Jessica Abel & Matt Madden :01 First Second $29.95 Drawing Words and Writing Pictures is a course on comics creation - for college classes or for independent study - that centers on storytelling and concludes with making a finished comic. With chapters on lettering, story structure, and panel layout, the fifteen lessons offered - each complete with homework, extra credit activities, and supplementary reading suggestions - provide a solid introduction for people interested in making their own comics. Drawing Words and Writing Pictures was created by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden and based on their classes at the School of Visual Arts. Series editors of the Best American Comics series and creators of a number of groundbreaking works, including 99 Ways to Tell a Story (Matt Madden) and La Perdida (Jessica Abel), Abel and Madden are always at the forefront of the comics industry. Read an excerpt here. "A gold mine of essential information for every aspiring
comics artist. Highly recommended." |
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Man Of Rock: The Biography Of Joe Kubert by Bill Schelly Fantagraphics Books $19.99 Joe Kubert's extraordinary career spans the history of the comic book in America: he began drawing comics in 1938, just as Superman made his debut in Action Comics #1, and continues to be one of the most vital cartoonists working today, writing and drawing both mainstream comic book characters as well as, more recently, graphic novels of his own conception. Kubert made his name working for DC Comics on acclaimed series starring Sgt. Rock of Easy Co., Hawkman, Tarzan, and has worked on many of DC's most commercially successful properties (Superman, Batman, Flash, et al.). Kubert has created comics for virtually every major publisher over an incredible 70 years in the business, including Marvel and EC. He started the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in the 1980s. In the 1990s, he wrote and drew his own graphic novels, including Fax from Sarajevo, which won the Will Eisner Comics Industry Award for Best Graphic Novel. He was subsequently inducted into both the Harvey Awards' Jack Kirby Hall of Fame and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. Joe Kubert: Man of Rock provides a unique, behind-the-scenes look at the career of one of the most distinctive, dynamic artists in the history of comics. Schelly's book covers all facets of Kubert's creative life: artist, writer, innovator, entrepreneur, and educator. It abounds in heretofore unknown details about Kubert's life and work, and is rich in colorful anecdotes drawn from numerous interviews the author conducted with Kubert's colleagues, family and friends. |
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The Comics Journal #291 Fantagraphics Books $11.95 The essential magazine of comics news and criticism. In this issue: - An interview with Heroes artist Tim Sale. - Josh Simmons discusses House and Jessica Farm. - Classic comic reprints by Dan Gordon. - Plus the usual news, reviews and elitist criticism. - Find out about the latest issue here. |
| To Top | MANGA: |
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Real #1 by Takehiko Inoue Viz $12.99 From the creator of Slam Dunk and Vagabond... A motorcycle accident, bone cancer, a speeding truck crashing into a boy on a stolen bicycle - tragic, life-changing events turn the worlds of three young men upside down. Three very different personalities have only one thing in common - their passion for basketball. Meet Tomomi Nomiya, a young tough whose passion for basketball is at the core of his very being. When he gets into a motorcycle accident rendering a girl paralyzed for life, his world is turned on its head. Tomomi quits his team, drops out of school, and struggles to find some kind of resolution to his oppressive feelings of guilt. |