The Complete Cartoons Of The New Yorker (HC)
edited by Robert Mankoff
Black Dog & Leventhal
A decade-by-decade compendium of all the cartoons ever published by The New Yorker magazine, featuring a book with over 2,000 cartoons and two CD-ROMs with all 68,647 cartoons ever published in the magazine - fully browsable by date, subject, and artist. Considered a national treasure, the cartoons of The New Yorker are beloved, iconic images that poke fun at the social issues of the day and have defined a distinctly New York sensibility. Since the magazine's debut in 1925, the cartoons have been a barometer of the human condition and have tweaked a nation's collective funnybone.

Stick & Stones
by Peter Kuper
Random House
"Given that Peter Kuper's work is usually wordless and silent, it is all the more extraordinary that he should be one of the strongest and truest radical voices to emerge from contemporary America. In Sticks & Stones, Kuper crafts a Bush-era parable so beautiful, simple and lucid that it could be understood and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of nationality. This is a powerful, angry and compassionate document, and in its perfectly measured silence there reside a profound human eloquence. Highly recommended."
Alan Moore, from the back cover blurb

The Originals
by Dave Gibbons
DC/Vertigo
In a retro-futuristic city of industrial gray, the Originals are the best and the brightest. They're the toughest gang on the streets, with the biggest parties in the best clubs, and for Lel and Bok, two childhood friends, nothing's more important than being one of them. Joining the crowd will introduce them to a world of mind-expanding drugs, brutal battles with a rival gang and, for Lel in particular, the girl of his dreams. But with the fast life come hard lessons, and tribal loyalty will teach them all the unforgettable meaning of unforgivable loss.

"When I was growing up, I was a Mod - and I mean the first time around, the Quadrophenia-setting time around, and that had a huge effect on the rest of my life and my subsequent attitudes and tastes and activities. For a long time, I'd wanted to do something that I'd written and drawn, something other than a single issue or short story, or a short run of issues. Before I could do that though, I had to then figure out what I really cared about, or what I really felt I had something to say about, and it kind of formed in my mind that there were things that happened to me that happened to other people that were fairly universal in their significance in that other people could relate to them. I knew I wanted to make it into some kind of interesting and exciting story, and I also knew I didn't want to be tied to the actual facts of the time, because after all, there has been Quadrophenia, and I knew I would quickly find myself bogged down in trying to find reference to the actual cigarette packs, or cars or all sorts of stuff like that. So I opted to set it in a world that feels like it felt to me then."
Dave Gibbons, discussing The Originals at Newsarama

"The Originals is Dave Gibbons doing what he was born to do: telling a story that's all his own, and telling it with grace, verve and drama. The result is, well... original! Topnotch comics."
Frank Miller

"Sharp as the lapels on his mohair, revved up on Lambrettas and doobs, The Originals is Dave Gibbons at the very top of his considerable game, dripping style and soul like dance floor sweat, delivering a narrative that's young, good-looking and up for a ruck. Buy this immediately, and smell the oil, the blood, the seaside… I don't care where you've been; you ain't been nowhere 'til you've been in."
Alan Moore

"What a fantastic-looking book... Dave's vast storytelling experience and effortless ease with the medium shine from every page of The Originals."
Garth Ennis

New X-Men
by Grant Morrison & Others
Marvel 2001-2004
"Grant Morrison is the X-Men franchise's angel of mercy. In the two decades since Chris Claremont transformed a third-tier Stan 'n' Jack creation into the most popular concept in North American comic books, no greater act of love has been committed on behalf of mutant kind than the truly mighty act of deadwood clearance that was Morrison's much heralded run on New X-Men… Morrison's labor of love meant killing not just characters but concepts, entire ways of writing both the X-Men and superhero comics in general. The posturing villains, the alternate futures, the constant battles, the tortured soap operatics, even the costumes (easily the ugliest in all of superherodom, by the way) - for this potentially fascinating heroic-fantasy concept to be fascinating once again, Morrison says, we've got to wipe out everything they've come to be known for and start over. And it worked. Naturally, the House Of Ideas undid nearly all of it within a month of Morrison's departure… Morrison intended his 40-issue X-Men novel to be a gift to the franchise, but the gift has gone mainly unopened… But we the readers are left with one of the richest, most humanistic superhero comics ever written. That's gift enough."
The Comics Journal #263

No Dead Time
by Brian McLachlan & Tom Williams
Oni Press
Nozomi's had it up to her eyeballs with the record store. If she has to answer one more dumb customer question or help one more co-worker with a task they should absolutely be able to handle on their own, she's going to scream. Seth is a computer tech who should be doing something else. He doesn't know what that something else is, but he's certain it has nothing to do with the office politics and corporate greed that controls the company currently signing his paychecks. Both are looking for love, but... how do you find 'the one' when you still haven't found yourself?

Tom Williams was the worthy recipient of the 2002 Day Prize for his self-published MISA - more details here - and his artwork has also been seen in Channel One, Engine, Panel and he has collaborated with Sean McKeever on Looking At The Front Door. He is definately a comic artist with a bright future ahead of him.