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ESSENTIAL READING: |
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by Drew Friedman,
foreword by Daniel Clowes
Fanatgraphics Books
$16.95
A comprehensive collection of former RAW-contributor
Drew Friedman's best comic strips, illustrations and mug shots of showbiz has-beens,
ugly old white men, nefarious politicians and debauched celebrities.
"I stand in awe of Drew Friedman's technique and the certain flavor
of sad old America he captures. He's the Crumb of the 80's. I love
his stuff... He's such a wacko!"
Robert Crumb - More
Crumb reading recommendations can be found here.
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by Paul Madonna
City Lights Publishers
$24.95
In February 2004, the San Francisco Chronicle began printing an enigmatic feature
called All Over Coffee. Almost immediately, letters
of love and hate, confusion and praise poured in. Accustomed to the familiar
formats of comic strips and cartoons, some readers struggled to understand a
creation that seemed to live both within and beyond those boundaries. All
Over Coffee blends the timing of
comics with the depth of poetry. Artist and writer Paul Madonna has fused art,
literature, and comics by pairing timeless cityscapes with philosophical musings
and poignant stories in masterfully rendered ink-wash drawings that matches the
art of Ben Katchor in
elegance and architectural detail. His work has been compared to "a meeting of
the tone of Edward Gorey, the uniqueness of Chris Ware, and the artfulness of
Raymond Pettibon." Quirky, whimsical, and often profound, All
Over Coffee's
imagery and thoughtful writing combine to create a conceptual world, both dreamlike
and familiar.
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by Paul Hornschemeier
Fantagraphics Books
$14.95
In an intricate and complex autobiographical comic the story begins with a story
inside the story: the cartoon character Paul Hornschemeier is trying to finish
a story called "Paul and the Magic Pencil." Paul has been granted a magical implement,
a pencil, and is trying to figure out what exactly it can do. He isn't coming
up with much, but then we zoom out of this story to the creator, Paul, whose
father is about to go on a walk to turn off the lights in his law office in the
center of the small town. Abandoning the comic strip temporarily, Paul leaves
with his camera, in order to fulfill a promise to his girlfriend that he would
take pictures of the places that affected him as a child. As the walk with his
father begins, and Paul starts to record the places of his childhood, the story
leaps forward and backward through time, revolving around the events leading
(and subsequent) to a beating near a funeral home in fifth grade. Amid these
temporal bounces, we are taken from the law office to a convenience store to
a debilitating car accident to the time of Zeno and the pre-Socratic philosophers,
where we abruptly dissect Zeno and Parmenides' relationship and their refutation
of the existence of change. Really. And with each step, Paul is trying to figure
out how he will end his story, which he will finish when they return to the house
of his youth. Each "chapter" of the story is drawn in a completely different
style, with strikingly unique production and color themes, and yet, somehow,
despite (or perhaps because of) this non-linear progression, it all comes together
as one story: a story questioning change, progress, and worth within the author's
life.
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by Edward Sorel
Fantagraphics Books
$18.95
Edward Sorel is widely recognised as America's premier illustrator. But when
he wasn't painting covers and making drawings for The New Yorker, The Atlantic,
Time and Rolling Stone, he was making comic strips. Sorel's comics are iconoclastic,
cynical and universally excoriating. No target escapes his watchful wrath: politicians,
theological dynasties, ideologues left and right, lawyers, publishers, and the
usual gang of movers and shakers. Culled from the pages of The Nation, Village
Voice, Penthouse and other magazines. Sorel proves he is the most dangerous
of creatures - a cartoonist with a chip on his shoulder.
"...Just When You Thought Things Couldn't
Get Worse makes
an eloquent and necessary case for Sorel as a formidable cartoonist."
Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
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by Warren Ellis & Ben
Templesmith
Image
$14.99
Detective Richard Fell is transferred over the bridge from the big city to Snowtown,
a feral district whose police investigations department numbers three and a half
people (one detective has no legs). Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone,
Richard Fell is starting all over again. In a place where nothing seems to make
any sense, Fell clings to the one thing he knows to be true: everybody's hiding
something.
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by David Bishop
Rebellion
$39.99
For 30 years, 2000 AD has been one of the most influential Science Fiction comics
in the world. Home to such respected characters as Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog
and Rogue Trooper the Galaxy's Greatest's influence on the world of comic books
as a whole is incalculable. Now, former 2000 AD editor David Bishop explores
the history of this legendary comic in a comprehensive and fully illustrated
book.
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