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Top 22 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga:
August 2022
Genius is not an overstatement for Jason Shiga, whose multi-cursal comic Meanwhile re-wired many people’s comics-reading brains. Now he returns after a lengthy development with his next stage in advancing the medium, Adventuregame Comics. Once more, you’ll never read comics or play games quite the same way again!
A big bold step by the literary satirist Kate Beaton, who moves from short, sharp strips to an in-depth autobiographical reckoning with her personal past and her homeland of Canada…
Another work of thinly-disguised, reality-based ‘auto-fiction’ from gekiga sensai Tadao Tsuge is a highlight from Japan…
As is the major compilation of Arnold Arre’s epic based on his native Philippines’ extraordinary folklore, still very much alive still today…
Argentina’s master comic strip cartoonist, Liniers, finally gets the first of several volumes of his masterpiece into English…
And at long, long last, after a rather extended wait, Franz & Glanzman’s Sixties WWII classic gets properly reprinted and completed.
These and plenty more to whet your sequential art appetite - explore and enjoy!
Adventure Game Comics Vol. 1: Leviathan
by Jason Shiga
Amulet Books
$14.99
The publisher says:
‘Part Comic! Part Maze! Part Part Game!’ Make choices to defeat a mysterious sea monster in the first of a new series of innovative, interactive graphic novels from the award-winning creator of Meanwhile. Adventuregame Comics is a new series of interactive graphic novels in the vein of Jason Shiga’s hit graphic novel Meanwhile. Readers follow the story from panel to panel using tubes that connect them, and sometimes the path will split, giving readers the chance to choose how the story unfolds. Leviathan is set in a medieval coastal village, where residents live in fear of a giant sea creature. Your goal as a reader is simple: defeat the Leviathan! As you wander through the open world, the town’s backstory is revealed. You can attempt to visit the library to try and learn why the Leviathan destroyed it years ago. You can stop by the castle to discover the town was once riddled with crime and theft—and how that’s stopped as the Leviathan will wreak havoc on the town for the smallest misdeeds. If you’re lucky, you may find your way to the old wizard who may possess the one thing that could keep the Leviathan at bay. But not everything is as it appears in this village. Can you discover the secrets and stop the Leviathan before it’s too late? Jason Shiga is a cartoonist from Oakland, California. His comics have a geeky side, and often feature exciting uses of math, mazes, puzzles, and unconventional narrative techniques. In his 25 year career, Shiga has created 8 graphic novels, 20 comic books, over a dozen magazine and newspaper strips and the world’s second-largest interactive comic. He has won 2 Eisner awards, 2 Ignatz awards and his work has been featured as an official selection for the Comics Festival in Angoulême.144pgs two-colour hardcover.
A Game of Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return
by Zeina Abirached
Graphic Universe
$14.99
The publisher says:
This expanded edition of A Game for Swallows features a new, illustrated afterword, as Abirached reflects on the meaning of her memoir’s title, the graffiti that inspired it, and the future of Beirut. The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina’s parents don’t return one afternoon, the neighbours in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother, sharing cooking lessons, games, and gossip. Together they try to make it through the day in the one place they hoped would always be safe―home. Zeina Abirached was born in Beirut in the middle of the civil war. She studied graphic arts in Lebanon but moved to Paris in 2004, where she attended the National School of Decorative Arts. In 2006, she published her first two graphic novels with publisher Cambourakis, Beyrouth-Catharsis and 38, Rue Youssef Semaani. Her short animated film Mouton was nominated during the fifth international film festival in Tehran. A Game For Swallows (Graphic Universe, 2012) has won numerous awards, including being named an ALA Notable Children’s Book and a YALSA Great Graphic Novel for Teens. Je Me Souviens Beyrouth (I Remember Beirut), the follow-up to A Game For Swallows, was published in French by Cambourakis in 2008. 224pgs B&W paperback.
Akkad Vols. 1 & 2 (of 2)
by Clarke
Cinebook
$16.95 each - check
The publisher says:
In the near future, Earth is falling to a catastrophic alien invasion: giant beetle-like creatures emerge without warning from spatio-temporal rifts, wipe out resistant in a certain zone, then seal it behind a completely impenetrable barrier. Entire sections of the planet have already been lost forever. With conventional weaponry powerless, the USA authorise a program that will turn five teenagers into pure geniuses. Will the test subjects find a defence, though … or will they become out of control themselves? In volume 2, Professor Kessler’s experiment continues, but the powers of his test subjects are growing at a phenomenal rate. He calls upon Sofi, herself a guinea pig for him once, and who loathes him, to oversee the teenagers … and track them down when they inevitably escape. But are his calculations as good as he thinks? Is it not already too late to hope to control the five geniuses – or even to stop the invasion, as the number of enemy incursions suddenly skyrockets? Clarke – a pseudonym for Frédéric Seron, nephew to Pierre Seron, creator of Les Petits Hommes – is an extremely prolific author. When he’s not creating work for Spirou Magazine, he illustrates, and sometimes writes, numerous series in various styles, though he does have a preference for dark humour. The best known of those is the one he created with old friend and partner in crime, François Gilson: Melusine, published by Cinebook. 72pgs / 48pgs colour paperback.
America: Lost & Found: The Rediscovered Scripts
by John Wagner & Colin MacNeil
Rebellion
$24.99
The publisher says:
America: Lost & Found - The Rediscovered Scripts takes you behind-the-scenes on one of the most important comics stories of all time. Rediscovered by chance three decades after publication, John Wagner’s surviving scripts for America are now presented with in-depth commentary from the writer, revealing for the first time the thinking and process behind this ground-breaking, morally-complex story. This is then followed by the story itself, with Colin MacNeil’s beautifully fully-painted art remastered and still delivering its emotional gut-punches after 30 years. With new introductions from John Wagner and Garth Ennis, this is an absolute must-read for fans of Judge Dredd and those looking for insight into the politics and evolution of one of the most famous comics characters of all time. 144pgs colour hardcover.
Anatomy of Comics: Famous Originals of Narrative Art
by Damien MacDonald
Flammarion
$40.00 / £24.95
The publisher says:
An illustrated history of the most important and exceptional comics of the past 150 years. This comprehensive history of the world’s best comics art includes masterpieces by cartoonists from Richard Felton Outcault in 1896 to Chris Ware today. These comics—populated by meta-humans, hybrids, and superheroes—present imagined fantastical worlds that have attracted generations of devoted fans. A critical reference, this book is also a celebration of the characters who have accompanied readers from their first forays into reading through adolescence, and on into adulthood—from Tarzan to Tintin, Little Nemo to Betty Boop, the Fantastic Four to Batman, the Silver Surfer to Sin City, or the underground comics of Robert Crumb. A motley crew of characters—spandex-wrapped heroes with impossible muscles, hard-boiled detectives in soft hats, emancipated vamps, space-opera acrobats in chain-mail underpants, zombies and scrawny underground freaks—span all genres of this international art form. Featuring important American and European artists, this broad retrospective decodes the symbolism and artistry of a richly creative form of reading pleasure. Damien MacDonald is a comic book illustrator and curator who published a graphic novel adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre-Dame. His work has been shown in museums and galleries in France, Norway, Belgium, China, and Monaco. He curated the Marginalia exhibition for the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. 256pgs colour paperback.
Boat Life Vol. 1
by Tadao Tsuge, translated by Ryan Holmberg
Floating World
$24.95
The publisher says:
Serialised between 1996 and 2000, Boat Life stars novelist Tsuda Kenta, a lightly veiled stand-in for the artist, Tsuge Tadao, himself, as he pursues a life of reprieve and reverie on a small, makeshift house boat on a river outside of Tokyo. Based loosely on the artist’s own daily life, this charming story follows the hapless protagonist on a series of magical absurdist quests, featuring a panoply of personable characters, including a drunkard fisherman, a pervy monk, a talking corpse, a senile hermit, and a half-supportive, half-doubtful wife and adult son. 324pgs B&W paperback.
Confabulation:
An Anecdotal Biography
by Dave Gibbons
Dark Horse
$39.99
The publisher says:
This comprehensive, in-depth, and personal journey through the eyes of one of the world’s most famous comics creators, Dave Gibbons, spans his earliest years copying Superman and Batman comics as a kid, to co-creating the bestselling graphic novel of all-time, Watchmen, and beyond. Presented alphabetically, with informally written anecdotes that can be read from cover-to-cover or simply dipped into, Gibbons reveals unseen comics’ pitches, life as the first Comics Laureate, and going from being a fanzine artist to infiltrating DC Comics in the 1970s. The book covers everything from working on Doctor Who and meeting Tom Baker to being inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame. Gibbons also discusses, for the first time anywhere, the reasons why he and fellow Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore no longer speak. Packed with over 300 iconic, rarely seen and unpublished art pieces and photographs, Confabulation: An Anecdotal Autobiography not only entertains, but peels back the layers of a fascinating career in comics. Dave Gibbons has drawn and written for most comics publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. His work has encompassed Doctor Who, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America, Doctor Strange, The Hulk, Predator and Aliens. Watchmen, his collaboration with writer Alan Moore, became a major motion picture. His autobiographical graphic novel The Originals won an Eisner Award in 2005. His recent work has included Kingsman: The Secret Service with Mark Millar, now also a major motion picture. He co-created Give Me Liberty and Martha Washington Goes To War with writer Frank Miller. He was appointed “Comics Laureate” of the UK in 2014, with the brief to develop the use of comics in education. The University of Dundee awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Comic Arts in 2015. 320pgs colour hardcover.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
by Kate Beaton
Drawn & Quarterly / Jonathan Cape
$39.95 / £25.00
The publisher says:
Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, a tight-knit seaside community. After university, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coast Canadians who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Katie will be far more than she anticipates. Arriving in Fort McMurray, Katie finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. As one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. For young Katie, her wounds may never heal. Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people. Kate Beaton was born in Nova Scotia, took a history degree in New Brunswick, paid it off in Alberta, worked in a museum in British Columbia, then came to Ontario for a while to draw pictures, then Halifax, and now New York. Maybe the moon next time, who knows. 436pgs colour hardcover
Geneviève Castrée Complete Works 1981-2016
by Geneviève Castrée
Drawn & Quarterly
$99.95
The publisher says:
An immersive curation of Geneviève Castrée’s stunning life’s work and expansive artistic legacy. It’s not easy to label an artist like Geneviève Castrée ―cartoonist, illustrator, musician, sculptor, stamp collector, activist, correspondent―a person with busy hands and a mind too creative and wild to stop doing. Those familiar with Castrée’s seminal memoir about her childhood, Susceptible (included fully within), will know that she, to a large degree, raised herself. It was in those unattended, semi-feral childhood years that Geneviève used art to pull herself out of what could have otherwise been a bleak existence. Instead, she found beauty and depth around her and blended it gorgeously with the harsh, devastating realities of this world, creating a body of work that is so stunning, heartbreaking, and magical that it leaves you aching. From rarely- or never-seen illustrations and comics, to album covers and photographs, to studio scraps, Geneviève Castrée: Complete Works 1981-2016 is a breathtaking collection of Castrée’s work and soul. A remarkable woman who made remarkable art, her love and spirit weep and shine from the pages. With an introduction from Castrée’s widower Phil Elverum, who devoted himself to designing and curating the book, we gain further insight into the details of her life. Translations are lovingly and expertly provided by Elverum and Aleshia Jensen. Geneviève Castrée was born in Québec in 1981. Sometimes interdisciplinary, she is mostly known for her work as an illustrator and cartoonist. Impatient and lazy, Geneviève never officially studied “art”. She has made a few books and has had a few exhibitions in places such as Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan. Geneviève Castrée lives and works in the Pacific Northwest. She also has a music project called Ô PAON. 562pgs colour hardcover. 562pgs colour hardcover.
His Name is Banksy
by Francesco Matteuzzi & Marco Maraggi
Prestel
$24.95
The publisher says:
Banksy is arguably the most well-known street artist of all time. But we don’t actually know who he is. This is just one of many contradictions that are addressed in this enormously compelling graphic biography. When two young Londoners are caught spray-painting graffiti on a city wall, they get to know each other while detained by the police. After they are released, they decide to make a film of Banksy’s life, tracing the arc of his career as they travel through the streets of London. Readers will learn not only of Banksy’s politically charged art and the causes he championed, but also of its worldwide dissemination, museum exhibitions, and record-breaking auctions. While readers may not learn Banksy’s true identity, this uniquely graphic form of storytelling communicates the artist’s belief that art is for everyone, speaks to everyone, and is owned by everyone. Francesco Mateuzzi is a journalist and screenwriter. He teaches screenwriting and storytelling at the International School of Comics and is the author of Mark Rothko, the Story of His Life (Prestel). Marco Maraggi is an illustrator and cartoonist with a passion for rock‘n’roll and street art. His illustration style originates from a deep interest in the history of comics. He collaborates with various publishers and international magazines. 128pgs colour hardcover.
I’m Still Alive
by Roberto Saviano & Asaf Hanuka
Boom! Studios
$24.99
The publisher says:
For the first time since the publication of his internationally bestselling novel Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano shares his early-life experience with the violence of the Neapolitan Mafia and how exposing them irrevocably changed his life. Italian journalist Roberto Saviano was twenty-six years old when he published his first book Gomorrah to international acclaim. The book, which has gone on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, was a detailed exposé of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, whose organised crime tactics have permeated all matters of industry in Naples: government, infrastructure, high fashion and drugs. Over fifteen years after Gomorrah’s release, Saviano’s life has been under constant threat from would be assassins who forced him to leave his native Italy and to live under constant police protection. For the first time since then, Saviano shares his deepest thoughts and experiences of early life in Naples, witnessing the power and violence of Camorra firsthand, his current existence living under guard, all the while continuing to call attention to the deeply rooted crime and corruption that plagues his home. Collaborating with award-winning cartoonist Asaf Hanuka (The Realist, The Divine), both writer and artist examine a life behind armed guard whose best recourse against oppression is through old fashioned pen and paper. Roberto Saviano is an Italian journalist, writer and essayist. He is the author of international bestsellers Gomorrah and ZeroZeroZero. In his writings, his articles, his books and his television programmes, he uses literature and investigative reporting to tell of the economic reality of the territory and business of the Camorra and of organised crime more generally. After the first death threats of 2006 made by the Casalese clan, a cartel of the Camorra, which he denounced in his exposé and in the piazza of Casal di Principe during a demonstration in defence of legality, Saviano was put under a strict security protocol. Since October 13, 2006, he has lived under police protection. He has collaborated with numerous important Italian and international newspapers. Currently he writes for the Italian publications l’Espresso and la Repubblica. Internationally, he collaborates in the United States with The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek and Time; in Spain with El Pais; in Germany with Die Zeit and Der Spiegel; in Sweden with Expressen; and in the United Kingdom with The Times and The Guardian. His courageous positions have provoked appeals on his behalf from many important writers and other cultural figures, such as Umberto Eco. In 2015 he launched his own editorial project, RSO-Roberto Saviano Online. 144pgs colour hardcover.
Invisible Wounds
by Jess Ruliffson
Fantagraphics
$24.99
The publisher says:
Candid, compassionate graphic interviews with returning war vets from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. Cartoonist Jess Ruliffson spent five years traveling across the country interviewing veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, from kitchen tables in Georgia and libraries in New York City to dive bars in Mississippi and back porches in Vermont. What she finds is that the real experience of soldiers at war is a far cry from depictions in popular media like Zero Dark Thirty or American Sniper. In these illustrated interviews, Ruliffson shares the stories of men, women, and non-binary ex-soldiers who struggle to reconcile their wartime experiences with their postwar lives. Identity lies at the heart of these stories, as they grapple with their gender, their race and the brutality they’ve witnessed and caused. In this compassionate, probing book, Ruliffson reveals how America’s endless entanglement in wars have affected the psyches of the people who wage them. Jess Ruliffson is an award-winning cartoonist who teaches comics, gouache and drawing at The Sequential Artists Workshop in Gainesville, FL and at The School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her work has been featured by Buzzfeed, The Boston Globe, The Nib and Pantheon books. In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Cartoonist Studio Prize. 178pgs two-colour hardcover.
Keith Haring: The Story of His Life
by Paolo Parisi
Prestel
$24.95
The publisher says:
From his boyhood days spent drawing compulsively through his tragic death, the trajectory of Keith Haring’s life is a story of incredible achievement, luck, opportunity, and extraordinary commitment. This graphic novel looks at every stage of that life, exploring his early influences, the roots of his activism, and his close friendships with other artist contemporaries. It shows readers what it was like to be part of New York City’s vibrant downtown art scene in the 1980s―the nightclubs, art openings, the rise of hip-hop―and how world events, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall; the escalation of the nuclear arms race; apartheid; and the dawn of the climate crisis played into his work. They’ll learn how Haring’s own battle with AIDS fuelled his advocacy for education and research, and they’ll get to know the figures who were most influential to his work― from Warhol to Basquiat, Fab Five Freddy to Madonna. Packed with key cultural reference points as well as the artist’s own reflections, this graphic biography makes for compulsive, eyeopening reading. Paolo Parisi is an Italian illustrator and cartoonist living in Italy. He previously published a graphic novel on Jean-Michel Basquiat, which was translated into many languages. 128pgs colour hardcover.
Macanudo: Welcome to Elsewhere
by Liniers, with a Foreword by Matt Groening
Fantagraphics
$24.99
The publisher says:
Fantagraphics is proud to present Argentine cartoonist Liniers’ internationally-acclaimed newspaper comic strip in a new English-language collection. In the spirit of Calvin & Hobbes, Mutts and Krazy Kat, Liniers (Ricardo Siri) uses a shifting cast of children, talking animals, imaginary monsters, sensitive robots, occasional elves and anthropomorphised objects to perform gags, philosophise, muse on nature and engage in surreal, artistic flights of fancy. With delicate, calligraphic pen work and understated watercolours, the comic skips lightly from style to style and subject to subject, as Liniers allows his imagination and observational humour free rein. Jokes about domestic life, imagined scenarios of historical figures, Cthulu showing up to Tinder dates, characters simply enjoying a pastoral sunset, the puncturing of pop-culture stalwarts: Macanudo is a boundless canvas for its author’s humane and delightfully off-kilter view of the world, in a way few comic strips have ever even attempted. Beginning in 2002 in Buenos Aires, Macanudo steadily gained popularity around the world, appearing in US newspapers since 2018. Welcome to Elsewhere is the first of a series of volumes collecting Liniers’ groundbreaking strip. Born in Buenos Aires in 1973, Liniers became a daily cartoonist at 28 almost by accident, when other Argentine newspaper cartoonists had decamped to Spain at the nadir of a recession. He saw his role on the last page of La Nacion as offering a respite from dour news, but the strip’s whimsy and humanity quickly led Macanudo to expand to papers across Latin America, and eventually beyond to Europe and North America. Three of Liniers’ childrens’ books have been published in the US, with Good Night, Planet winning the comics industry Eisner Award for Best Publication For Early Readers in 2018. He currently lives in Vermont. 176pgs colour hardcover.
Plaza
by Yuichi Yokoyama, translated by Ryan Holmberg
Living the Line
$32.00
The publisher says:
Bigger, bolder and louder than ever before, neo-manga artist Yokoyama Yuichi is back with Plaza. Inspired by Carnaval in Brazil, Plaza offers a maniacal extravaganza of marching, dancing, leaping, firing, cheering, smashing and exploding over the course of 225 eye-and-eardrum-confounding pages. Originally published in Japan in 2019, this oversize English edition of Plaza brings to full, hyper-animated life the spectacular graphic art of this genre-defying work of avant-garde comics. 240pgs B&W paperback.
Dash Shaw (Cryptozoo, Discipline) says:
“Art and literature historians of the future will be flabbergasted that Yokoyama existed in our time. He is a visionary on the level of William Blake. Plaza is a parade of invention, set to the beat of turning pages.”
Poe Clan Vol.2
by Moto Hagio, translated by Rachel Thorn
Fantagraphics
$39.99
The publisher says:
This groundbreaking young adult vampire series was created by a pioneer of the shojo/shonen-ai manga genres and one of the world’s most influential cartoonists. In our concluding second volume, an amnesia-stricken Edgar is found alone on a snowy night in England. Separated from his “vampirnella” clan, who feed on the energy of the living and while away the centuries in a village of roses, he struggles to remember his own name. Will Edgar regain his memory and be reunited with them? In stories like “Piccadilly, Seven O’Clock,” “Edith” and “The Last Will and Testament of Oswald Owens,” there are murders, mysteries, seances and obsessions ― and generations of humans whose lives are profoundly affected by a boy who does not age, Edgar, and his embraced companions: his little sister, Marybelle and Alan Twilight, a 14-year-old from the 1800s. Fantagraphics is proud to present the second and concluding volume of this best-selling manga, which has been adapted into various media, and is published here in English for the first time. Moto Hagio was born May 12, 1949, in Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture. She is one of a group of women born that year that broke into the male-dominated manga industry and pioneered the shojo (girls’) movement. Hagio’s Heart of Thomas, inspired by the 1964 film A Special Friendship, was one of the early entries in the shonen-ai (boys in love) subgenre. Her major works include A Drunken Dream, A,A’, They Were Eleven and Otherworld Barbara. She’s won the Japanese Medal of Honour with the Purple Ribbon (the first woman comics creator to do so), received Japan’s SF Grand Prize, the Osamu Tezuka Culture Award Grand Prize, and an Inkpot Award, among other accolades. She lives in the Saitama Prefecture. Rachel Thorn is from in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. She is a cultural anthropologist, writer and an associate professor in the manga department at Kyoto Seika University. Her translations include the New York Times Best-Seller Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano and Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. 404pgs B&W hardcover.
Ranx: The Complete Collection
by Stefano Tamburini & Tanino Liberatore
Heavy Metal
$29.99
The publisher says:
Ranx, the Italian science fiction graphic novel series by Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore, follows a bizarre antihero, Ranx, a mechanical cyborg made from discarded photocopier parts. After an unfortunate short circuit, he becomes the victim of fabricated feelings of love for his girlfriend Lubna, a brat, who is permanently high and has an abominable temperament. In a world that is a parody of contemporary society, featuring decadence, consumption and selfishness, Ranx lives on as the epitome of true love. He is the last “knight in shining armour”. Ranx is a colossus in a world of savages, but don’t look for hidden meaning in these epic stories: they are merely a pretext for a lethal dose of cyberpunk, gratuitous violence and eroticism. The amazing hyper-realistic art of Liberatore may shock and disturb you. This book features the entire RanXerox collection that was serialized in Heavy Metal magazine from 1983-1999, “Ranx in New York”, “Happy Birthday Lubna”, “Be Bop Lubna”, “I, Me, Mine Incorporated” and “Amen” and “I, Robot”. This collection also includes never before seen early strips, “Ranx The Thug” and “Modern Dance”. A Gallery contains covers, pin-up art and sketches. 208pgs colour hardcover.
Red Lightning
by Marc B. Bucci & Riccardo Atzeni
Ablaze
$24.99
The publisher says:
It is the morning of January 10, 2016, and thirty-year-old Samuel is ready to leave the house and live another day of his ordinary existence. As soon as he arrives on the street, he learns about David Bowie’s death. The news strikes him so hard that he is stunned, and his are not moments of bewilderment, but hours, days, years, and centuries…he finds himself catapulted across space and time. He awakens hundreds of thousands of years later, in a society of the future — in the year 200016 — not so different from his own, although he is surrounded by people dressed as dinosaurs, integrated biological technologies and there is a global well-being. Is it perhaps the utopia of the future? Samuel will have to try to find out and find his own dimension in the process, without losing himself. Red Lightning is a touching tribute to David Bowie. Six years after Bowie’s death, Marco B. Bucci redefines science fiction with a graphic novel masterfully illustrated by the talented Riccardo Atzeni. Long live the White Duke! 224pgs colour hardcover.
Slash Them All
by Antoine Maillard, translated by Jenna Allen
Fantagraphics
$29.99
The publisher says:
A tranquil seaside town is upended by the arrival of a serial killer in the 2022 Winner for Best Crime Graphic Novel at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Two high school students are found dead, stoking fears amongst the student body and surrounding community of a serial killer on the loose. Yet summer is approaching and the future is fraught with uncertainty―if only things could go back to normal for just a while longer. Instead, the heightened police presence prevents Pola from dealing at school, while her best friend, the typically discreet Daniel, resists increasingly morbid impulses. News crews speculate about the Bloody Batter, triggering PTSD and fuelling paranoia. Meanwhile, evil has its own plans. Slash Them All is cartoonist Antoine Maillard’s tribute to 1980s American horror cinema, skllfully absorbing the traditions and tropes of the genre, yet drawn in a gorgeous, grayscale pencil style that evokes 1950s film noir more than Jason or Freddy Krueger. This singular work of graphic fiction is a story about adolescents thrust unexpectedly, unwillingly and unpreparedly into adulthood, told with a graphic acuity and emotional depth that transcends its simple slasher inspirations. Antoine Maillard (b. 1989) is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Toulouse, France. Slash Them All is his first book. Jenna Allen is a freelance translator based in Colorado. 152pgs colour hardcover.
The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz
by Will Franz & Sam Glanzman with additional illustrations by Wayne Vansant
Dark Horse / It’s Alive
$39.99
The publisher says:
Finally collected by IT’S ALIVE! and co-published with Dark Horse, The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz was originally serialised in the comic book Fightin’ Army in the 1960s. This series was written by a sixteen-year-old Will Franz and illustrated by the already-seasoned comic book creator and WWII veteran Sam Glanzman. The entire story arc, collected here and finally finished, is one of the most dramatic, moving and controversial comic book stories ever told. An American solider of German heritage finds himself on the wrong side of World War II in this sweeping epic. This war story is, at its heart, an anti-war story and a story about universal human nature in the hellhole of war. Also includes a new final chapter drawn by Wayne Vansant and a new historical essay by Stephen R. Bissette about the series. Will Franz is an American comic-book writer and occasional penciler, best known for his Charlton Comics war stories, mostly published from 1967 to 1970. 256pgs colour hardcover.
The Mythology Class: Where Philippine Legends Become Reality
by Arnold Arre
Tuttle Publishing
$18.99
The publisher says:
Immerse yourself in a high-stakes fantasy adventure set in the Philippines. This Philippine National Book Award winner fuses traditional myth and magic with contemporary action. Borrowing elements from The Lord of the Rings and The Phantom Tollbooth, author and creator Arnold Arre reinvents age-old Filipino fables, constructing a rich world of fantasy and adventure for a new generation. The Mythology Class follows Nicole Lacson, an anthropology student at the University of the Philippines. When she is summoned to a secret meeting by the mysterious Madame Enkanta, Nicole finds herself face-to-face with living creatures from mythology and folklore that she never imagined existed in real life! Tikblangs, kapres and a range of engkantos — fantasy figures from her grandfather’s bedtime stories — challenge her previously-held notions of reality. Nicole embarks on a quest through the streets of metropolitan Manila with a ragtag crew of college students. With guest appearances from legendary Filipino heroes like Sulayman, Kubin and Lamang, Nicole’s class must face down and repel an ancient evil. The Mythology Class features world-building of the highest order, balancing the scope and magnitude of an adventure epic with the humour, warmth and insight of a classic coming-of-age tale. Arnold Arre won the inaugural graphic novel Philippine National Book Award for The Mythology Class. He is the author and illustrator of many other popular works, including Martial Law Babies, After Eden,Ang Mundo ni Andong Agimat,Trip to Tagaytay and Children of Bathala. 368pgs B&W paperback.
Tiki: A Very Ruff Year
by David Azencot & Frédéric Leclerc
Humanoids / Life Drawn
$22.99
The publisher says:
In the midst of a quarantine, Fred buys Tiki, a puppy, to help bring a little joy to his family’s life in isolation. What no one anticipated is that Tiki would turn their lives completely upside-down.
During the lockdown of November 2020, Fred, his girlfriend Sophie and his daughter Lou seek a little comfort in the shape of a Shiba puppy named Tiki. But in the course of a single week, the adorable little furball manages to shatter everything in Fred’s life: the comfort, the certainties, the links, the balances. In doing so, however, she manages to bring to light what truly matters: family. Alternately humorous and tragic, this fictionalised autobiographical story questions that moment we decide to adopt a pet and the beautiful mess that we’re often left with. David Azencot began his career as a copywriter in the advertising industry. After ten years, beginning in 2010, he became an author and humorist. He has written many sketches (in which he often acted) for Studio Bagel and Studio Movie on Youtube, Rendez-Vous with Kevin Razy and Le Dezapping on Canal Plus, for En famille on M6 and Docteur CAC on France 5. He is also a radio commentator on Rire & Chansons. After Fils de Pub and Inflammable (2T Télérama), he wrote at the end of 2019 and performed for a unique date at the European Animal, on the occasion of the International Animal Rights Day. In June 2021, he launched Ça va aller, his new show. He regularly performs in Parisian Comedy Clubs including the Européen, the Nouvelle Seine, the Point-Virgule and the Lucernaire. He has participated in many festivals, including the Montreux Comedy. He co-wrote a detective novel La Fille d’Omaha, published by Toucan Noir. The text of Inflammable is also published by L’Harmattan. Frédéric Leclerc has been an Art Director in advertising for twenty years. Passionate about travel books, he has always drawn, and has recently fully embarked on his childhood dream: to make comics. His inspirations are countless and include the likes of Blutch, Blain, Larcenet, Benjamin Flao, Duchazeau, De Crécy, Frederik Peteers… 136pgs colour paperback.
