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Top 26 Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga:
May 2021
Thanks for joining me again. You might know that George Orwell once famously commented: ‘Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.’ These thoughts may echo through the graphic memoirs of an individual’s fraught childhoods or of whole families across generations. Guy Delisle and Glenn Head are both courageously frank about their early experiences here…
As are Zara Slattery about her nearly fatal coma as an adult, and Lee Lai and Wendy Pixin, looking back through family histories and bringing their refreshing, under-heard voices and sensibilities to the medium…
Ray Fawkes employs some of the unique properties of comics to convey eighteen families’ sagas synchronously across double-page spreads, nine panels per page….
While Will McPhail transfers his children’s book and single-panel cartooning skills to his first highly personal, revealing full-length comic…
There’s political bite and insight here too, from the extremely relevant revival of the environmental underground anthology Slow Death...
To Eric Orner’s insider’s portrait of an unexpected and inspiring champion of American gay rights.
I hope you enjoy taking a look at these and more upcoming titles which I’ve selected for you below, all coming into print this May or in the months that follow, subject to ongoing challenging circumstances of course. Keep safe and well till next time…
Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre
by Alverne Ball & Stacey Robinson
Abrams ComicArts
$15.99
The publisher says:
One hundred years after the Tulsa Race Massacre, Across the Tracks is a celebration and memorial of Greenwood, Oklahoma. In Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre, author Alverne Ball and illustrator Stacey Robinson have crafted a love letter to Greenwood, Oklahoma. Also known as Black Wall Street, Greenwood was a community whose importance is often overshadowed by the atrocious massacre that took place there in 1921. Across the Tracks introduces the reader to the businesses and townsfolk who flourished in this unprecedented time of prosperity for Black Americans. We learn about Greenwood and why it is essential to remember the great achievements of the community as well as the tragedy which nearly erased it. However, Ball is careful to recount the eventual recovery of Greenwood. With additional supplementary materials including a detailed preface, timeline and historical essay, Across the Tracks offers a thorough examination of the rise, fall and rebirth of Black Wall Street. Alverne Ball has an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago. He is the recipient of the 2014 and 2015 Glyph Rising Star Award for his writing on One Nation: Old Druids. In 2009, he received the first-ever Luminarts graphic novel writing award. Ball lives in Joliet, Illinois. Stacey Robinson is an assistant professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As part of the collaborative team Black Kirby with artist John Jennings, Robinson creates graphic novels, gallery exhibitions, lectures and workshops that use strategies to imagine new worlds inspired by design, hip-hop, the arts and sciences, and diasporic African belief systems. With an essay by Renaldo Anderson and Colette Yellow Robe. 64pgs colour hardcover.
Adam Eterno
by Tom Tully, Tom Kerr, Francisco Solano Lopez & Colin Page
Rebellion
£12.99 / $16.99
The publisher says:
A brand-new paperback edition reprinting the earliest adventures of one of the post popular characters in British comics, the time-travelling adventurer to rival Doctor Who. 1580, London. Adam Eterno was working as an assistant to the great alchemist Erasmus Hemlock, who had just achieved his life’s goal creating the ‘Elixir of Life’. Adam swallowed the potion, defying his masters orders. With his last breath, Erasmus placed a curse upon Adam, wishing him immortality. Unless Adam is struck over the head with a solid gold object, he is “doomed to wander through the labyrinths of time…!” From the high seas of 1770 to the Western Front in 1916, follow Adam Eterno’s earliest adventures from the pages of Thunder. 128pgs B&W paperback.
Al Williamson: Strange World Adventures
by John Flesk & Al Williamson
Flesk Publications
$39.95
The publisher says:
A stunning first collection in a new series showcasing the career of legendary artist Al Williamson. In 1948 a young Al Williamson accepted his first commercial assignment—for an issue of Famous Funnies comics, which launched his career as a professional in the field. Developing an elegant and illustrative style, he soon gained prominence in the highly influential EC Comics line of the 1950s. Over the next few decades, his exquisite art also illuminated many Atlas comics, various incarnations of Flash Gordon and the comic strips Secret Agent Corrigan and Star Wars, as well as a host of other titles and properties. This extraordinary body of superior work cemented Williamson’s longstanding popularity. By the end of his career in the early 2000s, he had become one of the most highly regarded comic and strip artists in the industry, especially noted for the graceful ink line that he spent a lifetime pursuing. This first compendium in a new series is the perfect introduction to Al Williamson’s work. You will find samples that span his fifty-year career along with anecdotes and historical details salted throughout. Cover art, interior pages, drawings and sketches—plus photographs of Al and his friends posing as reference for his sequential art—are included. This volume contains a mixture of both his most-obscure and best-known works, all meticulously reproduced from the original art. Until now, this captivating original artwork has only been seen by those fortunate enough to visit the Williamson studio in person. For the first time, readers will be able to view the artist’s most-cherished works. Williamson’s love of 1920s and 1930s adventure, fantasy and science-fiction pop culture—and his admiration of artists such as Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond—grounded his drawing technique and storytelling, which evolved throughout his life. He was able to take these inspirations and carry on the legacy of the past masters while becoming a unique icon in the industry. In this collection, readers will be able to witness Williamson’s development as an artist. Al Williamson was born in New York City in 1931. His professional credits are both legion and legendary. His much-beloved work on King Features’ Flash Gordon comic-book series in the mid-’60s garnered him a “Best Comic Book Cartoonist’ award from the prestigious National Cartoonists Society. He drew the daily comic strip Secret Agent Corrigan from 1967 until 1980 and then jumped to the Star Wars strip for the following three years. Foreword by William Stout. Introduction by Rick Veitch. 128pgs colour paperback.
Black Star
by Eric Anthony Glover & Arielle Jovellanos
Abrams ComicArts / Megascope
$24.99
The publisher says:
Stranded on an alien planet, two astronauts must battle deadly elements and each other to recover a reserve shuttle built for one. Black Star is a debut graphic novel by Eric Anthony Glover, based on his original unproduced screenplay, and illustrated by Arielle Jovellanos. In the future, interstellar travel is past its prime and sending shuttles beyond our solar system even for vital scientific research is a life-threatening gamble. However, in order to retrieve samples of an alien flower that may hold the key to saving countless lives, Harper North and her crew of scientists must journey to Eleos, a dangerous planet in deep space. But as they approach Eleos, their ship is caught in an asteroid storm and as it hurtles towards the surface, its reserve shuttle detaches, landing over 100 kilometres away. When the rest of the crew perishes in the burning wreckage of the ship, North races towards the rescue shuttle built for one, hoping to fulfil their mission and survive. But North isn’t alone: The team’s wilderness expert is still alive and hell-bent on hunting North down and claiming the shuttle for herself. Now, North has no choice but to reach the shuttle first and fast. The fuel is leaking. Her GPS battery is dying. And the planet’s deadly seasonal change is coming. As she battles the flora and fauna and tries to elude her ruthless former crew mate, North will find the cost of survival is dear… Will she be willing to pay that price? Eric Anthony Glover studied screenwriting at Sarah Lawrence College and studied feature and television writing as a 2016 Final Draft Big Break Fellow in Burbank, California. Glover is committed to writing about underrepresented groups and hopes to make the world a better place with this work. Arielle Jovellanos is a New York-based freelance illustrator, writer, and comic artist. Her work has been featured in the Eisner and Harvey–nominated anthology Fresh Romance and in magazines, comics, books and branded social media campaigns. Recently, Jovellanos illustrated the book Fierce Heroines: Inspiring Female Characters of Pop Culture for Running Press Kids. 176pgs colour hardcover.
Boys Run The Riot
by Keito Gaku
Kodansha International
$12.99
The publisher says:
A transgender teen named Ryo finds an escape from the expectations and anxieties of his daily life in the world of street fashion. This personal, heartfelt, fictional story from a transgender manga creator made waves in Japan and will inspire readers all over the world. High schooler Ryo knows he’s transgender. But he doesn’t have anyone to confide in about the confusion he feels. He can’t tell his best friend, who he’s secretly got a crush on, and he can’t tell his mom, who’s constantly asking why Ryo is always “dressing like a boy.” He certainly can’t tell Jin, the new transfer student who looks like just another bully. The only time Ryo feels at ease is when he’s wearing his favorite clothes. Then, and only then, the world melts away, and he can be his true self. One day, while out shopping, Ryo sees an unexpected sight: Jin. The kid who looked so tough in class is shopping for the same clothes that Ryo loves. And Jin offers Ryo a proposal: to start their own brand and create apparel to help everyone feel comfortable in their skin. At last, Ryo has someone he can open up to—and the journey ahead might finally give him a way to express himself to everyone else. Keito Gaku is a manga artist and transgender man living in Japan, and winner of the 77th Tetsuya Chiba Prize. 240pgs B&W paperback.
Chartwell Manor
by Glenn Head
Fantagraphics
$29.99
The publisher says:
Veteran alternative cartoonist Glenn Head’s harrowing graphic memoir is about years of sexual and emotional abuse suffered at a boarding school during his adolescence, and the resultant trauma that took him almost 50 years to process before being able to tell his story publicly. No one asks for the childhood they get, and no child ever deserved to go to Chartwell Manor. For Glenn Head, his two years spent at the now-defunct Mendham, NJ, boarding school ― run by a serial sexual and emotional abuser of young boys in the early 1970s ― left emotional scars in ways that he continues to process. This graphic memoir ― a book almost 50 years in the making ― tells the story of that experience, and then delves with even greater detail into the reverberations of that experience in adulthood, including addiction and other self-destructive behaviour. Head tells his story with unsparing honesty, depicting himself as a deeply flawed human struggling to make sense of the childhood he was given. Glenn Head was born in 1958 in Morristown, New Jersey, and began drawing comics when he was fourteen. In the early 1990s Head co-created (with cartoonist Kaz) and edited Snake Eyes, the Harvey-Award nominated cutting edge comix anthology series and he was a frequent contributor to the Fantagraphics’ comix anthology quarterly Zero Zero. From 2005 to 2010 Glenn edited and contributed to the Harvey and Eisner-nominated anthology HOTWIRE Comics and recently created his graphic epic, Chicago (2015). He lives in New York City. 244pgs B&W hardcover.
R. Crumb says:
”This is a great graphic novel. I couldn’t put it down… Starkly honest, a powerful story…the level of merciless self-examination…I was deeply impressed. Head has traveled a long way to get to this point. This is… well, okay, I’ll say it… A Masterpiece! Truly. Very few writers or artists ever reach this level of self-revealing truth. It’s good for the world…”
Coma
by Zara Slattery
Myriad Editions
£18.99
The publisher says:
A beautifully painted graphic novel and a visual diary recording the monstrous and mundane, Coma is an astonishing record of one woman’s will to survive against the overwhelming pull of the deep. In May 2013 Zara Slattery’s persistent sore throat turned into a deadly bacterial infection, after the paracetamol and ice-pack prescribed by her GP failed to work. The world of Zara’s 15-day drug-induced coma, which she describes as ‘being trapped in a nightmare state that you can’t wake up from’ is rendered as a full-colour fantasy, with mythological creatures appearing out of nowhere as she battles to protect her three children against the forces of evil that threaten to engulf her. Meanwhile, her husband Dan tries to keep family life going as he faces the most difficult task of all: preparing the children for the likely loss of their mother. His diary, and that of the nurses in the Intensive Care Unit, who kept a record of Zara’s illness, interweave to make a heartbreaking graphic memoir. Coma was shortlisted for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition 2018, the Arts Foundation Futures Awards 2020 and longlisted for the LDComics Awards 2019. Zara Slattery is a graphic novelist, illustrator and tutor. Having studied an MA in Design Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University exploring the interplay between illustration and theatre, Zara has brought her interests together in the form of graphic narratives. Her self-published comics include Two Birds (a graphic short collection with Myfawny Tristram) and Don’t Call Me A Tomboy (A WildSlattern Production with Kirsten Wild). Her work playfully explores identity, art and feminism. Zara was commissioned in 2012 to run Sketches By Boz comic workshops for the British Council in Greece and Malta. She teaches comic art, drawing and painting at the Friends Centre, Brighton and runs community workshops in Sussex and around the UK. She lives in Brighton. 272pgs colour paperback.
Factory Summers
by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher
Drawn & Quarterly
$22.95
The publisher says:
The legendary cartoonist aims his pen and paper towards his high school summer job. For three summers beginning when he was 16, cartoonist Guy Delisle worked at a pulp and paper factory in Quebec City. Factory Summers chronicles the daily rhythms of life in the mill, and the twelve-hour shifts he spent in a hot, noisy building filled with arcane machinery. Delisle takes his noted outsider perspective and applies it domestically, this time as a boy amongst men through the universal rite of passage of the summer job. Even as a teenager, Delisle’s keen eye for hypocrisy highlights the tensions of class and the rampant sexism an all-male workplace permits. As the paper industry slowly began to move overseas, Guy worked the floor doing physically strenuous tasks. He was one of the few young people on site, and furthermore got the job because of his father’s connections, a fact which rightfully earned him disdain from the lifers. Guy’s father spent his whole working life in the white-collar offices above the fray of the machinery, scheduled from 9 to 5 instead of the rigorous 12-hour shifts of the unionised labour. Guy and his dad aren’t close, and Guy’s witnessing of the workplace politics and toxic masculinity leaves him reconciling whether the job was the reason for his dad’s unhappiness. On his days off, Guy found refuge in art, a world far beyond the factory floor. Delisle shows himself rediscovering comics at the public library, and preparing for animation school—only to be told on the first day, “There are no jobs in animation.” Eager to pursue a job he enjoys and to avoid a career of unhappiness, Guy throws caution to the wind. Factory Summers was translated by Helge Dascher. Dascher has been translating graphic novels from French and German to English for over twenty years. A contributor to Drawn & Quarterly since the early days, her translations include acclaimed titles such as the Aya series by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie, Hostage by Guy Delisle, and Beautiful Darkness by Fabien Vehlmann and Kerascoët. With a background in art history and history, she also translates books and exhibitions for museums in North America and Europe. She lives in Montreal. 156pgs 2-colour hardcover.
Gamma Draconis
by Benoist Simmat & Eldo Yoshimizu
Titan Comics
£12.99 / $14.99
The publisher says:
Eldo Yoshimizu, the creator of the epic Yakuza Manga Ryuko teams up with Benoist Simmat to create another dazzling crime tale. Aiko Moriyama studied religious art at the Sorbonne, but her research in occultism quickly led her down a dangerous path. When several experts around her come under attack from a mysterious entity rising from the depths of the web, she finds herself embroiled in a police investigation involving the sinister leader of an international organisation. From London to Tokyo, between transhumanism and black magic, Aiko is determined to solve the enigma of Gamma Draconis and to discover how exactly her family is involved. Benoist Simmat is a journalist, essayist and scriptwriter, and the author of thirty books. A wine specialist, he is a long-time contributor to La Revue du vin de France. Eldo Yoshimizu was born in 1965 in Tokyo. Having specialised in sculpture while studying at the University of Arts in Tokyo, he has installed numerous works in public spaces - some of them are among the most significant sculptures in Japan. Exhibitions in Japan as well as throughout Asia and in New York prove his international success and led him in 1994 to a scholarship as “Artist in Residence” in New York. In 2003 he realised the work First Light for the art and exhibition space of the Louis Vuitton branch in Omotesando. With the feeling of having satisfied his hunger in the field of contemporary fine art, he turned to Gekiga and began to focus on the interplay of object and space in the art of storytelling. He also works as a photographer and as a musician. 256pgs B&W paperback.
IN. A Graphic Novel
by Will McPhail
Houghton Mifflin
$28.00
The publisher says:
A poignant and witty graphic novel by a leading New Yorker cartoonist, following a millennial’s journey from performing his life to truly connecting with people. Nick, a young illustrator, can’t shake the feeling that there is some hidden realm of human interaction beyond his reach. He haunts lookalike fussy, silly coffee shops, listens to old Joni Mitchell albums too loudly, and stares at his navel in the hope that he will find it in there. But it isn’t until he learns to speak from the heart that he begins to find authentic human connections and is let in to the worlds of the people he meets. Nick’s journey occurs alongside the beginnings of a relationship with Wren, a wry, spirited oncologist at a nearby hospital, whose work and life becomes painfully tangled with Nick’s. Illustrated in both colour and black-and-white in McPhail’s instantly recognisable style, In elevates the graphic novel genre; it captures his trademark humour and compassion with a semi-autobiographical tale that is equal parts hilarious, heart-wrenching and uncannily appropriate for our isolated times. Will McPhail has been contributing cartoons, sketchbooks and humour pieces to The New Yorker since 2014. He was the winner of the Reuben Award for cartooning in 2017 and 2018. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. 272pgs colour hardcover.
Jeanne & Modigliani: Paris in the dark
by Nadine Van der Straeten
Black Panel Press
$24.00
The publisher says:
Achieving little recognition in his own lifetime, Amedeo Modigliani went on to become a highly influential expressionist artist after his untimely death in 1920. Jeanne Hebuterne was his last companion, his ever-faithful supporter. Although a talented artist in her own right, Jeanne is pulled into the abyss of Modigliani’s destructive ego, to tragic ends. Jeanne Hebuterne — she who quietly slipped through her 19 years in the background of the scene, as if to apologise for being there. This is her story… 142pgs colour paperback.
Let’s Not Talk Anymore
by Weng Pixin
Drawn & Quarterly
$24.95
The publisher says:
A five-generation family history told through what is seen and heard, if not said. Lets Not Talk Anymore weaves together five generations of women from Weng Pixin‘s family, each at age 15. Her lineage is full of breakages — her great grandmother Kuan is sent away from her family in South China, her grandmother Mèi is adopted by a neighbour to help with housework, and her mother Bing is heartbroken by her father’s estrangement. Pixin’s own story centres on her feelings of isolation and her rebellion from her mother. She extends the line by envisioning a fictional future daughter, Rita, who questions her family’s legacy. While spanning 100 years, Pixin moves back and forth in time seamlessly, as each woman experiences loneliness and kinship, hope and longing. As each story develops, generational traumas are revealed and fraught relationships passed on from mother to daughter. Creative impulses are stifled or nurtured. They struggle with poverty and neglect. And at some point each woman begins to separate herself from her situation and understand the woman she will become. Pixin’s bold, vibrant paintings fill the aching silences between generations with beauty and emotion. Her paintings conjure complete worlds which these women inhabit. Lets Not Talk Anymore is a family history filled with tender moments as these women find connection with plants, animals and their own creative pursuits, while struggling to connect with each other. Weng Pixin was born and raised in sunny Singapore. She loves to draw, sew, make comics, tell stories, paint, create and construct using found objects. Pixin grew up listening to stories from her father, who was curious about the way the world works. In turn, when it comes to her art, Pixin loves to create semi-autobiographical comics that reflect her curious nature too. She has published one previous book, Sweet Time, which came out in 2020. 204pgs colour paperback.
My Muse Lies on the Settee
by Wide Vercnocke
Centrala
£19.00
The publisher says:
Poetry from the comfort of your couch… Every chapter of My Muse Lies on the Settee opens with a short poem that is depicted in an accompanying illustration. This is followed by a comic strip, usually wordless, of a few pages, which builds on the same theme. Wide Vercnocke does not opt for adventurous themes, but instead explores the world of the couch potato. Although the idle protagonist wallows comfortably in the security of his lazy existence, the repeated and powerful depiction of his biceps suggests that his passivity is only a temporary phase, the silence of a resting volcano. Wide Vercnocke (b. 1985) studied at Sint-Lukas n Brussels, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Visual Arts, Graphic Design department. His graduation work immediately became his first published comic: My Muse Lies On The Settee. This was followed by Wild meat (2014), Narwal (2016) and Drieman (2020, coming in English from Centrala in 2021). In between, he works as a freelancer, his drawings have appeared in Humo, Focus, Knack and De Standaard or as large murals. As an illustrator he is also associated with “De Sprekende Ezels”, a stage for poetry, word and music. He describes himself as a ‘writer and illustrator of tear-jerkers.’ 97pgs colour hardcover.
Only The Good Stay Dead
by Joe Queenan & Keith Bendis
Fantagraphics Underground
$20.00
The publisher says:
Yesterday, Mel McDonnell had been one of the most influential and respected members of the United States Senate. Today, he found himself reincarnated as a moist heap of whale excrement, languishing on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. What was he doing down there? Why had he been relegated to such a demeaning, retrograde and humiliating condition? What was his error, his crime, his tragic flaw? Were the wreakers of vengeance, the bringers of darkness, the chastisers of hubris on the prowl again? Was the Lord wroth? And if He was indeed wroth, what was He so wroth about? Surely, Mel’s story bears telling. Thus begins Joe Queenan’s satirical fable of reincarnation, political ambition, man’s folly and the capricious nature of the universe — lusciously illustrated with his signature wry wit by award-winning cartoonist Keith Bendis. 40pgs B&W hardcover.
One Line
by Ray Fawkes
Oni Press Inc.
$24.99
The publisher says:
As One Soul followed eighteen people from birth until death, showcasing their common joys and pains as well as their unique experiences, One Line follows eighteen families through four centuries, showing how traditions, ethics and prejudices are handed down from generation to generation. Some families will interact, some will join together, some will remain alone. Some will persist, and some will die out. Based in Toronto, Canada, Ray Fawkes has been making boundary-breaking comics for more than 20 years, beginning with and continuing the tradition of DIY fiction throughout, as well as working for many major publishers in the U.S. and Canada. His works include the critically acclaimed One Soul, The People Inside, Underwinter, Intersect, The Spectral Engine, Junction True and Possessions, as well as Batman: Eternal, Constantine and Gotham by Midnight (DC), Wolverines (Marvel), Black Hammer ‘45 (Dark Horse) and more. He is an Eisner, Harvey, and Shuster award nominee and a YALSA award winner. 184pgs B&W paperback.
Rebecca & Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor
by Pascal Girard, translated by Aleshia Jensen
Drawn & Quarterly
$21.95
The publisher says:
A maternity-leave murder mystery, complete with post-partum physiotherapy and suspicious grocery store footage. Rebecca’s got an eight-month-old baby and a mystery to investigate. Late one summer night as she’s breastfeeding Lucie, she spots two men carrying something heavy into a white minivan. It’s probably nothing serious, but when Rebecca hears that a home healthcare provider named Eduardo Morales disappeared from the neighbourhood that very night, she puts her detective hat on and gets to work. Over the course of the subsequent weeks, Rebecca juggles motherhood and detective work alternating between unproductive visits with the Simard family for whom the missing Eduardo worked and tearful visits to potential daycares for Lucie. She faces down inconclusive interviews with evasive subjects and inconveniently timed diaper changes. Pascal Girard’s observational humour and perfect timing shine, highlighting how Rebecca’s (over)confident, brash approach gets results, not just with the troublesome Simards but with everyone in her life. Rebecca and Lucie in the Case of the Missing Neighbor is a light-hearted maternity-leave mystery that centres on a new mother in all her post-partum glory. Pascal Girard was born in Jonquiere, QC, in 1981. He began filling his notebook with drawings on his very first day of school and never stopped. Since he was unable to rid himself of this habit, he naturally decided to make it his career. Girard is the award-winning author of Nicolas, Bigfoot, Reunion and Petty Theft. He lives in Montreal. 100pgs colour paperback.
Recidivist IV
by Zak Sally
Secret Acres
$19.95
The publisher says:
A man searches for his lost teeth to complete his masterwork. Another embraces ghosts in an act of vengeance. Children escape from a ruined house to find a revelation. A wanderer leaves everything behind and discovers the infinite. Part resignation letter, part manifesto, the stories in Zak Sally’s Recidivist IV comprise a medium-defying visual experience of the freedom in obscurity. Zak Sally is a cartoonist, printmaker, publisher, musician and educator. He is best known for his book Like a Dog (Fantagraphics), and his two comics series Sammy the Mouse and Recidivist, the third volume of which received two Eisner Award nominations. In addition to his comics work, he played bass in the minimal rock band, Low. He is a native of Duluth, Minnesota, and currently owns and operates his own press, La Mano 21, in Minneapolis. His ongoing projects include the completion of Sammy the Mouse and a comics biography of author Philip K. Dick. 60pgs B&W paperback.
Slow Death Zero: Comix Anthology of Ecological Horror
by various creators, edited by Jon B Cooke & Ron Turner
Last Gasp
$24.95
The publisher says:
A revival of the legendary underground horror comix anthology, this one-shot 50th anniversary edition includes all-new comix by 33 writers and artists, with one classic reprint by R. Crumb, 28 stories and pin-ups to chill the bones in our temperature-rising age of global warming. Inspired by the ecological advocacy of the original title, which debuted on the very first Earth Day in 1970, this edition features horrifying tales depicting the environmental calamity facing our world in this time of climate change. The book is headlined by a savage depiction of the implications of the melting polar ice cap in Antarctica, by award-winning cartoonist/illustrator William Stout, who provides the cover. Also included is work by Richard Corben, Rick Veitch, Drew Friedman, Bryan Talbot, Hunt Emerson, Peter Kuper, Savage Pencil and many more, as well as unseen work by the late, great Greg Irons. 128pgs B&W paperback.
Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank
by Eric Orner
Metropolitan
$25.99
The publisher says:
Eric Orner, the acclaimed cartoonist of one of the country’s most popular and longest-running gay comic strips, The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Greene, presents his debut graphic novel—a dazzling, irreverent biography of the iconic and iconoclastic Barney Frank, the first gay and out congressman and front-line defender of civil rights. What are the odds that a disheveled, zaftig, closeted kid with the thickest of Jersey accents might wind up running Boston on behalf of a storied Irish Catholic political machine, drafting the nation’s first gay rights laws, reforming Wall Street after the Great Recession, and finding love, after a lifetime assuming that he couldn’t and wouldn’t? In Smahtguy: The Life and Times of Barney Frank, America’s first out member of Congress and gay and civil rights crusader for an era is confirmed as a hero of our age. But more than a biography of an indispensable LGBTQ pioneer, this funny, beautifully rendered, warts-and-all graphic account reveals the down-and-dirty inner workings of Boston and DC politics. As Frank’s longtime staff counsel and press secretary, Eric Orner lends his first-hand perspective to this extraordinary work of history, paying tribute to the mighty striving of committed liberals to defend ordinary Americans from an assault on their shared society. Eric Orner is a former Congressional aide to Barney Frank and the acclaimed author of The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Greene, the country’s first and longest-running gay comic strip. A feature film of the same title appeared in 2005, the same year that Orner retired the comic strip. Orner has also published comic strips and illustrations in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New Republic. His cartoon story ‘Weekends Abroad’ was included in Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Comics 2011. Orner lives in New York and Smahtguy is his first graphic novel. 224pgs B&W paperback.
Stone Fruit
by Lee Lai
Fantagraphics
$24.99
The publisher says:
An exhilarating and tender debut graphic novel that is an ode to the love and connection shared among three women and the child they all adore. Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray’s niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seeded personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties — Ray with her overworked, resentful single-mother sister and Bron with her religious teenage sister who doesn’t fully grasp the complexities of gender identity. Taking a leap of faith, each opens up and learns they have more in common with their siblings than they ever knew. At turns joyful and heartbreaking, Stone Fruit reveals through intimately naturalistic dialogue and blue-hued watercolour how painful it can be to truly become vulnerable to your loved ones — and how fulfilling it is to be finally understood for who you are. Lee Lai is one of the most exciting new voices to break into the comics medium and she has created one of the truly sophisticated graphic novel debuts in recent memory. Lee Lai was born in 1993 in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia. Currently, Lai makes comics and illustrations in Tio’tia: ke (Montreal), Quebec. Her short story comics have been featured in The New Yorker, The Lifted Brow, Room Magazine and Everyday Feminism. 236pgs colour hardcover.
The Body Factory
by Héloise Chochois
Graphic Mundi
$24.95
The publisher says:
A young man has a horrible motorcycle accident. He wakes up in the hospital to discover that one of his arms has been amputated. Then a portrait on the wall of his hospital room begins to speak to him. The subject of the painting introduces himself as Ambroise Paré, the French barber-surgeon who revolutionised the art of amputation. From this wonderfully absurd premise, the two begin an imaginary conversation that takes them through a sweeping history of surgical amputation, from the Stone Age to the Space Age. Unencumbered by pathos or pedagogy, this graphic novel explores the world of amputation, revealing fascinating details about famous amputees throughout history, the invention of the tourniquet, phantom limb syndrome, types of prostheses and transhumanist technologies.
Playfully illustrated and seriously funny, The Body Factory is sure to delight anyone interested in the history and future of medicine and how we repair and even enhance the body. Héloïse Chochois is a scientific illustrator who debuted as a graphic novelist with the blog Infiltrée chez les physiciens. She is the author and illustrator of Intelligences artificielles. 160pgs colour paperback.
The Gift
by Zoe Maeve
Conundrum Press
$18.00
The publisher says:
The Gift opens on the snow-blanketed grounds of the Alexander Palace in Western Russia where a moth has come to attend the birth of the fourth Romanov princess, Anastasia. She and her siblings grow up in a gilded world, isolated from the society beyond the palace walls despite their dominion over it. After mysteriously receiving a camera on her fifteenth birthday, she begins to document her world, but the gift carries with it a weight she can’t yet see. A creature moves on the edge of her vision and stalks her dreams. As the revolution unfolds, the confines of Anastasia’s world keep closing in. Something is following her, and it might not be human. The Shining meets Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in this gripping debut from an award-winning talent. Zoe Maeve is a comics artist originally from Tkaronto/Toronto who is now based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. She studied visual arts at Concordia University, where she worked in oil painting, printmaking and textiles before finding comics. Her work is based in her love of research and she is interested in hauntings, archives, ecologies and other realities. In 2016 her book July Underwater was the recipient of Best English Comic at the Expozine Awards. She currently shares her home with one feisty black cat. 96pgs one-colour paperback.
The Minamata Story: An EcoTragedy
by Seán Michael Wilson & Akiko Shimojima
Stone Bridge Press
$14.95 / £10.99
The publisher says:
A powerful graphic novel /manga that tells the story of “Minamata disease,” a debilitating and sometimes fatal condition caused by the Chisso chemical factory’s careless release of methylmercury into the waters of the coastal community of Minamata in southern Japan. First identified in 1956, it became a hot topic in Japan in the 1970s and 80s, growing into an iconic struggle between people versus corporations and government agencies. This struggle is relevant today, not simply because many people are still living with the disease but also because, in this time of growing concern over the safety of our environment—viz. Flint, Michigan—Minamata gives us as a very moving example of such human-caused environmental disasters and what we can do about them. With an introduction by Brian Small. Seán Michael Wilson is a Harvey and Eisner nominated comic book writer from Scotland. He has had more than 30 books published with a variety of US, UK and Japanese publishers. Although also writing ‘western’ style graphic novels, such as adaptations of classical novels, he often works with Japanese and Chinese artists on manga style books. Akiko Shimojima is a comic artist from Japan whose comics have been published by several companies in Japan as well as worldwide. She has been working with Sean Michael Wilson, on various projects, including The 47 Ronin, Bushido, and the Satsuma Rebellion. Her book Cold Mountain was the winner of the China Comic and Animation Competition 2015 ‘Best Overseas Comic’ award. She also teaches how to draw digital comics at a college in Tokyo. 112pgs B&W paperback.
The Old Geezers Vol.2
by Wilfrid Lupiano & Paul Cauuet
Ablaze
$24.99
The publisher says:
The geezers are back! The Old Geezers Vol 2 includes two new stories, featuring three septuagenarians who have been friends since childhood: Antoine, Emile, and Pierrot. In “The One Who Got Away”, things aren’t looking so good for the Geezers… one of them’s in the hospital, the other’s been arrested, and the third one is dealing with leaky roofs, drowning sheep and eggs he doesn’t approve of. Two new characters make their appearance in this book, and through their stories we are taken to shark-infested waters and treasure-hunting in the Pacific, to village fairs, rugby matches, broken hearts and behaviour unbefitting neighbours–which continues to this day. Thank goodness young Sophie and her puppets are around to keep these old men in check. And in “The Magician”, peaceful country living, consisting of leaky roofs, puppet shows and drinks and arguments at the local tavern, is disturbed when a rare species of grasshopper is discovered in a local field, and suddenly environmentalists, politicians, hunters, Big Pharma, union people, mushroom pickers and geriatric anarchists are all loudly fighting for what they believe is the right approach to things. In the midst of all this, one love story may be blooming in spite of a curse, another may be doomed for good and for poop, and questions of paternity arise yet again. The Old Geezers is an international bestseller, regularly topping the graphic novel bestseller lists across Europe ― with hundreds of thousands of copies sold. Come find out why the geezers have won the hearts of so many in this gorgeously illustrated, beautifully written graphic novel series. 136pgs colour hardcover.
The Tower
by Benoît Peeters & François Schuiten, translated by Steve Smith
IDW
$19.99
The publisher says:
The fifth release in Alaxis Press’ The Obscure Cities series to be published by IDW brings the award winning graphic novels to readers in English with an all-new translation by Steve Smith. Giovanni Batista is a third-class maintainer of the Tower. His section is deteriorating more and more by the day and he has not heard from any of his inspectors or fellow maintainers in months. He makes the decision to go to the base office to file a complaint. While using his chute, he ends up somewhere even higher than his level. He meets Ellias Aureolus Palingenius and the lovely Milena. Together with Milena, he tries to figure out the purpose of the Tower. He finally decides to Climb to the top. The Tower, presented in this new edition, is the fabulous story for the exploration of a deliquescent world, an epic fable to the dimensions of world-building, a fantastic escape full of paradoxes, simulacra and pretense. Magnificent mastery, invention, poetry, this is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful jewels of the exciting saga of The Obscure Cities. Benoît Peeters was born in Paris on August 28, 1956. After publishing two novels early in his career, he experimented with diverse genres: essay, biography, illustrated story, photo novel, film, television, radio theatre and of course comics. An Hergé specialist, he has written three books to date on the subject: The World of Hergé, Hergé, Son of Tintin and Read Tintin. He is also the author of several books on comics, storyboards and biographical studies on Hitchcock, Nadar, Jacques Derrida and Paul Valéry. François Schuiten was born in Brussels on April 26, 1956, into a family of architects. Since 1980, he has worked with Benoît Peeters on The Obscure Cities series. His graphic novels have been translated into a dozen languages and have received numerous international awards. He has also created many illustrations, posters and postage stamps across Europe. In 2002, he received the prestigious lifetime achievement award from the Angoulême International Comics Festival. He published his first solo effort, The Beauty, in 2012, and designed a train museum, Train World, which opened in Brussels in 2015. His 2014 exhibition and accompanying book, Revoir Paris, has met with international praise. 112pgs B&W & colour paperback.
True War Stories: Tales of Deployment from Vietnam to Today
by various artists, written & edited by Alex de Campi & Khai Krumbhaar
Z2 Comics
$19.99
The publisher says:
A sniper in Haiti faces the repercussions of the shot he never took. A team of SEALs help rescue a kidnapped girl in the Philippines. Army interpreters in Iraq battle their toughest foe: the rats of Saddam’s palace. A soldier on a late-night run surprises a motorpool saboteur. A young cavalry lieutenant, fresh off the Battle of Kamdesh, meets the Marine half-brother he’s never known. A Navy ship reacts to an unexpected man overboard. And if you’ve ever wondered what Christmas was like in a war zone, you’re about to find out. True War Stories is a 260-page full colour graphic novel anthology containing fifteen true tales of American service members overseas. Nearly every branch of the military is represented in this collection of stories that are heartwarming, heroic, harrowing, and even at times, hilarious, spanning the globe. This unique project, assembled by the multiple-Eisner nominated writer/editor, Alex de Campi and co-written/edited by Iraq War veteran Khai Krumbhaar is an entertaining and moving work of graphic nonfiction, pairing members of the US military with the biggest names in comics to share real war stories told by those who lived them. Artists include Peter Krause, Ryan Howe, Skylar Patridge (drawing her own father’s Vietnam story), Eoin Marron, Tish Doolin (a former Army medic), Dave Acosta, A. D’Amico, Drew Moss, Josh Hood, PJ Holden, Chris Peterson, Sam Hart, Jeff McComsey and Paul Williams. Colors are by Dee Cunniffe, Matt Soffe, Kelly Fitzpatrick, Tarsis Cruz and Aladdin Collar. All lettering is done by de Campi herself. 260pgs colour paperback.
Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence
by Jenny White & Ergün Gündüz
Princeton University Press
$22.95 / £17.99
The publisher says:
Turkish Kaleidoscope tells the stories of four unforgettable protagonists as they navigate a society torn apart by violent political factions. It is 1975 and Turkey is on the verge of civil war. Faruk and Orhan are from conservative shopkeeping families in eastern Anatolia that share a sense of new possibilities. Nuray is the daughter of villagers who have migrated to the provincial city where Yunus, the son of an imprisoned teacher, was raised in genteel poverty. While attending medical school in Ankara, Faruk draws a reluctant Orhan into a right-wing nationalist group while Nuray and Yunus join the left. Against a backdrop of escalating violence, the four students fall in love, have their hearts broken, get married, raise families, and struggle to get on with their lives. But the consequences of their decisions will follow them through their lives as their children begin the story anew, skewed through the kaleidoscope of historical events. Inspired by Jenny White’s own experiences as a student in Turkey during this tumultuous period as well as original oral histories of Turks who lived through it, Turkish Kaleidoscope reveals how violent factionalism has its own emotional and cultural logic that defies ideological explanations. Jenny White is a social anthropologist and professor at the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies. Her many books include Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks (Princeton) and the novel The Winter Thief. She lives in Stockholm. Ergün Gündüz is a critically acclaimed artist and the author of numerous books and albums. His work spans graphic novels, comics, caricatures, animated films, book covers and commercial art. He lives in Istanbul. 120pgs colour paperback.
Turtle in Paradise
by Jennifer Holm & Savanna Ganucheau
Random House Graphic
$20.99 / $12.99
The publisher says:
In Jennifer L. Holm’s New York Times bestselling, Newbery Honor winning middle grade historical fiction novel, life isn’t like the movies. But then again, 11-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple. She’s smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it’s 1935 and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle’s mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn’t like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida to live with relatives she’s never met. Florida’s like nothing Turtle’s ever seen before though. It’s hot and strange, full of rag tag boy cousins, family secrets, scams and even buried pirate treasure. Before she knows what’s happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she’s spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways. Filled with adventure, humour and heart, Turtle in Paradise is an instant classic both boys and girls will love. Includes an Author’s Note with photographs and further background on the Great Depression, as well as additional resources and websites. Jennifer L. Holm’s great-grandmother emigrated from the Bahamas to Key West in 1897. Jennifer is the author of two Newbery Honor books, Our Only May Amelia and Penny from Heaven. She is also the author of several other highly praised books, including Middle School Is Worse Than Meatloaf and the Babymouse graphic novel series, which she collaborates on with her brother, Matthew Holm. Jennifer lives in California with her husband and two children. Savanna Ganucheau is a comic artist from New Orleans, Louisiana with a BFA in Film from The University of New Orleans. She made her start in comics by self-publishing and selling her work in small comic book shops around New Orleans. 256pgs colour hardcover / paperback.
Turtlenecks
by Steven Christie
AdHouse Books
$19.95
The publisher says:
The Turtlenecks are a heist-based performance art collective who specialise in stealing conceptual artworks. Not just the art objects, but the concepts that surround and protect them too. It’s an art-world satire propelled by an action-packed heist performance piece. Set in an alternate reality full of strange aliens and future technologies, the story itself takes place within the cloistered world of contemporary art collectives and artist-run initiatives where the conceptual and physical boundaries between art and life have long since been broken. “...One of my all-time favourite books. Satire rarely shines so bright.” - Hartley Lin, Young Frances. 128pgs colour paperback.
Under The Air
by Osamu Tezuka
Digital Manga Publishing
$12.95
The publisher says:
From science fiction, historical fiction, to contemporary drama, Under the Air includes a variety of tales that depict the duality of man―good and evil; loving and violent. An injured white-supremacist struggles with the fact that he was brought back to life by a black organ donor; a young man in the wild west seeks revenge for his father’s murder; an escaped convict holds a family hostage in a cave that causes hallucinations; the only two survivors of a nuclear apocalypse dare to explore the outside world. Tezuka’s characters are put to the test when the delicate balance of their minds are disrupted, discovering something dark hidden deep within themselves. 296pgs B&W paperback.
