Larry Gonick's celebrated series The Cartoon History of the Universe is a unique fusion of world history and the comics medium, a work of serious scholarship and a masterpiece of popular literature. Praised by historians as a narrative and interpretive tour de force, Gonick's clever illustrations deliver important information with a deceptively light tone, teaching us about the people and events that have shaped our world. This long-awaited new volume covers the Middle Ages around the globe, including the origin and spread of Islam; West Africa and the cross-Saharan trade; Central Asia and the Byzantine Empire; the European Dark Ages and the Crusades; the Mongol conquests; the Black Death; the Ottoman Empire; the Italian Renaissance; and the rise of Spain, leading up to Columbus's departure for the New World. Highlighting key events and retrieving oft-neglected historical connections, Gonick offers an historical survey that is at once multicultural, humanistic, skeptical, and laugh-out-loud funny.

    In the year 2020, in a world that has begun to rise from the ashes of chaos after asteroids struck the Earth, martial artist combatant Tiger goes up against Single-Minded Arhat, Regent of Tibet, in a battle to the death.

    

    

    

    Yousuke's only hope lies with Ezo, the eccentric history teacher who wields the Spear of Seiryuu, another mystic weapon that, when combined with the Bow of Suzaku, may be the world's only hope against the ever-growing threat of the monster realm.