Best of
Surreal

2013

The Milk of Dreams


Leonora Carrington - 2013
    These quirky and enchanting tales will delight parents and children alike.

Very Casual


Michael DeForge - 2013
    Included are stories about litter gangs, meat-filled snowmen, righteous cops, beagle/human hybrids, and forest-bound drag queens.

Device 6


Jonas Tarstad - 2013
    All she remembers is an unusually unpleasant doll...Why are there two identical castles on the island? Who is the mysterious man in the bowler hat? And above all, what is the purpose of the tests Anna is put through?Read, listen and peek into three-dimensional photographs to solve the bizarre mysteries of DEVICE 6.

Rainbow in the Dark: The Complete Saga


Comfort Love - 2013
    

Basal Ganglia


Matthew Revert - 2013
    What else can you say?" - SCOTT MCCLANAHAN, author of Hill William and CrapalachiaAs teenagers, two lovers, Rollo and Ingrid, escape the world as it is known to live underground in a sprawling pillow fort that mirrors the structure of the human brain. Construction of the fort takes 25 years and once complete, their life exists to honor the fort in all it requires. Basal Ganglia begins countless years after they have become enslaved to the fort process. Rollo and Ingrid have lost any connection to their pasts and each other. Nothing exists beyond the patterns required by the fort. In an effort to become more than stasis, Ingrid expresses her desire to have a baby. Not wanting to subject another human to their strange world, she decides she will knit the baby using materials Rollo gathers from the fort. The emergence of this baby leads to paranoia between Rollo and Ingrid with both believing the other means the child harm. Within the confines of their cloistered world, the two engage in psychological warfare, desperately searching for a conclusion they don't understand. As a result, they will find connection with their past, each other and the true nature of their identities.

Irving Harper: Works in Paper


Michael Maharam - 2013
    Irving Harper is the most famous designer you have never heard of. Working as an associate at the office of George Nelson in the 1950s and ’60s, Harper was responsible for such icons of midcentury design as the Marshmallow sofa, the Ball clock, and numerous Herman Miller textile designs. Harper’s unrecognized contribution to this seminal era of design, and his incredible paper sculptures (made in his spare time to "relieve stress"), are presented for the first time in this book. An essay by design critic Julie Lasky introduces Harper’s commercial design work, recognizable designs from graphics to domestic goods to furniture that are still coveted and appreciated today, designed for the offices of Raymond Loewy, George Nelson, and then his own studio Harper + George. The second part of the book documents Harper’s extensive paper sculptures, which have never been exhibited. More than three hundred works fill Harper’s house and barn in Rye, New York, where this array of fantastical people and animal sculptures was created from modest and inexpensive materials as diverse as spaghetti and toothpicks in addition to paper. Images of Harper’s home, filled with furniture and objects of his own design as well as his paper sculptures, offer a rare glimpse into a Modern design enthusiast’s paradise.Offering insight into an important era of American design as well as the prolific output of a creative mind, this book promises to be the first to recognize Irving Harper’s contribution to the field and will appeal to fans of Modern design.

The Best of Milligan & McCarthy


Peter Milligan - 2013
    There is still nothing else like Freakwave, Paradax!, Skin, and Rogan Gosh, and this volume is both the perfect retrospective for fans and the ideal starting place for new readers!

Animals In My Hair


Mili Fay - 2013
    As you read “Animals In My Hair” observe the illustrations to discover hidden visual puzzles: How many ones, twos, threes… can you find? Are there missing bits of illustrations? Mistakes? Through observation, while learning about an endangered animal, discover its habitat and diet. Do you know all your basic colors? Can you count up to ten? When you believe that you have discovered everything there is to discover in "Animals In My Hair", join the AIMH Membership (included with your book) to see if you are right. While at the AIMH Members’ website you can also learn additional facts about each animals, download coloring pages, print art prints, and more.For ages 01 to 101+***GET THE BOOK: Unti further notice you can buy the book online at shop.artofmili.ca.(Direct link: http://mili-fay-art.myshopify.com/col...)***

The Tenderness of Stones


Marion Fayolle - 2013
    The lung is so large it takes three men to carry it--and that is just the beginning. The family looks on as, under the dispassionate orders of anonymous white-clad strangers, their father is disassembled, piece by piece: His nose is removed from his face and tied, temporarily, to his neck; his other lung is pulled out and he is forced to lug it around in a cart; his mouth is pried off and stored away, leaving him mute. Beneath it all is one devastating truth: Soon, he will be gone entirely.Marion Fayolle is one of the most innovative young artists in contemporary comics, and in this startling, gorgeously drawn fable she offers a vision of family illness and grief that is by turns playful and profound, literal and lyrical. She captures the strange swirl of love, resentment, grief, and humor that comes as we watch a loved one transformed before our eyes, and learn to live without them.

Selkie Stories Are for Losers


Sofia Samatar - 2013
    A young woman works in a restaurant, and reflects on her mother's disappearance, on how that disappearance bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the legend of the selkie, and on what this may mean for her budding romance with a coworker.

Hammer Wives


Carlton Mellick III - 2013
    Like a real world Kilgore Trout, cult author Carlton Mellick III has been pumping out dozens of the weirdest, trashiest, most imaginative books you've probably never heard of... even though you definitely should. "Hammer Wives" collects six of his most popular novelettes and short stories, including:SIMPLE MACHINES A man discovers that his body is actually a machine run by dozens of miniature clones of himself.RED WORLD A recovering junky must save his 8-year-old brother from a life of prostitution in a surreal version of New York City... a place where street kids mutate into fish-like creatures, the homeless stilt-walk through oceans of insects, and the only colors left visible to the human eye are shades of red.HAMMER WIVES A young man inherits ten eternally youthful wives from an estranged uncle he never knew he had... which wouldn't have been such a bad thing if they didn't have giant hammers for heads or a tendency of bludgeoning people to death for fun, food, or sexual pleasure.LEMON KNIVES 'N' COCKROACHES Cockroach-like children survive the zombie apocalypse by hiding between the walls of on old school building.WAR PIG In a steam-powered underworld, a bloodthirsty pig-man boxer will sacrifice everything to prevent his son from following in his footsteps.THE MAN WITH THE STYROFOAM BRAIN The recently departed reflect on the stupid reasons why they sold their souls to the devil.

Errata


Hal Duncan - 2013
    Here, fans of VELLUM & INK can delve deeper into the mythos of The Book of All Hours, while new readers will find a stand-alone story, a wild ride into the world of a work described as "the Guernica of genre fiction."

Out of Hollow Water


Anna Bongiovanni - 2013