But what if the two are inextricably linked, equal partners in meaning-making? Written and drawn entirely as comics, Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking. Nick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge.Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points. While its vibrant, constantly morphing images occasionally serve as illustrations of text, they more often connect in nonlinear fashion to other visual references throughout the book. They become allusions, allegories, and motifs, pitting realism against abstraction and making us aware that more meets the eye than is presented on the page.In its graphic innovations and restless shape-shifting, Unflattening is meant to counteract the type of narrow, rigid thinking that Sousanis calls “flatness.” Just as the two-dimensional inhabitants of Edwin A. Abbott’s novella Flatland could not fathom the concept of “upwards,” Sousanis says, we are often unable to see past the boundaries of our current frame of mind. Fusing words and images to produce new forms of knowledge, Unflattening teaches us how to access modes of understanding beyond what we normally apprehend.

    A small force is humanity's only chance: an alcoholic, a doctor, a pawnbroker, an exterminator, and a criminal. Can they prevent the Master from covering the world in darkness? Adapting from the best-selling trilogy of novels by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and novelist Chuck Hogan, Eisner Award-winning writer David Lapham (Stray Bullets) and artist Mike Huddleston (Butcher Baker, The Coffin) visualize a compelling world in this tragic apocalyptic adventure. This collection includes issues #1-#9 of the acclaimed series and a short story featured in Dark Horse Presents that follows the travails of an aged luchador, the Silver Angel, written and illustrated by Lapham.

    Don't miss it!

    The short comic story by Dan Clowes was originally published in his comic book series Eightball, but it is presented here with an entirely new narrative only tangentially resembling the original comic. For this book, the strip will be presented in full-color for the first time. This scrapbook/screenplay also features the shooting script for the film adaptation, including several scenes edited out from the final cut. It also boasts two full-color sections jammed with photos, artwork, and many other surprises.

    Francine and Katchoo are high-school best friends who are reunited when Francine comes back to town after years away from her hometown. David is their new friend entangled in their complicated lives. From creepy ex-boyfriends and insensitive bosses to the reality of AIDS and underworld prostitution, you never know what will come up next - but you can always count on laughing and crying at the same time. This foil-stamped casebound hardcover with color dust jacket includes a special color cover art section, sketches, and more.

    1 in 1938, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and timeless: Superman, a caped god for the modern age. In a matter of years, the skies of the imaginary world were filled with strange mutants, aliens, and vigilantes: Batman, Wonder Woman, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and the X-Men—the list of names as familiar as our own. In less than a century, they’ve gone from not existing at all to being everywhere we look: on our movie and television screens, in our videogames and dreams. But what are they trying to tell us?For Grant Morrison, arguably the greatest of contemporary chroniclers of the “superworld,” these heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero—why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are . . . and what we may yet become.

    What is it that makes comics so special? What can this unique art form do that others can’t?In Why Comics?, comics scholar Hillary Chute reveals the history of comics, underground comics (or comix), and graphic novels, through deep thematic analysis, and fascinating portraits of the fearless men and women behind them. As Scott McCloud revealed the methods behind comics and the way they worked in his classic Understanding Comics, Chute will reveal the themes that Comics handle best, and how the form is uniquely equipped to explore them.The topics Why Comics? include:• Why Disaster: with such major works focusing on disasters, from Art Spiegelman’s work, which covers the Holocaust and 9/11 to Keiji Nakazawa’s work covering Heroshima, comics find themselves uniquely suited to convey the scale and disorientation of disaster.• Why Suburbs: through the work of Chris Ware and Charles Burns, Chute reveals the fascinating ways that Comics illustrate the quiet joys and struggles of suburban existence.• Why Punk: With an emphasis on DIY aesthetics and rebelling against what came before, the Punk movement would prove to be a fertile ground for some of the most significant modern cartoonists, creating a truly democratic art form.Chute has created an indispensable guide to comics for those new to the genre, or those who want to understand more about what lies behind their favorite works.

    For decades after the medium's birth, it was free of organized critical analysis, its creators generally disinclined to self-analysis or formal documentation. The average reader didn't know who created the comics, how or why . . . and except for a uniquely destructive period during America's witch-hunting of the 1950s, didn't seem to care. As the medium has matured, however, and the creativity of comics began to touch the mainstream of popular culture in many ways, curiosity followed, leading to journalism and eventually, scholarship, and so here we are."The Power of Comics is the first introductory textbook for comic art studies courses. Lending a broader understanding of the medium and its communication potential, it provides students with a coherent and comprehensive explanation of comic books and graphic novels, including coverage of their history and their communication techniques, research into their meanings and effects and an overview of industry practices and fan culture.Co-authors randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith draw on their own years of experience teaching comics studies courses and the scholarly literature across several disciplines to create a text with the following features:• Discussion questions for each chapter• Activities to engage readers• Recommended reading suggestions• Over 150 illustrations• Bibliography• GlossaryThe Power of Comics deals exclusively with comic books and graphic novels. One reason for this focus is that no one text can hope to do justice to both strips and books; there is simply too much to cover. Preference is given to comic books because in their longer form, the graphic novel, they have the greatest potential for depth and complexity of expression. As comic strips shrink in size and become more inane in content, comic books are becoming a serious art form.

    Don’t miss a moment in the brutal adventures of Marcus Fenix and Delta Squad’s battle against the Locust.From the Hardcover edition.

    And remember: "Don’t give advice."Ron Padgett's How Long was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry and his Collected Poems won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the best poetry book of 2013. His work has been translated into eighteen languages.Jason Novak is a cartoonist whose work has appeared in the New Yorker the Paris Review and the Believer among other places. He lives in Oakland, California.

    Crumb's Kafka is a vibrant biography that examines this Czech writer and his works in a way that a bland texbook never could! R. Crumb's Kafka goes far beyond being explication or popularization or survey. It's a work of art in its own right, a very rare example of what happens when one very idiosyncratic artist absorbs another into his worldview without obliterating the individuality of the absorbed one. Crumb's art is filled with Kafka's insurmountable neuroses. They are all there: Gregor Samsa's sister, the luscious Milena Jesenska, the Advacate's "nurse" Leni, Olda and Frieda, and the ravishing Dora Diamant-drawn in that mixture of self-commandtantalizing knowingness, and sly sexuality, that amazonian randines and thick-limbed physicality that is Crumb.Crumb's idiosyncratic illustrations add a new dimension to the already idiosyncratic world of Kafka. Includes adaptations of "The Judgment," "The Trial," "The Castle," "A Hunger Artist," and "The Metamorphosis."

    

    In 1965, Feiffer wrote what is arguably the first critical history of the comic book superheroes of the late 1930s and early 1940s, including Plastic Man, Batman, Superman, The Spirit and others. In the book, Feiffer writes about the unique the place of comics in the space between high and low art and the power which this space offers both the creator and reader.The Great Comic Book Heroes is widely acknowledged to be the first book to analyze the juvenile medium of superhero comics in a critical manner, but without denying the iconic hold such works have over readers of all ages. Out of print for over 30 years, Feiffer's book discusses the role that the patriotic superhero played during World War II in shaping the public spirit of civilians and soldiers, as well as the escapist power these stories held over the zeitgeist of America. With wit and insight Feiffer discusses what the great comic book heroes meant to him as a child and later as an artist.

    Perfect for long-time readers and fans of the Cinemax TV show.Collects OUTCAST #13-24.

    But that's the easy part. The hard part is trying to raise her two teenage sons, Tyrell and Yusuf. She loves to read-- they'd rather play video games. She likes to eat healthy -- they'd rather eat junk food. She loves ol' school music -- they listen to hip hop. But it would all be worth it if they ever came to realize that all she wants to do is to keep them happy and safe. Based on the popular Mama's Boyz syndicated comic strip.