Shoplifter


Michael Cho - 2014
    Studying English literature in college, she imagined writing a successful novel and leading the idealized life of an author. But she’s been working at the same advertising agency for the past five years and the only thing she’s written is . . . copy. Corrina knows there must be more to life, but and she faces the same question as does everyone in her generation: how to find it? Here is the brilliant debut graphic novel about a young woman’s search for happiness and self-fulfillment in the big city.(With two-color illustrations throughout.)

Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed?


Liz Prince - 2005
    Described as a mix between Jeffrey Brown and James Kochalka, Liz's comic is made up of short vignettes that capture all the cute, gross, and endearing aspects of relationships.

Boxers & Saints


Gene Luen Yang - 2013
    The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. Little Bao, inspired by visions of the Chinese gods, joins a violent uprising against the Western interlopers. Against all odds, their grass-roots rebellion is successful. But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity.Boxers & Saints is one of the most ambitious graphic novels First Second has ever published. It offers a penetrating insight into not only one of the most controversial episodes of modern Chinese history, but into the very core of our human nature. Gene Luen Yang is rightly called a master of the comics form, and this book will cement that reputation. This boxed set includes the trade paperback Boxers as well as the trade paperback Saints, packaged together in one slipcase.

The Property


Rutu Modan - 2013
    As they get to know modern Warsaw, Regina is forced to recall difficult things about her past, and Mica begins to wonder if maybe their reasons for coming aren’t a little different than what her grandmother led her to believe.

Castle Waiting, Vol. 1


Linda Medley - 2006
    A fable for modern times, Castle Waiting is a fairy tale that's not about rescuing the princess, saving the kingdom, or fighting the ultimate war between Good and Evil, but about being a hero in your own home. The opening story, "The Brambly Hedge," tells the origin of the castle itself, which is abandoned by its princess in a comic twist on "Sleeping Beauty" when she rides off into the sunset with her Prince Charming. The castle becomes a refuge for misfits, outcasts, and others seeking sanctuary, playing host to a lively and colorful cast of characters that inhabits the subsequent stories, including a talking anthropomorphic horse, a mysteriously pregnant Lady on the run, and a bearded nun.

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories


Will Eisner - 1978
    The human drama, the psychological insight -- Eisner captures the soul of the city and its troubled inhabitants with pen and ink. The comics medium was altered forever with the publication of this seminal work.

Unmanned


Brian K. Vaughan - 2003
    But why are he and his faithful companion, the often testy male monkey Ampersand, still alive? He sets out to find the answer (and his girlfriend), while running from angry female Republicans (now running the government), Amazon wannabes that include his own sister (seemingly brainwashed), and other threats.

Jim Henson's Tale of Sand


Jim Henson - 2011
    Discovered in the Archives of the The Jim Henson Company, A Tale of Sand is an original graphic novel adaptation of an unproduced, feature-length screenplay written by Jim Henson and his frequent writing partner, Jerry Juhl. A Tale of Sand follows scruffy everyman, Mac, who wakes up in an unfamiliar town, and is chased across the desert of the American Southwest by all manners of man and beast of unimaginable proportions. Produced with the complete blessing of Lisa Henson, A Tale of Sand will allow Henson fans to recognize some of the inspirations and set pieces that appeared in later Henson Company productions.

Black Hole


Charles Burns - 2005
    We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways—from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable)—but once you've got it, that's it. There's no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters—some kids who have it, some who don't, some who are about to get it—what unfolds isn't the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it, or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape. And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it—back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird. To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…

Air, Volume 1: Letters from Lost Countries


G. Willow Wilson - 2009
    You may have heard of a group called the Etesian Front -- vigilantes dedicated to taking the skies back from terrorism. Sounds like a noble cause, right? But there's more to them than meets the eye. They're after someone I know. Someone who is either an average frequent flier -- or a terrorist. And he's got a secret. Something that will change the way we fly -- and the way we see technology -- forever.To find him, we've altered course. We're en route to a country that doesn't exist on any maps. Only one person knows how to get us there: me. My name is Blythe, and I'll be your stewardess today. So buckle your seatbelts -- this will be the flight of your life.

Bookhunter


Jason Shiga - 2007
    The excitement is fulfilling. The year is 1973. A priceless book has been stolen from the Oakland Public Library. A crack team of Bookhunters (aka. library police) have less than three days to recover the stolen item. It’s a race against the clock as our heroes use every tool in their arsenal of library equipment to find the book and the mastermind who stole it.Will the detectives catch this scoundrel? Find out in Bookhunter, the greatest comic of the new millennium. What a roller coaster ride of excitement! What an unexpected twist takes place! Do not begin Bookhunter unless you are prepared to finish it in one sitting.

The Fountain


Darren Aronofsky - 2005
    An epic love story so grand that one medium cannot contain it, Aronofsky's feature film - released by Warner Bros, Pictures and Regency Enterprises - stars Tony Award-winner Hugh Jackman (The Boy from Oz, X-Men) and Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener, The Mummy). The Fountain graphic novel is a sister-project to the film, using the same story as its seed, but stretched instead upon the limitless canvas of the comics medium. Already earning Williams the Eisner nomination for Best Painter, The Fountain graphic novel provides an alternative interpretation wholly unique yet still intimately tied to the movie, in what can be considered the ultimate "director's cut".

Flight, Vol. 1


Kazu KibuishiJoel Carroll - 2004
    From the maiden voyage of a home-built plane to the adventures of a young courier and his flying whale to a handful of stories about coming of age and letting things go, this first volume of Flight is full of memorable tales that will both amaze and inspire.

Bone: The Complete Edition


Jeff Smith - 1991
    After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert. One by one they find their way into a deep forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures. It will be the longest -- but funniest -- year of their lives.

Alice in Sunderland


Bryan Talbot - 2007
    In the time of Lewis Carroll it was the greatest shipbuilding port in the world. To this city that gave the world the electric light bulb, the stars and stripes, the millennium, the Liberty Ships and the greatest British dragon legend came Carroll in the years preceding his most famous book, Alice in Wonderland, and here are buried the roots of his surreal masterpiece. Enter the famous Edwardian palace of varieties, The Sunderland Empire, for a unique experience: an entertaining and epic meditation on myth, history and storytelling and decide for yourself - does Sunderland really exist?