Still Pickled After All These Years: A Pickles Collection


Brian Crane - 2004
    The other one was to Hopalong Cassidy, when I had a great crush on him at about six years old. But I did want to let you know how very much both my husband and I have enjoyed Pickles from the very first strip. Would you please consider putting a collection together in book form?"—Lois F. in Nevada  As its loyal fans will gladly tell you, Pickles has been a zinger-filled, laugh-out-loud gem since its debut in 1990. Since then, it has steadily climbed in popularity, and today appears in over 400 newspapers worldwide. Still Pickled After All These Years collects strips from this sweet intergenerational comic that alternates point of view between an older married couple, a 30-something married couple, and their son. The strip centers on Earl and Opal Pickles, who have been married over 50 years but inject plenty of spunk and insight into everything they do. Whether they're taking a wry but sympathetic glance at their divorced daughter, Sylvia, laughing at their faithful but feckless canine, Roscoe, marveling at their dictatorial feline, Muffin, or just commenting on the little things in life, Earl and Opal's good-natured wit and dry humor is brilliantly on target. Pickles is about growing old and keeping your sense of humor but never forgetting what it's like to be a child. The strip's inaugural AMP collection, Still Pickled After All These Years, encapsulates the importance of staying close to those who bring you the most joy and reminds everyone about the incalculable value of the unconditional love of pets, family, and friends.

Who Let the Cat Out?: Mutts X


Patrick McDonnell - 2005
    Its subject is the world, all living beings in it, and their relationship with each other. . . . Its touch is incredibly light and gentle, which explains how it alights in your mind and rests there. . . . The way that McDonnell's stories oscillate between gentle comedy and understated pathos is the strip's greatest strength.""-Christopher Brayshaw, Vancouver ReviewAnimal lovers everywhere adore Patrick McDonnell's charming but pointed MUTTS. The strip strikes a delicate balance between lighthearted fun and social commentary-on the human condition as well as the animal world. The deceptively simple comic follows the adventures of Earl the dog and Mooch the cat, an unlikely best-friend team, and Shtinky Puddin', Sourpuss, Guard Dog, and Crabby. Patrick's distinctive cartooning style effectively relays the all-too-real concerns of his characters with entertaining, clever, laugh-out-loud banter.Infodad.com describes MUTTS as ""humane and funny and gentle and caring and heartfelt and-did we mention funny?"" The site goes on to say that the strip ""includes enough hijinks and outstanding art (yes, art!) to please anyone with a taste for animals and amusement.""

I'm Gluten Furious: A Get Fuzzy Treasury


Darby Conley - 2016
    . .   The Get Fuzzy gang is back, and they’re leaner and meaner than ever. Bucky Katt (mastermind of mayhem) is on a steady diet of raw bacon, Beluga nut crunch, and carpa-cola in order to fit into his El Megaroid superhero suit—oatmeal cans are very slimming these days. The hapless and hopeless Satchel Pooch is in the kitchen perfecting his recipe for rubber chicken l’orange in a crayon/marker reduction sauce. And poor Rob, the vegetarian and ”owner” of the bunch, is scrounging for scraps in the midst of this gastronomical fury.   Delicious and satisfying, this treasury of cartoons features a healthy serving of favorites from Clean Up on Aisle Stupid! and You Can’t Fight Crazy. Don’t feel guilty for polishing it off in one sitting. Honestly…   . . . moderation is overrated.

Be a Flamingo & Stand Out From the Crowd


Sarah Ford - 2017
    She is always the first on the dancefloor and the very last to stop boogying. She has never tried to dress like a Parisian, never followed advice on what not to wear, and certainly has never tried to tone down her natural pinkness; she knows he is perfect just the way she is. And even when life throws Flamingo a curveball, she is always ready to embrace the unknown and jump straight in.A gorgeous little gift book of motivational sayings and hilarious axioms, Be a Flamingo is a perfect pink pick-me-up gift for a friend who needs a confidence boost, or great as an impulse self-purchase when you feel you need to start tooting your own horn a little louder. Because we could all do worse than taking a leaf out of Flamingo's book.

What's New, Vol. 1: The Collected Adventures of Phil and Dixie


Phil Foglio - 1991
    Originally published by Palliard Press.

Savage Chickens: A Survival Kit for Life in the Coop


Doug Savage - 2011
    I never miss a meal."-Dan Piraro, cartoonist of Bizarro We've all been forced to endure jobs we don't like. We get up, go to work, go to bed, and do it again. No one knows these pains better than Doug Savage, whose dream of being a cartoonist was eclipsed by his ho- hum office job. That is, until he started doodling chicken cartoons on Post-its and turned them into one of the Internet's most popular cartoon blogs. "Savage Chickens" is a collection of cartoons starring Doug's beloved chickens and their officemates that will get a laugh out of even the most jaded number-crunching colleague. Doug blends cynicism, optimism, and interactive activities to create a portable pep talk for the overworked and underappreciated that will keep you sane-and amused- during the morning bus ride, the meeting-filled Monday, the tenth load of laundry, the bathroom break, or the red-eye to the coast.Watch a Video

Pearls Takes a Wrong Turn: A Pearls Before Swine Treasury


Stephan Pastis - 2018
    Always together—and sometimes with their fellow funny-page characters—the regular Pearls clan weighs in on everything from modern technology to current events to human nature. All the members of the skewed gang are here as Zebra engages in a never-ending war of neighborly hate with the Crocs. As always, Goat offers a voice of reason amid the ongoing chaos that Pastis creates, either from behind the pen or as a character within the strip itself. Includes all cartoons from the collections I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream Because Puns Suck and Floundering Fathers.

Garfield: The Monday That Wouldn't End Original Graphic Novel: The Monday That Wouldn't End


Scott Nickel - 2019
    But this is no ordinary Monday, and the frazzled feline finds himself stuck in a time loop, reliving the agony over and over and over. Can Garfield find a way to end this rotten day or will he be stuck forever? Garfield and the gang are back in an all-new graphic novel with stories written by Scott Nickel and Mark Evanier (Garfield & Friends) and illustrated by series regular Antonio Alfaro and artist Dave Alvarez.

The Pogo Papers


Walt Kelly - 1953
    By the late 40's Kelly had transformed Pogo into a newspaper strip. The first of 45 books, simply titled Pogo, was released in 1951. This was quickly followed by I Go Pogo, Uncle Pogo's So-So Stories, The Pogo Papers, and The Pogo Stepmother Goose.

Age Happens: Garfield Hits the Big 4-0


Jim Davis - 2018
    Even Broadway legend Lin-Manuel Miranda gets into the act by composing the book’s foreword. This commemorative collection of birthday comic strips—plus a ton of other festive fun—is a gift for Garfield fans of all ages!

The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn


Daniel Clowes - 1994
    The 31 stories collected here combine Dragnet with The Twilight Zone with Tales from the Crypt in a world filled with aliens, good-time girls, and cocktail-bar nihilism. The stories are hip and funny, with a good dose of wacky 1950s paranoia and the kind of tongue-in-cheek morality that characterized the old E.C. horror comics. The Lloyd Llewellyn stories also trace the development of Clowes's style as a comic artist, from the angular early pieces that show the influence of 1950s advertising style to the grotesque Robert Crumb-inspired style of the more recent work in Eightball. Clowes is one of the most gifted comic-book artists around, and the retro-chic world of Lloyd Llewellyn deserves to be seen by a new generation of readers.

The Paradise Gig (Key West Capers Book 15)


Laurence Shames - 2020
    FICTION: Poolside at their motel, the Fab Four fell into conversation with a snappy-dressing local named Bert the Shirt, who listened as the band worked out a harmony to the most beautiful song he’d ever heard--and wouldn’t hear again for over half a century. FACT: That night, the Beatles played an unannounced free concert in the motel bar. Everyone was welcome. Local musicians showed up with guitars and keyboards, and had the once-in-a-lifetime experience of jamming with the Beatles till 4 am. This legendary event has forever after been known to Key West locals as THE PARADISE GIG.FICTION: Next day, hung over and exhausted, the Beatles left for the airport, having somehow lost a stained and battered notebook that held a priceless stash of unrecorded songs. NOW CUT TO THE PRESENT: A beautiful woman is doing a yoga headstand on a Key West beach when she’s abducted by a pair of thugs. An aspiring young singer is offered a recording deal that seems a bit too good to be true. Bad things happen to a couple of one-hit wonders…And old Bert hears a new song that is hauntingly familiar, but that he can’t quite place.Could it possibly be the same song he’d heard at poolside so many years before? Could it be that all the present mayhem circles back through the decades to THE PARADISE GIG? Could the precious, even sacred, Beatles notebook possibly turn up after all these years? Could Bert be the hero who would rediscover that stash of unheard songs for music lovers everywhere—and save a young singer’s life in the process? With Nacho, his intrepid Chihuahua, at his side, and with no one but bumbling detective Pete Amsterdam for an ally, the undaunted Bert the Shirt sets out through the Florida haze to piece it all together, learning along the way how much the world has changed—and how much it has not. In equal parts suspenseful and nostalgic, funny and romantic, this time-bending caper celebrates the power of music and the many tricks of memory, the joys of youth and the comforts of age, and the free and funky spirit of Key West.

Daisy Days: Hilarious Misadventures


Lynne Gumbleton - 2019
    How did we ever find time to go to work. New to Caravanning. Its mishaps. Its pleasures. Its fun. Susie and Jack take early retirement and end up biting off more than they can chew. An unexpected inheritance changes their lives forever.

They Called Him Kinardley - The Best Dog I Ever Had


Gerald Hartenhoff - 2013
    (Short story)"Everybody in the little town of Emery knew who Kinardley was. The few times they would unchain him from the tree for a little exercise; he would take off and be gone for days. During the time he was gone he would get into fights, flirt with the girl dogs and get into people's garbage."

Camp Scoundrel: Doing what it takes to survive paradise


David Luddington - 2018
    What Michael doesn’t expect, is to be put in charge of a group of offenders and sent to a remote location in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Spain to teach them survival skills as part of their rehabilitation programme. But Michael knows nothing at all about survival skills. He was sort of in the SAS, yes, but his shining record on the “Escape and Evasion” courses was more a testament to his computer skills than his ability to catch wildlife and barbecue it over an impromptu fire. Basically, he was the SAS’s techy nerd and only achieved that position as a result of a bet with a fellow hacker. Facing a stark choice between starvation or returning home to serve out their sentences, the group of offenders under Michael’s supervision soon realise that the only way to survive is to use their own unique set of skills – the kind of skills that got them arrested in the first place.