Monk!: Thelonious, Pannonica, and the Friendship Behind a Musical Revolution


Youssef Daoudi - 2018
    He is Thelonious Sphere Monk, a musical genius fighting against the whims of his troubled mind. Their enduring friendship begins in 1954 and ends only with Monk’s death in 1982.Set against the backdrop of New York during the heyday of jazz, Monk! explores the rare alchemy between two brilliant beings separated by an ocean of social status, race, and culture, but united by an infinite love of music. This breathtaking graphic novel by Youssef Daoudi beautifully captures the life of the “the high priest of bop” in spontaneous, evocative pen and ink that seems to make visible jazz itself.

I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf


Grant Snider - 2020
    We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics. With a striking package including a die-cut cover, I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf is the perfect gift for bookworms of all ages.

Poppies of Iraq


Brigitte Findakly - 2016
    In spare and elegant detail, they share memories of her middle class childhood touching on cultural practices, the education system, Saddam Hussein's state control, and her family's history as Orthodox Christians in the arab world. Poppies of Iraq is intimate and wide-ranging; the story of how one can become separated from one's homeland and still feel intimately connected yet ultimately estranged.Signs of an oppressive regime permeate a seemingly normal life: magazines arrive edited by customs; the color red is banned after the execution of General Kassim; Baathist militiamen are publicly hanged and school kids are bussed past them to bear witness. As conditions in Mosul worsen over her childhood, Brigitte's father is always hopeful that life in Iraq will return to being secular and prosperous. The family eventually feels compelled to move to Paris, however, where Brigitte finds herself not quite belonging to either culture. Trondheim brings to life Findakly's memories to create a poignant family portrait that covers loss, tragedy, love, and the loneliness of exile.

Assassin's Creed: The Fall


Cameron Stewart - 2010
    ASSASSIN’S CREED: THE FALL is an exciting new chapter in the popular series that no fan will want to miss.

Motel of the Mysteries


David Macaulay - 1979
    Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.

Godspeed: The Kurt Cobain Graphic


James McCarthy - 2003
    The script draws from the singer's tortured self-image as well as straightforward biographical fact. In full color throughout.

Jane Austen: Her Heart Did Whisper


Manuela Santoni - 2017
    Before she was the beloved author of Pride and Prejudice and other classic novels, Jane Austen was a young woman wrestling with society's expectations and challenges of the heart. Her own story involves choices that changed literary history—and perhaps even the choice to walk away from love. This graphic imagining of Jane Austen's youth includes her creative awakening and her much-speculated-upon encounters with Tom Lefroy, a brash law student. Jane Austen: Her Heart Did Whisper is a vision of the thrills and pains of young romance, the bonds of sisterhood, and the decisions that make a person who she is.

Nothing Lasts Forever


Sina Grace - 2017
    Chronicling a year of heartbreaks, writer's block, career highs, emotional lows, and the emergence of a mystery illness, Nothing Lasts Forever is Grace's unflinching exploration of how to pick up the pieces and find hope when absolutely everything falls apart. If life's a show, Grace makes certain that it's worth every pay-per-view.

God Is Disappointed in You


Mark Russell - 2011
    if it would just cut to the chase. Stripped of its arcane language and its interminable passages of poetry, genealogy, and law, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each. Written by Mark Russell with cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You is a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday School teachers and church sermons. Irreverent yet faithful, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to see past the fog of religious agendas and cultural debates to discover what the Bible really says.

In a Daze Work: A Pick-Your-Path Journey Through the Daily Grind


Siobhan Gallagher - 2017
    From small-talk to dating to death, In A Daze Work is an exciting, playful new spin on the minute and mundane decisions that make up your daily life. Each flip of the page puts you in control of the story: Will you stay in or go out? Do you wake up or sleep in? How will you navigate a bad date, or a party full of cookie-cutter couples (available in vanilla flavor only)? More importantly, where will your decisions take you? Bringing humor and sly self-reflection to the humdrum details of adulthood with hand-drawn illustrations and sharp wit, this relatable visual journey will help you find the extraordinary (or at least hilarious) moments in any day of the week.

The Best American Comics 2006


Harvey PekarAlison Bechdel - 2006
    The inaugural volume includes stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web.Contributors include Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Kim Deitch, Jaime Hernandez, Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco, and Lynda Barry—and unique discoveries such as Justin Hall, Esther Pearl Watson, and Lilli Carré.

How To Be Happy


Eleanor Davis - 2014
    Davis is one of the finest cartoonists of her generation, and has been producing comics since the mid-2000s. Happy represents the best stories she's drawn for such curatorial venues as Mome and No-Brow, as well as her own self-publishing and web efforts. Davis achieves a rare, subtle poignancy in her narratives that are at once compelling and elusive, pregnant with mystery and a deeply satisfying emotional resonance. Happy shows the full range of Davis's graphic skills -- sketchy drawing, polished pen and ink line work, and meticulously designed full color painted panels-- which are always in the service of a narrative that builds to a quietly devastating climax.

Forget Sorrow: An Ancestral Tale


Belle Yang - 2010
    The history she’d ignored while growing up became a source of comfort and inspiration, and narrowed the gap separating her—an independent, Chinese-American woman—from her Old World Chinese parents.In Forget Sorrow, Yang makes her debut into the graphic form with the story of her father’s family, reunited under the House of Yang in Manchuria during the Second World War and struggling—both together and individually—to weather poverty, famine, and, later, Communist oppression. The parallels between Belle Yang’s journey of self-discovery and the lives and choices of her grandfather, his brothers, and their father (the Patriarch) speak powerfully of the conflicts between generations—and of possibilities for reconciliation.Forget Sorrow demonstrates the power of storytelling and remembrance, as Belle—in telling this story—finds the strength to honor both her father and herself.

Citizen 13660


Mine Okubo - 1946
    Citizen 13660, Okubo's illustrated memoir of life in relocation centers in California and Utah, illuminates this experience with poignant drawings and witty, candid text.This classic in Asian American literature and American history, with a new introduction by Christine Hong, is available for the first time in both a traditional paperback format and an artist's edition, oversize and in hardcover to better illustrate the innovative artwork as originally envisioned by Okubo."[Mine Okubo] took her months of life in the concentration camp and made it the material for this amusing, heartbreaking book. . . . The moral is never expressed, but the wry pictures and the scanty words make the reader laugh - and if he is an American too - blush." - Pearl Buck"A remarkably objective and vivid and even humorous account. . . . In dramatic and detailed drawings and brief text, [Okubo] documents the whole episode . . . all that she saw, objectively, yet with a warmth of understanding." " - New York Times Book Review"

Unlovable


Esther Pearl Watson - 2008
    This remarkably touching and funny graphic novel tells the first-person account of Tammy’s sophomore year in 1985, from the first day of school to winter break. Her hopes, dreams, agonies and defeats are brought to vivid, comedic life by Watson’s lovingly grotesque drawings, filled with all the eighties essentials—too much mascara, leg warmers with heels and huge hair—as well as timeless teen concerns like acne, dandruff, and the opposite sex (or same sex, in some cases).In the epic saga that is Unlovable, Tammy finds herself dealing with: tampons, teasing, crushes, The Smiths, tube socks, facial hair, lice, celibacy, fantasy dream proms, gym showers, skid marks, a secret admirer, prank calls, backstabbers, winter ball, barfing, narcs, breakdancing, hot wheels, glamour shots, roller coasters, Halloween costumes, boogers, boys, boy crazy feelings, biker babes, and even some butt cracks. Tammy’s life isn’t pretty, but it is endlessly charming and hilarious.Originally serialized in Bust magazine, Unlovable includes over 100 new pages created just for this edition, which is handsomely packaged in a unique hot pink hardcover format with sparkly blue glitter that would make Tammy proud.