Lout Rampage!


Daniel Clowes - 1992
    This 1991 paperback includes stories from Eightball #1-6, along with strips Clowes created for alternative comics anthologies Blab!, Young Lust, and Weirdo. It includes several of the cartoonist’s one-page collaborations with The Duplex Planet creator David Greenberger and two of his most well-known comic-strip rants: “I Hate You Deeply” and “I Love You Tenderly.”

Amy and Jordan


Mark Beyer - 2004
    Mark Beyer was breathing delirious, heartbreaking, otherworldly life into it by means of Amy and Jordan. Obviously, you weren’t reading New York Press. But I sure was. Voraciously. Back in 1989, when I discovered that Beyer’s strips were appearing regularly in this new “alternative weekly” paper, I quickly became hooked, and a thought seized me: I had to clip and save them–they were exquisite poems of urban despair, dreamy and nightmarish. I was already a fan of Beyer’s talent based on his book Agony (Pantheon, 1988), but these new strips revealed, week by week, a whole new dimension to his work–an ingenious reinvention of panel-design that redefined what a comic strip could be. As with Peanuts, it helps to try and picture these in the context which they first appeared in order to appreciate just how profoundly they emerged from anything else on the newspaper page. Even the “outré” NYP ads and listings which often ran alongside them were hopelessly dull by comparison. One of its most impressive aspects was the way Form served the Content–no matter how eccentric the layout got, it somehow never confused the narrative. And what narrative: it was as if Candide had been transported to the East Village and split in two like an amoeba and holed up in a squat on Avenue C. Along with giant bugs from outer space. So I did clip and save them, and put them into an envelope, which was then placed in a shoebox with a lot of other envelopes (receipts, receipts!), which was shoved to the back of the closet of my sixth-floor walk-up studio apartment, which I moved out of three years later and in the process I unwittingly threw them all away. Which frankly is just the sort of thing that Amy and Jordan would do. Drat. “Oh well,” I thought, once I’d realized it, “at some point someone will collect and publish them, and I’ll get them back that way.” And that was that. Fast forward more than ten years, to the spring of 2002. During a panel of cartoonists I was chairing in Philadelphia, a member of the audience asked what Mark was working on and where he was. No one seemed to know. The discussion was transcribed and published in The Comics Journal that summer, and in the fall Mark contacted me with the best possible news: He’d read the panel transcript and wanted to publish again. And the Amy and Jordan strips had never been comprehensively collected. So now, as an editor, I was able to grant my own wish. Amy and Jordan ran from 1988 through early 1996. After that, Beyer put cartooning aside to pursue other projects. This book signals his return to the realm of comics, which he says he wants to start making again. We can only hope he does. For now, I’m just thankful I finally have my Amy and Jordan collection back. –Chip Kidd, NYC, 10/03

The Acme Novelty Datebook, Vol. 2, 1995-2002


Chris Ware - 2007
    All phone numbers, references to ex-girlfriends, "false starts," and embarrassing experiments with unfamiliar drawing media have been generously excised to present the reader with the most pleasant and colorful sketchbook reading experience available. Included are Ware's frustrated doodles for his book covers, angry personal assaults on friends, half-finished comic strips, and lengthy and tiresome fulminations of personal disappointments both social and sexual, as well as his now-beloved drawings of the generally miserable inhabitants of the city of Chicago. All in all, a necessary volume for fans of fine art, water-based media, and personal diatribe. This hardcover is attractively designed and easy to resell.

Why Are You Doing This?


Jason - 2004
    The protagonist, a moody twenty-something wallowing in depression after a breakup with his long-time girlfriend, finds himself drawn into a paranoid's worst nightmare after his best friend is murdered and the blame is pinned on him. With the help of a single mother who spontaneously throws in her lot with him (not to mention her precocious daughter), he sets out to clear his name. Soon new relationships are forged, dark secrets from the past are revealed, and the real killer comes back into the picture... with a vengeance.

Sufi Comics - The Wise Fool of Baghdad


Mohammed Ali Vakil - 2012
    Bahlool who lived in Baghdad, circa the 8th century AD, feigned madness to escape the oppression of the ruling class. Now free of the burden of normalcy he dispensed wisdom in strange and amusing ways.The Wise Fool of Baghdad is a collection of these true stories, richly illustrated in the Turkish-Iranian miniature style. Every story is followed by sacred verses of the Qur'an and traditional sayings, inscribed in Arabic By Muqtar Ahmed, one of India's finest Islamic calligraphers.Get the book. In the crazy times we live in, you'll probably need a fool to make sense of it all.http://www.suficomics.com

The Amateurs


Conor Stechschulte - 2014
    We flashback to a pair of butchers who arrive at work one morning to find not only that there is no meat in their shop but also that they have forgotten completely how to do their job. As customers arrive, they are too fearful for their livelihood to admit their dilemma, leading to increasingly disastrous events. But what has caused their strange amnesia? This often hilarious, enigmatic and uncomfortable book will establish Stechschulte as an exciting new talent."

Goodell vs. Obama: The Battle for the Future of the NFL


David Rappoccio - 2014
    Damn, now I sound stupid, too." -Bomani Jones, ESPN "It's great, and I have no idea what just happened, but Jerry Jones dick exploded and that's enough for me." -Spencer Hall, SB Nation "The only parody Twitter account worth following" -Deadspin.com "This is the least influential book of anything I've ever read. I hated it." -Adolf Hitler In what is being hailed by many, probably, as the best, funniest, most gut-shittingly poignant literary work since The New Testament, PFT Commenter takes you on a realistic-fiction journey through the backdoor politics of today's NFL. Set in the 2014 offseason, Roger Goodell and President Barack Obama become locked in a mano a mano battle over the future of the Dallas Cowboys, culminating in a literal fight to the death. Starring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Barack Obama, Mike Ditka, Joe Biden, Michael Vick, Peter King, Ron Jaworski, Dan Snyder, Robert Griffin III, Danny Woodhead, J.J. Watt, Jerry Jones, Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, and many more of your favorite NFL stars and media personalities; "Goodell vs. Obama: The Battle for the Future of the NFL" will take you on a journey that any NFL fan is sure to love, or at least not hate. WARNING: Told through the narrative eye and screaming mouth of an uneducated internet commenter, this book is filled with grammatical errors. It was written by a someone who was raised on scorching hot sports takes, light beer, and an undying love for Roger Goodell. He cares about TELLING, not about spelling. If that's going to be a problem,, there's the door.

Two Guys Fooling Around with the Moon


B. Kliban - 1982
    Brilliantly drawn and bitterly funny, these cartoons thoroughly demonstrate better living through plywood, reaffirm that what's good for business is good for America-even if Your Government in Action has taken to the streets-the Madonna is out of order and Yoga has been made silly. 122,000 copies in print.

Maria M.


Gilbert Hernández - 2018
    When she comes to America for a better life, she marries a drug kingpin, whose son learns Maria’s darkest secret, leading to the most violent gangland bloodbath in organized crime history. Maria M. collects 2013’s Book One (now out of print), and the never-before-published Book Two, presenting the complete graphic novel for the first time. Longtime readers of Hernandez’s books will recognize a metatwist worthy of Maria M.’s pulpy pages: Maria M. doubles as a “biopic” of the mother of Hernandez’s most beloved character: Luba from Love and Rockets!

Creepy Comics Volume 1


Shawna Gore - 2011
    If that's not enough to make you scream with delight, we're also adding a special color section featuring the two Creepy stories that helped re-launch Dark Horse Presents on MySpace You'll get all of this tantalizing terror for under twenty bucks - it's a killer deal

Never Ending Summer


Allison Cole - 2004
    Parties, excessive drinking, and financial instability add to the commotion. Drawn in a beautiful minimal style with delicate two-color printing.

Ripple: A Predilection for Tina


Dave Cooper - 2003
    Unlike those works, Ripple is a highly realistic story in terms of subject matter and drawing style. Martin is a floundering painter desperately attempting to pursue his fine art inclinations rather than toil in the world of commercial art. He hires a homely model, Tina, to pose for a series of "erotic" paintings that he hopes will be his breakthrough into the gallery world. Over time, Martin and Tina's relationship evolves from a tenuous working relationship to a confused sexual one. Martin's initial repulsion for Tina slowly turns to attraction and eventually lust, causing him to re-evaluate his own notions of beauty and sexuality. Meanwhile, Tina's own motives behind working for Martin are slowly turned upside down as well, building the book towards its inevitably explosive end. Throughout it all, Ripple is a complex love story poked and prodded from all angles, from Martin and Tina's physical and emotional feelings toward each other, Martin's dishonesty to himself, Tina's self-loathing, and everything in between. Sad, funny, and often uncomfortably titillating, Ripple is a remarkably introspective graphic novel, rendered with kinetic realism in a pen technique that calls to mind a more controlled Edward Sorel and Jules Feiffer.

Ex Libris


Matt Madden - 2021
    As they peruse covers, read stories and fragments of stories, they begin to suspect that the comics contain hidden messages and… a threat. Fiction and reality blur; sanity and madness become increasingly intertwined as the reader becomes convinced the key to their predicament is to be found between the panels of the strange books. With a dizzying array of inventive visual and narrative styles, Ex Libris continues the line of exploration and play that Madden initiated with 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. Ex Libris is a tribute to the meta-fictional tradition of writers like Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Vladimir Nabokov, and Italo Calvino (whose novel, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, was the inspiration).

A Body Beneath: Collecting Issues of the Comic Book Series "Lose"


Michael DeForge - 2014
    DeForge's singular vision reveals the menace in the mundane, the humor in the horrific. He has crafted a phantasmagoria of stories that feature a spider-infested pet horse head, post-apocalyptic dogs dealing with existential angst, the romantic undertones of a hired hit, and more.

Beware it's the Defective Detectives - Volume 1


Luis Fernandes - 2011
    The hapless duo of Ravi and Rahul who see crime in everything, everywhere. And if there is no case for them to solve, rest assured they’ll invent one! • Rahul and Ravi are hot on the heels of a mobile phone thief. But with so many distractions around them, solving the case turns out to be more challenging than they imagined in Surprise Catch. • It’s a fishy situation when our detective duo finds a ticking fish. Convinced it contains a bomb, they race to the police. And that’s when things take a turn for the worst. Follow the (mis)adventure in The Fishy Story. • MrsShanta’s diamond necklace has been stolen! Rahul and Ravi are on the case, but someone else is much, much closer to solving the crime. Find out who this mystery detective is in Jewel Thief!