When the elder Thaddeus Gropius confronts Wally with the boilerplate plot ultimatum that he must marry "the saddest girl in the world" or be disinherited, a yarn unravels that is part screwball comedy and part unhinged parable on the lucrativeness of changing your identity.Hensley's dialogue is witty, lyrical, sampled, dada, and elliptical--all in the service of a very bizarre mystery. There's sex, violence, rock and roll, intrigue, and betrayal--all brought home in Hensley's truly inimitable style.Created during an era when another well-off "W" was stuffing the coffers of the morbidly solvent, Wally Gropius transforms futile daydreams and nightmares into the absurdity of capital.

    The comics here are sophisticated, unusual narratives about animal musicians, mischievous children, cavemen and heavenly bodies.

    This initial volume collects the first two years of stories from Dave Sim's 300-issue magnum opus. Don't be discouraged by the initially crude artwork or the silliness of the stories. It gets better--even noticeably within this volume. This first installment is the most valuable in preparing for the larger stories ahead.When we first meet Cerebus--a small, gray, and chronically ill-tempered aardvark--he is making his living as a barbarian. In 1977, when the Cerebus comic book series began, Sim initially conceived of it as a parody of such popular series as Conan, Red Sonja, and Elric but quickly mined that material and transformed the scope of the series into much more. Even by the end of this volume, the Cerebus story begins to transform beyond "funny animal" humor into something much more complex and interesting. High points in Cerebus include the introduction of Lord Julius, the dictator of Palnu, who looks, acts, and talks just like a certain cigar-smoking, mustachioed comedian; Jaka, Cerebus's one true love; Elrod the Albino, an innept swordsman; and the Cockroach, the-mother-of-all-superhero-parodies and "inspiration" for the much-later TV and comic character--the Tick. All of these characters appear later on in the series as part of a constantly present ensemble of supporting figures.Even if Cerebus doesn't knock your socks off, give its successor, High Society a try, as this is where the plot really gets going.

    Skillfully drawn single panels explore a rich imagined world where actions have unexpected consequences and loneliness pervades, but not without a sense of the absurd. The stories read like vignettes that can span a day or decades, all drawn within a bordered page in intimate detail.Each story unfolds quickly and features characters that run the gamut: joke-writing sisters gone awry, a wandering sleepwalker, a pearl with curious properties, an elusive coughing neighbor, a wide-eyed girl of questionable appeal, even a storm drain. Whether animate or inanimate, sweet or monstrous, Lilli has the ability to infuse them all with pathos, humanity, and humor.

    This title features Incorrigible Hulk!, Startling Stories: The Megalomaniacal Spider-Man, Hulk vs the Rain, and Diary of the Hulk.

    The first four were self-xeroxed efforts, and led to a prestigious Xeric Grant in 1996, enabling her to publish a more professionally packaged fifth issue. This volume presents the best of these five comic books, as well as other short strips, to a larger audience for the first time. Abel's stories are peppered with hipsters, fashion, and trendy locales - all of which have contributed to her considerable appeal - but don't let the generational trappings fool you. Her intuitive ear for dialogue and characterization have made Artbabe a hit amongst people of all ages, especially women. TP, 120pg, b&w

    Renowned for its gleefully incisive social satire and riotous absurdity, Entertainment Weekly proclaimed it "the year's best regularly published comic book" upon its debut in 1989. The Village Voice proclaimed it "brilliant," and Art Spiegelman called it "curdlingly good." Simpsons creator Matt Groening has repeatedly called it his favorite comic book.20th Century Eightball collects the very best humor strips from Eightball, written and drawn between 1988 and 1996. Included within are such seminal strips/rants as "I Hate You Deeply," "Sexual Frustration," "Ugly Girls," "Why I Hate Christians," "Message to the People of the Future," "Paranoid," "My Suicide," "Chicago," and over three dozen more. Other favorites include "Art School Confidential," one of Clowes' most popular strips of all-time: made into a motion picture with a screenplay by Ghost World's Clowes and Terry Zwigoff. Also included is Clowes' hilariously Freudian deconstruction of professional athletes, "On Sports," which caused a stir in San Antonio last year when reprinted in the city's most popular weekly paper, prompting an advertising boycott and demands for the paper to be destroyed by local sports fans. Noted comics historian Roger Sabin, author of Phaidon's Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels, calls 20th Century Eightball a "corrosively satirical vision of an America cracking apart, and confirms Clowes as a worthy successor to the underground greats of the 1960s."

    The latter three-quarters will collect his acclaimed short stories from MOME, as well as several little-seen stories from elsewhere, and a new 20-page story.The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. is Shaw’s first book since his breakthrough graphic novel of 2008, Bottomless Belly Button, which was named Publishers Weekly’s best graphic novel of 2008, one of Entertainment Weekly’s top ten books of 2008, and one of Amazon.com’s top ten graphic novels of the year, amongst numerous other accolades.The book also collects Shaw’s acclaimed, genre-bending short stories from MOME, including “Look Forward, First Son of Terra Two,” a remarkable story of two lovers traveling in opposite directions… in time. Also featured: “Galactic Funnels,” the 2008 Ignatz Award nominee for “Outstanding Story,” about the parasitic relationship between an artist and his lover/mentor; “Satellite CMYK,” a sci-fi mindwarp that ingeniously drives the narrative through Shaw’s masterful control of color, and “Making the Abyss,” a fictionalized story of a surreal film set filled with nuclear tanks, hot tubs, and blind ambition.“Like the very best illustrated fiction, Shaw’s work moves between pathos and humor, between the fantastic and the familiar.”—The Christian Science Monitor“Shaw’s style deftly combines cartoon drawings with a slavish attention to detail…Masterfully using the comics medium to juggle all the different characters, weaving their stories together seamlessly.”—Publishers Weekly

    Times Book Prizes Finalist (Graphic Novel/Comics) 2016A collection of two new stories from cartoonist and Adventure Time contributor Sam Alden. In "Household," a brother and sister deal with divergent memories of their father and grow closer than ever. In "Backyard," vegans and anarchists share a house, small dramas and bizarre transformations (featuring a new, never before published ending). Designed as a companion volume for the critically acclaimed It Never Happened Again, New Construction cements Sam Alden's reputation as one of the best cartoonists of his generation.Sam Alden Sam Alden is the author of It Never Happened Again, Wicked Chicken Queen, and Lydian, among others. He is a two-time Ignatz winner and four-time nominee, and works full-time as a writer and storyboarder on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time.Praise for Sam Alden's It Never Happened Again:"Alden's natural sense of framing and pace, his willingness to use silent panels to tell stories, and his beautiful (yes, beautiful) pencil images combined to open my eyes to a new idea of what a great comic can be. It helps that he's also an excellent writer—both stories sketch out lonely, lost characters efficiently, and put them each through very different quests for meaning."—Dan Kois, Slate"Two thematically divergent, but devastatingly human portraits from an emerging cartoonist displaying the sort of storytelling and artistic restraint that often only comes after years of toiling away at the drawing board. Alden is a talent to watch."—Publishers Weekly

    Lizard aliens! New Physics! Electromages! Wastelands! Star Warrior robots! Social media cults! Pizza!

    His best friend, Pete, falls in love with an alien he's forced to sell into green slavery, while his ex, Anna, watches her Xombie War veteran boyfriend turn into the drug he's addicted to. King City, an underbelly of a town run by spy gangs and dark dark magic with mystery down every alleyway.

    Written by Warren Ellis, this collection features a host of one and two-page pieces from comics' finest artists illustrating excerpts from the Word columns of crazed outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem.

    - A new quarterly anthology of the best new talent in the sequential arts- In color, part-color, and black-and-white- The regular roster of artists gives the series a concrete identity- Quarterly schedule allows readers to look forward to favorite artists on a regular basis- Created for a general audience of literature fans, with a focus on contemporary fiction and narrative

    Comic-book retailers, auctioneers, and conventioneers from around North America, as well as Green's collecting rivals, weigh in on the man and his vast collection of comic books. Are Green's intentions honorable? Does he truly love comics or is he driven by the need to conquer? Lastly, is he really even Wimbledon Green?A charming and amusing caper where comic-book collecting is a world of intrigue and high finance. Part riotous chase, part whimsical character sketch, Wimbledon Green looks at the need to collect and the need to reinvent oneself.

    She deftly uses her pencil to create thick, expressive characters moving through the twilight of a shadowy Orwellian world. Humorous and bewitching at the same time, Percy Gloom is a unique gem of a story. The story begins with our hero bravely striking out on his own for the first time, leaving his mother's house to apply for his dream job as a cautionary writer for the Safely-Now Corporation. In the process, he uncovers an unreal world of secret societies, benevolent families, and bureaucratic security. Lazy-eyed Percy Gloom fights to overcome the loss of his wife, Lila, to a truth-pointing, lotharian cult leader. Approached by his doctor to help protect some special people and given advice by some talking goats, Percy comes to terms with his place in the gloomy world and finds himself reaching enlightenment (literally). Percy Gloom is an absurd but hopeful fable for these strange times we live in.2008 Eisner Award winner: Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award and 2008 Eisner Award Nominee: Best New Graphic Album.