Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth


Apostolos Doxiadis - 2009
     This graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, he crosses paths with thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert & Kurt Gödel, & finds a passionate student in Ludwig Wittgenstein. But his most ambitious goal—to establish unshakable logical foundations of mathematics—continues to loom before him. Thru love & hate, peace & war, he persists in the mission threatening to claim both his career & happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity. This story is at the same time a historical novel & an accessible explication of some of the biggest ideas of mathematics & modern philosophy. With rich characterizations & atmospheric artwork, it spins the pursuit of such ideas into a satisfying tale. Probing, layered, the book throws light on Russell’s inner struggles while setting them in the context of the timeless questions he tried to answer. At its heart, Logicomix is a story about the conflict between ideal rationality & the flawed fabric of reality.

Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story


Fellowship of Reconciliation - 1958
    King, and 50,000 others used the power of nonviolence to battle segregation on city buses—and win. First published in December 1957 by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, it went unnoticed by the mainstream comic book industry but spread like wildfire among civil rights groups, churches, and schools, helping to mobilize a generation to join the global fight for equality—nonviolently. Personally endorsed by Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, over time this comic book has reached beyond his time and place to inspire activists in Latin America, South Africa, Vietnam, Egypt, and beyond… as well as inspiring March, the new graphic novel trilogy by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. This new fully-authorized digital edition is published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation in partnership with Top Shelf Productions. All proceeds go to F.O.R.'s work promoting nonviolence around the world.

Displacement: A Travelogue


Lucy Knisley - 2015
    In the next installment of her graphic travelogue series, Displacement, Knisley volunteers to watch over her ailing grandparents on a cruise. (The book s watercolors evoke the ocean that surrounds them.) In a book that is part graphic memoir, part travelogue, and part family history, Knisley not only tries to connect with her grandparents, but to reconcile their younger and older selves. She is aided in her quest by her grandfather s WWII memoir, which is excerpted. Readers will identify with Knisley s frustration, her fears, her compassion, and her attempts to come to terms with mortality, as she copes with the stress of travel complicated by her grandparents frailty."

Unearthing


Alan Moore - 2012
    Is it great art? Yes!" -- N.M.E.“The men of Unearthing are only marginally of this plane of existence, and what they’ve created is positively out of this world.” -- The AV Club“A tribute to a colleague and mentor and a demonstration that Moore has transcended the boundaries of the graphic novel.” – The New York TimesOne of the world’s foremost authors of the fantastic, Alan Moore, joins internationally esteemed photographer Mitch Jenkins for an unprecedented visual and literary experience. An intensely poetic and innovative work of biography, Unearthing maps the lifetime of author, orientalist and occultist Steve Moore, while simultaneously investigating the extraordinary history of South London with which that life has been intertwined. Integrating text with haunting and exquisite imagery, Unearthing excavates a territory at the margins of a city, of reality, and of human imagination.Starting life in Iain Sinclair’s seminal anthology LONDON: City of Disappearances, this dazzling and hypnotic piece has evolved through a series of live performances and acclaimed recordings, culminating in this breathtaking full-color volume. Three formats are available, a deluxe softcover edition, a special oversized hardcover edition limited to 1,200 copies worldwide, and a special signed and numbered oversized hardcover edition limited to 300 copies worldwide.-- Co-Published by Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout.-- 184 Pages, 11.75” x 16.5” aka A3 size (wow!)

Labor


Thi Bui - 2011
    Should she induce labor and have an epidural and succumb to the doctors wishes for many seemingly invasive procedures or try to wait it out? Bui’s writing presents the stress and lack of control with a honest and personal style."

Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster--the Creators of Superman


Brad Ricca - 2013
    Among scores of new discoveries, the book reveals the first stories and pictures ever published by the two, where the first Superman story really came from, the real inspiration for Lois Lane, the template for Superman's costume, and much, much more. Super Boys also tracks the boys' unknown, often mysterious lives after they left Superman, including Siegel's secret work during World War II and never-before-seen work from Shuster.Super Boys explains, finally, what exactly happened with the infamous check for $130 that pulled Superman away from his creators—and gave control of the character to the publisher. Ricca also uncovers the true nature of Jerry's father's death, a crime that has always remained a mystery. Super Boys is the story of a long friendship between boys who grew to be men and the standard that would be impossible for both of them to live up to.

Akbar: A Visionary Monarch


Anant Pai - 1979
    Crowned emperor of Hindustan at the age of 13, he was mature enough to choose his friends carefully. Enemies and dangerous courtiers, on the other hand, were dispatched mercilessly. For his courage and generosity, his love of the arts and universal justice, history gave Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar an enduring label - 'Akbar the Great'.

Showa, 1926-1939: A History of Japan


水木しげる - 2013
    This volume deals with the period leading up to World War II, a time of high unemployment and other economic hardships caused by the Great Depression. Mizuki's photo-realist style effortlessly brings to life the Japan of the 1920s and 1930s, depicting bustling city streets and abandoned graveyards with equal ease. When the Showa era began, Mizuki himself was just a few years old, so his earliest memories coincide with the earliest events of the time. With his trusty narrator Nezumi Otoko (Rat Man), Mizuki brings history into the realm of the personal, making it palatable, and indeed compelling, for young audiences as well as more mature readers. As he describes the militarization that leads up to World War II, Mizuki's stance toward war is thoughtful and often downright critical--his portrayal of the Nanjing Massacre clearly paints the incident (a disputed topic within Japan) as an atrocity. Mizuki's "Showa 1926-1939" is a beautifully told history that tracks how technological developments and the country's shifting economic stability had a role in shaping Japan's foreign policy in the early twentieth century.

Monet: Itinerant of Light


Salva Rubio - 2017
    From the Salon des Refuses (“Salon of the Rejected”) and many struggling years without recognition, money, and yet a family to raise, all the way to great success, critically and financially, Monet pursued insistently one vision: catching the light in painting, refusing to compromise on this ethereal pursuit. It cost him dearly but he was a beacon for his contemporaries. We discover in this comics biography how he came to this vision as well as his turbulent life pursuing it.

A Drifting Life


Yoshihiro Tatsumi - 2008
    A Drifting Life is his monumental memoir eleven years in the making, beginning with his experiences as a child in Osaka, growing up as part of a country burdened by the shadows of World War II.Spanning fifteen years from August 1945 to June 1960, Tatsumi’s stand-in protagonist, Hiroshi, faces his father’s financial burdens and his parents’ failing marriage, his jealous brother’s deteriorating health, and the innumerable pitfalls that await him in the competitive manga market of mid-twentieth-century Japan. He dreams of following in the considerable footsteps of his idol, the manga artist Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy, Apollo’s Song, Ode to Kirihito, Buddha)—with whom Tatsumi eventually became a peer and, at times, a stylistic rival. As with his short-story collection, A Drifting Life is designed by Adrian Tomine.

Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin


Pierre Assouline - 1996
    Translated into dozens of languages, Tintin's adventures have sold millions of copies, and Steven Spielberg is presently adapting the stories for the big screen. Yet, despite Tintin's enduring popularity, Americans know almost nothing about his gifted creator, Georges Remi--better known as Herg�. Offering a captivating portrait of a man who revolutionized the art of comics, this is the first full biography of Herg� available for an English-speaking audience. Born in Brussels in 1907, Herg� began his career as a cub reporter, a profession he gave to his teenaged, world-traveling hero. But whereas Tintin was fully formed, clear-headed, and positive, Assouline notes, his inventor was complex, contradictory, inscrutable. For all his huge success--achieved with almost no formal training--Herg� would say unassumingly of his art, I was just happy drawing little guys, that's all. Granted unprecedented access to thousands of the cartoonist's unpublished letters, Assouline gets behind the genial public mask to take full measure of Herg�'s life and art and the fascinating ways in which the two intertwine. Neither sugarcoating nor sensationalizing his subject, he meticulously probes such controversial issues as Herg�'s support for Belgian imperialism in the Congo and his alleged collaboration with the Nazis. He also analyzes the underpinnings of Tintin--how the conception of the character as an asexual adventurer reflected Herg�'s appreciation for the Boy Scouts organization as well as his Catholic mentor's anti-Soviet ideology--and relates the comic strip to Herg�'s own place within the Belgian middle class. A profound influence on a generation of artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, the elusive figure of Herg� comes to life in this illuminating biography--a deeply nuanced account that unveils the man and his career as never before.

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D


David Kushner - 2017
    Like the game itself, the narrative casts the reader into the adventure from a first person point of view, taking on the roles of the different characters in the story. Gygax was the son of immigrants who grew up in Lake Geneva, WI, in the 1950s. An imaginative misfit, he escaped into a virtual world based on science fiction novels, military history and strategic games like chess. In the mid-1970s, he co-created the wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons game. Starting out in the basement of his home, he was soon struggling to keep up with the demand. Gygax was a purist, in the sense that he was adamant that players use their imaginations and that the rules of the game remain flexible. A creative mind with no real knowledge of business, he made some strategic errors and had a falling out with the game's co-creator, his close friend and partner, David Arneson. By the late 1970s the game had become so popular among kids that parents started to worry -- so much so that a mom's group was formed to alert parents to the dangers of role play and fantasy. The backlash only fueled the fires of the young fans who continued to play the game, escaping into imaginary worlds. Before long, D&D conventions were set up around the country and the game inspired everything from movies to the first video games. With D&D, Gygax created the kind of role playing fantasy that would fuel the multibillion dollar video game industry, and become a foundation of contemporary geek culture.

Ethel and Ernest


Raymond Briggs - 1998
    They meet during the Depression -- she working as a chambermaid, he as a milkman -- and we follow them as they encounter, and cope with, World War II, the advent of radio and t.v., telephones and cars, the atomic bomb, the moon landing. Briggs's portrayal of his parents as they succeed, or fail, in coming to terms with their rapidly shifting world is irresistably engaging -- full of sympathy and affection, yet clear-eyed and unsentimental.The book's strip-cartoon format is deceptively simple; it possesses a wealth of detail and an emotional depth that are remarkable in such a short volume. Briggs's marvelous illustrations and succinct, true-to-life dialogue create a real sense of time and place, of what it was like to experience such enormous changes. Almost as much a social history as it is a personal account, Ethel & Ernest is a moving tribute to ordinary people living in an extraordinary time.

Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman


Box Brown - 2018
    Although he was by all accounts a sensitive and thoughtful person, he’s ironically best remembered for his various contemptible personas, which were so committed and so convincing that all but his closest family and friends were completely taken in.Why would someone so gentle-natured and sensitive build an entire career seeking the hatred of his audience? What drives a performer to solicit that reaction? With the same nuance and sympathy with which he approached Andre the Giant in his 2014 biography, graphic novelist Box Brown takes on the complex and often hilarious life of Andy Kaufman.

Introducing Hegel


Lloyd Spencer - 1996
    It offers perspectives on Lyotard's meta-narrative, and Fukuyama's end of history in postmodern debate.