Cola Madnes


Gary Panter - 2001
    This novel tells the story of a mysterious tribal figure named Kokomo, who falls asleep to dream a wild picaresque interlude starring Jimbo and Bob War.

Prelude to a Million Years / Song Without Words / Vertigo


Lynd Ward - 2010
    Prelude to a Million Years (1933) is a dark meditation on art, inspiration, and the disparity between the ideal and the real. Song Without Words (1936), a protest against the rise of European fascism, asks if ours is a world still fit for the human soul. Vertigo (1937), Ward’s undisputed masterpiece, is an epic novel on the theme of the individual caught in the downward spiral of a sinking American economy. Its characters include a young violinist, her luckless fiancé, and an elderly business magnate who—movingly, and without ever becoming a political caricature—embodies the social forces determining their fate.The images reproduced in this volume are taken from prints pulled from the original woodblocks or first-generation electrotypes. Ward’s novels are presented, for the first time since the 1930s, in the format that the artist intended, one image per right-hand page, and are followed by four essays in which he discusses the technical challenges of his craft. Art Spiegelman contributes an introductory essay, “Reading Pictures,” that defines Ward’s towering achievement in that most demanding of graphic-story forms, the wordless novel in woodcuts.

Notes for a War Story


Gipi - 2004
    Obviously there were other wars going on, but they didn't have anything to do with us. There were wars for blacks. Wars for Arabs. Wars for Slavs. Our war started on the 18th of January, and in a few days, everything had changed."So recounts Giuliano, a loner among outsiders, one of three young drifters caught up in the whirlwind of a war in the Balkans. The three boys are like passing shadows; they live in abandoned houses, dodge the occasional bomb, and steal car parts for money. Meeting Felix—a powerful, fast-talking mercenary—changes everything for them. Felix is an expert manipulator; he speaks to their ambition and to their desires for power, wealth, and purpose. They're instantly hooked, especially the trio's unofficial leader, Stefano, and they soon escalate from petty crime to working on behalf of a mafia-style militia, bullying and extorting money in Felix's name. But as Giuliano comes to realize, they don't know what they're fighting for—if they're even fighting for anything.Notes for a War Story is an astonishing look at life in a lawless, war-torn nation, heightened by the harsh, moving, pencil and watercolor artwork of Italy's best graphic novel author.

The Complete Peanuts, 1975-1978


Charles M. Schulz - 2010
    Schulz’s astounding half-century run on the greatest comic strip of all time. These years are especially fecund in terms of new canine characters, as Snoopy is joined by his wandering brother Spike(from Needles), his beloved sister Belle (from Kansas City), and... did you know he had a nephew? In other beagle news,Snoopy breaks his foot and spends six weeks in a cast, deals with his friend Woodstock’s case of the “the vapors,” and gets involved in a heated love triangle with Linus over the girl “Truffles.” The Complete Peanuts 1975-1976 features several other long stories, including a rare “double track” sequence with two parallel narratives: Peppermint Patty and Snoopy travel to participate in the Powderpuff Derby, while Charlie Brown finally gets to meet his idol Joe Shlabotnik. And Peppermint Patty switches to a private school, but commits the mistake of allowing Snoopy to pick it for her; only after graduation does she realize something’s not quite right! Plus: A burglary at Peppermint Patty’s house is exacerbated by waterbed problems... Marcie acquires an unwanted suitor...Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty become desk partners... The talking school building collapses... Lots of tennis jokes...and gags starring Schroeder, Lucy, Franklin, Rerun, Sally, and that vicious cat next door. It’s another two years of Peanuts at its finest! Featuring an introduction by comedian Robert Smigel (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Saturday Night Live).The Complete Peanuts 1977-1978:As the 1970s wind down, the last two recurring Peanuts characters have fallen into place: Snoopy’s brother Spike and the youngest Van Pelt sibling,Rerun. But that doesn’t mean Schulz’s creativity has diminished; in fact, this volume features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new one- (or two-) shot characters! For instance, in an epic five-week sequence, when Charlie Brown, found guilty by the EPA of biting the Kite-Eating tree, he goes on the lam and ends up coaching the “Goose Eggs,” a group of diminutive baseball players,Austin, Ruby, Leland, and —did you know there was a second Black Peanuts character, aside from Franklin?—Milo. Also: a tennis-playing Snoopy ends up reluctantly teamed with the extreme Type “A” athlete Molly Volley... who then reappears later in the book, now facing off against her nemesis, “Crybaby” Boobie. (Honest!) Add in Sally’s new camp friend Eudora, the thuggish “caddymaster” who shoots down Peppermint Patty and Marcie’s new vocation, an entire hockey team, and a surprise repeat appearance by Linus’s sweetheart “Truffles” (creating a love triangle with Sally), all in addition to the usual cast of beloved characters(including the talking schoolhouse and the doghouse-jigsawing cat, who gets ahold of Linus’s blanket in this one), and you’ve got a veritable crowd of characters. Introduction by 30 Rock's Alec Baldwin.It’s another four years of the greatest comic strip of all time, full of laughs and surprises.

The Spy Who Came in from the Bin: A Jonathon Fairfax Novel


Christopher Shevlin - 2020
    He’s taken to hospital for treatment. Then people start trying to assassinate him.The man has to find out why, how to get them to stop, and what the CIA has to do with all this. There’s also the little problem of working out who he used to be, and why that changed. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Piper and best friend Lance are trying to find him…Jonathon Fairfax – still the world’s most socially awkward hero – is back. If only he knew.‘A hugely entertaining novel … a surprising, yet strangely fitting, progression to the Jonathon Fairfax story.’ Scott Pack (former head buyer for Waterstones)Pick up the latest Jonathon Fairfax novel – sequel to two Amazon bestsellers: The Perpetual Astonishment of Jonathon Fairfax (‘A comic gem’ Stylist, ‘You can’t help being tickled’ The Guardian, Bath Novel Award shortlist) and Jonathon Fairfax Must Be Destroyed (‘A funny, daft-yet-relatable, nerve-jangly thriller’ Emerald Street).*That’s a trashcan or dumpster, for American readers.The Jonathon Fairfax novels can be read in any order.

The Big Book of Vice


Steve Vance - 1998
    An in-depth look at the things we know are bad for us but we love too much to stay away from, including tobacco, alcohol, promiscuous behavior, drugs, fatty foods, and more, along with the reasons we love them so much.

Nikolai Dante: The Romanov Dynasty


Robbie Morrison - 1998
    That man is Nikolai Dante lover, rogue and thief, son of a pirate-queen and altogether too cool to kill! Created by Robbie Morrison (BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS) and Simon Fraser (Lux and Alby), this collection features art by Chris Weston (THE FILTH), Charlie Adlard (THE ESTABLISHMENT) and Henry Flint (Judge Dredd/Aliens).When chance leaves him working with the Tsar's beautiful daughter Jena, Dante discovers his heritage bio-bonding with the alien Weapons Crest, which grants him astonishing abilities. But with the new enemies he's making much less the family he never knew about can Dante keep his head?

Peanuts: Where Beagles Dare


James Cooper - 2015
    We've got a brand-new one in Peanuts: Where Beagles Dare!, and it comes out just in time for The Peanuts Movie! What It Is: Snoopy, the World War I Flying Ace, is on holiday in France but his leave is cut short when he's recruited for a top-secret mission. Snoopy must dodge his way through no-man's land, go deep behind enemy territory, and battle the Red Baron in the blackened skies above. Will Snoopy ever return home to quaff a few Root Beers with Woodstock and have dinner with Charlie Brown? Find out in this original graphic novel featuring Charles M. Schulz's beloved Peanuts characters and starring Snoopy!

Backwoods Genius


Julia Scully - 2012
    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

Bloom County: Best Read on the Throne


Berkeley Breathed - 2018
    When that book, Brand Spanking New Day, came out we said we needed Opus, Bill the Cat, and all their friends more than ever before. Well, what was true then is even more true now!The residents of Bloom County are back to put their trademark tragi-comic spin on the horrors of the last year, so lock all your worries in the anxiety closet for a bit. Who knows? When you come back they may be just the tiniest bit funnier.

Silver Dolphins: The Emblem of the Enlisted Submariner


Richard Hansher - 2015
    The author doesn't pull any punches describing the good, the bad, the funny and the just plain ridiculous of the Submarine Service. Besides a wealth of information about what it's like to serve on a submarine, you'll meet real life characters like Tongue, Snake and Button Butt John. Did submarines make them rude, crude, and crazy. Or does the Submarine Service act as a magnet for every nut in the Navy? One thing is sure, after two months underwater, and with their back pay in their back pocket, Sub Sailors are as wild as cowboys after a cattle drive. Bar the doors and hide your daughters. Every reader owes it to themselves to use Amazons "Look In" feature to take a peek inside this unique and entertaining book.

Appleseed: Databook


Masamune Shirow - 1995
    Collected in this 128-page volume is the two-issue series Appleseed Databook, containing detailed descriptions of the people, places, machines, and organizations that populate this fascinating world, plus a previously unreleased twenty-five-page story featuring all of those people, places, machines, and organizations! Appleseed Databook is an absolute must for established fans of the Appleseed saga!

Jeremy and Mom: A Zits Retrospective You Should Definitely Buy for Your Mom


Jerry Scott - 2008
    It's an age when nurturing moms who've spent years cuddling, tucking, and rocking their little boys suddenly find themselves on the outside trying to see in. Most moms and sons do not make the transition gracefully.Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman are trying something different with this collection of their phenomenally successful comic strip, Zits. They have combed through more than 10 years of strips and selected more than 200 of the most popular of the Mom/Son themed strips into one book.The idea is to provide a more focused look at the dynamic that drives almost all of the mountain of Zits e-mail and letters we receive every month," says Scott. Borgman adds, "If moms can stop what they're doing long enough to discover this book, we think they'll find a lot of comfort (and laughs) in seeing that their struggles with their grunting, slouching, uncommunicative, sloppy, and ultimately incomprehensible sons are universal."

The Death of Stalin


Fabien Nury - 2010
    Fear, corruption and treachery abound in this political satire set in the aftermath of Stalin's death in the Soviet Union in 1953. When the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, has a stroke—the political gears begin to turn, plunging the super-state into darkness, uncertainty and near civil war. The struggle for supreme power will determine the fate of the nation and of the world. And it all really happened.

When David Lost His Voice


Judith Vanistendael - 2012
    Now the whole family is under the same terrible verdict. David’s wife becomes progressively consumed by the looming shadow of death while his daughters struggle to be as helpful as possible. Meanwhile, David soldiers on, not wanting the tumor to rob him of everything, including the chance to see his granddaughter grow up. Vanistendael’s extraordinary art and sensitive text provide a powerful portrayal of a family preparing for life after unimaginable loss. Praise for When David Lost His Voice: “Neither sentimental nor cynical, this narrative holds the most delicate aspects of family life gently and openly for readers to immerse themselves.” —Booklist “Vanistendael’s illustrations are gorgeous, dynamic, and deeply emotive, with a hint of sentimentality.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The sensitive and compelling writing is enhanced by Vanistendael’s color art, which is simple, impressionistic, and beautifully designed.” —Library Journal "A poignant cancer drama" - The A.V. Club “Vanistendael’s fine art is dazzling, breathtaking, and a visual tour de force, one of the best things I’ve seen in a graphic novel.” —The Miami Herald “Vanistendael achieves that rare triumph of capturing in the end of a life the wonder of every day that led up to it.” —Salon.com