By Chance or Providence


Becky Cloonan - 2014
    WolvesAs a lone hunter tracks an elusive beast through the forest, he reflects on his life and past love through a series of flashbacks, bringing the story to a climax that is as romantic as it is savage. This powerful short story begs for multiple read-throughs, never giving concrete answers, but (like the best enigmatic endings) leaves your own conclusions satisfying.2. The MireOn the eve of a great battle, a humble squire is tasked with delivering a letter to a seemingly abandoned castle at the heart of an ill-famed swamp. Met with mysterious apparitions on the way, he slowly unveils the truth behind his journey as his past is re-written over the course of the story.3. DemeterA fisherman's wife tends the garden and animals while her husband is at sea, but secrets buried under the waves begin to bubble to the surface revealing a secret treachery and forgotten truth. The third and final book in a trilogy of critically acclaimed stand-alone stories by award winning creator Becky Cloonan.

Puke Force


Brian Chippendale - 2013
    . . obsessively detailed [comics] feel like [they've] been shot straight from his brain onto the page." - Village Voice Puke Force is social satire written dark and dense across Brian Chippendale's deconstructed multiverse of walking, talking M&Ms, hamsters, and cycloptic-yet-glamorous trivia hosts. In scathingly funny single-page strips that build and build, he takes on social media narcissism, governmental propaganda, racism, and a culture of violence, skewering the malice of the right and the hypocrisies of the left. A bomb explodes in a coffee shop: the incident is played out over and over again from the perspective of each table in the shop, revisiting moments from ten and twenty years before. We see the inevitable as the characters bicker or celebrate, unaware of what's coming. Throughout this dystopic graphic novel, Chippendale uses humor and a frantic drawing style to show how the insidious nature of corporate greed and the commodification of everything have warped society into a killing machine. Sardonic and self-aware, Puke Force asks all the right questions, providing a startling and on-point take on contemporary social issues. Chippendale's artwork makes each panel a masterpiece of thrumming linework and lo-fi magic, as his storytelling wends and winds its way to a fascinating conclusion.

Scott Pilgrim the Complete Series


Bryan Lee O'Malley - 2010
    Having to battle his new girlfriend's evil exes was nothing he planned on, but love makes you do funny things. Follow his story in the complete Scott Pilgrim saga in this Scott Pilgrim set. This set contains all six graphic novels in one handy shrink-wrapped pack.

The Great Big Book of Tomorrow: A Treasury of Cartoons


Tom Tomorrow - 2003
    With an ever increasing fan base, an expanding number of publications who regularly feature his work, one of the most popular and most visited web-logs (www.thismodernworld.com), the time is now for The Great Big Book of Tomorrow. This massive collection of Tomorrow's greatest hits, unseen gems and obscurities, new material and color section is the so far definitive collection of one of the most popular 'underground' cartoonists ever--a delight to long-time fans and new readers alike.

Sounds of Your Name


Nate Powell - 2006
    His intricate, sometimes chaotic drawings examine the complications that come with passing from childhood into adulthood. Renderings of friends and family scattered across the country paint tender, sweaty, and memory-soaked portraits of small town life and beyond. Nate addresses the uneasy existential inquiries that bloom in youth and invokes all the elements of great coming of age novels with only a few dozen words. He captures that most elusive thing that disappears with age: wonder. If most people spend their entire lives longing for past episodes from their youth, then Nate addresses that longing, covering his pages with lost wonder, and offering it, wholeheartedly, back to us. His work offers the hope we might never grow old, and that even if we do, our dreams are always within reach. The power of his work is a reminder of the persistance of joy.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Lost Adventures


Bryan KonietzkoElsa Garagarza - 2011
    Ever since, fans have been hungry for more, and now their wait is finally over!This volume collects the long-out-of-print, fan-favorite comics previously published in Nickelodeon Magazine and with the Airbender DVDs, plus over seventy brand-new comics pages. That's twenty-six stories set in Airbender continuity, by a host of top-notch talent, many of whom worked on the original animated series!* A must-have for any Airbender fan!* Twenty-six in-continuity stories, plus bonus content!* The latest release in an ongoing partnership between Nickelodeon and Dark Horse, to bring you the very best in Airbender books!

Embroideries


Marjane Satrapi - 2003
    Embroideries gathers together Marjane’s tough–talking grandmother, stoic mother, glamorous and eccentric aunt and their friends and neighbors for an afternoon of tea drinking and talking. Naturally, the subject turns to love, sex and the vagaries of men.As the afternoon progresses, these vibrant women share their secrets, their regrets and their often outrageous stories about, among other things, how to fake one’s virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery and how to delight in being a mistress. By turns revealing and hilarious, these are stories about the lengths to which some women will go to find a man, keep a man or, most important, keep up appearances. Full of surprises, this introduction to the private lives of some fascinating women, whose life stories and lovers will strike us as at once deeply familiar and profoundly different from our own, is sure to bring smiles of recognition to the faces of women everywhere—and to teach us all a thing or two.

Curses


Kevin Huizenga - 2006
    Huizenga fuses the most banal aspects of modern culture with its most looming questions in a consistently genial style. Lighthearted, but with a healthy dose of nineteenth-century spine tingling, the narratives presented in Curses are insightful portrayals of reality. Huizenga's central character in his comics is Glenn Ganges, a seemingly middle-class man living in the suburbs whose blank-eyed wonderment at everyday experiences brings together such diverse aspects of our world as golf, theology, late-night diners, parenthood, politics, Sudanese refugees, and hallucinatory vision, into a complete experience as multifaceted as our own lives.Huizenga is regarded by many as one of the most promising young cartoonists of his generation, whose artistic talent, singular writing, and studied substance prove the versatility of his skill. Curses collects his work from Kramer's Ergot and The Drawn & Quarterly Showcase, his award-winning and nominated comic-book series Or Else, and Time magazine; it is the most extensive selection of his comics to date in a single volume.

Sex Criminals: Volume One: One Weird Trick


Matt Fraction - 2014
    One day she meets Jon and it turns out he has the same ability. And sooner or later they get around to using their gifts to do what we’d ALL do: rob a couple banks. A bawdy and brazen sex comedy for comics begins here!Collecting: Sex Criminals 1-5

Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire


Neil Gaiman - 2017
    Somewhere in the night, a raven caws, an author's pen scratches, and thunder claps. The author wants to write fiction: stories about frail women in white nightgowns, mysterious bumps in the night, and the undead rising to collect old debts. But he keeps getting interrupted by the everyday annoyances of talking ravens, duels to the death, and his sinister butler.Shane Oakley beautifully illustrates New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman's satirical tale.

Take It as a Compliment


Maria Stoian - 2015
    Her unique and varied styles powerfully reflect the tone and mood of the different stories and in just a few pages express the complex emotions felt by victims of sexual abuse.Covering acts such as sexual violence, public sexual harassment, domestic abuse and child abuse, this is a reminder for survivors that they are not alone and a call for all of us to take action. The stories clearly show that assault of any type is not an honour bestowed on anyone. It is not a compliment.

Strange Planet


Nathan W. Pyle - 2019
    Pyle comes an adorable and profound universe in pink, blue, green, and purple. Based on the phenomenally popular Instagram of the same name, Strange Planet covers a full life cycle of the planet’s inhabitants, including milestones such as:The Emergence DayBeing Gains a SiblingThe Being Family Attains a BeastThe Formal Education of a BeingCelebration of Special DaysBeing Begins a VocationThe Beings at HomeHealth Status of a BeingThe Hobbies of a BeingThe Extended Family of the BeingThe Being Reflects on Life While Watching the Planet RotateWith dozens of never-before-seen illustrations in addition to old favorites, this book offers a sweet and hilarious look at a distant world not all that unlike our own.

Chainmail Bikini: The Anthology of Women Gamers


Hazel Newlevant - 2015
    The comics in Chainmail Bikini explore the real-life impact of entering a fantasy world, how games can connect us with each other and teach us about ourselves.

Giant Days, Vol. 2


John Allison - 2016
    But in the face of hand-wringing boys, holiday balls, hometown rivals, and the willful, unwanted intrusion of "academia," they may be lucky just to make it to spring alive.Collects issues #5-8.

Turning Japanese


MariNaomi - 2016
    Soon enough, she falls in love, then finds employment at a hostess bar for Japanese expats, where she is determined to learn the Japanese language and culture. Turning Japanese is a story about otherness, culture clashes, generation gaps, and youthful impetuosity.