The Book of Bunny Suicides


Andy Riley - 2003
    We'll never quite know why, but sometimes they decide they've just had enough of this world- and that's when they start getting inventive. The Book of Bunny Suicides follows over one hundred bunnies as they find ever more outlandish ways to do themselves in. From an encounter with the business end of Darth Vader's lightsaber, to supergluing themselves to a diving submarine, to hanging around underneath a loose stalactite, these bunnies are serious about suicide. Illustrated in a stark and simple style, The Book of Bunny Suicides is a collection of hilarious and outrageous cartoons that will appeal to anyone in touch with their evil side.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1


Emil Ferris - 2017
    Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Full-color illustrations throughout.

Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story


Ashley Marie Witter - 2012
    Though she spends many years of happiness with her two vampire fathers, she gradually grows discontent with their insistence upon treating her like a little girl, even though she has lived as long as any mortal man...and her lust to kill is certainly no less than theirs...

The Thing Beneath the Bed


Patrick Rothfuss - 2010
    It has pictures. It has a saccharine-sweet title. The main characters are a little girl and her teddy bear. But all of that is just protective coloration. The truth is, this is a book for adults with a dark sense of humor and an appreciation of old-school faerie tales.There are three separate endings to the book. Depending on where you stop, you are left with an entirely different story. One ending is sweet, another is horrible. The last one is the true ending, the one with teeth in it.The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle is a dark twist on the classic children's picture-book. I think of it as Calvin and Hobbes meets Coraline, with some Edward Gorey mixed in.Simply said: This is not a book for children.

Lenore: Noogies


Roman Dirge - 1999
    Lenore: Noogies is a romp into the dark, surreal world of a little dead girl. Featuring stories about limbless cannibals, clock monsters, cursed vampire dolls, taxidermied friends and obssesed would be lover and more fuzzy animal mutilations than should be legal. Lenore is one of the funniest, darkest comic books on the marketplace today.

Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, Vol. 1


David PetersenTerry Moore - 2010
    A competition, of sorts, begins. The rules: Every story must contain one truth, one lie and have never been told in that tavern before. With the winner getting his bar tab cleared, fantastic stories are spun throughout the evening. Legends of the Guard is a new Mouse Guard anthology series featuring the work of artists and storytellers handpicked by series creator David Petersen, including Jeremy Bastian (Cursed Pirate Girl), Alex Sheikman (Robotika), Ted Naifeh (Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things), Gene Ha (Top 10), Sean Rubin (Redwall), Guy Davis (B.P.R.D.), Katie Cook (Fraggle Rock), Karl Kerschl (Teen Titans: Year One), Craig Rousseau (Impulse), and Mark Smylie (Artesia).

In The Pines


Erik Kriek - 2016
    Five murder ballads presented in comic form, including "Pretty Polly", "Long Black Veil", "Tarrytown", "Caleb Meyer" and "Where the Wild Roses Grow".

Bubble


Jordan Morris - 2021
    Humans like Morgan, who’s Brush-born and Bubble-raised and fully capable of fending off an Imp attack during her morning jog. She’s got a great routine going—she has a chill day job, she recreationally kills the occasional Imp, then she takes that Imp home for her roommate and BFF, Annie, to transform into drugs as a side hustle. But cracks appear in her tidy life when one of those Imps nearly murders a delivery guy in her apartment, accidentally transforming him into a Brush-powered mutant in the process. And when Morgan’s company launches Huntr, a gig economy app for Imp extermination, she finds herself press-ganged into kicking her stabby side job up to the next level as she battles a parade of monsters and monstrously Brush-turned citizens, from a living hipster beard to a book club hive mind.

Lucky Penny


Ananth Hirsh - 2016
    She lost her job. And her apartment. In the same day. But it's okay, her friend has a cozy storage unit she can crash in. And there's bound to be career opportunities at the neighborhood laundromat— just look how fast that 12-year-old who runs the place made it to management! Plus, there's this sweet guy at the community center, and maybe Penny can even have a conversation with him without being a total dork. Surely Penny is a capable of becoming an actual responsible adult, and if she can do that her luck’s bound to change! Right?

Simon's Cat


Simon Tofield - 2009
    Now, the feline Internet phenomenon makes his way onto the page in this first-ever book based on the popular animated series. Simon's Cat depicts and exaggerates the hilarious relationship between a man and his cat. The daily escapades of this adorable pet, which always involve demanding more food, and his exasperated but doting owner come to life through Tofield's charming and hilarious illustrations.

Copper: A Comics Collection


Kazu Kibuishi - 2010
    And together boy and dog are off on a series of adventures through marvelous worlds, powered by Copper's limitless enthusiasm and imagination. Each Copper and Fred story in this graphic novel collection is a complete vignette, filled with richly detailed settings and told with a wry sense of humor. These two enormously likable characters build ships and planes to travel to surprising destinations and have a knack for getting into all sorts of odd situations.

A Wealth of Pigeons: A Cartoon Collection


Steve Martin - 2020
    I have done stand-up, sketches, movies, monologues, awards show introductions, sound bites, blurbs, talk show appearances, and tweets, but the idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me. I felt like, yeah, sometimes I'm funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny. You can understand that I was deeply suspicious of these people who are actually funny." So writes the multitalented comedian Steve Martin in his introduction to A Wealth of Pigeons: A Cartoon Collection. In order to venture into this lauded territory of cartooning, he partnered with the heralded New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss. Steve shared caption and cartoon ideas, Harry provided impeccable artwork, and together they created this collection of humorous cartoons and comic strips, with amusing commentary about their collaboration throughout. The result: this gorgeous, funny, singular book, perfect to give as a gift or to buy for yourself.

The Lagoon


Lilli Carré - 2008
    For the wise—or pixilated—Grandpa, the song reminds him that, in the time he has left, he must pause to respect, appreciate, and fear nature. The song hints at something that Zoey, the daughter, is too young to fully grasp. And the song lures the sexually frustrated mother, and eventually, her husband, into danger…Carré experimented with nib pens and brushes while drawing this black-and-white graphic novel, giving the art a different feel from her previous, Eisner-and-Harvey-Award-nominated story, Tales of Woodsman Pete. The Lagoon was influenced by the films Creature from the Black Lagoon and Night of the Hunter, but reads more like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O’Connor or Carson McCullers. Rhythms—Grandpa’s taps, the ticking of a metronome—are punctuated by silences that pace this “sound”-driven story. Older teen and adult readers are invited to imagine the enigmatic creature’s haunting, ever-shifting tune as it reverberates through weedy waters, eventually escaping the lagoon to creep into windows at night.

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me


Ellen Forney - 2012
    Flagrantly manic and terrified that medications would cause her to lose creativity, she began a years-long struggle to find mental stability while retaining her passions and creativity.Searching to make sense of the popular concept of the crazy artist, she finds inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers who suffered from mood disorders, including Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, William Styron, and Sylvia Plath. She also researches the clinical aspects of bipolar disorder, including the strengths and limitations of various treatments and medications, and what studies tell us about the conundrum of attempting to “cure” an otherwise brilliant mind.Darkly funny and intensely personal, Forney’s memoir provides a visceral glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on an artist’s work, as she shares her own story through bold black-and-white images and evocative prose.

Hark! A Vagrant


Kate Beaton - 2011
    No era or tome emerges unscathbed as Beaton rightly skewers the Western world's revolutionaries, leaders, sycophants, and suffragists while equally honing her wit on the hapless heroes, heroines, and villains of the best-loved fiction. She deftly points out what really happened when Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt, that the world's first hipsters were obviously the Incroyables and the Merveilleuses from eighteenth-century France, that Susan B. Anthony is, of course, a "Samantha," and that the polite banality of Canadian culture never gets old. Hark! A Vagrant features sexy Batman, the true stories behind classic Nancy Drew covers, and Queen Elizabeth doing the albatross. As the 5600.000 unique monthly visitors to harkavagrant.com already know, no one turns the ironic absurdities of history and literature into comedic fodder as hilarious as Beaton.