The Mad Archives, Vol. 1


Wallace Wood - 1982
    It's visionary humor in a jugular vein, presented in a handsome hardcover format. Here is where it all began.

Barnaby, Vol. 1: 1942-1943


Crockett Johnson - 2013
    Its subtle ironies and playful allusions never won a broad following, but the adventures of 5-year-old Barnaby Baxter and his fairy godfather Jackeen J. O'Malley was and is a critical favorite.Fantagraphics will introduce the wonders of Barnaby to a new generation of children and parents alike. Co-edited by Johnson biographer Philip Nel (Dr. Seuss: American Icon) and Fantagraphics Associate Publisher Eric Reynolds, with art direction by graphic novelist Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), this five-volume Barnaby series will collect the entirety of the original newspaper strips from 1942-1952. The first volume will collect all the strips from 1942 and 1943.Barnaby revolved around a precocious five-year-old named Barnaby Baxter and his fairly godfather Jackeen J. O'Malley. Yet O'Malley, a cigar-chomping, bumbling con-artist and fast-talker, was not your typical protector. His grasp of magic was usually specious at best, limited to occasional flashes, often aided and abetted by his fellow members in The Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men’s Chowder & Marching Society.Barnaby's deft balance of fantasy, political commentary, sophisticated wit, and elegantly spare images expanded our sense of what comic strips can do. With subtlety and economy, Barnaby proved that comics need not condescend to readers. Its small but influential readership took that message to heart.

The Greatest of Marlys


Lynda Barry - 2000
    This book answers the call as it delivers the life and times of Marlys Mullen, the most beloved character in Barry's nationally syndicated comic strip, "Ernie Pook's Comeek." This is a Lynda Barry double-tall: the long-awaited collection of the best strips from her syndicated comics. Way back in the mid-1980s, comic illustrator and writer Lynda Barry introduced the character of Marlys Mullen, her crazy groovy teenage sister Maybonne, her sensitive and strange little brother Freddie, a mother like no other, and an array of cousins and friends from the 'hood. This oversized book presents the long strange journey through puberty and life that Marlys and company have experienced. Marlys's universe and galaxy are funny, rude, disturbing, tearful . . . in short, very, very Lynda Barry.

Shade, the Changing Man, Volume 1: The American Scream


Peter MilliganDaniel Vozzo - 2003
    From there, Shade and Kathy journey into America's collective unconscious to find the evil known only as The American Scream.These are the classic Vertigo stories written by Peter Milligan, so if you've been digging the acclaimed writer's work on Greek Street and Hellblazer, be sure to pick up this new printing of Milligan's earlier work!Collecting: Shade, the Changing Man 1-6

The Complete Eightball


Daniel Clowes - 1989
    Now, for the 25th Anniversary of Eightball, Fantagraphics is collecting these long out-of-print issues in a slipcased set of two hardcover volumes, reproducing each issue in facsimile form exactly as they were originally published. Included are over 450 pages of vintage Clowes, including such seminal serialized graphic novels/strips/rants as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Ghost World, Pussey, I Hate You Deeply, Sexual Frustration, Ugly Girls, Why I Hate Christians, Message to the People of the Future, Paranoid, My Suicide, Chicago, Art School Confidential, On Sports, Zubrick and Pogeybait, Hippypants and Peace-Bear, Grip Glutz, The Sensual Santa, Feldman, and so many more."

Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons


Gahan Wilson - 2009
    His work has been seen by millions—no, hundreds of millions—in the pages of Playboy, The New Yorker, Punch, The National Lampoon, and many other magazines; there is no telling, really, how many readers he has corrupted or comforted. He is revered for his playfully sinister take on childhood, adulthood, men, women, and monsters. His brand of humor makes you laugh until you cry. And it’s about time that a collection of his cartoons was published that did justice to his vast body of work.When Gahan Wilson walked into Hugh Hefner’s office in 1957, he sat down as Hefner was on the phone, gently rejecting a submission to his new gentlemen’s magazine: “I think it’s very well-written and I liked it very much,” Hefner reportedly said, “but it’s anti-sin. And I’m afraid we’re pro-sin.” Wilson knew, at that moment, that he had found a kindred spirit and a potential home for his cartoons. And indeed he had; Wilson appeared in every issue of Playboy from the December 1957 issue to today. It has been one of the most fruitful, successful, and long-lived relationships between a contributor and a magazine, ever.Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons features not only every cartoon Wilson drew for Playboy, but all his prose fiction that has appeared in that magazine as well, from his first story in the June 1962 issue, “Horror Trio,” to such classics as “Dracula Country” (September 1978). It also includes the text-and-art features he drew for Playboy, such as his look at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, his take on our country’s “pathology of violence,” and his appreciation of “transplant surgery.”Wilson’s notoriously black sense of comedy is on display throughout the book, leaving no sacred cow unturned (an image curiously absent in the book), ridiculing everything from state sponsored executions to the sober precincts of the nouveau rich, from teenage dating to police line-ups, with scalding and hilarious satirical jabs. Although Wilson is known as an artist who relishes the creepy side of modern life, this three-volume set truly demonstrates the depth and breadth of his range—from illustrating private angst we never knew we had (when you eat a steak, just whom are you eating?) to the ironic and deadpan take on horrifying public issues (ecological disaster, nuclear destruction anyone?).Gahan Wilson has been peeling back the troubling layers of modern life with his incongruously playful and unnerving cartoons, assailing our deepest fears and our most inane follies. This three-volume set is a testament to one of the funniest—and wickedly disturbing—cartoonists alive.Nominated for two 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (Best Archival Collection/Project: Strips; Best Publication Design).

The Complete Cul de Sac


Richard Thompson - 2013
    Cul de Sacis noted not only for its humour and intelligence, but also for creator Richard Thompson's fun, imaginative watercolour artwork. Cul de Sacis brought to life through manhole-dancing Alice Otterloop, a curious four-year-old who discovers life's ups and downs in suburbia. Along with her Blisshaven Preschool classmates, Alice charms fans of all ages with her escapades. From crafting projects in a cloud of glitter and glue or just trying to comprehend a completely incomprehensible world, Alice is a creature of pure and indomitable will, an irresistible force. Alice describes her father's car as a "Honda-Tonka Cuisinart" and talks to the class guinea pig, Mr. Danders. Alice is joined by her family: her older brother Petey who is intent on being the King of the Picky Eaters; her dad, who's the Assistant Director of Pamphlets at the U.S. Department of Consumption, Office of Consumer Complaints; and her mom, who is capable of doing a million things simultaneously, about five of them well. This library of cartoons and art will both delight long-time fans and provide a fantastic introduction to new readers.

Underworld, Vol. 1: Cruel and Unusual Comics


Kaz - 1997
    The lead character in most is Bitchy Bitch, the perma-nently PMS'd and PO'd embodiment of the female id, who also stars in her own series of cartoon shorts on the Oxygen Network's X-Chromosome animated series.The raunchiest collection, focusing on Bitchy's sexual excapades.

The Bloom County Library, Vol. 1: 1980-1982


Berkeley Breathed - 2009
    Bloom County ran from December 8th, 1980 to August 6th, 1989 and was published in an astounding 1200 newspapers on a daily basis. The huge popularity of Bloom County spawned a merchandizing bonanza, as well as two spin-off strips, Outland and Opus.The Bloom County Library Volume 1 highlights the first time the entire run of the immensely popular Bloom County strip has been collected in beautifully designed hard cover books with exceptional reproduction.The Library of American Comics is the world's #1 publisher of classic newspaper comic strips, with 14 Eisner Award nominations and three wins for best book. LOAC has become the gold standard for archival comic strip reprints...The research and articles provide insight and context, and most importantly the glorious reproduction of the material has preserved these strips for those who knew them and offers a new gateway to adventure for those discovering them for the first time." - ScoopWinner of the 2010 Eisner Award for Best Archival Collection/Project--Strips

Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection


Zach Weinersmith - 2011
    It is one of the fastest growing comics online, having sextupled in readership since 2008. SMBC appeals to many different groups, as evidenced by the fact it has been featured on a variety of important websites and blogs, including The Economist, Glamour, BoingBoing, Bad Astronomy, Blastr, Blues News, Joystiq, The Washington Post, Freakonomics, and more. SMBC has never released a book, which is almost unheard of for a comic with such an extensive archive, making this first-ever collection highly anticipated. BreadPig donates its profits to DonorsChoose.org, a not-for-profit organization that aims to improve public education by empowering every teacher to be a change-maker and enabling any citizen to be a philanthropist.

Krazy and Ignatz, 1929-1930: A Mice, a Brick, a Lovely Night


George Herriman - 2003
    Each volume is painstakingly edited by the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum's Bill Blackbeard, the world's foremost authority on early 20th Century American comic strips, and designed by Jimmy Corrigan author Chris Ware. In addition to the 104 full-page black-and-white Sunday strips from 1929 and 1930 (Herriman did not use color until 1935), the book includes an introduction by Blackbeard and reproductions of rare Herriman ephemera from Ware's own extensive collection, as well as annotations and other notes by Ware and Blackbeard.Of special note to collectors, this is the period when Herriman was again liberated from the "grid" constraints of the mid-'20s and was able to compose his pages far more creatively, resulting in richer, more complex, more eye-pleasing compositions. Krazy Kat is a love story, focusing on the relationships of its three main characters. Krazy Kat adored Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz Mouse just tolerated Krazy Kat, except for recurrent onsets of targeting tumescence, which found expression in the fast delivery of bricks to Krazy's cranium. Offisa Pup loved Krazy and sought to protect "her" (Herriman always maintained that Krazy was gender-less) by throwing Ignatz in jail. Each of the characters was ignorant of the others' true motivations, and this simple structure allowed Herriman to build entire worlds of meaning into the actions, building thematic depth and sweeping his readers up by the looping verbal rhythms of Krazy & Co.'s unique dialogue.

Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge McDuck: His Life & Times


Carl Barks - 1981
    Completely recolored in the style of the 1930s and 1940s Disney animated cartoons. Illustrated.

Raw Volume 2 Number 2: Required Reading for the Post-Literate


Art Spiegelman - 1990
    This graphic fantasy novel is the second of its kind, following on from "Raw" volume 1.

Doonesbury Deluxe: Selected Glances Askance


G.B. Trudeau - 1987
    With over 500 daily strips and 80 full-color Sunday pages, this is satire, and Doonesbury, at its best.

Deadman, Book One


Neal Adams - 1968
    A mysterious deity called Rama Kushna gives Boston Brand the chance to revisit the land of the living as Deadman, with the mission of finding his murderer.DEADMAN features spectacular, bravura artwork by Neal Adams, then leading the field with an amazing, hyper-realistic style and trompe-l’oeil unlike anything seen in comics before or since.