Book picks similar to
Cousin Joseph by Jules Feiffer


graphic-novels
graphic-novel
fiction
comics

MIND MGMT, Volume One: The Manager


Matt Kindt - 2013
    Her ensuing journey involves weaponized psychics, hypnotic advertising, talking dolphins, and seemingly immortal pursuers, as she attempts to find the flight's missing passenger, the man who was MIND MGMT's greatest success - and its most devastating failure. But in a world where people can rewrite reality itself, can she trust anything she sees?Collecting: MIND MGMT 1-6

The Crow


James O'Barr - 1989
    Eric has returned from the dead, driven only by hate and the need to wreak revenge on those who killed him and raped and then killed his beloved Shelly.

Killing and Dying: Stories


Adrian Tomine - 2015
    Unpredictable, darkly funny, and deeply moving, they display an exceptional range of focus and technique. The Village Voice called Tomine "one of the most masterful cartoonists of his generation," and this is his most ambitious and empathetic work to date.

Bottomless Belly Button


Dash Shaw - 2008
    When the parents announce their divorce, the family comes together at their beach house for a week. Dennis, the eldest son, is having marriage troubles of his own, and searches for clues, trap doors, and secret tunnels. Claire, the middle child, is a single mother with a troubled 16-year-old daughter, Jill. The youngest child, Peter, is a hack filmmaker suffering from paralyzing insecurities who establishes an unorthodox romance with a mysterious day care counselor at the beach.

How to Survive in the North


Luke Healy - 2016
    How To Survive in the North is an unforgettable journey of love and loss, showing the strength it takes to survive in the harshest conditions.Luke Healy was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. He received an MFA in Cartooning from The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. His comics work has been published in several anthologies and he has also worked as a coloring assistant with Lucy Knisley on her book Something New.

Jim Henson's Tale of Sand


Jim Henson - 2011
    Discovered in the Archives of the The Jim Henson Company, A Tale of Sand is an original graphic novel adaptation of an unproduced, feature-length screenplay written by Jim Henson and his frequent writing partner, Jerry Juhl. A Tale of Sand follows scruffy everyman, Mac, who wakes up in an unfamiliar town, and is chased across the desert of the American Southwest by all manners of man and beast of unimaginable proportions. Produced with the complete blessing of Lisa Henson, A Tale of Sand will allow Henson fans to recognize some of the inspirations and set pieces that appeared in later Henson Company productions.

Postal, Vol. 1


Matt Hawkins - 2015
    A place where, despite its inhabitants, no crime is allowed. Local postman Mark Shiffron has Asperger's, and through his peculiar eyes we see a town struggling to keep its fragile peace, a town on the constant brink of chaos. When a murdered woman's body is found on Eden's main street, Mark's need to solve her crime leads him into darkness and truth about the town he's known his entire life and the hidden realms of his own psychology. Co-writers BRYAN HILL & MATT HAWKINS work with newcomer ISAAC GOODHART to take an unflinching look at the cost of justice and the price of redemption through a tale set in the murky soul of America's heartland. Collects POSTAL #1-4.!

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.

In the Shadow of No Towers


Art Spiegelman - 2004
    As in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, cartoonist Spiegelman presents a highly personalized, political, and confessional diary of his experience of September 11 and its aftermath. In 10 large-scale pages of original, hard-hitting material (composed from September 11, 2001 to August 31, 2003), two essays, and 10 old comic strip reproductions from the early 20th century, Spiegelman expresses his feelings of dislocation, grief, anxiety, and outrage over the horror of the attacks—and the subsequent "hijacking" of the event by the Bush administration to serve what he believes is a misguided and immoral political agenda. Readers who agree with Spiegelman's point of view will marvel at the brilliance of his images and the wit and accuracy of his commentary. Others, no doubt, will be jolted by his candor and, perhaps, be challenged to reexamine their position.The central image in the sequence of original broadsides, which returns as a leitmotif in each strip, is Spiegelman's Impressionistic "vision of disintegration," of the North Tower, its "glowing bones...just before it vaporized." (As downtown New Yorkers, Spiegelman and his family experienced the event firsthand.) But the images and styles in the book are as fragmentary and ever-shifting as Spiegelman's reflections and reactions. The author's closing comment that "The towers have come to loom far larger than life...but they seem to get smaller every day" reflects a larger and more chilling irony that permeates In the Shadow of No Towers. Despite the ephemeral nature of the comic strip form, the old comics at the back of the book have outlasted the seemingly indestructible towers. In the same way, Spiegelman's heartfelt impressions have immortalized the towers that, imponderably, have now vanished. —Silvana Tropea

Black Paths


David B. - 2007
    Enter "Pirate King” Gabriele d’Annunzio, an Italian poet who stormed the city with 3,000 Italian nationalists. D’Annunzio declared Fiume a free republic and himself commander. He envisioned a utopian city-state, but Fiume quickly became a surreal center of violence, looting, and decadence, with shades of the Fascist movement to come. Acclaimed comics artist David B. uses this real event as a backdrop and seamlessly weaves history, hysteria, and highly stylized art into the tragic love story of a beautiful torch singer and a young soldier haunted by the horrors of trench warfare. Praise for Black Paths: David B. draws with the chaotic, high-contrast style he used in his best-known work, Epileptic, to capture the distressed, surreal mood of artists struggling to run the world.”

The Unwritten, Vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity


Mike Carey - 2010
    His father created the Tommy Taylor fantasy series, boy-wizard novels with popularity on par with Harry Potter. The problem is Dad modeled the fictional epic so closely to Tom's real life that fans are constantly comparing him to his counterpart, turning him into the lamest variety of Z-level celebrity. In the final novel, it's even implied that the fictional Tommy will crossover into the real world, giving delusional fans more excuses to harass Tom.When an enormous scandal reveals that Tom might really be a boy-wizard made flesh, Tom comes into contact with a very mysterious, very deadly group that's secretly kept tabs on him all his life. Now, to protect his own life and discover the truth behind his origins, Tom will travel the world, eventually finding himself at locations all featured on a very special map -- one kept by the deadly group that charts places throughout world history where fictions have impacted and tangibly shaped reality, those stories ranging from famous literary works to folktales to pop culture. And in the process of figuring out what it all means, Tom will find himself having to figure out a huge conspiracy mystery that spans the entirety of the history of fiction.Collecting: The Unwritten 1-5

The Batman Adventures: Mad Love and Other Stories


Paul Dini - 2009
    Also included are tales by Dini, Timm and others that feature the Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul, Mr. Freeze, Batgirl and more.

Scarlet, Book 1


Brian Michael Bendis - 2010
    Scarlet is the story of a woman pushed to the edge by all that is wrong with the world...A woman who will not back down...A woman who discovers within herself the power to start a modern American revolution!!Collecting: Scarlet 1-5

Five Ghosts, Volume 1: The Haunting of Fabian Gray


Frank J. Barbiere - 2013
    After a tragic encounter with an artifact known as "The Dreamstone," infamous treasure hunter Fabian Gray was possessed by five literary ghosts and has been granted access to their unique abilities.Collects FIVE GHOSTS: THE HAUNTING OF FABIAN GRAY #1-5.

The Private Eye


Brian K. Vaughan - 2015
    VAUGHAN (SAGA, PAPER GIRLS) and MARCOS MARTIN (The Amazing Spider-Man, Doctor Strange: The Oath) is finally coming to print with this gorgeous deluxe hardcover edition, presented in the story’s original widescreen format!Years after the digital cloud “bursts” and exposes all of our worst secrets, THE PRIVATE EYE is set in an inevitable future where everyone has a secret identity. Following an unlicensed P.I. who is thrust into the most important case of his life, this sci-fi mystery explores the nature of privacy with frightening prescience.Collects THE PRIVATE EYE #1-10