The Crow Volume 1: Pain & Fear


James O'Barr - 1992
    He and his fiancée, Shelly, are assaulted by a gang of street thugs after their car breaks down. Eric is shot in the head and is paralyzed, and can only watch as Shelly is savagely beaten and raped. They are then left for dead on the side of the road.He is resurrected by a crow and seeks vengeance on the murderers, methodically stalking and killing them. When not on the hunt, Eric stays in the house he shared with Shelly, spending most of his time there lost in memories of her. Her absence is torture for him; he is in emotional pain, even engaging in self-mutilation by cutting himself.The Crow acts as both guide and goad for Eric, giving him information that helps him in his quest but also chastising him for dwelling on Shelly's death, seeing his pining as useless self-indulgence that distracts him from his purpose.

Knights of the Dinner Table: Bundle of Trouble, Vol. 1


Jolly R. Blackburn - 2002
    Knights of the Dinner Table is the longest running comic on the subject of games ever! Though B.A., Brian, Bob, Dave and Sara may play different characters in different games, their personalities always shine through. KoDT also features articles for gamers from a gamer's perspective. A hilarious and hysterical slice of (fantasy) life in strips and a wonderful celebration of the gaming culture.

Everyday MUTTS: A Comic Strip Treasury


Patrick McDonnell - 2006
    Long may he reign."Everyday MUTTS marks the 11th book of the award-winning MUTTS strip. It is the follow-up to Patrick McDonnell's successful collection Who Let the Cat Out? as well as his first storybook, The Gift of Nothing, which reached the New York Times Best-Seller List for Children's Picture Books in January 2006. McDonnell's classic cartooning style not only delivers consistent laughs but often a message that reminds us to take care of our furry friends. With its expressive art and clever, often philosophical pet banter, MUTTS has built a large and loyal fan base among readers and cartoonists alike. McDonnell is a past winner of the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award, and MUTTS won the coveted Comic Strip of the Year Award in 1996. This unique collection includes 16 pages of full-color bonus material, including watercolors, other artwork, and items personally selected from the creator's sketchbook to accompany the black-and-white dailies and McDonnell's Sunday pages with his signature title panels. As always, the tales-and tails-of this especially close dog-kitty friendship can be counted on for charming adventures and gentle laughs, reminding us that there is more than it seems to the Everyday MUTTS we meet on the street.

Penny Arcade Volume 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots!


Jerry Holkins - 2006
    Not familiar with Penny Arcade? What? It's only the most popular comic strip on the web. It's the funniest, most twisted comic that ever lampooned gamer culture, and takes shots at everything from Star Wars to Steve Jobs. Experience the joy of being a hardcore gamer as expressed in vignettes of random vulgarity and mindless violence! Get online and direct your browser to penny-arcade.com, check out the latest strips, then, to read Penny Arcade from the very beginning, get the first collection, Attack of the Bacon Robots, which includes strips, sketches, and creator commentary not available anywhere else!

Big Questions


Anders Nilsen - 2011
    This beautiful minimalist story, collected here for the first time, is the culmination of ten years and more than six hundred pages of work that details the metaphysical quandaries of the occupants of an endless plain, existing somewhere between a dream and a Russian steppe. A downed plane is thought to be a bird and the unexploded bomb that came from it is mistaken for a giant egg by the group of birds whose lives the story follows. The indifferent, stranded pilot is of great interest to the birds—some doggedly seek his approval, while others do quite the opposite, leading to tensions in the group. Nilsen seamlessly moves from humor to heartbreak. His distinctive, detailed line work is paired with plentiful white space and large, often frameless panels, conveying an ineffable sense of vulnerability and openness.Big Questions has roots in classic fables—the birds and snakes have more to say than their human counterparts, and there are hints of the hero’s journey, but here the easy moral that closes most fables is left open and ambiguous. Rather than lending its world meaning, Nilsen’s parable lets the questions wander where they will.

Groo: The Most Intelligent Man in the World


Sergio Aragonés - 1998
    When the barbarian with the lowest IQ in the world starts passing out words of wisdom and advice, all of his old cohorts and enemies come out of the woodwork to find out what's wrong, and no one's more confused than Rufferto, the most loyal little dog in Plentia.

xkcd: volume 0


Randall Munroe - 2009
    While it's practically required reading in the geek community, xkcd fans are as varied as the comic's subject matter. This book creates laughs from science jokes on one page to relationship humor on another.xkcd: volume 0 is the first book from the immensely popular webcomic with a passionate readership (just Google "xkcd meetup").The artist selected personal and fan favorites from his first 600 comics. It was lovingly assembled from high-resolution original scans of the comics (the mouseover text is discreetly included), and features a lot of doodles, notes, and puzzles in the margins.The book is published by Breadpig, which donates all of the publisher profits from this book to Room to Read for promoting literacy in the developing world.

Masterpiece Comics


Robert Sikoryak - 2009
    Dense with exclamation marks and lurid colors, R. Sikoryak's parodies remind us of the sensational excesses of the canon, or, if you prefer, of the economical expressiveness of classic comics from Batman to Garfield. In "Blond Eve," Dagwood and Blondie are ejected from the Garden of Eden into their archetypal suburban home; Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray is reimagined as a foppish Little Nemo; and Camus's Stranger becomes a brooding, chain-smoking Golden Age Superman. Other source material includes Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, bubblegum wrappers, superhero comics, kid cartoons, and more.Sikoryak's classics have appeared in landmark anthologies such as RAW and Drawn & Quarterly, all of which are collected in Masterpiece Comics, along with brilliant new graphic literary satires. His drawings have appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as well as in The New Yorker, The Onion, Mad, and Nickelodeon Magazine.

Black Orchid


Sheldon MayerFred Carillo - 1973
    The original appearances of the Black Orchid from Adventure Comics #428-430, The Phantom Stranger #31, 32, 35, 36, 38-41, and The Super Friends #31.

American Vampire Anthology #1


Scott Snyder - 2013
    Don’t miss these stories brought to you by series creators Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque, as well as other awesome comics talent like Becky Cloonan (BATMAN), Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon (DAYTRIPPER), Jeff Lemire (SWEET TOOTH), Greg Rucka (The Punisher, BATWOMAN), Gail Simone (BATGIRL) and many more!

Deadpool: All in the Family


James Asmus - 2011
    CHILL as Lady Deadpool and Headpool try to find the root cause of their majorly abusive frenemieship. Then THRILL as Kidpool and Dogpool embark on a 100-ton mechanized joy ride and and uhm...GET ILL as Dogpool makes a brand-new archenemy. Then it's 'Two Mutants and a Baby' in the untold story of how Cable escaped from Alaska with Hope. Wait -- You don't think Cable did that alone, did you? PLUS: Deadpool struggles to find the perfect way to honor his pal Cable.

Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff


Andrew Hussie - 2013
    It feels good in your hands: a true work of art, a collector’s dream.But then you notice something wrong. There’s a stain on the cover. And it is there on purpose. It’s a coffee ring printed onto the cover with gloss laminate.This book, the debut effort by cult cartoonist Dave Strider, was realized with the help of a dedicated team of experienced artists. KC Green (gunshowcomic.com), John Keogh (lucid-tv.com), and David Malki ! (wondermark.com) served as designers. Homestuck creator Andrew Hussie (mspaintadventures.com) served as consultant.Since the days of Gutenberg, publishers have tried to marry form with content in pleasing and impressive ways. And while there have been fancy books, and there have been bad books, never before in the history of the codex have the two been mismatched in so dramatic and pointless a fashion. Like a wrench torquing a bolt too hard and shearing off its head, so too does Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff completely and irrevocably break the notion of the printed book.The online comic strip “Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff” follows a handful of friends who get up to nonsensical hijinks. This is in the rare cases when it makes any sense at all. It is universally acknowledged as the worst comic strip ever created.The book Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff lavishly presents the comic’s entire run in a treatment worthy of the highest masters of the form. It contains a completely gratuitous 4-page centerfold reading simply “centaurfold” in bright pink type.Scattered throughout the book are perforated business-reply cards taking the form of irredeemable Subway coupons (a first for comic strip collections). Each copy of the book also comes with a “travel version” (a removable poster of all the book’s pages in grid format); a custom commemorative coin (randomly chosen from 4 designs struck); an oversized plastic paperclip imprinted with the word “paperclop”; and an animated lenticular bookmark. Bound into the spine is a red ribbon approximately three feet long, and if you scratch the nacho chip sticker on the back cover, it smells faintly of pizza. (The hologram sticker of Tony Hawk smells only of chemicals.)

The Art of Emily The Strange


Rob Reger - 2009
    With roots in the punk-rock art scene of Santa Cruz skate culture and an early appeal to European trend spotters, the iconic image of Emily and her philosophy of devout individualism have become deeply rooted in global culture.The Art of Emily Volume One is the first-ever collection of images showing the wide and inspired range of artistic styles and mediums that have been used to create the world of Emily the Strange. From skateboard stickers to custom rock-and-roll album art, large-scale psychedelic paintings, and insanely intricate Mongolian paper cutting, the fantastic and artful imaginings of Rob Reger, Buzz Parker, and a staggeringly talented array of collaborators will give insight and inspiration to any Emily fan.

The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes


Bill Watterson - 1992
    A tiger whose idea of adventure is to lie on his back by the fire and have his stomach rubbed. In six short years this unlikely duo has captured the hearts, the minds, and, most of all, the funny bones of America. They are the most phenomenal success story in syndication - and publishing - history. In only six years, they appear in more than 2,100 newspapers worldwide, and Calvin and Hobbes wins as many readership polls as Calvin has excesses. All seven of Bill Watterson's collections have sold a million copies within a year of publication.This treasury collection contains a never-before-published full-color section, as well as the cartoons appearing in The Revenge of the Baby-Sat and Scientific Progress Goes "Boink." All Sunday cartoons are presented full-page and full-color.

Conquer the Day: A Book of Affirmations


Josh Mecouch - 2021
    Under the Twitter (@pants) and Instagram handle @PantsPants, Josh Mecouch has a large following who delight in his bizarre and unique illustrations. Now, Conquer the Day invites fans into the larger Pants universe, introducing new characters and never-before-seen art. Pairing encouraging affirmations with emotive black-and-white illustrations—highlighted with the occasional splash of color—Josh takes us on a journey into the world of self-improvement. The contrast between the positive affirmations and the visceral style of the illustrations point to the tension between our hopes and aspirations and the reality of our day-to-day lives as we strive to realize our best selves.Unlock the power of affirmations:I exhale weakness and inhale confidence.I am sexy and people want to be around me.My path to sucess success is inevitable.I focus on what I can control. I organize my socks.