Whether playing the online dating game, trying couples therapy, dealing with uncooperative children, discovering the melancholy of middle age, dreaming of a better life, or finally grasping the golden (or at least bronze) ring, these chickens encounter everyday troubles and triumphs as painfully recognizable as they are hilarious. Clever, charming, and endlessly entertaining, Going for the Bronze is a brilliant follow-up to a wholly unique bestseller.

    In this FCBD edition, we present adventures from our kid-favorite titles: Owly by Andy Runton, Johnny Boo by James Kochalka, Korgi by Christian Slade, Okie Dokie Donuts by Chris Eliopoulos, Pirate Penguin Vs Ninja Chicken by Ray Friesen, and Upside Down by Jess Smart Smiley. Perfect for everyone in the family. With a great cover by Ray Friesen this time around to boot!

    Perfectly Clear brings back into print stories that Hornschemeier published prior to his Three Paradoxes Fantagraphics debut from a variety of sources—his own self-published Forlorn Funnies, as well as strips that originally appeared in independent magazines and papers—none of which has been available to the book trade.The book is designed as a "flip book" in the tradition of the old Ace paperbacks, with one side featuring comedic work (or as comedic as Hornschemeier's mind allows), and the other decidedly more morose. With almost every page, we see a new style, a new direction; with the resultant effect being that of an anthology by creators of vastly contrasting sensibilities.On the "funny" menu, we are treated to Dr. Rodentia (an unfortunate-looking fellow with only apathy as his weapon), a detailed artist's catalogue exploring such modern masterpieces as "Accidental Late-Night Sex With a Radiator," musings on the cancerous nature of civilization as observed by a deceased cat and a cotton-based airbus, the scatological "Feelings Check," the ever pathetic Vanderbilt Millions and his fantasies of self-worth, and the multi-narrative story that started the Forlorn Funnies comics series: "The Men and Women of the Television."Clearly, there is a fine line in the Hornschemeier lexicon between funny and morose.On our "forlorn" plate we are served the cold examination of the dyslexic narcoleptic and his bungled plans of murder, a sea creature's balancing of morality and sustenance, the Western romance "Wanted," a metal man's self-destructive search for meaning, and the story the alternative website Ain't It Cool News describes as delivering "a complicated mixture of disgust and pity."Let Us Be Perfectly Clear demonstrates Paul Hornschemeier's versatility and breadth in an elegantly produced book that will appeal to connoisseurs of contemporary, cutting-edge cartoons and graphic novels.

    New York Sketches features 15 full-color reproductions of the beautiful ink-and-watercolor drawings that Tomine began after moving from California to the city. Each shows his unparalleled eye for detail: a police officer scrutinizes a stylish young mother; a girl remains content but completely motionless through four subway stops; a disgruntled worker kicks a chair while he sweeps. This remarkable portfolio is printed on finely textured 130-lb. Cougar paper, accordion folded so that images can be detached for framing or displayed upright together. It is the only full-color project featuring new art from Adrian Tomine, one of the most respected and perhaps the most widely visible alternative cartoonists of our time.

    You might know Al from his zines Burn Collector and Natural Disasters or from the band Milemarker or his so-true-it-kicks-your-face-off column in Punk Planet. This, however, is Al's collection of comics published in the late '90s by designer and fellow zinester Ian Lyman. From Portland to Providence, Al patrols his world with a dark, stoic humor. He's a Saul Bellow-ian everyman, up against the wall, suffering the blows, looking for love and loving the metal. Like Al's latest issue of Burn Collector, the comic-heavy #14, the drawing here is simple but it's the kind of simple that doesn't come with beginner's luck. The stuff here is the result of years of fighting and trouble-making, of mistakes made and a life scratched out among the sticks and stones. As says Al, "These are things drawn on napkins in airports, xeroxed illicitly during work." So goes the work and world of Al Burian.

    The book is divided into six chapters, each focusing on a theme; one is a series of eerily compelling portraits based on a dozen family photographs Doucet found discarded in a garbage can in Berlin. In another series, Doucet explores gender issues as no one else can with twenty hilarious, somewhat unflattering portraits of the "modern man." She deftly explores other themes, ranging from fortune cookies to female sexuality (go figure ), and everything is neatly encompassed in this sharply-designed art book. Julie Doucet is internationally renowned for her wry, sexually-charged work, a sort of "female R. Crumb" of comics. She is the author of four books, including the 2000 Firecracker Award-Winner "My New York Diary. "

    His novel not only won the Manchester Guardian First Novel prize in 2001 but it has sold over 100,000 copies. This book is as much a companion volume to Jimmy Corrigan --one of the great crossover success stories-- as a tremendous art collection from of one of America's most interesting and popular graphic artist.Chris Ware has a passion for drawing that is surprisingly wide-ranging in style and subject. This book surprises the reader on every page with its sense of spontaneous vision. Architectural drawings from Chicago and interplanetary robot comics collide with cruelly doodled human figures and quietly troubling studies of the still life. A must for people with a passion for modern design and old-fashioned style.

    In a dangerously uncertain world, Kochalka plots a theoretical path to happiness. Collecting his most intensely thoughtful work, Kochalka tackles the big issues . . . comics and art, birth and death, technology and joy, and everything in between. Included are "The Horrible Truth about Comics", "Reinventing Everything" parts 1 and 2, "Sunburn", "The Cute Manifesto" and even Kochalka’s famous “Craft is the Enemy” essays.

    Thus each rare new story from her pen has been greeted with hurrahsas well they should be, because she's one of the most skillful, caustic, and emphatic cartoon storytellers of her generation. This new book presents the biggest, richest and most delightful collection of Tyler's work to date featuring many new and previously unpublished works.In "Migrant Mother" Tyler tells the grueling story of a cross-country trip with the flu and her terrible twos toddler using her trademark combination of rueful humor and emphathy. The full-color "Just A Bad Seed" is a meditation on a problem child who might not be such a problem after all, while "The Return of Mrs. Kite" chronicles a family crisishow her widowed grandmother fell in with a beau of questionable character. "Gone" (also in full color) is a stirring meditation on all kinds of loss, and "Why I'm A-gin' Southern Men" is a classic rant that dissects that particular breed of maleor at least a certain subspecies of "ex"eswith pitiless wit.Other stories include "Sweet Miss Lee" (a reminiscence of an immigrant roommate and her fate), "There's Something Wrong with a Perfect Lawn" (a tale of suburban obsessiveness), "Little Crosshatch Mind" (where artistic impulses come from), and "Uncovered Property" (discovering the power of sexuality at an early age).Tyler works equally well in delicately crisp black-and-white penstrokes and lushly watercolored paintings (this book will feature 60 pages of her stunning full-color work). All told, the three-dozen stories here will cement Tyler's reputation as a cartoonist to be reckoned with. 136 pages, 60 pages in color.

    So what happens to the 75 percent of cartoons that don't make the cut? Some go back in a drawer, others go up on the refrigerator or into the filing cabinet...but the very best of all the rejects can be found right here in these pages. "The Rejection Collection Vol. 2: The Cream of the Crap" is the ultimate scrap heap of creative misfires -- from the lowbrow and the dirty to the politically incorrect and the weird, these rejects represent the best of the worst...in the best possible sense of the word. Handpicked by editor Matthew Diffee, these hilarious cartoons are accompanied by handwritten questionnaires and photographed self-portraits, providing a rare glimpse into the minds of the artists behind the rejection. With appendices that explore the top ten reasons why cartoons are rejected and examine the solitary nature of the job of cartooning -- plus a special bonus section of questions asked of and answered by cartoon editor Robert Mankoff -- this sequel to "The Rejection Collection" offers even deeper insight into the exercise in frustration, patience, and amusement that is being a "New Yorker" cartoonist. Warped, wicked, and wildly funny, "The Rejection Collection Vol. 2 "will appeal to every "New Yorker" fan -- and everyone with a taste for the absurd.

    Five years after defeating the demon king Piccolo, he's grown up and had a family--he's married, and he has a child, Son Gohan. But what is the real reason for Goku's incredible strength? A visitor from outer space arrives bearing terrible news--Goku is an alien, and the visitor, Raditz, is Goku's brother! When Raditz turns out to be a ruthless killer, Goku must fight his incredibly strong brother to save his family and the entire human race. A surprising alliance may be Earth's last hope: Goku will team up with his old enemy Piccolo...archenemies united to save the world!

    Brad is a good guy, but his abusive father is making his life hell. Greg is full of money, but he's as aimless as he is rich. Each one thinks that challenging Mother Nature is somehow going to fix whatever issues they're dealing with. That is if they ever get their Jeep out of the increasingly bizarre swamp that they are trapped in.

    He has been a basement- dweller, gallery troll, and a purveyor of forbidden notions. Originally distributed into the world as Xeroxed pamphlets, these “underground comix” reflect the true nature of its nomenclature: Here are the archeological findings of the subterranean ruins of the psyche. Finally, these scattered elements have been compiled into a compact, lushly illustrated bedside reader. Give your cerebellum a tug and become a spelunker of the subconscious as we trespassamong the scorched archaic wastelands of the offspring of apes and fools. Here we find the profane, beautiful progeny of prurient ideals. Immerse yourself in the nocturnal meanderings of unnamed protagonists. Ponder the uncomfortable sexuality of the twins, Cochlea Eustachia. Recoil at the doings of a dwarfish malefactor in Hail Jeffrey, or simply stare at the pretty pictures. Suffice to say that readers of The Squirrel Machine will not be disappointed.The author instructs you not misuse this tome. Poke it gently with a long stick, if you must. Careful, it might ruin the carpet. Placate it with a belly-rub or sweet pastry before it attacks the children. Don’t worry, your tongue won’t stick. If it fits, don’t shove it in too quickly. Keep it as your own cherished object; a shameful, guarded secret. The filter for reality’s blinding glare. Detritus of the Under-Brain. The Unspeakable Thing You Always Knew.FOLLY: The Consequences Of Indiscretion. By one of the most inscrutable and discomforting cartoonists alive.

    The first issue, #0, was released in October 1994 by Fantagraphics Books, and a second issue, #1, was released the following January. A third issue (#2) was announced in the pages of other Fantagraphics publications and solicited in Previews but was never published. "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", a color short story with a markedly different art style originally intended for issue #2, appeared instead in the anthology Zero Zero. In a 2010 interview, Columbia recalled that the unfinished issue "looked so different that it just didn’t look right, it didn’t look consistent, and it didn’t feel right to keep putting out that same comic book, to try to tell a story where the style is mutating."[1] The series' title is taken from a passage in the William S. Burroughs book Exterminator! (in the chapter "Short Trip Home"). The passage in question is quoted briefly in a story from issue #0, also titled "The Biologic Show".Each issue of The Biologic Show contains several short stories and illustrated poems. Many of the pieces deal with disturbing subject matter such as mutilation, incest, and the occult. Issue #0 introduces three of Columbia's recurring characters: the hapless, Koko the Clown-like Seymour Sunshine in the opening story "No Tomorrow If I Must Return", and the sibling duo Pim and Francie in "Tar Frogs". (Both "Tar Frogs" and the aforementioned "The Biologic Show" had originally appeared in the British comics magazine Deadline but were partially redrawn for Columbia's solo book.) Issue #1 is dominated by the 16-page Pim and Francie story "Peloria: Part One", intended as the start of an ongoing serial. It includes another character, Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, who reappears in Columbia's later work. Upon the demise of The Biologic Show Fantagraphics announced that Peloria would be released as a stand-alone graphic novel,[2] but this plan was also abandoned.

    Nature has all but disappeared in her world, but no one notices because of the antidepressants they're on. Lulu (who never takes her medicine) feels an increasing sense of dread and despair, until her fate changes one cold day when she finds a magic bottle containing a map. Drawn by pirates long ago, this map shows the way to the lost world of the Peppermint Islands, sunk to the bottom of the sea 400 years ago in the great battle between the pirates and the capitalists. Suddenly, Lulu has the chance to save the last remaining wild animals on earth, but she'll have to battle the Peppermint Man and the Great Trading Company in order to defeat the capitalist machine out to ruin the natural world. With the help of her new octopus friend, Mr. Blue, they start their journey to save the Peppermint Islands from annihilation.This is the latest Blab! storybook, a series of graphic novels showcasing artists from Monte Beauchamp's annual BLAB! anthology, presented in a faux-children's book format, though aimed squarely at adults and young adults.