The Property


Rutu Modan - 2013
    As they get to know modern Warsaw, Regina is forced to recall difficult things about her past, and Mica begins to wonder if maybe their reasons for coming aren’t a little different than what her grandmother led her to believe.

King-Cat Classix


John Porcellino - 2007
    His spare approach with words and pictures focuses on the smallest of details, revealing a wealth of meaning and emotion in everyday events that most of us overlook in our daily hustle and bustle. Since 1989, he has released more than sixty-five issues of his self-published comic King-Cat Comics and Stories. This large collection focuses on the first fifty issues, with extensive endnotes and an index, along with selections of all the extra ephemera that makes an individual issue of King-Cat its own unique experience—essays, articles, stories, and letters from friends. Included are more than two hundred and fifty pages of comics, ranging from Porcellino's earliest scrawls to his later, perfectly minimalist delineations. The comics range through all of his concerns—family, family pets, the natural world, work, music, romance. This book presents an artist who always knew what he wanted to do. King-Cat Classics shows Porcellino's confidence and skill as it grows steadily through the past fifteen years.

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories


Will Eisner - 1978
    The human drama, the psychological insight -- Eisner captures the soul of the city and its troubled inhabitants with pen and ink. The comics medium was altered forever with the publication of this seminal work.

Hot Comb


Ebony Flowers - 2019
    The titular story “Hot Comb” is about a young girl’s first perm - a doomed ploy to look cool and to stop seeming “too white” in the all-black neighborhood her family has just moved to. Realizations about race, class, and the imperfections of identity swirl through these stories, which are by turns sweet, insightful, and heartbreaking.“Following in the rich tradition of Lynda Barry, Ebony Flowers addresses the sometimes harsh, sometimes devastating pangs of childhood ending. She pays beautiful homage to the struggle to find your place in a world that has such rigid rules about who we are,” Drawn & Quarterly Publisher and acquiring editor Peggy Burns commented. “Hot Comb explores the poetry in everyday life, all the while centering the lives and stories of black women. Ebony’s ease with the comics language is remarkable. Her black and white drawings, as well as her colour collage work, are both equally stunning.”

Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir


Liana Finck - 2018
    In Passing for Human, Finck is on a quest for self-understanding and self-acceptance, and along the way she seeks to answer some eternal questions: What makes us whole? What parts of ourselves do we hide or ignore or chase away—because they’re embarrassing, or inconvenient, or just plain weird—and at what cost?Passing for Human is what Finck calls “a neurological coming-of-age story”—one in which, through her childhood, human connection proved elusive and her most enduring relationships were with plants and rocks and imaginary friends; in which her mother was an artist whose creative life had been stifled by an unhappy first marriage and a deeply sexist society that seemed expressly designed to snuff out creativity in women; in which her father was a doctor who struggled in secret with the guilt of having passed his own form of otherness on to his daughter; and in which, as an adult, Finck finally finds her shadow again—and, with it, her true self.Melancholy and funny, personal and surreal, Passing for Human is a profound exploration of identity by one of the most talented young comic artists working today. Part magical odyssey, part feminist creation myth, this memoir is, most of all, an extraordinary, moving meditation on what it means to be an artist and a woman grappling with the desire to pass for human.

Unmanned


Brian K. Vaughan - 2003
    But why are he and his faithful companion, the often testy male monkey Ampersand, still alive? He sets out to find the answer (and his girlfriend), while running from angry female Republicans (now running the government), Amazon wannabes that include his own sister (seemingly brainwashed), and other threats.

Lost Girls


Alan Moore - 2006
    Now, like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfillment. Through their familiar fairy tales they share with us their most intimate revelations of desire in its many forms... revelations that shine out radiantly through the dark clouds of war gathering around a luxury Austrian hotel.Drawing on the rich heritage of erotica, Lost Girls is the rediscovery of the power of ecstatic writing and art in a sublime union that only the medium of comics can achieve. Exquisite, thoughtful, and human, Lost Girls is a work of breathtaking scope that challenges the very notion of art fettered by convention. This is erotic fiction at its finest.Similar to DC's Absolute editions of Watchmen and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls will be published as three, 112-page, super-deluxe, ovesized hardcover volumes, all sealed in a gorgeous slipcase. It will truly be an edition for the ages.

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.

The Nao of Brown


Glyn Dillon - 2012
    She’s suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and fighting violent urges to harm other people. But that’s not who she really wants to be. Nao has dreams. She wants to quiet her unruly mind; she wants to get her design and illustration career off the ground; and she wants to find love, perfect love. Nao’s life continues to seesaw. Her boyfriend dumps her; a toy deal falls through. But she also meets Gregory, an interesting washing-machine repairman, and Ray, an art teacher at the Buddhist Center. She begins to draw and meditate to ease her mind and open her heart—and in doing so comes to a big realization: Life isn’t black-and-white after all . . . it’s much more like brown.

Mockingbird, Vol. 1: I Can Explain


Chelsea Cain - 2016
    Bobbi Morse, the former Avenger known as Mockingbird, goes solo in her own incredible adventures! With a scientific mind and a lethal mastery of martial arts, she's one of the most versatile, in-demand assets at Maria Hill's disposal - that makes her ideal for investigating strange goings-on in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own medical and recovery network. And when Lance Hunter's undercover gig at the London Hellfire Club goes south, Mockingbird sets off, battle staves at the ready, to save him - and the Queen of England! From helping out a teen driven bonkers by her own new powers, to doing a little dog-sitting, Bobbi shows that she's a woman of many talents as bestselling author Chelsea Cain and artist Kate Niemczyk make Mockingbird sing!COLLECTING: MOCKINGBIRD: S.H.I.E.L.D. 50TH ANNIVERSARY 1, MOCKINGBIRD 1-5

Daddy's Girl


Debbie Drechsler - 1996
    Drechsler pulls no punches in her depiction of incest, and many scenes are hard to read, but this book shows that comics can be a vehicle for serious subjects; the drawings pull the reader into her world more completely than the written word ever could. Drechsler's depiction of childhood is perfect, and there are happy moments within the horror of Lily's life. In one chapter, Lily and a friend contemplate suicide, then walk into the woods, away from their problems. In the last panel, as they sit eating tiny wild strawberries, there is a moment of hope which resonates long after the book is finished.

I Love Led Zeppelin


Ellen Forney - 2006
    This book includes full-page comics published in prestigious weeklies such as the L.A. Weekly and Seattle's The Stranger, as well as the leading feminist magazine Bust, and the Oxford American. Her strips are characterized by bold, sensual brushstrokes and striking images of powerful, butt-kicking women. While most of the stories sprang from Forney's own inspiration, some are collaborations with such luminaries as comedian Margaret Cho, novelist (and Al Gore's daughter) Kristin Gore, writer and editor Dan Savage, writers David Schmader and Tamara Paris, Forney's beloved Grandma Florence, and Camille Paglia. Several of Forney's strips fall into the "How-To" category, although this is not your standard advice column fare: topics range from the practical ("How to Tip Your Server") to the whimsical ("How to Twirl Your Tassles in Opposite Directions") to the fascinating but hopefully never-needed ("How to Sew On an Amputated Finger"). Other strips include "The Final Soundtrack," a death fantasy involving blood, glamour, and Led Zeppelin; "How to Smoke Pot and Stay Out of Jail"; "How to Talk About Drugs with Your Kid"; "How to Fuck a Woman with Your Hands"; "How to Be a Fabulous Fag Hag" (an illustrated interview with Margaret Cho); "Seattle's Erotic Landmarks"; and "Memories of Love," a graphic tour of Courtney Love's rise and fall of celebritydom.

Phonogram, Vol. 1: Rue Britannia


Kieron Gillen - 2007
    Phonomancer David Kohl hadn't spared his old patron a thought for almost as long... at which point his mind starts to unravel. Can he discover what's happened to the Mod-Goddess of Britpop while there's still something of himself left? Dark modern-fantasy in a world where music is magic, where a song can save your life or end it.Collects Phonogram: Rue Britannia #1-6.

Someone Please Have Sex With Me


Gina Wynbrandt - 2016
    "It’s impossible not to fall in love with this hilarious minx as she lunges across the page, nostrils flared, hurling herself into increasingly ridiculous romantic misadventures. Bow down to Gina as she explores what it means to be horny as hell!" — Lisa Hanawalt, production designer/producer of BoJack Horseman, author of My Dirty Dumb Eyes"Someone Please Have Sex With Me plays with conventions of style and color, featuring pleasingly feminine sherbet-y tones juxtaposed against a storyline about a woman looking for love in all the wrong places—in all the wrong ways." — The LA Times"Smart, wickedly funny, and transgressive. More comics like this, please!" — John Porcellino, author of The Hospital SuiteSomeone Please Have Sex With Me is a refreshing and wry look at sexual frustration from our young heroine and author. From failed erotic photoshoots and late-onset teen popstar obsessions to fairy Kardashians and Pokémon-inspired future-sex, Wynbrandt isn't one to hold back. SPHSWM finds its footing at the surreal and hilarious juncture between autobiography and fantasy.Gina Wynbrandt (b. 1990) writes comics about personal humiliations and insecurities, as well as topics like fashion, pop culture, and celebrities. A portion of Gina's work will also appear in Best American Comics 2015 .

Black Hole


Charles Burns - 2005
    We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways—from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable)—but once you've got it, that's it. There's no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters—some kids who have it, some who don't, some who are about to get it—what unfolds isn't the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it, or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself—the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape. And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it—back when it wasn't exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird. To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…