Book picks similar to
Vague Tales by Eric Haven


comics
graphic-novels
fantagraphics
graphic-novel

Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion


Hans Rickheit - 2012
    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.

Blacklung


Chris Wright - 2012
    Blacklung is a story that lives up to the term graphic novel, that could only exist in sequential pictures densely textured, highly stylized, delicately and boldly rendered drawings that is, taken together, wholly original. In a night of piratical treachery when an arrogant school teacher is accidentally shanghaied aboard the frigate Hand, his fate becomes inextricably fettered to that of a sardonic gangster. Dependent on one another for survival in their strange and dangerous new home, the two form an unlikely alliance as they alternately elude or confront the thieves and cutthroats that bad luck has made their companions and captors. After an act of terrible violence, the teacher is brought before the ship 's captain and instructed to use his literary skills to aid him in writing his memoirs. He is to serve as scribe for a man who, in his remaining years, has made it his mission to commit as many acts of evil as possible in order to ensure that he meet his dead wife in hell. As the captain 's protected confidant, finding his only comfort in the few books afforded him, the teacher bears witness to monstrous brutality, relentless cruelty, strange wisdom, and a journey of redemption through loss of faith.

Wally Gropius


Tim Hensley - 2010
    When the elder Thaddeus Gropius confronts Wally with the boilerplate plot ultimatum that he must marry "the saddest girl in the world" or be disinherited, a yarn unravels that is part screwball comedy and part unhinged parable on the lucrativeness of changing your identity.Hensley's dialogue is witty, lyrical, sampled, dada, and elliptical--all in the service of a very bizarre mystery. There's sex, violence, rock and roll, intrigue, and betrayal--all brought home in Hensley's truly inimitable style.Created during an era when another well-off "W" was stuffing the coffers of the morbidly solvent, Wally Gropius transforms futile daydreams and nightmares into the absurdity of capital.

Safari Honeymoon


Jesse Jacobs - 2014
    Amongst the unusual flora and fauna, they discover within themselves something more strange and terrible than any sight their safari has to offer. Safari Honeymoon is a tale of jungle love and jungle madness.

Red Ultramarine


Manuele Fior - 2006
    Only the love of Silvia, his girlfriend, can save him. To help him, she goes to a strange doctor, who will guide her on a journey between reality and myth... This is an early work of the internationally acclaimed cartoonist, rendered in a striking red and black two-color palette.

Stunt


Michael DeForge - 2019
    Hiring a professional double, an actor spurs on his own demise as he and his double explore the depths of degradation and self-destruction.

Youth Is Wasted


Noah Van Sciver - 2014
    Youth Is Wasted collects several of Noah Van Sciver's most outstanding short stories from his critically acclaimed, award-nominated comic book series, Blammo, as well as various anthology submissions.

Wilson


Daniel Clowes - 2010
    In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of onesided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor. After his father dies, Wilson, now irrevocably alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption.Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family—a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.In the first all-new graphic novel from one of the leading cartoonists of our time, Daniel Clowes creates a thoroughly engaging, complex, and fascinating portrait of the modern egoist—outspoken and oblivious to the world around him.Working in a single-page-gag format and drawing in a spectrumof styles, the cartoonist of GhostWorld, Ice Haven, and David Boring gives us his funniest and most deeply affecting novel to date.

Becoming Horses


Disa Wallander - 2020
    The You you know may shift and take form as a beautiful horse, a sunset, or something so special, so huge that you could never describe it.Disa Wallander’s Becoming Horses is a mix of delicate cartooning and brash collage—watercolor and photography. Her colorful flowing drawings and watercolors are experimental yet accessible, as her characters mull big questions about life and art, philosophizing in a thoroughly modern voice. Bright dialogue and pleading silences create a beautiful journey that is, in fact, “the destination.”

New School


Dash Shaw - 2013
    A sense of "being different" grows to alienation, until he angrily blames this once-enchanting land for his feelings of isolation. All of this is told through the fantastical eyes of young Danny, a boy growing up in the '90s fed on dramatic adventure stories like Jurassic Park and X-Men. Danny's older brother, Luke, travels to a remote island to teach English to the employees of ClockWorld, an ambitious new amusement park that recreates historical events. When Luke doesn't return after two years, Danny travels to ClockWorld to convince Luke to return to America. But Luke has made a new life, new family, and even a new personality for himself on ClockWorld, rendering him almost unrecognizable to his own brother. Danny comes of age as he explores the island, ClockWorld, and fights to bring his brother home. New School is unlike anything in the history of the comics medium: at once funny and deadly serious, easily readable while wildly artistic, personal and political, familiar and completely new.

Revival, Vol. 1: You're Among Friends


Tim Seeley - 2012
    Now it's up to Officer Dana Cypress to deal with the media scrutiny, religious zealots, and government quarantine that has come with them. In a town where the living have to learn to deal with those who are supposed to be dead, Officer Cypress must solve a brutal murder, and everyone, alive or undead, is a suspect. The sell-out hit series created by NYT Bestselling author TIM SEELEY and Eisner winning artist MIKE NORTON is collected with bonus material!Collects REVIVAL 1-5 and the FREE COMIC BOOK DAY short story

Berlin, Vol. 1: City of Stones


Jason Lutes - 2000
    Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters intertwined with the historical events unfolding around them. City of Stones covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a glowing shadow.

How To Be Happy


Eleanor Davis - 2014
    Davis is one of the finest cartoonists of her generation, and has been producing comics since the mid-2000s. Happy represents the best stories she's drawn for such curatorial venues as Mome and No-Brow, as well as her own self-publishing and web efforts. Davis achieves a rare, subtle poignancy in her narratives that are at once compelling and elusive, pregnant with mystery and a deeply satisfying emotional resonance. Happy shows the full range of Davis's graphic skills -- sketchy drawing, polished pen and ink line work, and meticulously designed full color painted panels-- which are always in the service of a narrative that builds to a quietly devastating climax.

Jimbo's Inferno


Gary Panter - 2006
    "It won't work. Even though the comic is engorged with Dante's Hell and though Jimbo mouths a super-condensed version of what happens in The Inferno, canto by canto, characters are fused, actions inverted, parodied, subject to mutation by my odd memories and obsessions and whims…"That said, Jimbo's Inferno is the hugely anticipated sequel (or prequel, as it was actually completed first) to Jimbo In Purgatory. In this oversize hardcover cloth-and-gold-finished volume, produced to the same exacting standards as 2004's Purgatory, Jimbo, accompanied by his trusty guide and ride Valise, visits Hell (here envisioned as a gigantic subterranean shopping mall called Focky Bocky), and in so doing runs across minotaurs, drug-addled punkettes, UFOs, giant robots, and more, leading him to such profound questions as, "Why do so many recreational activities involve smoke and heat?"Panter's wild Albrecht-Dürer-meets-Jack-Kirby graphics are wilder and more hallucinatory than ever, and given the full, expansive treatment they so richly deserve.

From Now On: Short Comic Tales of The Fantastic


Malachi Ward - 2015
    Check it out."—Frank Santoro on Malachi Ward's Ritual Three: Vile Decay, The Comics JournalA collection of hauntingly beautiful science fiction and horror short stories by Prophet and Ritual artist Malachi Ward. Collects stories from Mome, Study Group Magazine, Sundays, Best American Comics 2013, and more.In a dozen stories Malachi explores and blends the classic themes of fantasy and science fiction using a range of illustration techniques and styles. In "Utu" a Shaman arrives at an outpost with prognostications of a terrible war. He claims his visions come from a mysterious god, but can he be trusted? In "Hero for Science" a time-travelling rescue mission turns dour when a team member goes native. In "The Scout" while retrieving information in a remote cave, a scout encounters another version of himself.Malachi Ward is the creator of the Ritual comic book series from Revival House Press, The Expansion series with Matt Sheean, The Scout, Utu, and Top Five, which is included in the 2013 edition of Best American Comics. Malachi has done work for Brandon Graham's Prophet, Mome, Nobrow, and Study Group Comics. He is currently an artist on the Image Comics series Prophet Strikefile.