I Will Bite You! and Other Stories


Joseph Lambert - 2011
    The comics here are sophisticated, unusual narratives about animal musicians, mischievous children, cavemen and heavenly bodies.

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book


Joe Daly - 2009
    Set in sun-drenched Cape Town, South Africa, The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book — featuring two full-length stories, “The Leaking Cello Case” and “John Wesley Harding” — is stuffed to the gills with mystery, suspense, action, adventure, conspiracy theories, cool cars, and excellent weed as Dave and his freeloading pal Paul, well-meaning stoners in the tradition of Cheech & Chong and Harold & Kumar, thwart criminal malfeasance even as they ponder the larger questions, such as, “What steps can I personally take to help protect the Earth and the species that inhabit it?” (though most people’s answers to these questions don’t involve sword fights and hovercrafts).Joe Daly brings a refreshingly original—and utterly hilarious—voice to the comics medium, a dry, deadpan wit anchored in everyday reality combined with unnervingly deranged plots, rendered with a hyper-detailed, half-realistic and half-cartoony Tintin-style crispness.

The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks


Max Brooks - 2009
    They’ re coming. They’re hungry.Don’t wait for them to come to you! This is the graphic novel the fans demanded: major zombie attacks from the dawn of humanity. On the African savannas, against the legions of ancient Rome, on the high seas with Francis Drake . . . every civilization has faced them. Here are the grisly and heroic stories–complete with eye-popping artwork that pulsates with the hideous faces of the undead. Organize before they rise!Scripted by the world’s leading zombie authority, Max Brooks, Recorded Attacks reveals how other eras and cultures have dealt with–and survived– the ancient viral plague. By immersing ourselves in past horror we may yet prevail over the coming outbreak in our time.

The Best American Comics 2006


Harvey PekarAlison Bechdel - 2006
    The inaugural volume includes stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the Web.Contributors include Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, Kim Deitch, Jaime Hernandez, Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco, and Lynda Barry—and unique discoveries such as Justin Hall, Esther Pearl Watson, and Lilli Carré.

MOME Summer 2005


Eric Reynolds - 2004
    - A new quarterly anthology of the best new talent in the sequential arts- In color, part-color, and black-and-white- The regular roster of artists gives the series a concrete identity- Quarterly schedule allows readers to look forward to favorite artists on a regular basis- Created for a general audience of literature fans, with a focus on contemporary fiction and narrative

Eerie Archives, Vol. 1


Archie GoodwinDonald Norman - 2004
    Eerie magazine, like its killer kin Creepy, features work from many of the masters of comics storytelling. For fans of spectacular spookiness, mind-bending sci-fi, and astonishing artwork, the Eerie Archives library is a must have!

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.

The Complete Cul de Sac


Richard Thompson - 2013
    Cul de Sacis noted not only for its humour and intelligence, but also for creator Richard Thompson's fun, imaginative watercolour artwork. Cul de Sacis brought to life through manhole-dancing Alice Otterloop, a curious four-year-old who discovers life's ups and downs in suburbia. Along with her Blisshaven Preschool classmates, Alice charms fans of all ages with her escapades. From crafting projects in a cloud of glitter and glue or just trying to comprehend a completely incomprehensible world, Alice is a creature of pure and indomitable will, an irresistible force. Alice describes her father's car as a "Honda-Tonka Cuisinart" and talks to the class guinea pig, Mr. Danders. Alice is joined by her family: her older brother Petey who is intent on being the King of the Picky Eaters; her dad, who's the Assistant Director of Pamphlets at the U.S. Department of Consumption, Office of Consumer Complaints; and her mom, who is capable of doing a million things simultaneously, about five of them well. This library of cartoons and art will both delight long-time fans and provide a fantastic introduction to new readers.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Vol. 1


Joseph Gordon-Levitt - 2011
    With the help of the entire creative collective, Gordon-Levitt culled, edited and curated over 8,500 contributions into this finely tuned collection of original art from 67 contributors. Reminiscent of the 6-Word Memoir series, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1 brings together art and voices from around the world to unite and tell stories that defy size.

Pixy


Max Andersson - 1992
    but then Angina gets a call from the Netherworld. It's her aborted fetus: he's drunk and he's pissed off. So begins Pixy, which Neil Gaiman calls "the best comic I've read this year" — a 65-page journey into a nightmare world unlike any you've ever seen before. The rest of the book follows Alka's attempts to infiltrate the Kingdom of the Dead (where time runs backwards and is sold by the pint to time-addicts), in order to track down the malevolent Pixy and kill him for good. Shedding bodies and identities with some regularity (Pixy himself blows one to smithereens), Alka finds his own sense of reality eroding further and further during his sojourn down under — and it doesn't help at all when Pixy, now his best friend, accompanies him back up to the Land of the Living, where the gun-happy undead sprite wreaks unspeakable havoc. Pixy is the first major work by Swedish cartoonist Max Andersson, and it combines the freewheeling-yet-obsessive graphic and narrative weirdness of such contemporary North American cartoonists as Chester Brown, Julie Doucet, Kaz and Charles Burns with a bizarre yet coherent story that mixes coal black humor, barbed satire, wild surrealism, and stark horror in a totally new way — a feast for the (preferably deranged) mind and the (preferably diseased) eye.

Flight, Vol. 1


Kazu KibuishiJoel Carroll - 2004
    From the maiden voyage of a home-built plane to the adventures of a young courier and his flying whale to a handful of stories about coming of age and letting things go, this first volume of Flight is full of memorable tales that will both amaze and inspire.

Heads or Tails


Lilli Carré - 2012
    Carré’s elegant short stories read like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O’Connor or Carson McCullers, but told visually. Poetic rhythms — a coin flip, a circling ferris wheel — are punctuated by elements of melancholy fantasy pushed forward by character-driven, naturalistic dialogue. The stories in Heads Or Tails display a virtuosic breadth of visual styles and color palettes, each in perfect service of the story, and range from experimental one-pagers to short masterpieces like The Thing About Madeline (featured in The Best American Comics 2008), to graphic novellas like The Carnival (featured in David Sedaris and Dave Eggers’ 2010 Best American Nonrequired Reading, originally published in MOME).

Doonesbury: The Original Yale Cartoons


G.B. Trudeau - 1971
    

The Wolverton Bible


Basil Wolverton - 2008
    His career in the golden age of comic books lasted from 1938 until 1952, after which his illustrations and caricatures extended into such publications as Life, Pageant and MAD magazines. Stylistically, he has been regarded as one of the spiritual grandfathers of underground and alternative comix. Less well known and understood is his work for the Worldwide Church of God, headed until 1986 by radio evangelist Herbert Armstrong. From 1953 through 1974, Wolverton, a deeply religious man, was commissioned and later employed by the church to write and illustrate a narrative of the Old Testament (including over 550 illustrations), some 20apocalyptic illustrations inspired by the Book of Revelations, and dozens of cartoons and humorous illustrations for various Worldwide Church publications.Compiled and edited by Wolverton's son, Monte, the 304-page Wolverton Bible includes all of Wolverton's artwork for the Worldwide Church of God corporation. Recording artist and noted EC authority Grant Geissman (Tales of Terror: The E.C. Companion and Foul Play : The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics )provides an insightful foreword, while Monte Wolverton delivers commentary and background in the introduction and in each section. This volume is authorized and commissioned by the Worldwide Church of God and endorsed by the Wolverton family.Many of the illustrations in this book are regarded as Basil Wolverton s finest work. Still others have never been published, and some of the humorous drawings printed here rival Wolverton's work in MAD magazine.

Big Ideas: Explanations, True Stories, Love, Nutrition, Advice, and More


Lynda Barry - 1983
    Like Girls and Boys, Big Ideas features many of her greatest cartoons, including her menacing "Poodle with a Mohawk". Line drawings throughout.