Book picks similar to
Sports Is Hell by Ben Passmore


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Eartha


Cathy Malkasian - 2017
    For a thousand years, the unfinished dreams—sex fantasies, murder plots, wishful thinking—from the City Across the Sea came to Echo Fjord to find sanctuary. Emerging from the soil, they took bodily form and wandered the land, gently guided by the fjord folk. But recently they've stopped coming, and Eartha wants solve the mystery. Without thought or hesitation—the city isn’t on any map, or in anyone’s memory—she ventures into the limitless waters, hoping to find the City.

Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice


John Layman - 2009
    A weird secret. Tony Chu is Cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he's a hell of a detective, as long as he doesn't mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit, and why. He's been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest, sickest, and most bizarre cases.Collects CHEW issues #1-5.

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb


Jonathan Fetter-Vorm - 2012
    This sweeping historical narrative traces the spark of invention from the laboratories of nineteenth-century Europe to the massive industrial and scientific efforts of the Manhattan Project. Along the way, Fetter-Vorm takes special care to explain the fundamental science of nuclear reactions. With the clarity and accessibility that only a graphic book can provide, Trinity transports the reader into the core of a nuclear reaction—into the splitting atoms themselves.The power of the atom was harnessed in a top-secret government compound in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where some of the greatest scientific minds in the world gathered together to work on the bomb. Fetter-Vorm showcases J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and General Leslie Groves, the fathers of the atomic bomb, whose insights unleashed the most devastating explosion known to humankind. These brilliant scientists wrestled daily with both the difficulty of building an atomic weapon and the moral implications of actually succeeding.When the first bomb finally went off at a test site code-named Trinity, the world was irreversibly thrust into a new and terrifying age. With powerful renderings of the catastrophic events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fetter-Vorm unflinchingly chronicles the far-reaching political, environmental, and ethical effects of this new discovery. Richly illustrated and deeply researched, Trinity is a dramatic, informative, and thought-provoking book on one of the most significant and harrowing events in history.

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.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth


Chris Ware - 2000
    It won the Guardian First Book Award 2001, the first graphic novel to win a major British literary prize.It is the tragic autobiography of an office dogsbody in Chicago who one day meets the father who abandoned him as a child. With a subtle, complex and moving story and the drawings that are as simple and original as they are strikingly beautiful, Jimmy Corrigan is a book unlike any other and certainly not to be missed.**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**

Ant Colony


Michael DeForge - 2014
    His brash, confident, undulating artwork sent a shock wave through the comics world for its unique, fully formed aesthetic.From its opening pages, Ant Colony immerses the reader in a world that is darkly existential, with false prophets, unjust wars, and corrupt police officers, as it follows the denizens of a black ant colony under attack from the nearby red ants. On the surface, it’s the story of this war, the destruction of a civilization, and the ants’ all too familiar desire to rebuild. Underneath, though, Ant Colony plumbs the deepest human concerns—loneliness, faith, love, apathy, and more. All of this is done with humor and sensitivity, exposing a world where spiders can wreak unimaginable amounts of havoc with a single gnash of their jaws.DeForge’s striking visual sensibility—stark lines, dramatic color choices, and brilliant use of page and panel space—stands out in this volume.

Asterios Polyp


David Mazzucchelli - 2009
    An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait. Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this “escape” really about? As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he’s gotten to where he is. And isn’t. And we meet Hana: a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she’s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli’s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.Asterios Polyp is David Mazzucchelli’s masterpiece: a great American graphic novel.

Batman: White Knight


Sean Murphy - 2018
    Until now…Set in a world where the Joker is cured of his insanity and homicidal tendencies, The Joker, now known as “Jack,” sets about trying to right his wrongs. First, he plans to reconcile with Harley Quinn, and then he’ll try to save the city from the one person who he thinks is truly Gotham City’s greatest villain: Batman!Superstar writer and artist Sean Murphy (PUNK ROCK JESUS, THE WAKE) presents a eight-issue miniseries of a twisted Gotham City with a massive cast of heroes and villains that, at its heart, is a tragic story of a hero and a villain: Batman and The Joker. But which is the hero—and which the villain?COLLECTING: Batman: White Knight 1-8

Sullivan's Sluggers


Mark Andrew Smith - 2010
    After the 7th inning stretch, the sun goes down, and the dysfunctional teammates find themselves fighting for their lives against a town of flesh-eating monsters! Now, it's up to coach Casey Sullivan to put down the booze, step up to the proverbial plate, and help his team escape from being the next dish in the town's terrifying feeding frenzy! Harvey Award-winning graphic novel author Mark Andrew Smith joins forces with Eisner Award-nominated illustrator James Stokoe for a gripping rollercoaster of a graphic novel, packed with shocks, gore, and screamingly outrageous humor, when America's Favorite Past Time becomes one team's nightmare!

Skyward, Vol. 1: My Low-G Life


Joe Henderson - 2018
    Twenty years later, humanity has adapted to its new low-gravity reality. And to Willa Fowler, a woman born just after G-day, it's...well, it's pretty awesome, actually. You can fly through the air! I mean, sure, you can also die if you jump too high. So you just don't jump too high. And maybe don't get mixed up in your Dad's secret plan to bring gravity back that could get you killed...SKYWARD, VOL. 1 collects issues #1-5 of the ongoing series from writer Joe Henderson (showrunner of Fox's Lucifer) and artist Lee Garbett (Lucifer, Loki: Agent of Asgard).

Vote Loki


Christopher Hastings - 2016
    Now he wants to add one more title to the list: President of the United States! That's right, the God of Lies wants to be ruler of the free world! But is this just another scheme? One fact is certain: With Loki's winning smile and silver tongue on the campaign trail, this election just got a lot more interesting! He'll soon have the American people eating out of the palm of his hand, but can would-be President Laufeyson sway the media? And what will be his response when the heroes of Earth launch their attack ad? A crisis in Latveria offers Loki the chance to demonstrate his foreign policy...but surely he wouldn't cause a national catastrophe just for a little good press? Would he?COLLECTING: VOTE LOKI 1-4; MATERIAL FROM JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 85, AVENGERS (1963) 300

The Beauty, Vol. 1


Jeremy Haun - 2016
    What if there was a way to guarantee you could become more and more beautiful every day? What if it was a sexually transmitted disease? In the world of The Beauty, physical perfection is only one sexual encounter away. The vast majority of the population has taken advantage of it, but Detectives Vaughn and Foster will soon discover it comes at a terrible cost. Now, they'll have to find their way past corrupt poiticians, vengeful federal agents, and a terrifying mercenary out to collect the price on their heads. Collects the first six issues of the critically acclaimed, Pilot Season winning series by writer/artist JEREMY HAUN (Constantine, Batwoman) and co-writer JASON A. HURLEY. ...a high concept that is, frankly, genius... - multiversitycomics.com This is absolutely a book to check out. - all-comic.com ...one of the strongest introductions to a series in a long time... comicbookresources.com"

Palestine


Joe Sacco - 1996
    Like Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine has been favorably compared to Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus for its ability to brilliantly navigate such socially and politically sensitive subject matter within the confines of the comic book medium.Sacco has often been called the first comic book journalist, and he is certainly the best. This edition of Palestine also features an introduction from renowned author, critic, and historian Edward Said (Peace and Its Discontents and The Question of Palestine), one of the world's most respected authorities on the Middle Eastern conflict.

X-O Manowar, Volume 1: By The Sword


Robert Venditti - 2012
    He has lived his life under the heel of the Roman Empire, but now a far more terrible enemy has come to subjugate him. Taken from his home and family, Aric is enslaved aboard a starship belonging to a brutal race of alien colonizers known as The Vine. If he is to have any hope of escaping and returning to Earth, he will have to steal the Vine’s most powerful weapon – a sentient suit of indestructible armor – and become X-O Manowar!This volume of the acclaimed, breakout series by New York Times best-selling author Robert Venditti (The Surrogates, The Homeland Directive) and Eisner Award-winning artist Cary Nord (Conan)!Collecting: X-O Manowar 1-4

Little Bird: The Fight for Elder's Hope


Darcy Van Poelgeest - 2019
    A gorgeously illustrated epic where one girl risks everything to save her people, their land, and the freedom they so desperately deserve.Collects Little Bird #1-5.