HAW! is not for the young or weak of heart!

    The compendium includes many of Ryan's previously unpublished parodies.

    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.

    

    Ben Snakepit has been chronicling his life in three-panel comic strips for the past three and a half years. The material is funny at first, but becomes transcendently more than funny, showcasing repetitive patterns of behavior, common mistakes, the redeeming beauty of small moments and all the life that's in between.

    She and her sisters team up with to become... JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS! But what does it mean to be JEM today? Fashion, art, action, and style collide in Jem and the Holograms: Showtime! Collects issues #1-6.

    It also happens to be hilariously funny and infectious in its bubbly charm, combining autobiography with a kind of magic science-fiction.

    

    He's 23 years old, he's in a rockband, he's "between jobs" and he's dating a cute high school girl. Nothing could possibly go wrong, unless a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott's awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? The short answer is yes. The long answer is Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life

    With her eternal lover Quana at her side, she will stop at nothing to use its otherworldly power to bring a Golden Age to the peoples under her rule. So, when what might be another piece of the Luxon appears nearby, Leylas sends Quana to collect it... with consequences that may threaten the entire Dynasty!

    Who are the LEVIATHONS? Who controls them? How can they be stopped before Earth becomes another tragic, barren world in their wake? Written by powerhouse writer CULLEN BUNN and drawn by Marvel legend STEVE McNIVEN, this issue is the beginning of something big that you just can't miss!

    Don't miss it!

    Now collected into 15 volumes, Love & Rockets is a body of work that The Nation has described as "one of the hidden treasures of our impoverished culture." Created by brothers Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, three Southern California Mexican-Americans armed with a passion for pop culture and punk rock, Love & Rockets gave a voice to minorities and women for the first time in the medium's then 50-year history and remains one of the greatest achievements in comic book history.

    It's like they were your actual high school peers - pissing off the administration and taking care of each other when they get beat up by skinheads. Liz Baillie has a real talent for dialogue, characters, storytelling, and capturing New York - especially those moments that we all live, awkwardly making out, pulling pranks, and drinking beer. This graphic novel collects the first five (out of 10) issues of the comic My Brain Hurts.

    Also includes a collection of interviews, recipes and a short story by Ray. 187 pages.[http://www.achewood.com]