Cat vs Human


Yasmine Surovec - 2011
    The hugely successful blog catvshuman.com receives over 6,000 page views per day, and many of its cartoons have gone viral. 40% new material unpublished on the website.Yasmine Surovec began sketching her clever and sarcastic Cat Versus Human cartoons as a way to relax and unwind. Soon, her popular blog at catversushuman.blogspot.com began receiving as many as 12,000 hits per day, with a number of posts going viral and appearing on popular Web sites such as The Huffington Post and I Can Has Cheezburger. Now, a selection of 100 Cat Versus Human strips--many never previously published--can be found inside this inaugural collection of Cat Versus Human.Proud owners of Felis domesticus will instantly recognize Surovec's keen insights into cat behavior and all of the characteristic intricacies of the cat-human relationship, such as the allure of an empty cardboard box trumping an expensive battery-operated toy or how a cat's favorite nap spot might as easily be inside a litter box, on top of clean laundry, or directly on top of a human face. Cat Versus Human also encourages an affectionate look at your once-was-in-mint-condition midcentury modern sofa that is now being unstuffed one cat claw at a time.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures


Phoebe Gloeckner - 2002
    I was a very ugly child. My appearance has not improved so I guess it was a lucky break when he was attracted by my youthfulness." So begins the wrenching diary of Minnie Goetze, a fifteen-year-old girl longing for love and acceptance and struggling with her own precocious sexuality. Minnie hates school and she wants to be an artist, or maybe a speleologist, or a bartender. She sleeps with her mother's boyfriend, and yet is too shy to talk with boys at school. She forges her way through adolescence, unsupervised and unguided, defenseless, and yet fearless.The story unfolds in the libertine atmosphere of the 1970s San Francisco, but the significance of Minnie's effort to understand herself and her world is universal. This is the story of an adolescent troubled by the discontinuity between what she thinks and feels and what she observes in those around her. The Diary of a Teenage Girl offers a searing comment on adult society as seen though the eyes of a young woman on the verge of joining it.In this unusual novel, artist and writer Phoebe Gloeckner presents a pivotal year in a girl's life, recounted in diary pages and illustrations, with full narrative sequences in comics form.

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art


Scott McCloud - 1993
    Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.

Absolute DC: The New Frontier


Darwyn Cooke - 2006
    Stalwarts such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman continued to fight for truth and justice, but as the world hurtled toward an uncertain future, it would take a new breed of hero to define the American Way. DC: The New Frontier takes readers on an epic journey from the end of the Golden Age of heroes to the beginnings of the legendary Justice League of America. Darwyn Cooke's most ambitious project yet features the stunning color art of Dave Stewart, an introduction by DC's President and Publisher Paul Levitz, and an afterword by Cooke.

47 Ronin


Mike Richardson - 2014
    Opening with the tragic incident that sealed the fate of Lord Asano, 47 Ronin follows a dedicated group of Asano’s vassals on their years-long path of vengeance!

Marvel 1602


Neil Gaiman - 2003
    Classic Marvel icons such as the X-Men, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and Daredevil appear in this intriguing world of 17th-century science and sorcery, instantly familiar to readers, yet subtly different in this new time. Marvel 1602 combines classic Marvel action and adventure with the historically accurate setting of Queen Elizabeth I's reign to create a unique series unlike any other published by Marvel Comics.Collecting Marvel 1602 #1-8 - penciled by andy Kubert and digitally painted by Richard Isanove, with covers by Scott McKowen.

Miracleman, Book One: A Dream of Flying


Alan MooreAlan Davis - 1990
    After nearly two decades away, Miracleman uncovers his origins and their connection to the British military's "Project Zarathustra" - while his alter ego, Michael Moran, must reconcile his life as the lesser half of a god.

Black Is the Color


Julia Gfrörer - 2013
    The narrative also explores the experiences of the loved ones he leaves behind, on his ship and at home on land, as well as of the mermaids who jadedly witness his destruction. At the heart of the story lie the dubious value of maintaining dignity to the detriment of intimacy, and the erotic potential of the worst-case scenario. Julie Gfrörer’s delicate drawing style perfectly complements the period era of Black Is the Color, bringing the lyricism and romanticism of Gfrörer’s prose to the fore. Black Is the Color is a book as seductive as the sirens it depicts.

Kick-Ass


Mark Millar - 2010
    Designing a suit for himself and taking the name "Kick-Ass," Dave decides to make his dreary existence more exciting - and maybe even help some people in the process. But with no special powers and outmatched by New York City's most hardened criminals, Kick-Ass might be in for a little more than he bargained for. With his super-hero secret identity gaining fans due to a popular viral video, and other masked vigilantes beginning to make their presence felt in the city, Dave knows that his extracurricular activity is dangerous, maybe even stupid - but he's got the itch, and it ain't going away.COLLECTING: Kick-Ass 1-8

Dark Night: A True Batman Story


Paul Dini - 2016
       The Caped Crusader has been the all-abiding icon of justice and authority for generations. But in this surprising original graphic novel, we see Batman in a new light—as the savior who helps a discouraged man recover from a brutal attack that left him unable to face the world. In the 1990s, legendary writer Paul Dini had a flourishing career writing the hugely popular Batman: The Animated Series and Tiny Toon Adventures. Walking home one evening, he was jumped and viciously beaten within an inch of his life. His recovery process was arduous, hampered by the imagined antics of the villains he was writing for television including the Joker, Harley Quinn and the Penguin. But despite how bleak his circumstances were, or perhaps because of it, Dini also always imagined the Batman at his side, chivvying him along during his darkest moments. A gripping graphic memoir of one writer’s traumatic experience and his deep connection with his creative material, DARK NIGHT: A TRUE BATMAN STORY is an original graphic novel that will resonate profoundly with fans. Art by the incredible and talented Eduardo Risso (100 BULLETS, TRANSMETROPOLITAN).

He Done Her Wrong


Milt Gross - 1930
    Sharing the same goofy, over-the-top comic mayhem that was Chaplin's trademark, and preceding the expressive, cartoony art style of MAD magazine legend Harvey Kurtzman, all of He Done Her Wrong's hilarious slapstick, tragic heartbreak, heroism and villainy, character development, high emotions and raucous thrills somehow manages to take place, astonishingly, without a single word of text, or conversation, or even a footnote.The story follows the convoluted misadventures of a naive frontiersman with superhuman strength exploited by a larcenous robber baron who eventually double crosses our hero and steals his girl. The pursuit leads to New York City where a sordid cast of cantankerous salesmen, officious government bureaucrats, bumbling hospital attendants, a lusty widow with a defensive Chihuahua and one angry barber wreak more havoc in our characters' lives than a hundred Little Rascals in a Marx Brothers film.Born in the Bronx in 1895, Gross would go on to spend his teenage years working as an office assistant at the Hearst publication The New York Evening Journal. He befriended the paper's renowned comic strip bullpen that included such early 20th century comics legends as Tad Dorgan, Cliff Sterrett, Harry Hershfield and Tom McNamara, who allowed Gross to cut his teeth drawing background and dialogue lettering jobs on their strips. He eventually won space on the paper's sports page for his first large daily strip titled Kinney B. Alive, making its debut in 1916. The strip only lasted for one week, but subsequent efforts such as Frenchie, White Feitlebaums in the South Seas, Count Screwloose of Toulouse and the best-selling books Hiawatta Wit No Udda Pomes and Nize Baby asserted more staying power. Gross' stylized cartooning won the public devotion of such noteworthy fans as President Calvin Coolidge and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. According to The Comics Journal, Gross's skillful work displays a "Fast-action style Furiously tangled line work A freewheeling onslaught of immensely droll squiggles apparently done at top speed Inspired slapdash like nothing else in the cartoon art of his time [Gross] was a master of graphic invention and a one-man comic riot."He Done Her Wrong is a classic comics work, legendary among aficionados, and arguably the 20th century's first graphic novel. Fantagraphics Books is proud to put this back into print in a facsimile edition, unabridged, with newly designed covers.

What It Is


Lynda Barry - 2008
    What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”

An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories


Ivan BrunettiPhoebe Gloeckner - 2006
    As with Chris Ware’s selections for his best-selling McSweeney’s anthology, Brunetti’s choices make for a highly personal book (“my criteria were simple: these are comics that I savor and often revisit”) that serves as a broad historical overview of the medium and a round-up of some of today’s best and most interesting North American comic artists. Included here are works from such well-known artists as Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Ben Katchor, Charles Burns, Gary Panter, Seth, Phoebe Gloeckner, Daniel Clowes, Lynda Barry, Joe Sacco, and Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, as well as many other pioneers whose names may be less familiar.Brunetti offers selections from the works of more than seventy-five avant-garde comic artists.  His selections are arranged by genre and grouped thematically. Luxuriously produced and printed in four-color throughout, the book is a must-have for collectors, aficionados, readers of comics, and those generally interested in cutting-edge art and literature.

King City


Brandon Graham - 2012
    His best friend, Pete, falls in love with an alien he's forced to sell into green slavery, while his ex, Anna, watches her Xombie War veteran boyfriend turn into the drug he's addicted to. King City, an underbelly of a town run by spy gangs and dark dark magic with mystery down every alleyway.

The Daniel Clowes Reader: A Critical Edition of Ghost World and Other Stories, with Essays, Interviews, and Annotations


Ken Parille - 2013
    It also includes stories some reprinted for the first time about boys coming of age, troubled superheroes, and the place of artists and critics in popular culture. The volume s dozen critical essays illuminate Clowes s comics by locating them within biographical, artistic, and socio-historical contexts, including the Indie and DIY movements, Generation X philosophy, and the history of American cartooning. Selections by artists who influenced Clowes and a detailed chronology of his work round out the collection, and extensive annotations shed light on the cartoonist s sources and cultural references. Perfect for the college literature/graphic narrative classroom.