The original Wonder Woman was ahead of her time, advocating female superiority and the benefits of matriarchy in the 1940s. At the same time, her creator filled the comics with titillating bondage imagery, and Wonder Woman was tied up as often as she saved the world. In the 1950s, Wonder Woman begrudgingly continued her superheroic mission, wishing she could settle down with her boyfriend instead, all while continually hinting at hidden lesbian leanings. While other female characters stepped forward as women’s lib took off in the late 1960s, Wonder Woman fell backwards, losing her superpowers and flitting from man to man. Ms. magazine and Lynda Carter restored Wonder Woman’s feminist strength in the 1970s, turning her into a powerful symbol as her checkered past was quickly forgotten. Exploring this lost history adds new dimensions to the world’s most beloved female character, and Wonder Woman Unbound delves into her comic book and its spin-offs as well as the myriad motivations of her creators to showcase the peculiar journey that led to Wonder Woman’s iconic status.

    Essentially sold at the age of 11 to become a wife for a much older man, she ran away when he raped her. From that point on, there were few choices for her but to join a roaming gang of bandits, her ambition and thirst for revenge leading her to become their rebel chief. Ultimately, society caught up with her and she even became a strong voice for change, women, and social justice as a representative in the Indian parliament. A story of courage and unbending determination in front of centuries of established inequities in the classic Indian caste system.

    Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha’s ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezuka’s Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering one’s life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal situations with ground-breaking visual dynamism by an artist who makes sure never to lose his readers’ attention.Tezuka himself was a humanist rather than a Buddhist, and his magnum opus is not an attempt at propaganda. Hermann Hesse’s novel or Bertolucci’s film is comparable in this regard; in fact, Tezuka’s approach is slightly irreverent in that it incorporates something that Western commentators often eschew, namely, humor.

    They're all here: Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, and many more--all seeming to leap, blast, and launch off the page.For almost thirty years, Ross has been working nonstop to create some of the most astonishing images in comics, and while Marvelocity collects the very best of that oeuvre, it's much more than that. Inside are hundreds of drawings, paintings, and photographs that have never been published before, including an original ten-page story featuring Spider-Man versus the Sinister Six, redesign proposals for the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and a re-creation of an epic battle between the Sub-Mariner and Iron Man.But this isn't just the story of the Marvel characters--it's also the incredibly inspiring true tale of a little boy who only ever wanted to draw and paint super heroes. And with enough determination, talent, and very hard work, that's precisely what he did. Marvelocity is the result, and is sure to entrance and delight fans of all ages.

    As always, Gorey's painstakingly cross-hatched pen and ink drawings are perfectly suited to his oddball verse and prose. The first book of 15, "The Unstrung Harp," describes the writing process of novelist Mr. Clavius Frederick Earbrass: "He must be mad to go on enduring the unexquisite agony of writing when it all turns out drivel." In "The Listing Attic," you'll find a set of quirky limericks such as "A certain young man, it was noted, / Went about in the heat thickly coated; / He said, 'You may scoff, / But I shan't take it off; / Underneath I am horribly bloated.' "Many of Gorey's tales involve untimely deaths and dreadful mishaps, but much like tragic Irish ballads with their perky rhythms and melodies, they come off as strangely lighthearted. "The Gashlycrumb Tinies," for example, begins like this: "A is for AMY who fell down the stairs, B is for BASIL assaulted by bears," and so on. An eccentric, funny book for either the uninitiated or diehard Gorey fans.Contains: The Unstrung Harp, The Listing Attic, The Doubtful Guest, The Object Lesson, The Bug Book, The Fatal Lozenge, The Hapless Child, The Curious Sofa, The Willowdale Handcar, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Insect God, The West Wing, The Wuggly Ump, The Sinking Spell, and The Remembered Visit.

    For more than three quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he’s a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him. How we perceive Batman’s character, whether he’s delivering dire threats in a raspy Christian Bale growl or trading blithely homoerotic double-entendres with partner Robin on the comics page, speaks to who we are and how we wish to be seen by the world. It’s this endlessly mutable quality that has made him so enduring.And it’s Batman’s fundamental nerdiness—his gadgets, his obsession, his oath, even his lack of superpowers—that uniquely resonates with his fans who feel a fiercely protective love for the character. Today, fueled by the internet, that breed of passion for elements of popular culture is everywhere. Which is what makes Batman the perfect lens through which to understand geek culture, its current popularity, and social significance.In The Caped Crusade, with humor and insight, Glen Weldon, book critic for NPR and author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, lays out Batman’s seventy-eight-year cultural history and shows how he has helped make us who we are today and why his legacy remains so strong.

    Since the typewritten, unedited manuscript came to light at a 1990 estate sale, its provenance has been established to a satisfying degree. As part of the contents of an unopened trunk, it resided since the turn of the century in the basement of a private archive in Boston."In this third volume of Geary's Treasury, the famous Lizzie Borden double murder is explored with as much attention to well -researched detail as in his Jack the Ripper. This is another celebrated murder of last century, the one that lead to the infamous school rhyme.The parrallel between this old case and OJ Simpson's is striking: both defendants had unblemished reputations; the double murders were gruesome; there were no witnesses and no weapons found; the cases took the media by storm. Both wealthy defendants hired expensive lawyers who convinced the jury of reasonable doubt. Both remain under a cloud of suspicion...

    In 1989, a prescient Chris Oliveros created D+Q with a simple mandate to publish the worlds best cartoonists. Thanks to his taste-making visual acumen and the support of over fifty cartoonists from the past two decades, D+Q has grown from an annual stapled anthology into one of the world's leading graphic novel publishers. With hundreds of pages of comics by Drawn & Quarterly cartoonists, D+Q: 25 features new work by Kate Beaton, Chester Brown, Michael DeForge, Tom Gauld, Miriam Katin, Rutu Modan, James Sturm, Jillian Tamaki, Yoshihiro Tatsumi alongside rare and never-before-seen work from Guy Delisle, Debbie Drechsler, Julie Doucet, John Porcellino, Art Spiegelman, and Adrian Tomine, and a cover by Tom Gauld. Editor Tom Devlin digs into the company archives for rare photographs, correspondence, and comics; assembles biographies, personal reminiscences, and interviews with key D+Q staff; and curates essays by Margaret Atwood, Sheila Heti, Jonathan Lethem, Deb Olin Unferth, Heather O'Neill, Lemony Snicket, Chris Ware, and noted comics scholars.D+Q: 25 is the rare chance to witness a literary movement in progress; how a group of dedicated artists and their publisher changed the future of a century-old medium.

    Written by renowned comic book writer Louise Simonson, the book examines the evolution of the comic book women of DC Comics: the 1942 introduction of the most famous DC heroine, Wonder Woman, and her various incarnations up to the present; the creation of comic book spin-offs based on characters such as Lois Lane; and the recent wealth of fierce, female character-driven comics such as Supergirl, Birds of Prey, Batgirl, and Catwoman, featuring women who have no trouble being both sexy and strong-willed. Famous featured DC Comics artists include Jim Lee, Alex Ross, Adam Hughes, J. Scott Campbell, Michael Turner, Tim Sale, and Jill Thompson. DC Comics Covergirls is a smart and in-depth look at the female comic book characters we've grown up with all these years, and is sure to appeal to new comic book fans and diehard collectors alike.

    He's a rabbit bodyguard, a samurai who wanders the mountains, plains, and villages of a 17th-century Japan populated almost exclusively by anthropomorphic animals. Cats, snakes, rhinos, and ninja moles plot and fight their way across a land ravaged by civil war. The 10 stories in this first collection introduce Usagi, the evil Lord Hikiji, and a host of other characters. The stories themselves can stand alone, but taken together they begin to form an ongoing saga of treachery and revenge. Sometimes violent, sometimes funny, Usagi's adventures are filled with fascinating historical detail. The costumes, landscapes, and buildings are beautifully drawn, creating such a sense of realism it's easy to forget the hero is a rabbit. If you buy the first book in this series, you'll want the rest.

    Which is especially useful when he's being funny about science' Neil GaimanA dog philosopher questions what it really means to be a 'good boy'. A virtual assistant and a robot-cleaner elope. The undiscovered species and the theoretical particle face existential despair.Just as he did with writers, poets and literary classics in Baking with Kafka, Gauld now does with hapless scientists, nanobots, and puzzling theorems - with comic strips funny enough to engage science boffins and novices alike.

    A competition, of sorts, begins. The rules: Every story must contain one truth, one lie and have never been told in that tavern before. With the winner getting his bar tab cleared, fantastic stories are spun throughout the evening. Legends of the Guard is a new Mouse Guard anthology series featuring the work of artists and storytellers handpicked by series creator David Petersen, including Jeremy Bastian (Cursed Pirate Girl), Alex Sheikman (Robotika), Ted Naifeh (Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things), Gene Ha (Top 10), Sean Rubin (Redwall), Guy Davis (B.P.R.D.), Katie Cook (Fraggle Rock), Karl Kerschl (Teen Titans: Year One), Craig Rousseau (Impulse), and Mark Smylie (Artesia).

    A tiger whose idea of adventure is to lie on his back by the fire and have his stomach rubbed. In six short years this unlikely duo has captured the hearts, the minds, and, most of all, the funny bones of America. They are the most phenomenal success story in syndication - and publishing - history. In only six years, they appear in more than 2,100 newspapers worldwide, and Calvin and Hobbes wins as many readership polls as Calvin has excesses. All seven of Bill Watterson's collections have sold a million copies within a year of publication.This treasury collection contains a never-before-published full-color section, as well as the cartoons appearing in The Revenge of the Baby-Sat and Scientific Progress Goes "Boink." All Sunday cartoons are presented full-page and full-color.

    In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Immediately after declaring victory in the war, they set about evacuating the country’s major cities with the brutal ruthlessness and disregard for humanity that characterized the regime ultimately responsible for the deaths of one million citizens.Cartoonist Tian Veasna was born just three days after the Khmer Rouge takeover, as his family set forth on the chaotic mass exodus from Phnom Penh. Year of the Rabbit is based on firsthand accounts, all told from the perspective of his parents and other close relatives. Stripped of any money or material possessions, Veasna’s family found themselves exiled to the barren countryside along with thousands of others, where food was scarce and brutal violence a constant threat.Year of the Rabbit shows the reality of life in the work camps, where Veasna’s family bartered for goods, where children were instructed to spy on their parents, and where reading was proof positive of being a class traitor. Constantly on the edge of annihilation, they realized there was only one choice—they had to escape Cambodia and become refugees. Veasna has created a harrowing, deeply personal account of one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies.