The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn


Daniel Clowes - 1994
    The 31 stories collected here combine Dragnet with The Twilight Zone with Tales from the Crypt in a world filled with aliens, good-time girls, and cocktail-bar nihilism. The stories are hip and funny, with a good dose of wacky 1950s paranoia and the kind of tongue-in-cheek morality that characterized the old E.C. horror comics. The Lloyd Llewellyn stories also trace the development of Clowes's style as a comic artist, from the angular early pieces that show the influence of 1950s advertising style to the grotesque Robert Crumb-inspired style of the more recent work in Eightball. Clowes is one of the most gifted comic-book artists around, and the retro-chic world of Lloyd Llewellyn deserves to be seen by a new generation of readers.

Peter Bagge's Other Stuff


Peter Bagge - 2013
    Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff includes a few lesser-known Bagge characters, including the wacky modern party girl “Lovey” and the aging bobo “Shut-Ins” — not to mention the self-explanatory “Rock ’N’ Roll Dad” starring Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys. But many of the strips are one-off gags or short stories, often with a contemporary satirical slant, including on-site reportage like “So Much Comedy, So Little Time” (from a comedy festival) and more. Also: Dick Cheney, The Matrix, and Alien! Other Stuff also includes a series of Bagge=written stories drawn by other cartoonists, including “Life in these United States” with Daniel Clowes, “Shamrock Squid” with Adrian Tomine, and the one-two parody punch of “Caffy” (with art by R. Crumb) and “Dildobert” (with art by Prison Pit’s Johnny Ryan)... plus a highlight of the book, the hilarious, literate and intricate exposé of “Kool-Aid Man” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bagge. (Other collaborators include the Hernandez Brothers and Danny Hellman.) Bagge is one of the funniest cartoonists of the century (20th or 21st), and this collection shows him at his most free-wheeling and craziest... 50 times over.

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.

Let Us Be Perfectly Clear


Paul Hornschemeier - 2006
    Perfectly Clear brings back into print stories that Hornschemeier published prior to his Three Paradoxes Fantagraphics debut from a variety of sources—his own self-published Forlorn Funnies, as well as strips that originally appeared in independent magazines and papers—none of which has been available to the book trade.The book is designed as a "flip book" in the tradition of the old Ace paperbacks, with one side featuring comedic work (or as comedic as Hornschemeier's mind allows), and the other decidedly more morose. With almost every page, we see a new style, a new direction; with the resultant effect being that of an anthology by creators of vastly contrasting sensibilities.On the "funny" menu, we are treated to Dr. Rodentia (an unfortunate-looking fellow with only apathy as his weapon), a detailed artist's catalogue exploring such modern masterpieces as "Accidental Late-Night Sex With a Radiator," musings on the cancerous nature of civilization as observed by a deceased cat and a cotton-based airbus, the scatological "Feelings Check," the ever pathetic Vanderbilt Millions and his fantasies of self-worth, and the multi-narrative story that started the Forlorn Funnies comics series: "The Men and Women of the Television."Clearly, there is a fine line in the Hornschemeier lexicon between funny and morose.On our "forlorn" plate we are served the cold examination of the dyslexic narcoleptic and his bungled plans of murder, a sea creature's balancing of morality and sustenance, the Western romance "Wanted," a metal man's self-destructive search for meaning, and the story the alternative website Ain't It Cool News describes as delivering "a complicated mixture of disgust and pity."Let Us Be Perfectly Clear demonstrates Paul Hornschemeier's versatility and breadth in an elegantly produced book that will appeal to connoisseurs of contemporary, cutting-edge cartoons and graphic novels.

Shadowland


Kim Deitch - 2006
    It was discovered by a seven-year-old boy named Al Ledicker, and the story that followed is one that veteran underground cartoonist Kim Deitch (Boulevard) has chronicled for the last 20 years in a series of interrelated stories that have appeared in a variety of magazines. Collected for the first time, Shadowland offers a narrative which ranges from the late 19th century to (more or less) the present day. Delineated in Deitch's charming, uniquely retro style, Shadowland is a tumble down the rabbit hole of sexy Hollywood starlets, little green (actually, gray) aliens, flying pigs and performing elephants, incest, murder, and eternal youth.

Dear Julia


Brian Biggs - 2000
    Dear Julia, is the story of how he got there. Boyd's vivid memory of the past and shaky comprehension of the present give clues to the events that lead him to the edge: his childhood, his parents, and a particular trip to Tucson, Arizona where everything began to go terribly awry. Brian Biggs tells the tale with deft wit and a sharp eye, leaving crumbs both verbal and visual along the reader's path to the climactic end. Also available is the Dear Julia, short film directed by Alistair Banks Griffin.

Dork Volume 2: Circling the Drain


Evan Dorkin - 2003
    The second collection from Evan Dorkin's award-winning humor anthology Dork includes all the non-Eltingville material from issues #7-10, plus extras, with 16 pages in color! Highlighted by the acclaimed "Cluttered Like My Head" autobiographical tour de force.

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.

Underworld, Vol. 1: Cruel and Unusual Comics


Kaz - 1997
    The lead character in most is Bitchy Bitch, the perma-nently PMS'd and PO'd embodiment of the female id, who also stars in her own series of cartoon shorts on the Oxygen Network's X-Chromosome animated series.The raunchiest collection, focusing on Bitchy's sexual excapades.

New Construction: Two More Stories


Sam Alden - 2015
    Times Book Prizes Finalist (Graphic Novel/Comics) 2016A collection of two new stories from cartoonist and Adventure Time contributor Sam Alden. In "Household," a brother and sister deal with divergent memories of their father and grow closer than ever. In "Backyard," vegans and anarchists share a house, small dramas and bizarre transformations (featuring a new, never before published ending). Designed as a companion volume for the critically acclaimed It Never Happened Again, New Construction cements Sam Alden's reputation as one of the best cartoonists of his generation.Sam Alden Sam Alden is the author of It Never Happened Again, Wicked Chicken Queen, and Lydian, among others. He is a two-time Ignatz winner and four-time nominee, and works full-time as a writer and storyboarder on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time.Praise for Sam Alden's It Never Happened Again:"Alden's natural sense of framing and pace, his willingness to use silent panels to tell stories, and his beautiful (yes, beautiful) pencil images combined to open my eyes to a new idea of what a great comic can be. It helps that he's also an excellent writer—both stories sketch out lonely, lost characters efficiently, and put them each through very different quests for meaning."—Dan Kois, Slate"Two thematically divergent, but devastatingly human portraits from an emerging cartoonist displaying the sort of storytelling and artistic restraint that often only comes after years of toiling away at the drawing board. Alden is a talent to watch."—Publishers Weekly

Bradley of Him


Connor Willumsen - 2019
    The lines between character and actor are blurring under the verisimilitude of the Vegas strip, the desert sun and the impossibly shiny surface of Bradley’s shades.

The Complete Works of Fante Bukowski


Noah Van Sciver - 2020
    Van Sciver has created a scathing, hilarious, and empathetic character study of a self-styled author determined that he's just one more poem (or drink) away from success.This expanded edition includes a foreword by novelist Ryan Boudinot (Blueprints of the Afterlife), a facsimile reproduction of Bukowski's literary debut, 6 Poems (thought lost to time in the wake of a motel fire that destroyed the entire original print run), a "Works Cited" section, and a selection of "visual tributes" by over two dozen cartoonists including Nina Bunjevac, Simon Hanselmann, Jesse Jacobs, Ed Piskor, Leslie Stein, and others.

Long Time Relationship


Julie Doucet - 2001
    The book is divided into six chapters, each focusing on a theme; one is a series of eerily compelling portraits based on a dozen family photographs Doucet found discarded in a garbage can in Berlin. In another series, Doucet explores gender issues as no one else can with twenty hilarious, somewhat unflattering portraits of the "modern man." She deftly explores other themes, ranging from fortune cookies to female sexuality (go figure ), and everything is neatly encompassed in this sharply-designed art book. Julie Doucet is internationally renowned for her wry, sexually-charged work, a sort of "female R. Crumb" of comics. She is the author of four books, including the 2000 Firecracker Award-Winner "My New York Diary. "

Puke Force


Brian Chippendale - 2013
    . . obsessively detailed [comics] feel like [they've] been shot straight from his brain onto the page." - Village Voice Puke Force is social satire written dark and dense across Brian Chippendale's deconstructed multiverse of walking, talking M&Ms, hamsters, and cycloptic-yet-glamorous trivia hosts. In scathingly funny single-page strips that build and build, he takes on social media narcissism, governmental propaganda, racism, and a culture of violence, skewering the malice of the right and the hypocrisies of the left. A bomb explodes in a coffee shop: the incident is played out over and over again from the perspective of each table in the shop, revisiting moments from ten and twenty years before. We see the inevitable as the characters bicker or celebrate, unaware of what's coming. Throughout this dystopic graphic novel, Chippendale uses humor and a frantic drawing style to show how the insidious nature of corporate greed and the commodification of everything have warped society into a killing machine. Sardonic and self-aware, Puke Force asks all the right questions, providing a startling and on-point take on contemporary social issues. Chippendale's artwork makes each panel a masterpiece of thrumming linework and lo-fi magic, as his storytelling wends and winds its way to a fascinating conclusion.

The Great Big Book of Tomorrow: A Treasury of Cartoons


Tom Tomorrow - 2003
    With an ever increasing fan base, an expanding number of publications who regularly feature his work, one of the most popular and most visited web-logs (www.thismodernworld.com), the time is now for The Great Big Book of Tomorrow. This massive collection of Tomorrow's greatest hits, unseen gems and obscurities, new material and color section is the so far definitive collection of one of the most popular 'underground' cartoonists ever--a delight to long-time fans and new readers alike.