He’s also its would-be poet laureate. Would-be, that is, were it not for the “florid banalities” of his archrival, Ida Wentz, pub­lished ad nauseam in the Ice Haven Daily Progress. Among Wilder’s other fellow Ice Havians are the love­lorn Violet Vanderplazt and Vida Wentz; the adorable interracial moppets Carmichael and Paula; the Blue Bunny, newly sprung from prison and the bitterest rabbit in town; and poor little David Goldberg, miss­ing for more than a week now. . . . The lives of the men and women of Ice Haven are woven into a multilayered tale that, while it owes a debt to Our Town, is ultimately based on and inspired by . . . Leopold and Loeb. No kidding. Only Daniel Clowes could do it and, luckily for us, he has.

    People keep dying mysteriously, local band The Crotchmen rock the nights away, teenage palm readers have lines out the door, and Ben Schiller is doing her best to get through all the weirdness until... what?

    Disquiet showcases the best of his short comics work, including: “The Death Of Elijah Lovejoy,” the story of the midwestern abolitionist in the 1830s;“The Lizard Who Laughed,” a painfully dysfunctional reunion; and “Punks V. Lizards,” an anarchic and darkly comic piece of absurdity that blends Quadrophenia with Jurassic Park.

    We flashback to a pair of butchers who arrive at work one morning to find not only that there is no meat in their shop but also that they have forgotten completely how to do their job. As customers arrive, they are too fearful for their livelihood to admit their dilemma, leading to increasingly disastrous events. But what has caused their strange amnesia? This often hilarious, enigmatic and uncomfortable book will establish Stechschulte as an exciting new talent."

    They'll take on crazed childhood rivals, troubling art scenes, the discomfort of exes, and maybe even... friendship? All this and more in the fictional, totally made-up city of Brooklyn. Well paced and grounded, ranging from funny ha-ha to odd observational humor, Octopus Pie s ultimate hooks are its flawed but genuine characters. Booklist"

    His inky, rubbery drawings buttress his black humor.Psylicon --Ruin --Pulsar --Sorceress

    The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the first of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie, her annoying best friend and sometime lover Hopey, and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzyas well as the wrestler Rena Titanon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. Maggie the Mechanic collects the earliest, punkiest, most heavily sci-fi stories of Maggie and her circle of friends, and you can see the artist (who drew like an angel from the very first panel) refine his approach: Despite these strong shifts in tone, the stunning art and razor sharp characterizations keep this collection consistent, and enthralling throughout. (Note: A number of these stories were not collected in the hardcover Locas.)

    Described as the Raymond Carver of comix, Tomine constructs tales of emotional disconnection with an ear for painfully real dialogue. Combined with his deft black and white depictions of urbane lifestyles, Tomine's fans have often accused him of eavesdropping in on their most intimate moments and, with forensic skill, laying their lives bare. The conflicts between emotional gratification, narcissistic neediness and moral discernment mark the title story in which a socially crippled man nurses an obsessive crush on a young woman. He watches close up, paralyzed by his guilt, as her beauty catches the eye of his neighbor: a hip, selfish young man with a short attention span. One of Optic Nerve's most popular stories, `Hawaiian Getaway,` features Hilary, telephone service rep who is having the worst week of her life. She lost her job, her apartment, and her grandmother. Close to the edge, she is losing her grip. Reaching out to random strangers on the phone, Hilary is looking for someone to help her. In "Alter Ego" a successful young author has writer`s block. He can`t, or won`t, decide between another ghostwriting gig and finishing his second "real" novel. He stalls on committing to his novel and his girlfriend when a chance postcard leads him to flirt with fantasies of changing the past. Finally, "Bomb Scare" documents the early unease of his generation by setting this coming-of-age story during the tense months of the Gulf War, the event that ushered in the 1990s.

    A gifted equestrian, Coyote Doggirl is half dog, half coyote, and a whole lot of attitude. She and her steed Red are on the run from a trio of vengeful bad guys when Coyote gets clobbered by a few well-placed arrows. Her attackers, a clan of wolves, take her in and nurse her back to health so she can get back on the road, track down Red, and evade the men who are hunting her. By turns delightfully absurd and intensely emotional, Coyote Doggirl charts one weird woman's escape into the wild.

    His story of three friends at university lightly flavored with the occult features some of the best dialogue in comics, and we couldn't help but think it's like Monty Python goes to college. Sign us up! WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT: John Allison's daily webcomics are hilarious, the kind of strips where every panel makes you laugh out loud. As a result, John has earned a large, loyal following of readers that have followed his work daily for the past 12 years. This is a series fans of things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scott Pilgrim, or Gunnerkrigg Court will not want to miss. WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Susan, Esther, and Daisy started at university three weeks ago and became fast friends because their dorm rooms were next to each other. Now, away from home for the first time, all three want to reinvent themselves. But in the face of hand-wringing boys, "personal experimentation," influenza, mystery-mold, nu-chauvinism, and the willful, unwanted intrusion of "academia," they may be lucky just to make it to spring alive.

    . . 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 individual stories in Flayed Corpse stand on their own as minimasterpieces of skin-crawling terror, but collectively complement each other in a way that only heightens the anxiety and dread pouring from page to page. Flayed Corpse also collects several collaborations between Simmons and other cartoonists, including James Romberger, Anders Nilsen, Tara Booth, Eroyn Franklin, Tom Van Deusen, and Eric Reynolds, amongst others.

    Connected by a series of gossipy teens, the modern lost souls of Beverly struggle with sexual anxieties that are just barely repressed and social insecurities that undermine every word they speak.A group of teenagers pick up trash on the side of the highway--flirting, preening, and ignoring a potentially violent loner in their midst. A college student brings her sort-of boyfriend to a disastrous house party with her high-school acquaintances. A young woman experiences a traumatic incident at the pizza shop where she works and the fallout reveals the racial tensions simmering below the surface. Again and again, the civilized façade of Drnaso's pitch-perfect surburban sprawl and pasty Midwestern protagonists cracks in the face of violence and quiet brutality.Drnaso's bleak social satire in Beverly reveals a brilliant command of the social milieu of twenty-first-century existence, echoing the black comic work of Todd Solondz, Sam Lipsyte, and Daniel Clowes. Precisely and hauntingly recounted, each chapter of Beverly reveals something new--and yet familiar--about the world in which we live.

    A sense of "being different" grows to alienation, until he angrily blames this once-enchanting land for his feelings of isolation. All of this is told through the fantastical eyes of young Danny, a boy growing up in the '90s fed on dramatic adventure stories like Jurassic Park and X-Men. Danny's older brother, Luke, travels to a remote island to teach English to the employees of ClockWorld, an ambitious new amusement park that recreates historical events. When Luke doesn't return after two years, Danny travels to ClockWorld to convince Luke to return to America. But Luke has made a new life, new family, and even a new personality for himself on ClockWorld, rendering him almost unrecognizable to his own brother. Danny comes of age as he explores the island, ClockWorld, and fights to bring his brother home. New School is unlike anything in the history of the comics medium: at once funny and deadly serious, easily readable while wildly artistic, personal and political, familiar and completely new.

    Before style-points. Before Jazmin. Join LDB as he takes his first steps on his search for love. Told in shades of blue with artwork by SAM KIETH, JIM MAHFOOD, JIM VALENTINO and many more. Including never before seen artwork and an exclusive all-new story drawn by SINA GRACE.