Kampung Boy


Lat - 1979
    With masterful economy worthy of Charles Schultz, Lat recounts the life of Mat, a Muslim boy growing up in rural Malaysia in the 1950s: his adventures and mischief-making, fishing trips, religious study, and work on his family's rubber plantation. Meanwhile, the traditional way of life in his village (or kampung) is steadily disappearing, with tin mines and factory jobs gradually replacing family farms and rubber small-holders. When Mat himself leaves for boarding school, he can only hope that his familiar kampung will still be there when he returns. Kampung Boy is hilarious and affectionate, with brilliant, super-expressive artwork that opens a window into a world that has now nearly vanished.

I Love You More Than My Phone: A "Slothilda & Peanut" Comic Collection


Dante Fabiero - 2021
    For Slothilda and Peanut, each with their own unique set of short-comings (literally and figuratively), navigating their way through the world can be a struggle. However, no obstacle is too great when they've got each other.

It's All Absolutely Fine


Ruby Elliot - 2016
    Ruby Elliot, aka Rubyetc, is the talent behind the hit tumblr account, 'Rubyetc', which has over 210k followers and growing. Taking readers on a journey through the ups and downs of life, the book will encompass everything from anxiety, bipolar disorder and body image to depression and identity, shining a light on very real problems - all framed with Ruby's trademark humour and originality.Ruby balances mental health with humour, making serious issues accessible - and very funny. With the superb talent to capture the essence of human emotion (and to make you laugh out loud), this book is as important and necessary as it is entertaining. IT'S ALL ABSOLUTELY FINE will include mostly never-before-seen material, both written and illustrated, and will be an empowering book that will make you laugh, make you think, and make things ok.

Unshelved


Bill Barnes - 2004
    Some of the stories are made up, some of them are based on real life, and some are absolutely true stories sent to us from our readers. And the stranger the story, the more likely it is to be true.

The Complete Peanuts, Vol. 1: 1950-1952


Charles M. Schulz - 2004
    (Among other things, three major cast members—Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus—initially show up as infants and only "grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus The Complete Peanuts offers a unique chance to see a master of the art form refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.This volume is rounded out with Garrison Keillor's introduction, a biographical essay by David Michaelis (Schulz and Peanuts) and an in-depth interview with Schulz conducted in 1987 by Gary Groth and Rick Marschall, all wrapped in a gorgeous design by award-winning cartoonist Seth.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Vol. 1


Joseph Gordon-Levitt - 2011
    With the help of the entire creative collective, Gordon-Levitt culled, edited and curated over 8,500 contributions into this finely tuned collection of original art from 67 contributors. Reminiscent of the 6-Word Memoir series, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1 brings together art and voices from around the world to unite and tell stories that defy size.

The Thing Beneath the Bed


Patrick Rothfuss - 2010
    It has pictures. It has a saccharine-sweet title. The main characters are a little girl and her teddy bear. But all of that is just protective coloration. The truth is, this is a book for adults with a dark sense of humor and an appreciation of old-school faerie tales.There are three separate endings to the book. Depending on where you stop, you are left with an entirely different story. One ending is sweet, another is horrible. The last one is the true ending, the one with teeth in it.The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle is a dark twist on the classic children's picture-book. I think of it as Calvin and Hobbes meets Coraline, with some Edward Gorey mixed in.Simply said: This is not a book for children.

I Think I Am In Friend-Love With You


Yumi Sakugawa - 2013
    I think I am in friend-love with you. What’s friend-love? It’s that super-awesome bond you share with someone who makes you happy every time you text each other, or meet up for an epic outing. It’s not love-love. You don’t want to swap saliva; you want to swap favorite books. But it’s just as intense and just as amazing. And it’s this search for that connection that comic-book artist Yumi Sakugawa captures in I Think I Am in Friend-Love with You. It’s perfect if you've ever fallen in friend-love and want to show that person how much you love them...in a platonic way, of course.

Cat Diary: Yon & Muu; 猫日記よん&むー; Neko Nikki Yon to Mū


Junji Ito - 2009
    J-kun, a dog person, was coerced into adopting two cats by his fiancee A-ko: Muu, a Norwegian cat, and Yon who has an accursed face. Much to the chagrin of J, the cats do not immediately love him. The difference between fear and comedy is paper thin. Here's a cat comedy from a horror manga author.

Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?


Roz Chast - 2014
    Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the "crazy closet"—with predictable results—the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies—an anxious father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing personality had sidelined Roz for decades—the themes are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller.

The Adventures of Superhero Girl


Faith Erin Hicks - 2013
    What if you can leap tall buildings and defeat alien monsters with your bare hands, but you buy your capes at secondhand stores, and have a weakness for kittens, and a snarky comment from Skeptical Guy can ruin a whole afternoon? Cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks brings her skills in character design and sharp, charming humor to the trials and tribulations of a young, superhero battling monsters both supernatural and mundane in an all-too-ordinary world.

Cat Person


Seo Kim - 2014
    Begun as a personal challenge to create daily, the comics feature a variety of themes from the silly to the serious. Characterized by a charming drawing style and frequently featuring the cartoonist and her farcical feline Jimmy, these are the best Sunday comics you've never seen.

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage


Sydney Padua - 2015
    . . in which Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures. Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines. But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)

Zen Pencils: Cartoon Quotes from Inspirational Folks


Gavin Aung Than - 2014
    From icons like Confucius, Marie Curie, and Henry David Thoreau, to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge, to contemporary notables like Ira Glass, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Neil Gaiman---their words are turned into sometimes heartwarming, sometimes sobering stories by cartoonist Gavin Aung Than. Be inspired, motivated, educated, and laugh as you read famous words as never before!

Texts from Dog


October Jones - 2012
    Yeah. It’s weird. When October Jones figured out he could send text messages to himself on his mobile phone, he naturally decided that the best use of this discovery was to send passive-aggressive messages to himself under the guise of his bulldog. And so the exasperating, slightly delusional, and utterly endearing Dog and his alter-ego BatDog were born.Texts from Dog features Dog’s attempts to keep the neighborhood safe from the likes of Mr. Postman and his arch-nemesis Cat-Cat—he has managed to only smash three TVs and a patio door in the process. And in between crime fighting sprees and run-ins with the squirrel mafia, there are romantic interludes with pillows, fetch sessions gone terribly awry, and the abusive banter only a bromance between man and his text-savvy dog can spawn.For those of us who have ever had a conversation with a pet in our heads, Texts from Dog will make you laugh out loud and perhaps even make you think twice about leaving your pet home alone for the day.