(W/A/CA) Liniers Children reading to cats, penguins imagining the impossibility of alien life not including them, imaginary friends romping in the forest, horror-movie characters looking for friends, cartoons experiencing the awkwardness of zoom calls, witches frustrated over a Netflix lag on their crystal balls? Liniers mixes his repertory cast of fantasy and child characters with one-offs to express whatever happens to be on his mind that day. While the touches of real life are always intermixed among his whimsical world, the spirit of imagination and love of nature only becomes more heightened in many of these strips which run from early 2020 into 2021.Handsome, landscape-format hardcovers with debossed covers showcase Liniers? beautiful, full-color cartooning in the way it deserves. The influence of Krazy Kat and Mutts extends beyond the tone, charm, and humanity of the content to formal playfulness, and these books are the best way to appreciate the full range of the work.

(W/A/CA) Liniers Fantagraphics is proud to present Argentine cartoonist Liniers' internationally-acclaimed newspaper comic strip in an Englishlanguage collection for the first time. In the spirit of Calvin & Hobbes, Mutts, and Krazy Kat, Liniers (Ricardo Siri) uses a shifting cast of children, talking animals, imaginary monsters, sensitive robots, occasional elves, and anthropomorphized objects to perform gags, philosophize, muse on nature, and engage in surreal, artistic flights of fancy. With delicate, calligraphic pen work and understated watercolors, the comic skips lightly from style to style and subject to subject, as Liniers allows his imagination and observational humor free reign. Jokes about domestic life, imagined scenarios of historical figures, Cthulu showing up to Tinder dates, characters simply enjoying a pastoral sunset, the puncturing of pop-culture stalwarts: Macanudo is a boundless canvas for its author's humane and delightfully off-kilter view of the world, in a way few comic strips have ever even attempted. Beginning in 2002 in Buenos Aires, Macanudo steadily g

(W) Ivan Greenberg & Various The Machine Never Blinks is a comprehensive, eye-opening picture of the use of spying and surveillance in history and legend, from the story of the Trojan Horse through 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror, including the growth of government and corporate intercepts and databases, and even surveillance as entertainment (reality TV) and convenience (smart speakers). Take a look around...Who's watching you right now?

(W) Catherine Sauvat (A) Anne Simon A graphic biography of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the author whose name came to define the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one's own pain or humiliation. In 1870, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch published Venus in Furs, an erotic novel revealing the author's desire to be dominated by a woman. (And paid homage in the classic Velvet Underground song of the same name.) After the novel's success, a woman turns up at his doorstep and offers to take on the role in Sacher-Masoch's real life. He completely submits to her, and they get married. Years later, Leopold has remarried and lives a quiet life, far removed from the sexual escapades of his first marriage. Then he learns that his surname, to his detriment, has come to describe a new sexual perversion: masochism. Man In Furs is his story. This compelling graphic biography is a collaboration between the biographer Catherine Sauvat and the celebrated cartoonist Anne Simon. Simon's gentle cartooning perfectly complements Sauvat's empathetic script.

Michael Kupperman has already indulged his love for Mark Twain in the pages of Tales Designed to Thrizzle, but the recent publication of Twain's (real) autobiography inspired the cartoonist to a full-blown book-length masterpiece of hilarity. See how Twain hunted the Yeti, met the Six Million Dollar Man, had a love affair with Mamie Eisenhower, and accidentally became involved in X-rated films, all augmented with Kupperman's hilariously deadpan comics and illustrations.

(W) Mark Twain (A/CA) Seymour Chwast Written in 1910 in his 70th year, Mark Twain, having lived through 14 wars waged just by his own country on others, declined to publish this poetic despairing reproof against patriotism. His regular illustrator Daniel Beard even urged Twain to issue the piece, to which the author replied, No, I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead.It took 13 years after his passing for that prophecy to be fulfilled ? and now, another 102 years later, the legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast (himself 92 years young) has fulfilled Beard?s dream of enriching the fable with illustration.Chwast brings every aspect of his skills to this interpretation: drawing, design, typography, type design, pastel painting and computer color all sit alongside each other with Twain?s text in pages that expand and pace the original. With another century and a quarter of warfare passed since its writing, Chwast?s artwork echoes advances in technology but Twain?s message about the

Mascots is a collection of vignettes and brief impressionistic scenes that concentrate on moments, characters, settings and ideas. Many of these vignettes are independent; a cast of characters who wander throughout the book intrude upon others. Despite seemingly disparate parts, themes recur over and over in Mascots, and when taken together as a whole form a world that is strange, sad, funny and familiar. Formally, the book is made up of small, brightly colored drawings and paintings done on found book covers. Mascots is driven by lettering and type, part art and part comics. Mascots are exaggerated, ridiculous representatives, giving form to the abstract. They don't give this form in a subtle way; they're surreal magnifications, explosions of the thing they represent. The recurring characters in Mascots are like this, but so are the vignettes themselves. Each scene pushes past normal, exaggerating in order to highlight. In the world of Mascots, failure is everywhere. There is failure to connect, failure to communicate and failure to find meaning, but despite that, there are moments

ATTENTION ALL MUTANTS! Your prayers have been answered! Come hither and witness the unholy union of professional sickos, Chris Kegel and Jim Blanchard!! Sit back and digest the obsessively detailed, psychedelically twisted, and elegantly repulsive comics that comprise the corpus known as MEAT WARP!

What at first glance reads like an episodic stoner comedy slowly reveals a chiseled character study of suburban ennui to rival the works of Solondz, Groening, or Flaubert. Hanselmann's characterization and visual creativity mines lifetimes of pathos from the slapstick simplicity of its psychedelic, absurdist premise. You will believe an Owl can cry. Collecting all of Hanselmann's classic Megg & Mogg webcomics plus over 70 pages of new material.

(W/A/CA) Simon Hanselmann The NYT Best-Selling comics series returns with depressed stoners Megg the Witch and Mogg the Cat in Amsterdam trying to repair their relationship: their friend Owl comes to rescue them. Megg the witch, Mogg the cat, their friend Owl, and Werewolf Jones struggle unsuccessfully with their depression, drug use, sexuality, poverty, lack of ambition, and their complex feelings about each other. It's a laff riot! Megg and Mogg decide to take a trip to Amsterdam for some quality couple time, although the trip gets off to a rocky start when they forget their antidepressants. They need Owl to come and help them save their relationship. But why does he have a suitcase full of glass dildos? And what will they do when they realize that the housesitting Werewolf Jones has turned their apartment into a 'f#@k zone'? Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam collects all of Simon Hanselmann's contributions to Vice.com, the Ignatz Award-nominated short story 'St. Owl's Bay,' and other surprises that will add additional color and background for fans of Megahex.

(W/A) Paco Roca Spain's answer to Seinfeld, these observational, relatable autobio vignettes by Spanish cartoonist Paco Roca poke fun at the vexing tribulations of modern life. At 40, cartoonist Paco Roca has finally achieved his childhood dream - to spend all day at home in his pajamas! However, his blissful, loungewear-clad reverie is beset with a host of mundane problems: He dreads small talk with 'the world's biggest bore,' but his excuses and white lies are finally catching up with him. When a good friend breaks up, taking either side could lead to social disaster. The simple mission to change his train ticket descends into an impossibly complicated, Kafka-esque affair. And worst of all, his partner keeps hanging the toilet paper roll the wrong way! In the vein of sitcoms like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Roca's comic vignettes brilliantly satirize the pesky pitfalls of modern- day life. Like most of us, Roca's alter ego just wants to be liked and to do the right thing, but finds that through crippling indecision, cowardly behavior, and the absurd machinations of the univ

(W/A) Sergio Ponchione Poised between reality and fantasy, Memorabilia is acclaimed cartoonist Sergio Ponchione's wildly original homage to the legendary comic book creators who captured his imagination as a child. Weaving history, speculative fiction, and pure fantasy, Ponchione has crafted a visually stunning love letter befitting such towering comic book legends.

(W/A/CA) Tommi Parrish Tommi Parrish's sophomore graphic novel establishes them as one of the most exciting voices in contemporary literature. Eliza is a thirtysomething struggling single mother and poet. Sasha, a twentysomething yearning for direction in life, just moved back in with her parents and dabbles as a sex worker. The two strike up an unlikely friendship that, as it veers toward something more, becomes a deeply resonant exploration of how far people are willing to go to find intimacy in a society that is increasingly closed off. In Sasha and Eliza, Parrish has created two of the most fully realized characters in recent contemporary fiction. Parrish's gorgeously painted pages showcase a graceful understanding of body language and ear for dialogue, brilliantly using the medium of comics to depict the dissonance between the characters' interior and exterior experiences. Men I Trust is about not-always-healthy people attempting to make healthy connections in a disconnected world, and is one of the most moving and insightful works of literary fiction in any medium this year.

Out of the Shadows collects the very best of legendary Golden Age comics artist Mort Meskin's stories from the '30s, '40s, and '50s and features work in every genre Meskin worked in: super-hero, adventure, kid gangs, romance, crime, westerns, science fiction, and horror. Meskin set a new a high bar for comics in the first three decades of the medium, and this book will be a revelation to both the casual graphic novel reader and the ardent fan.

Miss Lasko-Gross's graphic-novel debut, Escape from 'Special,' was one of the nominations for YALSA's 2008 Great Graphic Novels list. Her semiautobiographical follow-up, A Mess of Everything, picks up where Escape left off: nonconformist Melissa is now in high school. But this time, the stakes are higher for the well-intentioned Melissa as she copes with an anxiety-induced drug habit and an anorexic best friend. Even when the situation is not life-and-death, Melissa must negotiate the everyday problems that face young adults, such as alienating her friends with her uncomfortable honesty and accidentally breaking her best guy friend's heart. Eventually, her troubles cause her to nearly flunk out of school, and she finds herself back in 'special' classes. By the end of the book, Melissa faces the choice that we all do at some point: whether to pursue her dreams or settle for a safer, more secure routine. As Melissa has grown, so has Miss Lasko-Gross' craftsmanship: A Mess of Everything retains the moodiness of Escape from 'Special,' but there's a new clarity to the art and characters'

(W) Antoine Cosse A society, greedily dependent on a mysterious natural resource, meets a force indifferent to social or class status in this graphic novel. In the dystopian city-state of Kronin, the chief engineer is in charge of all mining of Metax - a precious material that has become indispensable to survival because of its extraordinary qualities. Meanwhile, a police officer investigates the mysterious killing of royal horses, suspecting a terrorist insurrection. Sabrina, the engineer's daughter, is a member of this resistance group, which appears to be composed of children. Meanwhile, the King's hidden hand sets in motion a power play that will change the destiny of the kingdom forever, and all of these characters get caught up together in a whirlwind of violence and faith. This lusciously illustrated, science fiction fantasy by French cartoonist Antoine Coss? moves with the grace of a swan. Dark, romantic, and compassionate, it is an exploration of greed, its consequences, and the possibility of escape. (STL204504) (C: 0-1-1)

(W) Monte Schulz Metropolis, the sixth prose fiction novel by Monte Schulz, is a dystopian narrative of love in a time of war and moral disintegration. Regency College senior Julian Brehm's uneventful student life is derailed when he falls for Nina Rinaldi, a beautiful young revolutionary engaged in political activism against the authoritarian regime that rules the country and wages a deceitful, distracting war. Julian's love for - and moral alliance to - Nina eventually leads him into a vast undercity beneath the metropolis. Then, east by train and into the war zone itself, where mortal danger in that expanding cemetery of millions threatens Julian's life; what he witnesses will alter how he perceives the Republic and ultimately his fate within it. Julian's adventure can be seen as our own, a world of vacillating morality and unceasing violence. Apathy and passion. Fear and courage of purpose. Julian's is a hero's journey into the dark unknown. A love story, which extends in many directions. A war novel of incredible scope and horror. A suspenseful mystery novel with a moral puzzle

(W/A/CA) Wilfred Santiago A gripping, kinetic bio about the greatest basketball player of all time and most influential athlete in history, from the creator of the acclaimed and bestselling 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente. From Jordan's public successes to private struggles, Santiago's passion shines through on every full-color page. Everyone at a certain age wanted to be like Mike, and Santiago puts you on the parquet floor of Chicago's United Center in your very own pair of Air Jordans

(W/A/CA) Miguel Vila An aspiring yuppie romance is tested when a young couple cross paths with a very unlikely femme fatale in the form of an older single mother and ice cream server. With Marco and Stella's lukewarm romance already on the ropes, Daniele's insistent intrusions aren't helping. But when Marco meets Lulu, a single mother and unlikely femme fatale with a mysterious background, he develops an interest that soon veers into obsession and awakens in him a problematic and long dormant sexuality. With a voyeuristic gaze, Vila lays his characters bare, observing them in their hypocrisies, insecurities, and unmentionable desires. Vila's cartooning is alive. Working in a mostly naturalistic mode, he distorts his characters just enough to imbue them with a visceral charge that fuels the narrative's lust. A psychological and grotesque character drama that doubles as an erotic thriller about erotic obsession, mourning, a sense of inadequacy, and the search for surrogates of affection, Milky Way won prizes and garnered considerable acclaim upon release in Italy in 2022. Miguel V

(W/A/CA) Shungiku Uchida In this raunchy, moving, funny manga for adults, high school student Minami's girlfriend, Chiyomi, shrinks down to six inches tall - and moves in with him! Originally appearing in the underground/alternative manga magazine Garo in the 1980s and adapted for television several times, the Japanese pop culture sensation Minami's Lover is the story of two high schoolers' romantic relationship when one of them shrinks down to six inches tall.

(W/A/CA) Matt Furie From Matt Furie (Boy's Club) comes Mindviscosity, a collection of paintings depicting monsters, weirdos, beasts, and anthropomorphs all done in Furie's meticulous style of representational surrealism. Produced in the wake of his experience as the creator of Pepe the frog (whose appropriation by neo-Nazi's can be seen in the new feature film, Feels Good Man), his unsettling menagerie of creatures seem content to withhold their true intent despite the paintings' inviting colors and friendly cartoon iconography.

Mome (m?m), n. Archaic, a fool; blockhead. The influence of Fantagraphics' flagship quarterly anthology of new comic art and storytelling continues to grow. Celebrating it's fifth anniversary in 2010, the series has published over 2,000 pages of comics in its half-decade of existence, becoming a staple for those eager to discover what's new in the world of literary comics. Mome showcases the best new talent of this decade's ascendant cartoon generation, alongside work from some of North America and Europe's most respected creators.

(W/A/CA) Daniel Clowes This long-awaited new graphic novel from Daniel Clowes (Ghost World and Patience) is a genre-bending thriller from one of the most assured storytellers of all time. Monica is a series of interconnected narratives that collectively tell the life story - actually, stories - of its title character. Clowes calls upon a lifetime of inspiration to create the most complex and personal graphic novel of his distinguished career. Rich with visual detail, an impeccable ear for language and dialogue, and thrilling twists, Monica is a multilayered masterpiece in comics form that alludes to many of the genres that have defined the medium - war, romance, horror, crime, the supernatural, etc. - but in a mysterious, uncategorizable, and quintessentially Clowesian way that rewards multiple readings. Five years in the making, Monica marks the apex of creativity from one of the defining voices of the graphic novel boom over the past quarter-century. A new book from Clowes is always a huge event in comics and literary circles; Monica will be the biggest literary event of 2023. Dan

(W/A/CA) Kevin Fraser Mutch Mistreated for being mixed-race and forced into hard labor at a workhouse in West Hoboken, New Jersey, young Max and Molly are ordinary orphans — or so they think. That is, until a wise old man hears their last name: M’Chawi. Rattled by this realization, he sends them off on a journey that will uncover the secret behind their mystic lineage and give them purpose and power far from home — on the Moon! There, they encounter the Moon’s fantastic inhabitants: the Sky Pirates and their merciless Queen Melissa; the Groos, blue primates and genius mechanics — literal grease monkeys — and their robot protector, Moma Machina; and a kingdom of singing spiders giant enough to eat a man. Looks can be deceiving, and those who first appear frightening can turn out to be allies, and even friends. Take Prince Grakko, pampered heir-apparent to the Bat-People.The Moon is a land locked in constant battle. Races live in fear and ignorance of one another. To make matters worse, the siblings’ getaway isn’t as clean as they’d hoped, and the Earth Queen’s Grand Inquisitor is hot

(W/A/CA) Drew Friedman Featuring approximately 75 full-color portraits of the pioneering legends of American comic books, including publishers, editors, and artists from the industry's birth through the artists and writers who fueled the industry's first few decades, all lovingly rendered and chosen by Drew Friedman, a cartooning legend in his own right. Each subject features a tribute essay by Friedman.

(W/A/CA) Mort Gerberg Mort Gerberg broke into print with irreverent drawings in The Realist in the early '60s, whose social-justice-minded-and bitingly funny-cartoons have since appeared in all major magazines, including The New Yorker, Playboy, and the Saturday Evening Post. As a reporter, he's sketched historic scenes like the fiery Women's Marches of the '60s and the infamous '68 Democratic National Convention. Above all, Mort Gerberg is a keen political and social observer, whose curiosity, compassion, and razor-sharp wit has informed his work for over 50 years. Fantagraphics Underground is proud to present this handsome career retrospective of Gerberg's magazine cartoons, sketchbook drawings, and on-the-scene reportage sketches.

In May 1989, Dwaine Tinsley stood at the summit of an unlikely career. As cartoon editor for Larry Flynt's notorious Hustler magazine, he had assembled a staff of pen-and-White-Out-wielding Lenny Bruces whose unprecendentedly offensive socio-sexual cartoons had spearheaded that publication's fight against the forces of censorship and repression that sought to overthrow the political and cultural gains of the 1960s. His primary personal contribution was 'Chester the Molester,' a hulking middle-aged man who craved pre-pubescent girls. And then Tinsley's teenaged daughter accused him of sexually violating her over the course of five years. Most Outrageous is the story of the trial of Flynt's most notorious protege. Bob Levin's writings have established him as the most thought-provoking chronicler of cartoonists today. While focusing upon the work and lives of the most off-beat creators in the field in order to champion the pursuit of individual vision, he has explored issues common to artists of every medium. Most Outrageous carries his search into new, unsettling ground.

(W/A/CA) Sole Otero Buenos Aires, 2001. When Vilma passes away, few friends and relatives care to attend her funeral. This conspicuous absence sparks the curiosity of her 19-year-old granddaughter, Rocio, who moves into the house her grandmother has left her. In this home haunted by memories, she delves into Vilma?s life and uncovers a family history shrouded in tragedy.Moving seamlessly between Italy at the beginning of the 20th century and Argentina at the beginning of the 21st century, Mothballs draws a poetic comparison between the lives of grandmother and granddaughter. Both women are strong-willed and ambitious, eager to forge their own way, but face pressure from family and society to conform to the paths set for them. At a crossroads in her own life, knowing well the isolation her grandmother felt, Rocio seeks to break free from the chain of history. Mothballs chronicles fraught family dynamics with rare nuance and sensitivity, sprinkling in moments of tenderness, vulnerability, and whimsy amidst the pain, a showcase of tour de force cartooning that marks Sole Otero as a maj

(W/A/CA) D W Mountebank is like nothing you've ever seen before: a systematized sketchbook that tracks the inner workings of an obsessive brain and a book that could only be described as 'psychedoolic.' Both meditative and hypnotic, D.W. invites you to get lost alongside anthropomorphic creatures crawling through grid paper labyrinths and in his own brand of whirling dervish mark-making.

(W/A/CA) Yirmi Pinkus Mr. Fibber's absurdist adventures will delight early readers and their parents! Enter the whimsical world of Mr. Fibber, where events unfold in the absurd, amusing logic of a dream. When Mr. Fibber accidently drops his coin in a jar of juice, he magically shrinks so he can dive down and retrieve it. On a walk one day, he stumbles upon a giant dog with a smokestack on its back, towing a train behind it-and hitches a ride. And just to make sure it stays sunny and warm during his vacation, he catches the sun in a net and packs it in his suitcase! These playful adventures, illustrated in a bouncy colored pencil style and bursting with imagination, will enchant young readers. Based on Lea Goldberg's classic rhyming stories from the 1940s, Mr. Fibber introduces this charming character to a new generation of young readers and their parents. This is an exceptional book of high-quality comics designed specifically for children four and up.

(W) Wojtek Wawszczyk (A) Antonia Llyod-Jones In this electrifying graphic novel debut, Polish animator and cartoonist Wojtek Wawszczyk uses magical realism to tell a moving tale of finding light in a life full of darkness. Mirroring the world we live in, the protagonist of this graphic novel comes from a broken home. However, in this case, the term is quite literal. Due to freak accidents at the steelworks where his parents work, his mom snapped in half, and his dad flattened like a pancake. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, one day, he suffers his own life-changing experience: mistakenly swallowing molten metal gives him the strange power to radiate heat and light - like a lightbulb. As he grows up, evolving from Bulb Boy to Mr. Lightbulb, he finds that his unique abilities can be a curse and a blessing; while they alienate him from others, they also allow him to shine. At once surrealist, comedic, heartbreaking, bitterly sarcastic, and deeply sincere, Mr. Lightbulb is an essential work of comics autobio. With bold, expressive ink strokes and brilliant use of visual metaphor,

(W) Sybille De La Croix, Amazing Ameziane (A) Amazing Ameziane, Sybille De La Croix (CA) Sybille De La Croix, Amazing Ameziane In this follow-up to their NYT bestselling graphic biography of Muhammad Ali, the acclaimed French writer and artist duo tell the story of Black activist, professor, and prison abolitionist Angela Davis. In Ms Davis, the acclaimed French cartooning duo tell the story of this seminal, revolutionary 1960s icon through an accessible graphic novel narrative. Born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, Angela Davis' family fought in the civil rights movement against racial segregation enforced by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1968, she joined the Black Communist Party and traveled to Cuba, a journey which left its mark on her forever. In 1971, Davis was put on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List because several Black prisoners whose causes she had championed used weapons she owned in a Marin County courtroom gunfight. She went to prison despite her protestations of innocence. The Black People in Defense of Angela Davis formed, and soon the entire world would know her story and ask fo

(W/A/CA) Dave Cooper Eddy Table first appeared in Dave Cooper's award-winning underground comics series, Weasel and Mudbite compiles two all-new Eddy Table stories. In 'Mud River,' Eddy can't resist taking advantage of an Amazon who has received a bonk on the head, even as a river of mud approaches. In 'Bug Bite,' Eddy gets distracted and misplaces his family whilst on vacation in Europe, ending up in a dark corridor inhabited by slimy black eels. Mudbite marks the first new graphic novel by fan favorite Dave Cooper in more than 15 years, marking a welcome return to the medium.

THE FIRST-EVER RETROSPECTIVE OF THE DEAN OF AMERICAN SPORTS CARTOONING In Fantagraphics' ceaseless effort to rediscover every world-class cartoonist in the history of the medium, we turn your attention to a neglected part of the art form-sports cartooning-and to its greatest practitioner -- Willard Mullin. The years 1930-1970 were the Golden Age of both American sports and American comic strips, when giants strode their respective fields -- Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Hank Aaron in one, George (Krazy Kat) Herriman, Milton (Steve Canyon) Caniff, Walt (Pogo) Kelly in the other -- and Mullin was there, straddling both fields, recording every major player and event in the mid-20th-century history of baseball. Mullin was to baseball players what Bill Mauldin was to soldiers: advocate and critic, investing them with personality, humanity, dignity, and poignancy; Mauldin had Willie & Joe and Mullin had the Brooklyn Bum, his affectionate 1939 character representing the bedraggled figure of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Willard Mullin's Golden Age of Baseball: Drawings 1934-1972 collects for the first

(W/A/CA) Carol Lay Muderburg (sic), a sleepy island town off the coast of Maine aims to maintain a quiet existence for their population of families, fishermen, craftspeople, and aging oddballs. But every so often, incursions from scheming outsiders require exgangster mayor Leo Scazzo (and his loving wife and children) to enact counterschemes in order to keep the peace for the other townsfolk... Collecting the complete run of short stories (serialized as Murderville in the 2010s) under one cover, Carol Lay?s vivacious cartooning keeps the light side of these dark comedies shining.

(W) Gipi This coming-of-age graphic memoir is a relentless and exhilarating journey to the depths of the human condition, rendered with precision and verve by one of the world's greatest living cartoonists. "You've always got to laugh at tragedy. That's why I laugh about my ailment. Ailments. About being a sexual spastic. About my perennial, cowardly, tantalizing desire to die. You can laugh about anything. Almost." Spoken by his self-depiction, these bitter words set the tone for Gipi's pitch-black humor in this unvarnished and uncompromising autobiographical tale. A young adult adrift in the world, Gipi's stand-in grapples with sexuality, insecurity, deception, depression, drug use, fading friendships, and the capricious cruelties of the world as he struggles to determine whether his life is worth living. Drawn in Gipi's signature elegantly scribbled ink style and punctuated by vivid watercolor splashes, My Badly Drawn Life weaves through the past and present, through narratives both real and imagined, to create an impressionistic account of his complex inner life. In this kale

(W) Robert Mailer Anderson (A/CA) Jon Sack Set in Liberal, Kansas, a teenager moves in with her gay, film geek Godfather and his partner who run the Starlite movie theater, a safe haven for their eccentricities and artistic yearnings. My Fairy Godfather tells a story about how music and film connect us to who we?ve loved, who we?ve been, and who we are becoming ? and that lying beneath the fa?ade of teenage cynicism is the profound desire to be understood and loved.

(W/A/CA) Emil Ferris My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a murder mystery, a family drama, a sweeping historical epic, and a psychological thriller about monsters, real and imagined. Set against the political backdrop of late '60s Chicago, Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor. Rendered in a kaleidoscopically visual style, Emil Ferris' draftsmanship echoes the drawing of Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Robert Crumb. This is a revelatory work of striking originality and will undoubtedly be greeted as the debut graphic novel of the year.

(W/A/CA) Emil Ferris My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a murder mystery, a family drama, a sweeping historical epic, and a psychological thriller about monsters, real and imagined. Set against the political backdrop of late '60s Chicago, Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor. Rendered in a kaleidoscopically visual style, Emil Ferris' draftsmanship echoes the drawing of Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Robert Crumb. This is a revelatory work of striking originality and will undoubtedly be greeted as the debut graphic novel of the year.

(W/A/CA) Katie Skelly Clover - the 'pretty' vampire of the title - is a Bardot-esque blonde who dreams of the (now dead) girl she once was four years ago before becoming a fanged bloodsucker. She is being kept prisoner by her brother, Marcel, who fears Clover will be hunted by the outside world (and who may have other, more selfish motivations as well). Clover's curiosity, however, will not be suppressed: impetuous, sensual, strong-willed, and fearless, she plans her escape. The resultant havoc would make Dario Argento proud. My Pretty Vampire is a sexy, sophisticated horror romp that heralds author Katie Skelly as a powerful voice in comics. Her inherently sexy work wears its colorful Pop sensibility and keen fashion sense on its sleeve; that her strong visual style and sex-positive attitude is in the service of such strong female characters and emotionally rich work makes for a wonderfully moody, progressive, and engaging read.