Significant Objects features 100 short stories written by such literary luminaries as William Gibson, Curtis Sittenfeld, Sheila Heti, Colson Whitehead, Nicholson Baker, Meg Cabot, Gary Panter, Ben Katchor, Lydia Millet, Jonathan Lethem among others, about - yes, significant objects! The concept behind Significant Objects began in 2009 as an online inquiry to see if commissioning great stories about common geegaws would increase the objects value - as measured in actual eBay auctions. The experiment, in short, was a smash hit. As will be the Significant Objects book.

(W/A/CA) Ted Osborne The 1930s were the heyday of Disney?s second-ever newspaper comics feature: the full-color weekly Silly Symphonies! And with it came Donald Duck?s first starring roles? from his debut as a barnyard brat to his battles with Mickey?s naughty nephews?and the unforgettable debut of Donald?s own riotous relatives, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, first created for this strip by artist Al Taliaferro!Also included in this two-volume set: Zeke the Big Bad Wolf, always in pursuit of the Three Little Pigs?and Bucky Bug, the daring, mischievous beetle whose escapades took him from brutal birds of prey to the trenches of the Great Flyburg War! Plus more golden-age Silly Symphony cartoon stars: feisty Max Hare, slow-but-sure Toby Tortoise, that awful bandit Dirty Bill (who ?never took a bath, and he never will!?)? and timid Elmer Elephant, one of his adventures plotted by comics maestros Carl Barks and Walt Kelly!

(W/A) Various The wild adventures of the first Disney star created just for comics- and Donald Duck's hilarious funny-page debut! 1932 saw the launch of Disney's second-ever original comic strip, the full-color weekly Silly Symphonies, and with it came the debut of Bucky Bug, a daring, rhyming, mischievous squirt whose escapades took him from brutal birds of prey to the terrifying trenches of the Great Flyburg War! With his brave lady friend June and bumpkin pal Bo, Bucky even travels to a mixed-up Mother Goose Land? where a not-so-merry Old King Cole has mayhem on his mind! Now in this latest stand-alone Disney reprint collection, readers can follow all of Bucky's adventures and the Symphonies Sunday sagas that followed, which also includes Donald Duck's debut as the barnyard's spoilt brat in 'The Wise Little Hen'? and further tales of golden age Silly Symphony cartoon stars: egotistical Max Hare, slow-but-sure Toby Tortoise, and that awful bandit Dirty Bill (who 'never took a bath, and he never will!').

An unprecedented look inside the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, used to house alleged terrorists in the wake of 9/11. Photographs are not allowed to be taken at the prison but artist Janet Hamlin was permitted to work as a courtroom sketch artist during the trials. This book is both a collection of her most potent and revealing work drawn during this period as well as a chronicle of her experience at Guantanamo. Features nearly 150 sketches and an introduction by awardwinning journalist Carol Rosenberg.

(W) Mieke Versyp (A/CA) Sabien Clement Feeling adrift after her daughter leaves the nest, Rita makes the audacious move to model nude for a live drawing class. There, she meets Esther, an artist who sees beyond the superficial and captures people’s true essences in her drawings. The two connect as kindred spirits, and their unexpected, yet endearing relationship teaches them to accept their eccentricities and feel comfortable in their own skin.Skin is the striking debut graphic novel by writer Mieke Versyp and illustrator Sabien Clement. In this seamless collaboration, poetic turns of phrase pair with impressionistic watercolors, creating a tangible intimacy between words and imagery. Keen observation and dynamic artistry combine to tell a tender story of the human condition, as playful and devastating as life itself.

(W/A/CA) Thijs Desmet Ghost, a cantankerous character who drowns his cynicism in booze and cigarettes. Skeleton, a sensitive soul full of curiosity and wonder. This odd couple makes for a hilarious pairing as they are doomed to roam a desolate afterlife. Sarcastic and heartfelt in equal measure, this droll adventure sets out to explore the meaning of life in the land of the dead. In Smoking Kills, Flemish cartoonist Thijs Desmet renders a bewitching tale of spooks and truths in vivid colored pencils.

(W/A/CA) Charles M. Schulz Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron collects all of Schulz's daily and Sunday newspaper strips starring Snoopy as the famous World War I flying ace, as seen in next month's The Peanuts Movie, perennially battling the infamous German Red Baron. These Snoopy and Red Baron encounters are some of the most inspired-and most popular-episodes in all of Peanuts, and among the stories most beloved by children and adults alike.

Sometimes getting together with friends and family for Thanksgiving isn't all that it's cracked up to be, as Snoopy learns when his brother Spike invites him to spend Thanksgiving in the desert, and things don't quite work out as planned Snoopy's Thanksgiving is the perfect gift book for anyone whose idea of the holiday is more Charlie Brown than Norman Rockwell, all at a budget price.

(W) Peter Maresca (A) R F Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, George Herriman (CA) Rudolph Dirks “Mit Dose Kids, SOCIETY IS NIX!” So said The Inspector about the Katzenjammer Kids. But he could have been speaking of all comic strips in their formative years in the early 1900s. From the very first color Sunday supplement, comics were a driving force in newspaper sales, offering a wild parody of the world and the culture found in the surrounding pages. Society didn't stand a chance!These are the origins of the American comic strip, born at a time when there were no set styles or formats, when creators had the freedom to experiment, when artistic anarchy helped spawn a new medium. The genesis of comics is laid out in a dozen essays by the greatest in their field—historians like Thierry Smolderen, Brian Walker, Alfredo Castelli, Bill Kartalopoulos, Paul C. Tumey and others. And in the second, revised edition of this seminal collection: over 200 comic strips! The earliest comics by acknowledged greats like R. F. Outcault, George McManus, Winsor McCay, and George Herriman, along with c

(W/A/CA) Carol Tyler Carol Tyler's graphic memoir chronicles her fraught relationship with her WWII veteran father and how the trauma of war effected the Greatest Generation and those who followed. Even though Tyler's work has an accessible, homemade feel (the organizing metaphor of the book is a family photo album), You'll Never Know is a sophisticated graphic work about war, love, loss and is also a tribute to servicemen and women.

(W/A/CA) Anne Simon The Song of Aglaia is the first solo graphic novel by cartoonist Anne Simon, presenting a beautifully crafted female spin on the classic heroic myths of Greek literature, tracing the journey of a victimized and then almighty woman with a graceful understanding of human relationships and loving nods to the Bronte sisters, David Bowie, and the Beatles.

(W/A) Paco Roca & Various Spanish Fever is a best-of anthology of contemporary comic art from a country with one of the strongest cartoon traditions in Europe. With its panoramic view of the contemporary Spanish comics scene, Spanish Fever includes the work of masters such as Paco Roca, Miguel Gallardo, David Rub?n and Miguel ?ngel Mart?n along with newcomers like Jos? Domingo, Anna Galva?, ?lvaro Ortiz and Sergi Puyol -more than 30 artists working on the cutting edge.

(W/A/CA) Ali Fitzgerald Hazel and her parents live an idyllic life in a treehouse in the PAW (Perfect Animal Worlds) Biosphere among a series of ecologically controlled environments populated by genetically created and enhanced animals and flora. As scientists working for PAW, together with founder Dr. Henry Nimick, the McCrimlisk’s mission is to create a world that will usher in an era of “good evolution”, populated with animals and plants that can transform pollution and other environmental hazards to make the region clean and habitable. But one foggy night, Hazel’s parents are suddenly kidnapped. With the help of her animal friends Chimi (a multilingual toucan), Nina (a pet-sized elephant who exhibits super-strength), and her human friend (comics lover and mythology expert) Alex, Hazel tracks clues throughout the various biodomes and climates uncovering what happened to her parents and leading her to... a monster?!?Author Ali Fitzgerald charmingly wrote, drew, lettered, and colored this book featuring an imaginative setting rich with detail and an expressive brush-pen style with a

(W) Massimo Mattioli An outrageously cruel cat versus a wily mouse: a rivalry as old as time, popularized by the beloved Tom and Jerry cartoons of the '40s and '50s. In the hands of renowned Italian cartoonist Massimo Mattioli, however, this classic premise is infused with a whole new perverse and anarchic energy. Laying full-on slasher horror onto wacky cartoon violence, Mattioli's characters embark on a sadistic bloodthirsty rampage, leaving a trail of mangled corpses and pools of blood in their wake. And the comic's gratuitous bloodshed is not to be overshadowed by its crude humor and over-the-top sexcapades. In sum, a tour de force of unrelenting transgression, rendered in clean line art and dazzling pastel colors. Conceived in the early '80s, Squeak the Mouse was originally serialized in the Italian underground comics magazine Frigidaire to much acclaim. This silent comic series gained notoriety in the US when customs agents seized a shipment of Mattioli's books; deemed pornographic, the work was subsequently made the subject of an obscenity trial (which was won by the publishe

Finally back in print, by popular demand! Jason's first full-length work is an intriguing suite of silent short stories starring one of his trademark bird characters that ends up chronicling a life well lived. Sshhhh! was published before Jason created the distinctive 'Jason' format of his later books, and Sshhhh! has now been redesigned to match them, with a brand new cover done just for this edition.

(W/A/CA) Stan Mack Sketchbook in hand, Stan Mack haunted the New York City environs, watching, listening, overhearing, and interviewing its inhabitants. He drew a comic strip every week based on what he saw and heard, famously using verbatim dialogue for his graphic dramatizations. A mixture of humor, spontaneity, serendipity, and weirdness, Mack?s comic strip snapshots caught New Yorkers ? whether it is an extortionist calligrapher, a baby evading arrest at her first protest, a stroll up Broadway with a ferret, an evening with a male liberationist, or an unlucky-in-love dolphin trainer ? being who they are in all their unguarded and uninhibited glory. This collection includes a foreword by CNN journalist Jake Tapper (The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor) and an afterword by Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle).

(W/A) Safdar Ahmed Safdar Ahmed visited Sydney's Villawood Immigration Detention Centre in 2011. He brought pencils and sketchbooks with him and began drawing with the detainees. Weaving journalism, history, and autobiography, Still Alive is an intensely personal indictment of Australia's refugee detention policies and procedures, which are not unlike those in many Western nations. It is also a searching reflection on the redemptive power of art. (And death metal.)

(W/A) Lee Lai An exhilarating and tender debut graphic novel that is an ode to the love and connection shared among three women and the child they all adore. Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray's niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy, and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seeded personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties - Ray with her overworked, resentful single-mother sister and Bron with her religious teenage sister who doesn't fully grasp the complexities of gender identity. Taking a leap of faith, each opens up and learns they have more in common with their siblings than they ever knew. At turns joyful and heartbreaking, Stone Fruit reveals through intimately naturalistic dialog and blue-hued watercolor how painful it can be to truly become vulnerable to your loved ones - and how fulfilling it is to be finally understood for who you ar

The long-awaited career retrospective of M.K. Brown, one of America's greatest humorists. Culled from The Atlantic, National Lampoonand The New Yorkerplus underground publications such as Arcade, Brown satirizes suburban anxiety and ennui by turning it upside-down and sideways, and her slightly grotesque yet lovable characters are perfectly captured in her restless pen line and delicate jewel-tone watercolors.

(W) Anita Kunz What would Jimi Hendrix, Clint Eastwood, Ricky Gervais, Stephen King, and over a hundred other pop culture icons look like if they posed for your Live Drawing Class? Inspired by her own art students' struggles and triumphs with nude life drawing, Anita Kunz turns her brushes to nearly 150 speculative portraits of famous figures, stripped of their vanities and as unpretentiously posed as life models. Alone or grouped, male marvels and monsters and musicians stand, lean, and sit for the imaginary eye of the acclaimed painter and illustrator. Drawn with a casual wit, Kunz' caricatures combine with naturalism to undercut the mystique of her subjects. The well-known faces become less significant than the unknown bodies, as though the celebrities and creators are descending from their pedestals to pose. Less directly comic or polemical than her previous Another History of Art (Fantagraphics, 2021) Striking a Pose nevertheless includes a feminist flip on the role of the nude model; Kunz upends historical gender prejudices within the fine art world while also finding a welcom

Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics collects, for the first time, each and every one of Wilson's little-known syndicated strips that appeared in America's newspapers between 1974 and 1976. Featuring his usual cast of freaks, geeks, and weirdoes, Wilson deftly exploits the minimalist Sunday strip form to skewer the everyday horrors of being human.

(W) Joyce Farmer, Lyn Chevli (A) Lyn Chevli, Joyce Farmer (CA) Joyce Farmer The groundbreaking, women-edited comics anthology that served as an antidote and rebuke tomale-dominated underground comix is now collected in a single volume for the first time. In 1972, underground cartoonists Joyce Farmer and Lyn Chevli produced T*ts & Cl*ts - a funny, rowdy, raucous underground comix series about female sexuality that one reviewer described as 'the ultimate in vaginal politics' - and became the first American women ever credited with writing, drawing, and publishing their own comic books. T*ts & Cl*ts quickly became an anthology showcase for other women cartoonists, a feminist answer to Zap, and featured the work of Mary Fleener, Roberta Gregory, Krystine Kryttre, Lee Marrs, Carel Moiseiwitsch, Trina Robbins, Dori Seda, among others. Like other underground comix, T*ts & Cl*ts leaned into being lewd in order to satirize women's experiences with so-called sexual liberation. Featuring stories about birth control, abortion, menstruation, masturbation, and more, Tits & Clits featured intimat

Hot on the heels of his acclaimed Mark Twain's Autobiography: 1910-2010 comes Michael Kupperman's second all-comics collection of surreal slapstick and crazy non-sequitur goofiness, all from the pages of his beloved comic book series Tales Designed to Thrizzle with an additional 30-plus pages of brand new material!

(W/A/CA) Josh Pettinger Tedward is, in many ways, the quintessential ‘lovable loser’ — an almost literal blockhead and mangenue in the grand tradition of Pee-Wee Herman, Candide, and Flakey Foont, affording his creator the perfect vehicle to indulge his brilliantly absurdist storytelling instincts. Tedward’s susceptibility to temptation, exploitation (capitalistic or sexual), and misplaced trust continually lands him in ridiculous and hilarious situations, be they scatological, orgiastic, violent, or mundane. Through it all, his heart of gold never wavers. Tedward is the debut collection from British-born Philadelphia cartoonist Josh Pettinger. Featruing sex trousers, coital hygienists, warm televisions, hot rocks, and clown meat, as well as romance, crime, conflict, and cosmic wonders! A spiritual cousin to the humor of Simon Hanselmann and Daniel Clowes, Pettinger’s singularity of tone and style in these episodic comedies mark him as a master cartoonist just entering his prime.

(W/A/CA) Mike McCarthy In 1995 Something Weird Video released filmmaker John Michael McCarthy's Elvis-obsessed auto-bio bump and grind cinematic oddity TEENAGE TUPELO, co-produced by exploitation king David F. Friedman. Memphis instrumental combo Impala provided the scintillating score set to the swaying rhythms of starlet D'Lana Tunnell, produced by legendary Sun records-era Roland Janes and released on Sympathy for the Record Industry. Now Fantagraphics Books unleashes this mammoth coffee table volume: a nudie cutie time capsule of art, essays, and reviews, along with photos of the beautiful starlets who appeared in the movie.

(W/A/CA) Barbara Shermund Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins doubles as an official biography and coffee table art collection honoring the life and art of pioneering cartoonist Barbara Shermund, an unheralded early master of magazine cartooning whose career spanned the heyday of American magazines from the 1920s?1960s. Her sharp wit and loose style boldly tapped the zeitgeist of first-wave feminism with vivid characters that were alive and astute. Shermund?s women spoke their minds about sex, marriage, and society; smoked cigarettes and drank; and poked fun at everything in an era when it was not common to see young women doing so. Shermund left behind a body of work that was ahead of its time and remains insightful, witty, relevant, and contemporary.As one of the first women cartoonists to work for The New Yorker the year of its launch in 1925, she created nine covers and more than 600 cartoons for the magazine, in addition to countless spot illustrations, giving the nascent publication its unique visual brand. Shermund later became a mainstay at Esquire; contributed to Life,

(W/A) Tenacious D There was the film; there was the album; there was the tour; and now, the final piece of Tenacious D's masterful Post-Apocalypto universe: the graphic novel, complete with accompanied audio. In the fall of 2018, the Greatest Band in the World - Tenacious D (comprised of Jack Black and Kyle Gass) - added arguably its most crucial work to an already scintillating catalogue of rock greatness: Tenacious D in Post-Apocalypto the movie (available on YouTube) and Post-Apocalypto the album. And now - with great excitement - Tenacious D will add the final piece to the Post-Apocalypto universe: the graphic novel, which Jack Black drew and Kyle Gass wrote, complete with accompanied audio. Post-Apocalypto finds Tenacious D thrust into a world of complete and utter destruction following the drop of an atomic bomb. Surviving the attack in classic cinematic fashion (a good old imperishable 1950s refrigerator), the duo quickly learn that new forms of evil have spawned from the blast. One thing becomes apparent - for humanity to prevail, Tenacious D must save the world. With unim

NOTE: There is a misprint on this title where the word "grotesque" is misspelled on the spine as "grotesqe". The publisher has confirmed they will not be reprinting a corrected version at this time, so copies will be sold as-is. (W/A/CA) Tommi Parrish Tommi Parrish is an Australian trans cartoonist and one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary comics and graphic novels. Balancing emotional honesty with a keen awareness of the human condition, Parrish navigates fear, loneliness, identity, body politics, queer desire, masculinity, fear, and the ever-fluid nature of all human relationships. The Past is a Grotesque Animal collects over two dozen short stories of varying lengths, interspersed with ephemera from Parrish?s own life: diary entries, photographs, illustrations, paintings, and more.Parrish?s autobiographical elements inform their voice as a writer and the ways their characters constantly find one another adrift in their own seas of experience, current situations, trauma, and desire. How those characters coexist, how they are complicated by outside forces, and internal

(W/A/CA) John Kenn Mortensen Freestyle wrestler The Sledgehammer has never met defeat, not at the hands of Painkiller, Handsome Jens, Fezzik the Giant or the Angel of Death. But over the course of 80 pages, Danish illustrator John Kenn Mortensen’s surreal black and white graphic novel will take Sledgehammer to the limits of reality, to show that he’s motivated by far more than hubris—it’s also love.Mortensen’s first English-language graphic novel delivers on the promise that his delightfully macabre books of illustration had previously made to readers around the world. With his spidery black-ink style, reminiscent of Edward Gorey’s gothic line, we’re taken to a world in which heavy metal mixes with the WWE by way of The Seventh Seal and Faust.

(W/A/CA) E. C. Segar More than a decade before he created the world?s most famous cartoon sailor, Elzie Crisler Segar began his comics career in the movies. He drew cartoons for silent movie theater slides, the Charlie Chaplin comic strip, and a daily strip about Chicago?s movies and entertainment. Then, in 1919, he penned his own ?small screen? creation for the newspapers, Thimble Theatre, where Popeye was to be born a decade later.This comprehensive volume features examples of all of E.C. Segar?s early comics and illustrations, with over 100 pre-Popeye Thimble Theatre Sunday pages including the complete run of the famed Western desert saga, a series that rivals his later work in superb art, storytelling, and humor.Newly revised and expanded, this new printing contains ten additional pages plus a 1920s-style Sunday comics section insert paying tribute to Segar and his comic creations featuring Charlie Chaplin?s Comic Capers and Popeye?s ?The Jeep.?Text and illustrations offer an in-depth history and commentary on the life and work of E. C. Segar by historians Paul C. Tumey and Jeet

(W) Axel Brechensbauer A visual guide to fascinating historical facts and philosophical musings on why and how the objects we buy, own, use, see and interact with - from tanks to iPhones - come into existence. We all live in a world of objects, yet we rarely stop to think about how and why they came to exist, why they look and feel the way they do, or what shapes our preferences and why we own and use the ones we do. In Things We Create, renowned concept designer, cartoonist, and sculptor Axel Brechensbauer pulls back the curtain and provides a visual guide to civilization's endless quest for the perfect human-made object. Told in eight chapters covering topics such as 'The Need of Objects,' 'Recreating Nature, 'Objects as Communication,' and 'Objects as Power,' Brechensbauer takes the reader on a rollicking tour through the history and creation of objects that comprise our world. He digs into the basics of design, discusses why certain some objects please us while others repel us, considers how the design of one object influences another, reveals how human curiosity keeps in step w

BE CAREFUL! WARNING! CAUTION! WARNING! THIS IS A PROSE NOVEL! THIS IS NOT A COMIC BOOK OR GRAPHIC NOVEL! Written for his father, the late cartoonist, Charles M. Schulz, Monte Schulz's PROSE NOVEL opens in the spring of 1929, as the 19 year old consumptive farm boy Alvin Pendergast attends an ill-fated dance marathon he's too sickly to participate in. After a year of his life has been stolen by a sanitarium, an invitation for a late-night slice of pie is too seductive to pass up and before he knows it, Alvin finds himself up to his eyeballs in horror, beauty, strangeness and death. THIS SIDE OF JORDAN weds the phantasmagoric with the Southern Gothic literary tradition all in search of the common as well as the cosmic satori of our experience. Cover by Al Columbia!

(W) Emille Harel (A) Heidi Jacquemoud Open this book to embark on an extraordinary tour of Manhattan, from the paradise of Central Park to the dazzle of Coney Island, and every place in between. This accordion-style book unfolds into a stunning 30-foot-long panoramic travelogue! Featuring iconic NYC landmarks, familiar pop culture characters, and whimsical touches of the surreal, Through the Very heart of It captures the mythical, larger-than-life spirit of the City That Never Sleeps.

(W/A) Mikael Ross There's a real village in Germany called Neuerkerode that is operated by people with mental disabilities - the local restaurant, the local bar, the local supermarket. The author spent two years living 3 or 4 days a week there, researching and getting to know its townsfolk, and the result is an empathetic depiction. This graphic novel is told entirely from a developmentally impaired boy's perspective. Noel had always lived with his mother in Berlin, until one day tragedy strikes and he finds himself alone for the first time. A man with a beard tells him he can't stay in the apartment anymore and takes him to a place with so many strangers - Who can he trust? Who does he like? Who loves him? Mikael Ross was born in 1984 in Munich.

(W/A/CA) Leslie Stein In Leslie Stein's first original graphic novel, our protagonist Larrybear meets her new nemesis, visits her anthropomorphic guitar, and ponders her future when a hurricane arrives and the bar she manages is packed. Stein is a cartoonist whose work is characterized by a unique visual style inc fantastic elements and grounded by a cast of characters who capture the truth of young, struggling, middle class lives.

(W) M.S. Harkness Time Under Tension is a smart, funny, no bullshit work of autobiography, a story of searching for dignity in a world that rarely affords it and taking agency of adulthood in the face of so many easy excuses not to. M.S. Harkness is graduating from art school in Minneapolis and facing a crossroads in life. She has a strained relationship with her mother, a sexually abusive father on parole, and is in love with an aspiring MMA fighter who mostly hangs out with her to get high and already has a girlfriend and career prospects with a fight promoter. An art career feels untenable - as one professor tells her, 'Don't expect to get by on this fucked-up broke girl shit.' She decides to get a personal trainer's certificate - it seems like a feasible and sensible career option - but continues to dabble as a sex worker and weed dealer because the money is too irresistible. With idle hands due to no classes or full-time work, M.S. has ample time to aimlessly fuck around - or, to get her shit together. 'I want to be better; I want to be stable and solid. I don't want to keep ai

(W/A/CA) Ulli Lust A long, dense, sensitive, and minutely observed autobiographical masterpiece recalling the summer of 1984, when the artist, a rebellious, punked-out 17-year-old, hitchhiked her way across Italy. 2011 Angoulême prize winner.

With TOO SOON? Friedman finally (none 'too soon,' in fact) gets his due with this fat, beautiful collection that showcases his wide-ranging skills as a portraitist and caricaturist. TOO SOON? is evenly split between political celebrities and show-business ones, ranging from Friedman's instantly iconic 'Barack Obama as George Washington' New Yorker cover to brutal depictions of Britney Spears and her tabloid-filling ilk. Subjects (or targets, depending on how you look at it) for Friedman's pen on the political side include Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John McCain, and George W. Bush (with an iconic 'W. as Strangelove' image) and his gang. Entertainers include Tiny Tim, Barney Fife, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Jerry Lewis, the Three Stooges, Ellen DeGeneres, and Conan O'Brien. And falling somewhere in the gray area between entertainers and political players (you make the call!) Rush Limbaugh (who blasted Friedman's George W. Bush image as being of 'low artistic quality'), Sarah Palin, and Michael Moore. The book will also include a running commenta

(W) Charles Biro From their inception in 1935, comic books - starring Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel - had been primarily written for and aimed at adolescents. There were always the occasional outlier artists who pushed back against the commercial constraints of comic books and envisioned the next evolutionary artistic leap in the artform: Charles Biro was one of those artists. In 1949, the ambitious Biro - who had previously co-created the realistically brutal comic Crime Does Not Pay- edited and wrote an oversized comic aimed at adults, called Tops. Like several other radical adult comics projects that would follow, it proved to be a commercial failure and lasted only two Life magazine-sized issues. The original comics have since become a legendary holy grail among comics fans and historians, fetching as much as $6,000 on the collector's market: written about but rarely seen and never reprinted. Until now. Fantagraphics' Tops collects both issues of these oversized experimental comics in their entirety. Some of the best craftsmen working in comics at that time drew these pulpy,

(W/A/CA) Laura Perez Blurring the lines between the real and the spiritual, Spanish cartoonist Laura P?rez leads the reader through a dreamy journey from the Arizona desert to the land of the dead. Two young women road trip through the Arizona desert in search of a spiritual awakening. Crowds gather to see the village wise woman commune with the dead. Strange bright lights flash across the night sky, provoking all manner of interpretations. A mosaic of experiences, Totem offers tantalizing glimpses of characters on their own journeys connected by some ethereal thread. The narrative slips through time and space, delicately drifting from reality to different states of consciousness. Like a vivid dream, this story is rendered through eerie settings and potent symbols, a spiritual puzzle inviting the reader to piece together.