In the late 1980s, the idiosyncratic Chester Brown (author of the much-lauded Paying for It and Louis Riel) began writing the cult classic comic book series Yummy Fur. Within its pages, he serialized the groundbreaking Ed the Happy Clown, revealing a macabre universe of parallel dimensions. Ed the Happy Clown is a hallucinatory tale that functions simultaneously as a dark roller-coaster ride of criminal activity and a scathing condemnation of religious and political charlatanism. Brown leaves us wondering, with every twist of the plot, just how Ed will get out of this scrape.

In one of the best graphic novels published in recent years, Chester Brown tells the story of his alienated youth in an almost detached, understated manner, giving the book an eerie, dream-like quality. For the new definitive softcover edition Brown has designed new layouts for the entire book, using 'white' panel backgrounds instead of the black pages of the first edition.

The classic historical biography, back in a new 4th paperback printing! Chester Brown reinvents the comic-book medium to create the critically acclaimed historical biography Louis Riel, winning the Harvey Awards for 'best writing' and 'best graphic novel' for his compelling, meticulous, and dispassionate re-telling of the charismatic, and perhaps insane, 19th-century M?tis leader. Brown coolly documents with dramatic subtlety the violent rebellion on the Canadian prairie led by Riel, who some regard a martyr who died in the name of freedom, while others consider him a treacherous murderer.

Paying For It was easily the most talked-about and controversial graphic novel of 2011, a critical success so innovative and complex that it received two rave reviews in the New York Times, and sold out of its first print run in just six months. Chester Brown calmly lays out the facts of how he became not only a willing participant in, but a vocal proponent of one of the world's most hot-button topics - prostitution. Complete with a surprise ending, Paying for It continues to provide endless debate and conversation about sex work.

(W/A/CA) Chester Brown Paying for It was the most talked-about and controversial graphic novel of 2011, a critical success so innovative and complex that it received two rave reviews in The New York Times. Chester Brown's eloquent, spare artwork stands out in this new paperback edition, tied to the release of the film adaptation co-written and directed by Sook-Yin Lee, Brown?s longtime friend and the director of Year of the Carnivore and Octavio is Dead! Paying for It offers an entirely unvarnished exploration of sex work through Brown?s own life story, showing him as a timid john who rides his bike to his escorts, wonders how to tip so as not to offend, and reads Dan Savage for advice. The book demystifies an experience that is so often sensationalized, revealing a world of online reviews, seem- ingly willing participants, and clean apartments devoid of clich?d street corners, drugs, or pimps. In it, Brown combines the personal and sexual aspects of his autobiographical work (I Never Liked You, The Playboy) with the polemical drive of Louis Riel, as he explores one of the most hotl

The Playboy is a memoir about Brown's adolescence, sexuality, and shame that chronicles his teenage obsession with the magazine of the same name. Exploring the physical form of comics to its fullest storytelling capacity, a fifteen year-old Chester is visited by a time-traveling adult Chester, and the latter narrates the former's compulsion to purchase each issue of Playboy as it appears on newsstands. Even more fascinating than his obsession with the magazine is Brown's need to keep this habit secret, and the great lengths to which he goes to avoid detection by, at first, his family, and then, later, by girlfriends.