Picking up, more or less, where Ganges left off, Kevin Huizenga's new series, Fieldercontinues to map new worlds for comics. The issue opens up – after an intriguing symbolization of the nature of thought on the inside front cover – withBona, a deconstructive remix of Sam Glanzman’sKona(which featured, improbably yet likely, scripts by Lionel Ziprin), published by Dell in the early 1960s. This story, which is bifurcated, with another, earlier part of the story appearing later(!) in the issue, highlights formal aspects of classic comics narratives while simultaneously reflecting on their generic tropes and the cultural milieu that produced...

And what better to follow the latest Kevin H. with than the latest by his longtime associate and fellow St. Louisan, Dan. Z., whose long promised graphic novel debut has at last arrived! Birdseye Bristoe is 72 full color pages of pure Zettwoch: set in a fictional (but perhaps even more authentic for being so) midwestern locale somewhere between St. Louis and Louisville, and filled with cut-away drawings, explanatory diagrams, maps and, of course, page after page of fun-filled comics filled with down home midwestern characters of all ages and stripes, it tells a story of industrial development and technological change that for all it's...

Mister Baker, perhaps the funniest cartoonist alive, steps out of his clown shoes and puts on his severest suit and tie to deliver this sermon of repression and defiance, violence and vengeance, and struggle and sacrifice, in this synecdochical story of slavery in these United States. Reading this book, in which the narrative is advanced almost entirely in images (pantomime style) interspersed with excerpts from The Confessions of Nat Turner, it is impossible not to marvel at the strength of Baker's storytelling. And, there is a method to the madness of attempting to relate so complex a tale entirely in images. It captures the forced...

Here it is, the book that put Katchor firmly on the map when it was first published in 1996. While he has been regularly producing comics in and about NYC since the 1980s, and had already had one collection –Cheap Novelties– published by Penguin (and recently reissued by D & Q),Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographeris the book which finally attracted the attention that Katchor’s work had long deserved. Katchor’s pen and ink (and ink wash!) comics create a parallax lens which show a reality that is invisible to others, that transports readers through a crack in the surface of “reality” to reveal a magical series of vignettes that seem –...

Year two of Baron Bean picks up right where year one left off, at the start of 1917 (after New Year's Day holiday, that is). It's a year in on Baron Bean, and the work here shows that Herriman clearly felt more at home with the characters and set-up that he had established. In the strips collected in this volume he confidently tackles serious questions concerning the relationship of social status to race, ethnicity, religion, career, habitual behavior and many other variables the social worth and merit of which the society of the day takes for granted but which Herriman clearly believes are open to question. He demonstrates here that so...

No one has ever created better Christmas comics than Carl Barks. "Christmas on Bear Mountain" is more than just another Barks Christmas Classic, however: it has the added historical significance of being the story for which Barks created his most famous character: Scrooge McDuck – Uncle Scrooge to Donald and his nephews. Scrooge – obviously patterned after the character of the same name form Charles Dickens'sA Christmas Carol– was originally created simply as the dramatic foil for Donald and his nephews in this particular story that was originally released for Christmas in 1947, and that was supposed to be that... but Barks quickly...

by David B. This comics tour de force, one of the greatest graphic novels yet produced, is now available in a fine, French-flapped softcover edition that's a true value.

How's this for value: the complete 360 page graphic novel in hardcover for the same price as the 160 page Book One in softcover issued by Fantagraphics a couple years back? Not only that, but this edition completes Kim Thompson's excellent translation that he started for Book One. Originally published in six volumes in France between 1996 and 2004, this edition represents the first time the complete story has appeared in English. As readers of David B.'s recently released...

Well, instead of the long awaited Maria M., Book Two, we get... Maria M., the compete, all-in-one, single-volume hardcover edition. So, sorry to all those who bought Book One and now have to get it again in this complete volume... but, this one – containing both Books One and Two – is priced only seven dollars more* than Book Two alone was priced (before it was cancelled and replaced with this single volume). Such are the exigencies of publishing.

All that said, Maria M. is a a book of multiple layers. To anyone simply picking it up and reading it, Maria M. will be 232 pages of rock 'em, sock 'em comics pulp fiction, loaded with the sex...