Speaking of classics, here's another sui generis masterwork that belongs in every library. When Reid Fleming first arrived on the scene, lo these thirty years ago (thirty years? how is that possible!?!), it existed at the cusp of the waning underground comix scene and the nascent direct market for alternative comics that was just starting to gain some traction. It was just right there at the crossroads; if any comic book can be said to capture that moment, it's that first issue. With Reid Fleming, David Boswell created a cartoon archetype that served – and continues to serve – as an anger fueled eulogy for the vanished world embodied by...

It is rare indeed when our opinion completely agrees with that of publisher provided cover hype, but in this case it does. The material that Will Eisner produced over a period of 20 years (!!!) for P*S Magazine is indeed, "the missing link between The Spirit and A Contract with God" as the cover states. The work contained in this 272 page hardcover volume has the highest critical-importance to critical-awareness ratio of any work we can think of. It represents the single largest unified body of work of one of the most admired creators in the history of comics, yet very few have read much – if any – of it. Now, thanks to Denis Kitchen, Ann...

The day has finally dawned on the first new North American edition of Moebius work in a generation. The World of Edena is the first in a series of deluxe hardcover volumes that will reintroduce the great French master of comics (bande dessinée) to readerson this side of the Atlantic. Collecting all theEdenashort stories in a deluxe, 344 page, full color,hardcover edition,The World of Edenaincludes “Upon a Star,” “Gardens of Edena,” “The Goddess,” “Stel,” and “Sra.” Although several had been translated into English in the 1980s, this will be the first time “Sra” has been available to English-language audiences. Dark Horse has done a nice...

Twenty-five years ago, inRaw, Volume 2, Number 1, Richard McGuire published a six-page work, titled "Here"*, and comics have never been the same since. Now, McGuire has expanded his revelation into a full length work, that, while it may be considered to fulfill the definition of graphic novel, is clearly something more besides. Years in the making,Hereis a meditation on time and its passage through place that employs the power of comics to concisely and powerfully convey their inextricable relation. ReadingHere, one is quickly gripped by a feeling of the uncanny. The realization that the precise spatial coordinates occupied by the room...

We've been chomping at the bit for years now looking for a nice anthology of Soviet-era graphics produced in Russia during the magic decade 1917-1927. At last we've found one, but we had to go all the way to Japan to find it! This elegantly produced 320-page softcover is overflowing with excellent full color reproductions of the glorious works that emanated from the hands, hearts and minds of the true believers that gave their all to the revolution, before being so cruelly betrayed. Anyone with a passion for works of visual art cannot fail to be energized by the works collected here. Rodchenko, Stepanova, Kandinsky, Malevich, El Lissitzky,...

Believe it or not, it's been over twenty years since the publication of Understanding Comics, which established the breakthrough realization that the most effective way to truly explain how comics work is in comics form. Now, at last, we have the next iteration of this understanding: that the most effective way to explain how comics -- presented here as consciously thinking and writing - and, of course, reading - in a free flowing combination of images and text -- are changing the way we represent our world and understand ourselves is also in comics form. Unflattening, just published by Harvard University Press, is the book form of...

Tillie Walden's long in the works and hotly anticipated coming of age story has arrived. In the pages of Spinning, Tillie Walden provides a first person window into the world of competitive figure skating. One of the western world's many subcultures,figure skating is like the proverbial iceberg which is carried alongbythe ocean of the dominant culture:all that most of ussee is the tippy top that appears on television during national and international competitions, while9/10 is submerged and hidden from site to all but those directly involved – until now. It is a world populated largely by girls.Manyof whom, as revealed here, enterit at the...

The power of images to communicate is amply demonstrated in the pages of The Longest Day of the Future. Lucas Varela simultaneously constructs and communicates an entire future society predicated on a projected subsuming of national political systems into that of corporate business, one in which corporate icons dominate personal identity and brand loyalty trumps all. This is accomplished entirely without words, in this 120 page full color pantomime graphic novel that was originally published in France. There is more, of course, to this work than simply the construction of a future society. There is also its deconstruction which is set in...