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...

Darwin Cooke. Where to begin. Cooke is the heroic fantasy comics art synthesizer of his generation, par excellence. He knows comics. He knows how they work. He can take them apart and put them back together again, and, more importantly, he has amply demonstrated, perhaps nowhere better than through the work collected in this volume, that he can disassemble the machinery of the styles of the greats of comics past, pick out the best, strongest parts, the ones that still hold up, and then put them all together to build an awesome new comics story-telling machine, one that can deliver page after page of action-packed adventure. And there’s...

What can you say about a book that opens with a Galactus quote from Fantastic Four #49, drops more comics references -- particularly to the classics of the 1980s -- than any novel we've ever read, clearly shows the influence of Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar and, especially, Luba stories, AND won the Pulitzer Prize for best novel of 2007? We'd say, "This is a must read! Particularly suitable for fans of Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and Michael Chabon's (also Pulitzer Prize winning) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay." And then we'd add: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a gigantic meditation on the inner life of the...

It's Jaime to the rescue! The holiday season is notably brighter with the arrival of Angels and Magpies. The latest in the uniform softcover edition of Love and Rockets brings together the meta-comics masterwork, God and Science and the unparalleled presentation of the processes of character formation, fate and destiny that is The Love Bunglers, in which readers are offered the opportunity to gaze into their own souls through the mirror of Maggie Chascarrillo. PLUS: the hard to find story, "La Maggie la Loca / Gold Diggers of 1969", from the long out of print Love and Rockets v.2 #20!

The latest (penultiate?) volume in this consummately composed andamazingly insightful work has arrived.

Here it is: the final (>sob!<) Peanuts strips by Charles M. Schulz, the last of which, the final Sunday page, originally appeared on the same day as Schulz's obituary, as he passed on from this world (and doubtless onto the Sphere of True Comics) the day before its publication. The editors cleverly filled out what would have otherwise been a slim volume by bookending the conclusion of Peanuts with the complete collection of Schulz's precursor strip to Peanuts, L'il Folks. And, to top it all off, this volume is introduced by none other than the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama! A fitting finale.

This One Summer is a finely nuanced portrait of pubescents at the dawning of their age of sexuality that will have readers slowing down if not stopping in their tracks to pause and soak up every line ofstunningly good work. The Tamaki cousins enter Hernandez brothers territory here, with their deftly characterized and deeply empathic portraits of each pen & ink participant in the drama that unfolds on these pages. There are echoes, too, of Charles Burns’s Black Hole, in the presentation of the protagonists' stumbling upon detritus strewn outdoor settings that stand as a synecdoche forinnocence’s discoveringthe mysteries of sexual...

back in print, at last! Originally published in 1994, City of Glass was ahead of the comics history curve in many respects, with its "serious" literary concerns and dazzling formal inventiveness. It was the most requested out-of-print volume in the history of the Copacetic Comics Company before being brought back in print in this 2004 edition. This edition remains faithful to the original, but has been updated with a new cover as well as a new introduction by Art Spiegelman (see above) that lays out the genesis of this particular work, helping to place it in the proper historical context. Recommended!

Though he is better known now as the creator of a series of Victorian murder mysteries, back in the day Rick Geary was (more or less) the Richard Brautigan of comics. He pioneered the genre of short, off-kilter stories that, by virtue of their peculiar slant on the events they portray, continue to provide readers with fresh perspectives on the mundane. The stories contained in Housebound are, on average, over twenty years old, but they are as unique now as they were when he first laid Rapidiograph pen to paper. Quirky, entertaining and fun, this book is a one of a kind* treasure that is now out of print... but we still have a few left!...