The hits keep coming! Talk about long awaited! Dal Tokyo collects the entire 24 years of this sporadically published comicstrip that first saw the publication in the L.A. Reader way back in 1983, where it ran for awhile before being picked up by the Japanese Reggae (!) magazine, Riddim. This chunky, oversize, 220 page hardcover volume prints the strips in a luxurious 16" x 6" horizontal format that allows reader to absorb every nook and cranny of Panter's line as it meanders through the years. Whet your appetite with this20 page PDF preview.

ONE COPY ONLY (1/2021)

Sometimes, dreams do come true! Here it is, at long last: the first of two volumes collecting the entirety of Steve Ditko's pre-superhero output for Marvel Comics, almost all of which was scripted by Stan Lee. This massive, full color, slightly oversize, hardcover volume – the first of two! – collects a wallopin' 134 (!!!) tales, plus 16 bonus pages, ten of which are high quality reproductions of original pages. It all starts off with a great Roger Stern introduction. Yes!

COLLECTING:JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (1952) #33, 38, 50-73, STRANGE TALES (1951) #46, 50, 67-91, TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #1-26, TALES OF SUSPENSE (1959) #1-15, 17-24,...

The cover image with whichthe collectedArt Comicfirst greets the eye,in juxtaposing Yves Klein’s “Leap into the Void” with Jeff Koon’s “Balloon Dog,” sends a strong, clear signal of what is in store for the reader, once they crack the cover. The protagonist’s leap here is made with an expression mixing equal parts of hope,fear and anxiety (with, perhaps, a hint of aggression), likely matchingThurber’s own feelings regarding the work’s central concern: the contemporary, NYC-centered, fine art world, and his experiences therein and thereof.

The story begins from the perspective of youthful idealism embodied by students attending Thurber’s...

Speaking of "a whole new approach to comics," what better fits this description than MOME? To any readers who might have felt a creeping worry that MOME wouldn't be able to keep it up, that there simply wasn't enough high calibre new work being produced to keep MOME floating on its lofty plane, let us be first to say that these fears can be laid to rest with this issue, which is arguably the best yet. It starts off with a new Al Columbia piece that (finally) lives up to the promise of his outsized rep. "5:45 A.M." is a story which shows us that, yes, God is in the details. In a mere eight, actionless panels -- more or less a tableaux...

The most lushly beautiful and haunting of all of Fellini's films, the climax of Federico Fellini's artistic collaboration with his life-long partner, actress Giulietta Masina, an experience that can never be forgotten, Juliet of the Spirits is now available on DVD from the Criterion Collection! In Juliet of the Spirits, the processes involved in identity formation -- specifically those that involve the family dynamic and religious aspirations -- are shown to involve spirits of the past which, while they typically are encountered during the process of "growing up" as the values which are transmitted through the generations, are more real...

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...

It's here! This year's comics message from Jaime and Beto, akaLove and Rockets: New Stories #6. As readers of this space are no doubt already aware, this year Fantagraphics is celebrating thirty years of publishing Love and Rockets (at this point it's actually 31 years, but the celebration shows no sign of letting up). This issuereflects (refracts?) a bit of this hurly burly in that in contains two dozen inter-related tales! The wait is over, now it's time to settle into an easy chair with a reading light and be transported to the Perfect Sphere of True Comics, with the Hernandez brothers as your guide. See you there!

For twenty years and counting, Scott McCloud's explication of the mechanics of comics remains essential.



Testamonials:

<>"If you've ever felt bad about wasting your life reading comics, then check out Scott McCloud's classic book immediately. You might still feel you've wasted your life, but you'll know why, and you'll be proud."
-Matt Groening, creator ofThe Simpsons

<>"In one lucid, well-designed chapter after another, [McCloud] guides us through the elements of comics style, and... how words combine with pictures to work their singular magic. When the 215-page journey is finally over, most readers will find it...