Available again at last, courtesy New York Review Comics (thanks!), after being out of print for decades,Gary Panter's Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise originally exploded on the comics scene in 1988 and forever changed the landscape. It is arguable that moreformal innovation is contained in this work than in any other single work of comics. Jimbo open up vast new territories for comics, territories that have been avidly explored ever since by a host of innovative artists that have followed the trail that Panter blazed here (and elsewhere, of course; but this is the motherlode). Now, a new generation of readers, including the artists among...

The sub-title does not lie: this book isindeed chock full of tales of mischief. In fact, there are21 full color 6 page comics featuring Akissi & Co. getting into all sorts of trouble, both in their home stomping grounds in theYopougon neighborhood of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)and out in the country at Akissi's nan and granpap's rural digs, where the natural world plays a larger part in the shenanigans. These are kids comics par excellence; think Dennis the Menace without the hyperbole. In Akissi, the world of childhood comes alive on the page: the zany antics, the interactions of children withtheir parents and peers, the...

At looooong last – the first issue of Ganges was published in 2006 – the completeGangeshas been collected in this excellent hardcover volume from Drawn and Quarterly. And not just collected: In preparing this work for its permanent home, Huizenga went through the original issues with his inspector's hat on and tweaked this here and fixed that there, with the goal of bringing it all together in the best shape and form possible. Anyone who is looking for challenging, thought-provoking comics that push the boundaries of what comics can do – look no further, this is it!

In the meantime, we have written extensively on each of the individual...

edited by Ivan Brunetti It's too early to say for certain, but this follow-up to Brunetti's already classic 2006 anthology, also published by Yale University Press, might just be even better than its precursor. One thing's for certain: Brunetti has held onto -- and further refined -- his editorial vision of arranging the work contained in this volume in an organic sequence, deftly managing to map out the similarities between artists so that each piece flows smoothly into into the other, creating an amazing sense of an innate connectivity between all areas of comics here on display. This book is a powerful ally in the struggle to bring the...

Gilbert's follow up to 2013'sMarble Season,Bumperheadis another full-size, hardcover graphic novel fromDrawn & Quarterly, but it is much more than just a follow up. It's not going too far out on a limb to proclaimBumperheadGilbert's most fully realized work outside of theLove and Rocketscontinuity. He is in the zone here, playing to his strengths as a storyteller and artist as he relates life events, group dynamics and family to character formation and the Hernandezian Arc of Life. It's almost magic the wayBumperhead's players are broughtso vibrantly to lifethatthe reader comes away feeling that theyknowthe pen & ink people that...

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,...

It took us a minute to get this one in, due to screwball comedy hi-jinx. At long last, Saul Steinberg's first book, from way back in 1947 (?) is back in print in this luxe oversize hardcover edition fro NYRB, who have this to say about it:

"To escape fascist Europe, the artist Saul Steinberg drew his way to America. He made it to New York in 1942 already in contract with The New Yorker, but was soon called up to serve in the US Naval Reserve in World War II. This book, All In Line, is a memoir-via-drawing of this key time in Steinberg’s life, when he began to find his line and his way as an American.

In works for The New Yorker and...

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...

Long – and criminally! – out of print, Howard Cruse's epochal work of long form comics, Stuck Rubber Baby,one of the most significant early North American graphic novels – and among the first to truly merit the label – is at last back in print in this deluxe hardcover edition from First Second that has been released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its initial publication – an anniversary that Cruse did not get to celebrate himself, having passed away late last year (but he was involved in the preparations for this edition, and so, of course, knew it was coming, thankfully). This edition includes over 20 pages of bonus materials, much...

Picking up where the first issue left off, Cold Heat #2 revs it up a few notches and takes us on a whirlwind ride through the dis-united states of the disturbed American psyche. Series artist, Frank Santoro once again refuses to play it safe. This time around he pulls out all the stops and takes the chances that most other artists wouldn't take even if they could. Leaping into the artistic no man's land between the well established borders of pre-existent genres, Santoro combines the propulsive narratives of mainstream American heroic adventure comics, the exaggerated expressiveness of Japanese manga, and the naivete of self-published...