Here it is in all its glory: the complete X'ed Out Trilogy – X'ed Out, The Hive and Sugar Skull – altogether in a single, attractive and affordable, full-size, softcover collection. Conceived as a Burnsian tribute to Herge's TinTin, the tale told in Last Look is a tortuously twisted take on thoseepic adventures in which the polyanna-ish innocence of TinTin is replaced molecule by molecule with the corruptions that are so readily at hand inthe world as we find it and, crucially, inthe world as our humanimagination makes it, as well. Perhapsmost of all, Burns demonstratesthe way in which these two worlds intersect.It is here that the...

Working in an office building – or even visiting one! – will never be the same again after reading Theo Ellsworth's richly imaginative graphic novel interpretation of Jeff VanderMeer's tale (that was originally published as the lead storyin his2004 collection of the same name). Secret Life, as one might expect,is all about revealing adifferent sort of life lurkingjust below the surface of quotidian normalcy. It only takes an instant to realize that this is straight up Theo Ellsworth's alley! It's close toa perfect match, and Theo really goes to town. It is a bit different seeing him work on a more formally straightforward narrative, and...

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...

Before cracking open The Hard Tomorrow, it might be a good idea to mentally buckle up – and maybe even put on an emotionally protectivehelmetfor good measure –as Eleanor Davis's new graphic novellives up to its title. It is indeed ahard hitting look at how the here andnow could play out in what'scoming – but certainly not one without hope, and that is, ultimately, the point. Beautifully drawn, dramatically paced, and overflowingwith empathy for its fully realized cast of characters, The Hard Tomorrow is vibrantly alive to being in the world in America in our time. Davis's choice to set the work a few years in the future (apparently2022)...

(Book Two of the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Most frequenters of this space are hep to the wonder of Love and Rockets. However, there are still those who have yet to see the light. Are you someone who still hasn't managed to get around to reading the greatest comics ever produced? If so, all we've got to say is: if you haven't read the original run of Love and Rockets (in any one of its extant formats) and you are trawling the web looking for exciting new releases and looking through back issue bins at your friendly neighborhood comics shop for classics of the days of yore, then you are simply wasting your time -- the...

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...

This is the fifth volume in the series of young adult graphic biographies published by Hyperion under the ægis of The Center for Cartoon Studies, which reaches an important milestone here in that this volume is the first to be created by a graduate of their program, and as such provides proof postive that CCS is fulfilling its mission. Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller is the most substantial work yet in this series and represents its strongest artistic achievement. More than that, it is an inspired work that demonstrates the power of comics to communicate.

It runs for 86 full color pages, each of which works from a 16-panel...

While he does, of course, have a number of major book projects under his belt, going all the way back to the immensely influential late-1990s work, Skibber Bee Bye, along with numerous contributions to a wide range of anthologies, for thirty years and counting Ron Regé, Jr. has been preaching the gospel of hand-made, self-published comics, and the personal salvation to be found in the practice. In the process, he has emerged as one of the truest disciples of William Blake, carrying forth the Blakean spirit into the comics realm. Since 2016 this practice has been flowing through his most sustained self-publishing project yet, The Shell of...

It's hard to know where to begin with a work as remarkable as this. Originally published in six chapters in Love and Rockets: New Stories 3 & 4 in 2010 and 2011, it includes a flashback chapter titled "Browntown" that, in comic book parlance, could be said to be the – or, at least, a – "Secret Origin of Maggie", as readers are finally made privy to heretofore undisclosed primal scenes at the root of significant swaths of Maggie's personality and character. While it may be a commonplace to state that character is forged in the crucible of family, it is rare indeed to be given the opportunity of witnessing an incidence of this that has...

YES! Olivier Schrauwen's one-of-a-kind masterwork is back in print, in this very nicely done French-flapped softcover edition. Fantagraphics has done right by this classic, carrying over the production specifics from the hardcover in this softcover: same crisp duo-tone (red & blue) printing, same toothy, flat, off-white paperstock. Very nice. The one significant difference is that it is printed in a slightly (roughly 15%) smaller size – 7 3/4" x 9 1/2" compared to the 9" x 11 1/4" of the hardcover. At last, those Copacetic customers who missed out on this during its original release can experience this mind-bending work.

Here's our...