edited by Joe Sanders; preface by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman's Sandman is a phenomenon'a mass-circulation comic book that caught and held the attention of serious readers. Besides its mass appeal, The Sandman has long interested students and teachers in myriad disciplines, and they have begun sharing their reactions by writing analytical essays. This book gathers some of the best of this criticism, mostly by young scholars and all written in readable, jargon-free language.

The book contains 12 wide-ranging essays of criticism, exploration, and appreciation. The first half of the book addresses aspects of Sandman more or less in order of publication and the individual essays discuss particular Sandman episodes or story arcs, such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Kindly Ones," and "Ramadan." The second half widens the net and examines Gaiman's Sandman stories in relation to Gaiman's other work and work by other writers such as Jorge Luis Borges's interest in variable truths or Terry Pratchett's adaptations of ancient myths for modern audiences. Others examine how Gaiman's stories relate to other genres such as horror fiction and to social and cultural concerns about the roles of women. Each grapples with questions of how script and art combine to make The Sandman an especially complex, rewarding comic.

This book of criticism is aimed at a non-academic, general readership who enjoy Gaiman's work as modern graphic literature and want to compare intelligent literary responses to their own. There is no comparable, competing collection available.

About the Author
Joe Sanders is a professor emeritus of English at Lakeland Community College in Mentor, OH. He is former president of the Science Fiction Research Association and a former division head in the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts.

280 pages B&W, 6" x 9" Paperback

This Basil Wolverton retrospective collects the ultra-rare classics Scoop Scuttle, Mystic Moot, Bingbang Buster, and Jumpin' Jupiter as they've never been seen before!

When first published in 10¢ comic books, Wolverton's intricate line work was routinely obscured. In this collection, every effort has been made to restore the art to its original splendor, and to at last present the uniquely detailed graphics of this justly revered comic book master.

SC, 192pgs, FC

From the cinematic mind of Atsushi Kaneko (Bambi and Her Pink Gun) comes a contemporary reimagining of the timeless, Eisner Award-winning Dororo, by "God of Manga" Osamu Tezuka (Buddha, Astro Boy).

This is a tale of rage. Rage against hypocrisy, injustice, exploitation, and the wrongs done to a child who grew into a righteous killer....

Complete in three volumes, Search and Destroy transplants the vengeful action of Dororo
from feudal Japan into a dystopian future where mercenary robots known as "creatures" serve the human elite and victimize the city's scrabbling, desperate masses.

The violent death of one of these creatures connects an orphaned thief named Doro with a mysterious girl in a stinking animal hide that conceals deadly cybernetic implants.

Who is this mysterious girl? How is she killing, one by one, the city's most twisted and powerful creatures?

Originally serialized from 2019-2021 in the Japanese manga monthly TezuComi, Search and Destroy is a brilliantly-crafted thriller about an outsider looking for meaning and vengeance in the unjust world that took everything away from her.

Kaneko populates a stunning, high-contrast setting that echoes postwar Cuba as much as Tokyo with an unforgettable cast of scrappy heroes and skin-crawling monsters on a nonstop ride full of action and suspense.

This authorized retelling updates the rebellious '60s spirit of the original Dororo for the equally tumultuous 2020s, mixing Tezuka's signature dark yet playful storytelling sense with Kaneko's own wide range of influences, which include Western cartoonists like Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns as well as filmmakers like David Lynch. The result is not only one of the best sci-fi manga of recent years, but also one of the most visually rich and distinctive works of graphic storytelling in any genre or language.

Atsushi Kaneko is a Japanese manga artist from Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture. His two books, Bambi and Her Pink Gun and Soil, have both been published in France. Bambi has also been published in English and Soil has been adapted into a television drama series.

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist, and animator. His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovations in genre storytelling earned him such titles as "the Father of Manga," "the Godfather of Manga," and "the God of Manga."

SC, 5x7, 224pgs, B&W

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Alex Toth’s influence on the art of comic books is incalculable, stripping it down its to its bare essentials. As Toth would say, “To add to truth distracts from it.” This and other observations regarding the comic book form are in an essay based on Toth’s letters and interviews included in this substantial volume covering the years 1952 to 1954. During this period, Toth contributed classic work for Standard Comic’s crime, horror, science fiction and war titles and established him as the “comic book artist’s artist.” But perhaps most revelatory are the romance collaborations with writer Kim Ammodt. Every page of Setting the Standard is restored to bring Toth’s graphics and page designs into full clarity, making this essential for anyone with an appreciation of the art of graphic storytelling.

Edited by Greg Sadowski
SC / 416 pgs / FC / 7.5 x 10.5

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Sibyl-Anne and her fiancé Boomer live in blissful peace in the French countryside until the evil rat Ratticus, evicted from his previous residence, sets his eye on the quiet acre that the couple share with their friends (a porcupine, a crow, and a rabbit).

After a hilariously unsuccessful attempt to infiltrate the quiet little community in drag (which leaves a member of the cast smitten, Some Like It Hot-style), the devious Ratticus engineers the takeover of a neighboring rat colony and builds it into an army that sweeps Sibyl-Anne and her friends off their homestead and onto an island. Battles by land, by sea, and even by air ensue, until finally the wicked are defeated and peace is restored. Macherot’s charming mouse’s-eye views of bucolic idyll and his fast-paced, witty storytelling turn this book into something like a Pixar version of The Wind in the Willows.

Part of Fantagraphics’ program of bringing American readers the best of post-Tintin Franco-Belgian all-ages comics, Macherot’s “Sibylline” series (as it is called in French) is widely regarded as one of the great classics of the field, and is slated for re-release in French in 2011 as part of a “Complete Sibylline” project. This is the very first instance of Macherot’s work being translated into English.

HC / 64 pgs / FC / 8 x 11

For the first time, all twelve of Tony Millionaire's acclaimed Sock Monkey all-ages comic books are collected under one cover, as well as the full-color graphic novella 'Uncle Gabby' and the full-color illustrated storybook, 'The Glass Doorknob'. Also included is the only full-length Sock Monkeygraphic novel, 'The Inches Incident.' Beloved by adults and children, Sock Monkey harkens back to a time when comics actually were for all ages.

HC / 344 pgs / BW with 80 color pages / 7 x 10

A Daughter's Graphic Memoir

Carol Tyler's graphic memoir chronicles her fraught relationship with her WWII veteran father and how the trauma of war effected the Greatest Generation and those who followed. Even though Tyler's work has an accessible, homemade feel (the organizing metaphor of the book is a family photo album), You'll Never Know is a sophisticated graphic work about war, love, loss and is also a tribute to servicemen and women.

The Song of Aglaia is the first solo graphic novel by cartoonist Anne Simon, presenting a beautifully crafted female spin on the classic heroic myths of Greek literature, tracing the journey of a victimized and then almighty woman with a graceful understanding of human relationships and loving nods to the Bronte sisters, David Bowie, and the Beatles.

The second volume of Fantagraphics' historic series collecting Spain Rodriguez's most important comics, Warrior Women, features the striking women he created with pen and ink, from young Rita Velveeta to senior skateboarder Granny McGurk. His most memorable characters are ferocious femmes fatale, gorgeous and deadly women who can slash and slaughter as fast as any man. You'll find them all in this volume: the Leather Nun, Nasty Elaine, Mara Mistress of the Void, Sangrella, and his ultimate independent woman, Big Bitch!

In a revealing essay, the women who knew Spain best describe their relationships with the author. From Janet, his first serious girlfriend, to Susan, the woman he married, and Nora, the daughter they raised together, it's clear that he inspired strong emotions from the ladies he loved and who loved him.

This collection of stories about women warriors appeared in Zap Comix, Young Lust, Mean Bitch Thrills, Weirdo, Thrasher Comics, and many others, part of Spain's prolific contributions to the comic medium over a six-decade career.

SC, 280pgs, PC

Spanish Fever is a best-of anthology of contemporary comic art from a country with one of the strongest cartoon traditions in Europe.

With its panoramic view of the contemporary Spanish comics scene, Spanish Fever includes the work of masters such as Paco Roca, Miguel Gallardo, David Rubin and Miguel Ángel Martin along with newcomers like Jose Domingo, Anna Galvañ, Álvaro Ortiz and Sergi Puyol, more than 30 artists working on the cutting edge.

SC, 400pgs, PC

From the multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-winning author comes this sharp suite of short tales, ranging from the funny to the terrifying to the surreal to the touching, all told entirely in pantomime.

Like Chris Ware, Jason's clean, deadpan style (featuring animal-headed characters with mask-like faces) hides a wealth of emotion and human complexity, leavened with a wicked wit. Jason's work has also drawn comparisons to Art Spiegelman for the similar ways both artists utilize anthropomorphic stylizations to reach deeper, more general truths, and to create elegantly minimalist panels whose emotional depth-charge comes as an even greater shock. His dark wit and supremely bold use of "jump-cuts" from one scene to the next are endlessly surprising and exhilarating.

Format: Softcover
Pages: 120
Dimensions: 7" x 10"
Colors: black & white

Näytettä.

Star Trek: The Stardate Collection continues to collect the many comic-book iterations of Trek 'as they happened'' by stardate!

Helmed by Trek experts Scott and David Tipton, and featuring special commentary, creator interviews, and more, Volume 2 completes the early voyages of the Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, and wraps up with two lost adventures from Pike's career! For new and old fans alike, there's never been a Star Trek collection like this!

HC, FC, 300 pages, 7" x 11"

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Before the Amazing Spider-Man, before the mysterious Dr. Strange, before the black-and-white world of the Ayn Rand-inspired Mr. A, the legendary comic book artist Steve Ditko was conjuring all manners of horrors at his drawing table. In his first two years in the industry (1953 and 1954), Ditko drew tales of macabre suspense that were not yet hobbled by the imminent Comics Code Authority (adopted in Oct. 1954). These stories featured graphic bloodshed, dismemberment and blood-curdling acid baths as the ugly end to the lives of the dark and twisted inhabitants of Steve Ditko’s imagination.

Following up on Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, Blake Bell’s 2008 best-selling critical retrospective of Ditko’s career, Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1 features, for the first time, spectacular full-color reprints of every story from those first two years of his career. Beginning with Ditko’s very first story to Ditko’s short stint in the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby studio, to Ditko’s eventual encampment at the Charlton Comics operation in 1954, readers will see the initial works of an artist already at a level of craftsmanship that exceeded most of his peers. The book also features editor Bell’s insightful introduction, providing historical background and speaking to Ditko's influence and his unique craft.

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 240
Dimensions: 7.25" x 10"
Colors: full color

Näytettä.

This is where Steve Ditko became Steve Ditko.

1954 and 1955 were tough years for the fledgling cartoonist: A life-threatening bout with tuberculosis sidelined him for almost a year, and his main client, Charlton Comics, suffered a devastating flood that forced it to shut its doors temporarily. Yet Ditko's enforced time off and subsequent need to seek out new clients (most particularly Marvel Comics, for whom he would go on to create Spider-Man), as well as his stubborn devotion to his craft, brought about an astonishing series of quantum leaps in his work — as displayed in this volume (following the best-selling Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 1) of more than 200 pages' worth of never-before-collected horror and science-fiction stories from the early career of a comics great. Introduction by series editor Blake Bell.

240p, HC

Näytettä.

Five years before his breakthrough as the co-creator of Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, and other classic super-heroes for Marvel Comics in the early 1960s, Steve Ditko, inspired by the freedom he found at the laissez-faire Charlton Comics, was turning out some of the best work of his career.

Mysterious Traveler, which collects stories from (among others) Tales of the Mysterious Traveler and This Magazine Is Haunted, reprints over 210 full-color pages of Ditko in his early prime. These are stories that have never been properly reprinted until now — thrilling stories of suspense, mystery, haunted houses, and unsuspecting victims.

240p, HC

Five years before Steve Ditko began work on his now legendary co-creations for Marvel Comics, the Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, he was pro- ducing some of his best work in near anonymity for Charlton Comics. Like its predecessors, Impossible Tales: The Steve Ditko Archives Vol. 4 features over 200 meticulously restored full-color pages of Ditko in his early prime — stories that have never seen a proper reprinting until now, thrilling stories of suspense, mystery, haunted houses, and unsuspecting victims all delineated in Ditko’s wildly idiosyncratic, masterful style.

This fourth volume ranks as the best in the Steve Ditko Archives series to date thanks in large part to the inspiration Ditko took from comics derived from the classic host-narrated radio shows, which gave an extra oomph to his creepy yarns. Moreover, comics such as This Magazine Is Haunted and Tales of the Mysterious Traveler bore witness to a veritable explosion in Ditko’s ingenuity in terms of manipulating the traditional comic-book page layout. This new level of excellence also manifested itself in his work on other books, such as Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds, Out of This World, Strange Suspense Stories, and Unusual Tales, all of which are amply represented in this volume.

HC / 256 pgs / FC / 7.25 x 10.5

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Women: what do they want? They might want to float into the sky while hosting a brunch party. They might want a couple of handsome cops to come over and get rid of a snake problem. They might seek a doctor's treatment for "wise-ass disease" or fantasize about revenge and forgiveness at the dentist's office. They might want to sing the White Girl Blues and dance the White Girl Twist.

And what about men? Mr. Science just wants to carry out his pointless experiments. "Earl D. Porker, Social Worker" converses with household items and forgets the cat food. One fellow's head is a basket of laundry.

One of the funniest cartoonists of the last four decades, M.K. Brown has accumulated a body of work long savored by aficionados but never comprehensively collected — until now. Stranger Than Life is the first retrospective collection of Brown's cartoons and comic strips from the National Lampoon from 1972-1981, as well as such other magazines as Mother Jones, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Playboy; and her comics from underground publications like Arcade, Wimmin's Comics, Young Lust, and Twisted Sisters.

In these pages: Read instructions for the use of glue, making a pair of pants, home auto repair, coping with chainsaw massacres, and jackknifing your big rig. Travel the globe to witness the giant bananas of Maui, strange sightings in Guatemala, camel races, and a "Saga of the Frozen North." Learn about love 'round the world, among eccentric suburbanites, and in a "Condensed Gothic" romance. Meet Virginia Spears Ngodátu, who (with a bit of a name change) would go on to star in "Dr. Janice N!Godatu," Brown's series of animated shorts that appeared on The Tracy Ullman Show alongside the first incarnation of The Simpsons. Aliens, old people, pilgrims, mermen, monitor lizards, tiny floating muggers and other weirdos feature in Brown's side-splitting single-panel gag strips.

Brown's cartoons combine a penchant for the absurd with the gimlet observational eye of Roz Chast. Brown satirizes suburban anxiety and ennui by turning it upside-down and sideways, and her slightly grotesque yet lovable characters are perfectly captured in her restless pen line and delicate jewel-tone watercolors.

SC / 248 pgs / B&W with 16 pages color / 8.5 x 11

Streets of Paris, Streets of Murder is the first of two volumes presenting all four crime graphic novels by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jacques Tardi, including the never-before-collected Griffu and the out-of-print West Coast Blues.

This volume also offers a 21-page uncompleted story by Manchette and Tardi as well as a single page introduction to another incomplete story, both published in English for the first time. These gritty stories are like a double shot of Scotch for any fan of unrelenting, uncompromising crime fiction.

HC, 168pgs, B&W

A globally acclaimed crime novelist and a pioneering cartoonist team up to bring readers two graphic novel noir thrillers, collected in an oversized format.

The second of two volumes presenting all four hardboiled graphic crime novels by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Tardi.

Like a Sniper Lining Up His Shot, Martin Terrier, killer-for-hire, needs just one more big job so that he can turn in his guns for good and return home to marry his childhood sweetheart. But soon, he's on the run, not only from the authorities and his treacherous ex-clients, but also from a crime syndicate seeking revenge for an earlier hit on one of theirs.

In Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell, philanthropist Michael Hartog hires Julie, just out of a psychiatric asylum, as a nanny. But he plans to fake the kidnapping of his son, Peter, and frame Julie for it. But Julie is no pushover, and soon, Julie and Peter are on the run, pursued by the police, and by Hartog's enforcer, the hulking contract killer, Thompson.

HC, 12x9, 200pgs, B&W

Out of print for nearly three years, Suckle was the first masterpiece by Dave Cooper in the Suckle/Crumple/Weasel trilogy. A completely original graphic novel that follows the life of Basil from his bizarre "birth" in the desert to his fumbling and ultimately happy relationship with a female artist, Suckle takes place in a wild, surreal universe that will be recognizable to any of Cooper's many fans!

SC, 132pg, PC

Näytettä.

WHY WE LOVE IT: Mike Carey is one of our favorite writers working in comics today with a track record of sophisticated, character-driven series like The Unwritten and Lucifer. We're honored he's chosen to write his first independent original ongoing series at BOOM!

WHY YOU WILL LOVE IT: Fans of smart, deconstructed superhero stories like IRREDEEMABLE and DEATHMATCH will get a deeply human look at the effect of super powers on real people's lives.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Super-powered people are inexplicably rising from the streets and there's a big problem: Too many supervillains, not enough superheroes. Heroes are dying, and cops are dying twofold. Humanity is under-powered and good people are suffering untold tragedies trying to stem the flow. Beat cop Leo Winters is one of those struggling to make a difference. And the answer just might come in the form of two lowlifes with a dark secret.

112 PAGES, FC

Näytettä.

Now awake, aware, and furious about what's been done to him, the murderous supervillain known as Requiem wants answers. There are huge gaps in his memories'he doesn't understand how he comes to be in this world he doesn't know, in this life that isn't his. But he does know there's no one he won't hurt or kill to get information. Not even Leo Winters' family.

Mike Carey (Lucifer, The Unwritten) and artist Elena Casagrande (Hulk, Hack/Slash) continue to tell amazing stories in this critically acclaimed third arc of SUICIDE RISK, which also includes the thrilling standalone story illustrated by spotlight artist Jorge Coehlo (Polarity, Venom).

SC, 7x10, 112pgs, FC

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This is the first of two volumes reprinting copious amounts of comics stories and recounting the career of cartoonist Basil Wolverton.

Based on his correspondence and journals, the biographical portion of the books follows Wolverton from childhood to adult day-to-day life as freelance cartoonist, itinerant handyman, persistent contest enterer, and local pastor of the Radio Church of God. Wolverton lived and worked in the Pacific Northwest, unique among the first generation of comic book pioneers. In the precious period before the industry calcified into a commercial institution, Wolverton was free to work under the radar to explore in detail his weird tales of the future.

All of Wolverton's non-humorous comic book stories will be presented in full, along with prime examples of his humorous comics and dozens of pages of unpublished art, including editorial drawings, advertisements, caricatures, pulp illustrations, rejected comic book covers, and unsold features.

This is Vol. 2 of the biography of the legendary midcentury cartoonist, who created the comically grotesque "Lena the Hyena."

This volume continues Sadowski's biography of the famed Mad cartoonist. It includes scores of letters between Wolverton and his editors and publishers and excerpts from his personal diaries, providing documentary insight not only into Wolverton's day-to-day life and career, but also the inner workings of the early comic book industry. It is also chock full of Wolverton's comics stories from this period, including 17 science-fiction and horror tales fully restored and never before collected in a single volume.

HC, 8x11, 432pgs, FC