Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s

By Various Artists; Edited by Michael Dowers

Newave! is a gigantic collection of the best small press cartoonists to emerge in the 1970s after the first generation of underground cartoonists (such as R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and Art Spiegelman) paved the way. These cartoonists, inspired by the freewheeling creative energy of the underground comix movement, began drawing and printing their own comix. The most popular format was an 8 1/2” x 11” sheet, folded twice, and printed at local, pre-Kinkos print shops on letter-size paper; because of the small size, they were dubbed “mini comix.” As they evolved many different artists, one by one, became interested in this do-it-yourself phenomenon. By the 1980’s they became known as Newave Comix, a term taken from England’s Newave rock ’n’ roll movement. An explosion of do-it-yourself artists emerged. Many talented artists went onto bigger and better things, others have disappeared into the fog never to be heard from again. Inspired by the creative freedom of their underground predecessors and unrestrained by commercial boundaries or editorial edicts, their work was particularly innovative and experimental. Here you will find a group of artists who could not get any attention from the mainstream, who were driven by the inner need to express themselves. This group was a pioneering force that still leaves a wake and an imprint on the alternative comix scene today.


Newave! features over 800 pages of comics, as well as a historical introduction by editor Michael Dowers, and interviews with several of the more prominent artists featured, such as Brad Foster, Artie Romero, Steve Willis, Dennis Worden, Bob X, J.R. Williams, Roger May, Tom Hosier, George Erling, and Bob Vojtko .

Mome 17

By Various Artists; edited by Eric Reynolds

The acclaimed anthology continues with the concluding chapter of Paul Hornschemeier's third graphic novel "Life with Mr. Dangerous" (following his acclaimed books The Three Paradoxes and Mother Come Home), which has been running in MOME since the first issue. Meanwhile, Bottomless Belly Button creator Dash Shaw and MOME regular Tom Kaczynski collaborate on a mind-bending science-fiction story, "Resolution," where "reality" exists as a virtual world and people live through their avatars. Olivier Schrauwen delivers a surrealistic gem titled "Chromo Congo"; Derek Van Gieson delivers a horrific WWII story, "Devil Doll"; Renee French's "Almost Sound" returns, as does Ted Stearn's "The Moolah Tree" starring Fuzz & Pluck; plus new work from Kurt Wolfgang, Laura Park, Rick Froberg, Sara Edward-Corbett, and T. Edward Bak. Covers by Paul Hornschemeier.

Preview PDF and Slideshow over at Fantagraphics

Almost Silent TP

By Jason

Almost Silent packages four original Jason graphic novels — three of them out of print since mid-2008 — into one compact, hardcover omnibus collection. (As the title indicates, this volume favors Jason’s pantomime works.)

“You Can’t Get There from Here,” the longest story of the book (and the only one to be printed in color — well, a color), tells the tale of a love triangle involving Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s Monster, and The Monster’s Bride: Jason cleverly alternates between totally silent sequences involving the three characters and scenes in which Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant discusses the day’s events with a fellow hunchbacked assistant to another mad scientist. (You didn’t know they had a union?)

“Tell Me Something” is a brisk (271 panels), near-totally-silent (just a few intertitles) graphic novelette about love lost and found again, told with a tricky mixture of forward- and back-flashing narrative. “Meow, Baby” is a collection of Jason’s short stories and gags, and finally, “The Living and the Dead” is a hilariously deadpan (and gory) take on the traditional Romero-style zombie thriller.

All of these yarns star Jason’s patented cast of tight-lipped (or -beaked) bird-, dog-, cat- and wolf-people, and show off his compassion and wry wit. Almost silent is a perfect starting point for a new reader wanting to know what the fuss is all about, and a handsome, handy, inexpensive collection for the committed Jason fan

Preview PDF and Slideshow over at Fantagraphics

King Of Flies HC

By C. Tyler

Suburban horror delineated in aa lush noir style. Set in a suburb that is both nowhere and everywhere, King of the Flies is a glorious bastard, combining the intricacy and subtlety of the best European graphic novels with a hyperdetailed, controlled noir style derived from the finest American cartoonists. Mezzo and Pirus, previously best known in Europe for a series of cynical, brutal gangster stories, have abandoned their guns and gals for this cycle of suburban stories, but in King of the Flies the violence has just (for the most part) been interiorized. King of the Flies first appears to be a series of unrelated short stories, each starring (and narrated by) a different protagonist, but it soon becomes obvious that these seemingly disparate episodes weave together to form a single complex narrative, with events that are only glimpsed (or even referred to) revisited from different perspectives - revolving around Eric, a ne'er-do-well, drug-taking teenager at war with his stepfather and, apparently, the whole world. (He is the titular King.) King of the Flies is designed as a trilogy of albums, which will combine to form a single graphic novel of stunning intricacy and intensity.

Best American Comics Criticism OT 21st Century TP

By ben Schwartz

Best American Comics Writing of the 21st Century, edited by New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Bookforum critic Ben Schwartz, is the first-ever attempt to collate the very best criticism of the contemporary graphic novel boom in a way that contextualizes and codifies one of the most important literary movements of the last 60 years. Via its various authors - John Updike, Daniel Clowes, Jonathan Lethem, Chris Ware, Frank Miller, Will Eisner, David Hadju, Douglas Wolk, and more - the book also functions as a valuable readers' guide for fans, academics, and librarians, tracing the current comics renaissance from its beginnings and creative growth to today's bestseller appeal, and where it's headed. Best American Comics Writing of the 21st Century also features a cover by nationally known satirist Drew Friedman (The New York Observer, Old Jewish Comedians) spotlighting "The Comic Book Critics of America" in a tongue-in-cheek take on a formerly low medium increasingly held in high regard.

Temperance TP

By Cathy Malkasian. Artist Cathy Malkasian

THE SECOND BOOK FROM 2008 EISNER 'BEST NEW TALENT' CATHY MALKASIAN Do ideas of war and enemies hold a people together? Is a culture of conflict too seductive not to be irresistible? These are the questions Cathy Malkasian explores in her second graphic novel, Temperance. Malkasian creates, as she did in the critically acclaimed Percy Gloom, a fully realized, multi-layered world, inhabited by vividly realized characters. After a brutal injury in battle, Lester has no memory of his prior life. For the next thirty years his wife does everything to keep him from remembering -and re-constructing- a society, Blessedbowl, that elevates him as a hero. Blessedbowl is a cultural convergence of lies, memories, stories, and beliefs. Its people thrive on ideas of persecution, exceptionality, and enemies, convinced that war lurks just outside their walls. They have come to depend on Lester, their greatest war hero, to lead the charge once the Final Battle begins. What kind of enemy could topple such a people and its walls? Mere memory, it seems, as Lester gradually emerges from his amnesia. Temperance is an eyewitness's account of recovery and awakening. The graphic novel works on two levels. It considers the concepts of violence, stories, and belief, and their place in holding a culture together, slyly echoing contemporary political issues in a nation at a stressful time currently at war with a ubiquitous enemy. Secondly, the fissures in Lester and Minerva's marriage is echoed in the greater political upheaval around them. Malkasian creates a densely textured social context, masterfully conveying the idiosyncratic physical domain with its spiraling structures and quasi-medieval architecture along with intimate yet plastic portraits of her characters in a rich, tonal pencil line. Temperance is a galvanizing work of empathy and violence by one of today's the most thoughtful and accomplished cartoonists. .