comics

Title	Creator	Publisher	Series	Price
Pocket Full of Rain	Jason	Fantagraphics		$16.95 ($19.99 list)
Read more and comment...	A lot of you may have wondered, as we did, when Hey, Wait! was first released in the US, "Hey, wait a minute -- who is this guy Jason, and how did he appear, seemingly out of nowhere, with this fully developed style?"  Well, Pocket Full of Rain at long last provides US readers with the answer.  Here are the works that Jason produced leading up to his US debut, but that had never before been published here until now.  Pocket Full of Rain contains over 120 pages of comics, along with a 16-page color section of covers and illustrations -- almost all of which was originally published in his native Norway during the 1990s.  This is the work that show us Jason's development as an artist.  Jason fans will find this an engaging and possibly even fascinating collection, and students of comics will find this a volume worthy of study, so if you area among the latter, make sure to take a look.
Sheena: Queen of the Jungle		UNDEFINED		$17.00 ($18.99 list)
Read more and comment...	A dozen never-before-reprinted, classic Sheena tales are herein collected.  All the stories were originally published in Jumbo Comics, almost all during the 1940s.  As an added bonus, you get to read one of the stories as it was truncated and rescripted -- or "censored" as the editor and/or publisher of this collectionhave it -- for republication in Sheena #12 in 1951.  This collection is assembled with care.  The entire volume is reproduced in full color from high quality scans of the stories as they originally appeared (as well as the original covers and many original advertisements from the same issues that the stories appeared in, which together help to provide the proper ambience for that "you are there" feeling), to insure that your reading experience will be the closest possible approximation to that of actually reading the original comics (which would cost a small fortune to purchase).  If classic jungle comics are your thing, then this is a no-brainer.  And remember, Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.
Cold Heat Special #4	Frank Santoro, Jim Rugg	PictureBox	Cold Heat	$2.50 ($3.00 list)
Read more and comment...	This time around we have a16-page tabloid newspaper comic book filled with further far out fables featuring Cassandra -- aka Castle -- cavorting with chaos.  Santoro and Rugg employ the large (22" x 17", when opened) "canvas" of the tabloid format to excellent effect, creating a feast for the eyes with finely rendered dramatic imagery that ranges from psychedlicized fast food bathroom interiors to landscapes of the rolling hills of (what appears to be) western PA, all in the service of a tale of temporal displacement that demonstrates that the past is still here, all around us, and that travelling through time is a simple matter of opening a door or two.  There may be some side effects, however...

books

Title	Author	Publisher	Price
McSweeney's #27	Dave Eggers	McSweeney's	$21.50 ($24.00 list)
Read more and comment...	This time out we have a tripartate, slipcased edition, thus:  a 196-page softcover fiction anthology featuring the writings of Larry Smith, Jim Shepard, Ashlee Adams, Liz Mandrell, Mikel Jollett and Stephen King that sports a swell, architectronic wraparound cover and interior illustrations by Scott Teplin; a 72-page horizontally formatted collection of "Art" cartoons by the likes of Jean Michel Basquiat, Kenneth Koch, Raymond Pettibone, David Shrigley, Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, Leonard Cohen, David Mamet and others, in full color and black & white;  an 80-page sketchbook executed between March 12 and May 26, 2007 by Art Spiegelman, titled "Autophobia," which Spiegelman created to overcome his "fear of drawing."
Atmospheric Disturbances	Rivka Galchen	Farrar, Straus & Giroux	$21.50 ($24.00 list)
Read more and comment...	In her debut novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, Rivka Galchen has attempted to create a romantic, even sentimental, take on the works of P.K. Dick. J.G. Ballard, (early)Thomas Pynchon and (to a degree) William Burroughs, authors who created obsessive -- some might say delusional -- renderings of the altered states that contemporary consciousness takes when overloaded with raw data, cultural and/or scientific input, technological stimulus, education, or some combination of any or all of these, and wove them into intricate tapestries filled with complex patterns the meanings of which have been ceaselessly debated.  Galchen enters this essentially masculine debate specifically to ask the reader to step outside of it and consider how it might be impacted by gender. She coaxes readers to her point of view through the device of employing a masculine first-person voice to tell a tale in which the authorial sympathies are clearly more aligned with the feminine perspectives on the the events as they unfold.  The book provides an important -- some might say essential -- proviso to the literary creation of the modern mind.  Check out the book's very own website, where you can absorb some of its flavor while you read an extract from the novel, an interview with the author, and more.

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