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Pantomime Comics

These textless comics tend to be story-focused narratives -- as opposed to "Art" comics that use only images but have a different agendas.


Title Creator Publisher Series Price
Congress of the Animals Jim Woodring Fantagraphics $17.77
($19.99 list)
Congresswoodringbig
Read more and comment... 		Here it is:  an all-new wordless graphic novel featuring Frank!  This 104 page hardcover is in the same format as 2009's Weathercraft, which was, in 2010, the first ever wordless novel to receive The Stranger Genius Award for literature.  Congress of the Animals takes long time readers (and everyone else, for that matter) into uncharted territory when Frank departs the realm of The Unifactor, "the closed system of moral algebra into which he was born" and which controlled his existence... until now!  This new work propels Frank into a new world where he meets Quacky and sails on through a series of enigmatic scenarios that we feel comfortable labeling "Woodringian."  All lushly penned in ink employing Woodring's inimitable cartoon language, this book is a work that will reward repeated readings.  Bonus Fact:  Congress of Animals has a great full wraparound image printed directly on the hardcover itself that is a real treat (and that far surpasses the dustjacket image printed at left).
Sergio Aragonés: Five Decades of His Finest Works Sergio Aragones, Patrick McDonnell Running Press $27.50
($29.95 list)
Sergioasm
Read more and comment... 		The latest volume in the Mad's Greatest Artists series, this one will be very hard to pass up for anyone who grew up reading Mad Magazine and found their eyes constantly straying to the margins, where Aragonés uniquely plied his trade.  Only Mad would make doodling in the margins a regular feature.  The tacit acceptance and then official incorporation of this normally frowned-upon activity exemplifies the spirit of Mad perhaps more than any other aspect of what can now safely be considered an American institution (and the spirit of which is perfectly captured in this volumes cover image).  These drawings are celebrated in a giant fold out poster that is included in this volume that displays 500 favorites!  And, of course, there is much, much more to Aragonés's work than the marginalia.  Here, in the close to 300 oversize pages of this affordably priced hardcover, readers will discover timeless insights into the human condition side-by-side with graphic commentaries on nearly fifty years worth of fads and trends of the day. 
Travel Yuichi Yokoyama PictureBox $17.77
($19.99 list)
Travelmed
Read more and comment... 		While perhaps not as hotly awaited as PM2, this year's follow-up to last year's New Engineering  (which was the amazing US debut for Japanese manga magician Yokoyama) is, for our money, the sequel of the year.  Anyone wanting to see truly original, ground-breaking comics work need look no further than this unassuming volume.  It may not seem like much sitting there on the shelf, but once you open it up and let its contents pour out as you pore over its pages you will find yourself taken out of your body and travelling to realms of mind over matter, racing at a pace you didn't know you were capable of.  A very strong rhythmic component was already evident in Yokoyama's work in the short pieces collected in New Engineering.  With Travel, a single piece of almost 200 pages, the rhythm has been intensified and become an indefatiguable beat that gives the impression that it might just be the pulse of the world.   Every motion, no matter how mundane -- from the turning of one's head, to the stubbing out of a cigarette -- is rendered with a dynamism and a sense of urgency that focuses the reader's attention in a startling way and serves to bring alive every instant; "never a dull moment," indeed.  You will go back to this book again and again trying to unlock its mysteries.  This work conveys movement through space in time in sequential images that alchemically reflect the manner in which human consciousness is being reformatted by being enveloped in a landscape composed of ever increasing loads of information that must be processed at ever increasing rates of speed.  This is all the more amazing given that this work is text free and entirely imagematic.  It does, however, come equipped with an introduction by Paul Karasik and an appendix featuring commentary by Yokoyama himself.  Recommended!
Kyle Baker: Cartoonist Kyle Baker Kyle Baker Publishing $13.50
($14.95 list)
Kylebakersmall
Read more and comment... 		This is a collection of all new work by the one of the funniest comics artists working.  Long time readers of Mad Magazine who mourn the loss of the Mad’s glory days may very well find what they’re looking for here as many of the strips here read more like the Mad Magazine of the 1960s and early ‘70s than anything that’s appeared in Mad for many years. And, of course, it’s a must have for any true fan of Kyle Baker.
Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels Lynd Ward, Laurence Hyde, Franz Masereel, Giacomo Patri and more ... Firefly $26.95
($29.95 list)
Graphicwitness
Read more and comment... 		  Four Wordless Graphic Novels edited by George Walker This collection brings us back to a fascinating era of wordless novels -- i.e. novels told entirely in pictures -- that had a modest flowering during the first half of the 20th century.  These novels tended to emerge from a socialist  -- and even, dare we say it, communist -- consciousness and often centered on class struggle and/or the clash between labor and capital.  This volume contains four excellent works, each hand crafted by a master of the form between 1918 and 1951: The Passion of a Man by Franz Masereel;  Wild Pilgrimage by Lynd Ward; White Collar by Giacomo Patri; and Southern Cross by Laurence Hyde.  Part of the attraction of politically motivated artists to this form, as George Walker explains in his excellent introduction, is the universality of the image -- it does not need to be translated, and can cross cultural barriers in a single bound, as it were, and so communicate the message of human liberation that the creators were eager to impart as widely as possible.  Somewhat ironically, these class-conscious works that aimed  -- at least in part --  to raise the awareness of the exploitative quality of capitalism and spur the masses into rising up against "the man" were produced by members of more-or-less the middle class and published by companies that put out hardcover volumes priced in dollars that aimed at the middle class, while at the same time just down the street at the comic book publishers, works were being published that sold in huge numbers for a dime and that would ultimately prove to have the greatest impact in shaping the consciousness of the of these very masses that the picture novelists were trying to reach.  This is not in any way to knock these works -- they are excellent and show precisely that compassion for the human condition that super hero power fantasies worked so hard  -- and, one must add, succcessfully -- to obviate.  It is not at all surprising that these works are coming back into vogue at this juncture as the values that they champion are sorely in need at the same time that the public at large is warming to the idea of reading graphic novels, of which, in many respects -- not the least of which in this regard is the enthusiasm of mainstream publishers -- the works collected here may be seen as  precursors if not progenitors.  This collection definitely warrants a look, and, if you like what you see, it really is a great value when you consider it collects four complete works.  The stand out, in our opinion, has to be Lynd Ward's Wild Pilgrimage.  Ward is probably the most well known and widely published of the creators collected here, and his work God's Man has been kept in print far longer than any other work in this genre, but Wild Pilgrimage is probably his most intense work. 
New Engineering Yuichi Yokoyama PictureBox $17.77
($19.95 list)
Newengine
Read more and comment... 		Whether you're a manga fan scouting for the best and most challenging new comics from Japan, a straight ahead comics maniac who will take good new comics wherever you find them, or a connoisseur of fine art regardless of the form it takes, New Engineering is for you.  Based in Tokyo, New Engineering creator Yokoyama is an art school graduate whose primary medium for the first five years of his career was oil painting.  He became attracted to manga because he wanted to "make serialized paintings."  As a result, Yokoyama's comics are focused on communicating his ideas from a painterly perspective, with a keen interest in the flow between images and the way in which comics/manga possess a temporal dimension that is lacking in single image painting, rather than relying on narrative.  He is, in other words, more interested in showing than telling.  Visual impact is the aim here and the images provided by this volume are clear, clean and strong; and very much engaged in forging a dialectical bond between an exaggerated western perspective and a highly iconic Japanese composition.  Interested in confronting and experiencing visually exciting work that challenges the conventions of comics, adding to its vocabulary and grammar?  Well then, there are precious few works that do this as completely as New Engineering.