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Web Comics Collection




Title Creator Publisher Series Price
American Barbarian Tom Scioli AdHouse Books $17.77
($19.99 list)
Ad
Read more and comment... 		Get ready for 256 pages of pulse pounding pencils – and inks and colors, not to mention the story and script as well - by the pandemonium producing Pittsburgh comics creator, Tom Scioli!  Author and artist of the the Xeric-winning Myth of 8-Opus saga, and co-creator of Godland, Scioli has here brought the past and the future together in a post-apocalyptic fusion of all things adventurous.  It's Devil Dinosaur and the Forever People meet Conan the Barbarian and Captain America, with a dash of The Mighty Thor and Star Wars thrown in for good measure.  If you need more convincing, read this rave Robot 6 review.  American Barbarian started out life as a web-comic, so feel free to dive right in (and while you're there, you can also check out Scioli's latest project, Final Frontier, which is just now getting underway).  Yes, American Barbarian is a fun-filled romp that will scratch that comic book itch, but, like all the works by Scioli's patron saint, Jack Kirby, it also contains a good deal more.  In its meshing and blending of ancient mythical archetypes and religious narrative tropes with pop culture iconography, Scioli provides cogent (if sometimes obscure) social and historical commentaries that can be reached by anyone willing to scratch (and sometimes dig) below its action-packed surface.
Hark! A Vagrant Kate Beaton Drawn and Quarterly $17.77
($19.95 list)
Harkavagrant
Read more and comment... 		Beaton's phenomenally popular webcomic series gets the deluxe Drawn & Quarterly treatment in this 166 page hardcover volume.  Beaton had previously self-published a chunk of earlier strips in Never Learn Anything from History, but this volume is quite an improvement both production quality-wise and value-wise.  The Nova Scotian Beaton gives history and literature (as well as popular culture of various eras) a fun, and feminist (post-feminist?), spin by situating it squarely in contemporary internet-connected consciousness and letting it rip.  Worlds collide as traditional linear temporality collapses in on itself when we project ourselves into the past and claim history for the present; and it's all good.
Copper Kazu Kibuishi Scholastic $11.75
($12.95 list)
Copper
Read more and comment... 		Kazu Kibuishi is the creator of the much acclaimed Amulet series as well as the editor for the equally acclaimed Flight comics anthology series.  His work has a loyal following here among readers of all ages.  The Flight anthology has a strong appeal to teen to young adult readers and Amulet has long been the natural go-to choice for fans of Jeff Smith's Bone looking for a  follow-up reading experience, and is of late building a new base of readers all on its own.  Now we have a new collection of his web comic, Copper, about a boy and his dog.  This square format (9" x 9") full color collection of lively short tales leap off the page.  There's definitely a (subdued, more reflective and less manic) Calvin and Hobbes flavor to the strip, and, like Calvin and Hobbes, Copper is a work that really can appeal to all ages.  There's no need to take our word for it, however, as you can read it all online.  The book contains a nifty bonus:  a 10-page behind the scenes, step-by-step look at the creation, execution and production of the strip that will be of great interest to many an aspiring comics creator. Anyone interested in thoughtful, well crafted, kid-friendly comics should definitely be look into Copper.
The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack Nicholas Gurewitch Dark Horse $22.22
($24.99 list)
Pbalmanack
Read more and comment... 		This is a giant, 256 page, oversize, horizontally formatted hardcover volume collecting the bulk of the extant PBF strips as well as several appendices wherein are found "lost" unpublished comics accompanied by brief explanations as to the basis of their exclusion; sketches and thumbnails; and a fairly lengthy interview, which , taken together, go a fair ways into demonstrating Gurewitch's creative process.
Planet Saturday Comics, Volume One Monty Kane Self-published $11.75
($12.95 list)
Planetsat
Read more and comment... 		Here's another Pittsburgh production, but of an entirely different stripe.  This one involves a real life dad and daughter combo that is written and drawn by the dad in question.  What the reader gets is a diary-like take on parenting that seeks to simultaneously connect with the parent's own inner child at the same time as that of the child being reared.  Makes sense to us, and seems like an approach worthy of elucidation.  Anyone curious to sample this will find a smorgasbord of strips available on line at planetsaturday.com.  
Moresukine Dirk Schwieger NBM $11.99
($15.99 list)
Moresukine
Read more and comment... 		Cleverly packaged to resemble a Moleskine™ sketchbook, Moresukine -- the Japanese pronunciation of Moleskine -- is a series of 26 short pieces drawn in Schwieger's own Moleskine™ sketchbook during his six month stay in Tokyo.  These were all originally posted on his blog. With the exceptions of the first two, in which he set the parameters of his mission, the remainder of these pieces are the result of his blog readers writing him with "assignments" which he then undertook, documented and uploaded to the following week's blog entry.  This is then followed by an appendix in which Schweiters then in turn assigned ten different comics artists -- from France, Germany, Canada and the US -- to meet and converse with a Japanese person in their home city and then document this coversation in comics.  A truly international effort.
American ELf: Book Three James Kochalka Top Shelf $17.77
($19.99 list)
Amelf3sm
Read more and comment... 		Yes, it's true:  two years have passed and here we are ready for another hefty dose of the day-in-day-out life of the burgeoning Kochalka clan.  This volume collects all the daily online diary strips for 2006 & 2007, once again in full color.
The Night of Your Life Jesse Reklaw Dark Horse $14.44
($15.95 list)
Noylcov95x144
Read more and comment... 		In addition to having one of our favorite names, Jesse Reklaw is a talented cartoonist (he won this year's Ignatz Award for Outstanding Mini-Comic).  He has been producing his Slow Wave comic strip for alternative newsweeklies for over ten years now and The Night of Your Life, a bargain-priced 244 page hardcover, is the second Slow Wave collection (We still have a few copies of the first, now out of print, 2000 collection, Dreamtoons, around here somewhere, if anyone is interested).  The premise behind Slow Wave is simple and elegant:  Reklaw solicits dreams from his readers, he picks one a week and converts that dream into a comic strip that is composed of four panels of equal size, two over two; each and every week.  Here are the best of the last eight years.  Learn more at www.slowwave.com.