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(:01) First Second




Title Creator Publisher Series Price
City of Spies Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, Pascal Dizin (:01) First Second $15.29
($16.99 list)
Cityofspies
Read more and comment... 		Fans of TinTin may want to take a look at this new release from First Second.  Set in New York City in the summer of 1942, while the city is set on edge by the Second World War, this tale focuses on the adventures of budding adolescents Evelyn and Tony as their shared fantasies of espionage takes a twist and become real in this all-ages friendly yet nevertheless complex tale of growing up.
Cat Burglar Black Richard Sala (:01) First Second $15.25
($16.95 list)
Catburglar
Read more and comment... 		An all new 128 page full color graphic novel full of trademark Sala tropes.  K. is a cute teenage orphan raised by a crazed matron to be a master thief and pickpocket.  She has now been invited to attend Bellsong Academy, a (need we say it?) mysterious boarding school where something is not as it seems...  The works of Richard Sala provide formal pleasures akin to those of  amusement park haunted house rides; their pages filled with twists that present thrills at every turn.  From (:01) First Second Books.
Stuffed Nick Bertozzi, Glenn Eichler (:01) First Second $15.99
($17.99 list)
Stuffed_cover
Read more and comment... 		Stuffed is an excellent work.  Written by award-winning, Colbert Report scriptor, Glenn Eichler, and illustrated by the under-appreciated Nick Bertozzi (read The Salon, if you haven't already).  The cast of characters, the settings, the interactions – all ring true:  these are people we know, doing things in a way that we understand, and that make sense.  At its core lie the roles, rites and responsibilities of parenting, as well as the responses to it.  Stuffed makes for a solid, enriching, rewarding – and entertaining – read. Recommended!
The Color of Water Kim Dong Hwa (:01) First Second $15.25
($16.95 list)
Colorofwater
Read more and comment... 		The second volume in the Korean comics (manhwa) trilogy that we highly praised a couple months back has arrived and it continues to live up to the promise of the first, The Color of Earth.  This too is a 300+ page work of finely drawn comics that provide an intimate and insightful portrait of a young woman's coming of age.  Be sure to give this series a look if you haven't already.
The Eternal Smile Gene Luen Yang, Derek Kirk Kim (:01) First Second $15.25
($16.95 list)
Eternalsmile
Read more and comment... 		More than a long-awaited follow-up, this hefty, full-color volume teams two of the brightest lights of the Asian-American comics scene to bring readers of comics a triptych of tales celebrating universal themes that incorporate motifs from fairy tales, myths and legends and integrate them into the fabric of contemporary California life.  Fans of formal invention will find plenty to celebrate as well.  Yang, author of the multiple award-winning American Born Chinese, and Kim, author of the amazing Same Difference, employ between them a host of styles and techniques to properly situate the content of their narratives in the readers minds
The Color of Earth Kim Dong Hwa (:01) First Second $15.25
($16.95 list)
Colorofearth
Read more and comment... 		The first volume of a trilogy, the remainder of which is scheduled for release over the coming year, The Color of Earth represents the first major Korean work of graphic fiction – known as manhwa – to be published in the United States.  The work is of uniformly high quality and is filled with many poetic interludes where the drawings and their pacing transport the reader to meditative states.  Students of manga will have much to ponder in as they study Hwa's work to discern those aspects of it that might be isolated as being specifically Korean and so distinguish manhwa from manga.  The tale is set in a timeless village in rural Korea and chronicles the relationship of a widowed mother and her daughter as the daughter matures from girl to woman.  Read Kate Culkin's (yes, again) review on Publisher's Weekly to learn more, then, if you're still not convinced, make sure you take a look at it and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
The Photographer Frédéric Lemercier, Didier Lefevre, Emmanuel Guibert (:01) First Second $26.95
($29.95 list)
Photographer
Read more and comment... 		  • by Emmanuel Guibert (he wrote and drew it), Didier Lefevre (he lived it and photographed it) & Frédéric Lemercier (he laid out and colored it) – translated from the French by Alexis Siegel •  A unique – at least in our experience – work, The Photographer interweaving the actual photographs taken by intrepid photojournalist Lefevre during his numerous journeys in Afghanistan accompanying Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders to us Yanks) during  1986, when the country was at war with the USSR and, as the cold war had yet to be resolved, was therefore, at that time, a strategic ally of the USA; meaning that the CIA was working hand-in-glove with the likes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.  While Che shows comics excelling at digesting large amounts of historical information into a concise cohesive narrative, this work excels in another way:  that of putting the reader right there in this far away alien place, and then guiding them while simultaneously interpreting the experience.  In this way the reader, too, can be there, after a fashion, and connect to these lives of "others" that are so different from our own, and yet, if only by virtue of our shared humanity, still remain, at their most basic level, the same. Learn more by reading Kate Culkin's review at Publisher's Weekly.
Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, Alexis Frederick-Frost (:01) First Second $11.75
($12.95 list)
Advcartooning
Read more and comment... 		This volume was produced under the aegis of The Center for Cartoon Studies.   It is by the Center's director, James Sturm, and two of his students.  It very simply provides the basic building blocks of comics while embodying core CCS principles of story-telling. It is primarily geared to encourage and empower youngsters to create comics of their own and is priced to encourage parents and relatives to buy it for them (or even for them to buy it themselves).  There's a swell 17 page excerpt on the web, here.  Check it out!
Sardine in Outer Space #6 Emmanuel Guibert (:01) First Second Sardine in Outer Space $13.50
($14.95 list)
9781596434240
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Sardine in Outer Space #5 Emmanuel Guibert (:01) First Second Sardine in Outer Space $13.50
($14.95 list)
9781596433809
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Sardine in Outer Space #4 Joann Sfar, Emmanuel Guibert (:01) First Second Sardine in Outer Space $12.75
($13.95 list)
Sardine4
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Sardine in Outer Space Emmanuel Guibert, Joann Sfar (:01) First Second Sardine in Outer Space $13.50
($14.00 list)
Sardine1
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The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard Eddie Campbell (:01) First Second $15.55
($16.95 list)
Monsieurleotard
Read more and comment... 		This 128 page, full color, French-flapped softcover is the third original graphic novel that Monsieur Campbell has produced for First Second.  He clearly is not one to rest on his laurels!  Set in 19th century France, it is a multi-layered work, visually as well as textually, and one that is as entertaining as it is intellectually stimulating.  Jog-the Blog certainly found it so, as you will discover if you read his in-depth review.
Kampung Boy Lat (:01) First Second $14.44
($16.95 list)

Read more and comment... 		Yes, the entirety of the above list of full color graphic novels printed on heavy semi-gloss stock with French-flap softcovers has just landed on our shelves and they are creaking from the strain.  We would like to draw your attention especially to the first book of Joann Sfar's Klezmer series and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.  While the graphic style of these two works could not be more different -- Sfar's art is as loose, wild and impressionistic as Yang's is tight, sharp and controlled -- both of these titles contain equally solid and moving tales of minority ethnic identity:  in Sfar's case of Jews -- itinerant Klezmer musicians, to be exact --  in pre-WWII Eastern Europe; and in Yang's case of a Chinese community in California that focuses on the coming of age adventures of a self-conscious youth (some Copacetic customers may remember that we carried American Born Chinese during its original serialization in Yang's self-published B & W  mini-comic version that was released over the last two or three years).
Journey into Mohawk Country George O'Connnor, H.M. van den (:01) First Second $14.44
($16.95 list)

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American Born Chinese Gene Luen Yang (:01) First Second $8.88
($9.95 list)
Amerchin
Read more and comment... 		Yes, the entirety of the above list of full color graphic novels printed on heavy semi-gloss stock with French-flap softcovers has just landed on our shelves and they are creaking from the strain.  We would like to draw your attention especially to the first book of Joann Sfar's Klezmer series and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.  While the graphic style of these two works could not be more different -- Sfar's art is as loose, wild and impressionistic as Yang's is tight, sharp and controlled -- both of these titles contain equally solid and moving tales of minority ethnic identity:  in Sfar's case of Jews -- itinerant Klezmer musicians, to be exact --  in pre-WWII Eastern Europe; and in Yang's case of a Chinese community in California that focuses on the coming of age adventures of a self-conscious youth (some Copacetic customers may remember that we carried American Born Chinese during its original serialization in Yang's self-published B & W  mini-comic version that was released over the last two or three years).
Klezmer, Book One: Tales of the Wild East Joann Sfar (:01) First Second $14.44
($16.95 list)
Klezmer1
Read more and comment... 		Yes, the entirety of the above list of full color graphic novels printed on heavy semi-gloss stock with French-flap softcovers has just landed on our shelves and they are creaking from the strain.  We would like to draw your attention especially to the first book of Joann Sfar's Klezmer series and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.  While the graphic style of these two works could not be more different -- Sfar's art is as loose, wild and impressionistic as Yang's is tight, sharp and controlled -- both of these titles contain equally solid and moving tales of minority ethnic identity:  in Sfar's case of Jews -- itinerant Klezmer musicians, to be exact --  in pre-WWII Eastern Europe; and in Yang's case of a Chinese community in California that focuses on the coming of age adventures of a self-conscious youth (some Copacetic customers may remember that we carried American Born Chinese during its original serialization in Yang's self-published B & W mini-comic version that was released over the last two or three years).
Sardine in Outer Space #2 Emmanuel Guibert, Joann Sfar (:01) First Second Sardine in Outer Space $12.75
($13.95 list)
Sardine2
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Life Sucks Jessica Abel (:01) First Second $17.77
($19.95 list)
Lifesucks
Read more and comment... 		by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece :01 seems intent on moving in on Vertigo's turf with this one.  A tall tale of walking on the wild side with twenty-something, surfer-duding, night-clerking, goth-rocking (and not-so-cute -- what a difference fifteen or twenty years makes, huh?) vampires.  Might be good, let's check out this bloodless preview and see what we think.  Hmm, looks a bit like Ghost World meets a PG-13 version of Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss.  Vampires.  It looks like there's no getting away from them.  Why are we not surprised?
Little Vampire Joann Sfar (:01) First Second $12.75
($13.95 list)
Littlevampsm
Read more and comment... 		Vampires.  Little vampires.  A cute li'l blood-sucker doing his thing in a big book full of full color comics.  Little vampire, little vampire, won't you come out and play. What more can be said, which is more or less a sort of follow up (prequel?) to Sfar's earlier Vampire Loves, which presents the gambollings of a moody adolescent vampire. It seems the world just can't get enough of vampires.  Here's the comic that dares to ask the question, "Can vampires be cute?"To help you decide the answer, here's a preview. It's cute!