Huzzah! Here it is: the third – and final (>sob<) – year of Herriman's inventive, insightful and very funny strip– which wrapped up pretty much exactly a century ago–that he drew concurrently with Krazy Kat!Starting off with another fine introduction by Jared Gardner, this volume takes us all the way to the end of the strip's run, which actually results in us getting a bit more that a year's worth this time around, as it ran through to January 18, 1919. Baron Bean is, for our money, Herriman's finest work outside of Krazy Kat, and IDW's Library of American Comics has done an outstanding job of presenting crisp, full size...

This ia a softcover 3-in-1 omnibus of the three hardback Aya graphic novels previously released by Drawn & Quarterly over the last five years or so:Aya, Aya of Yop City,andAya, the Secrets Come Out. It also additionally contains a healthy portion (32 pages or so) of bonus support materials not found in the original volumes. Priced at barely more than one of the originals, this is a bargain! More than that, it is well over 300 pages of beautifully drawn and lushly colored comics depicting late 1970s life in thethe west African republic,Côte d'Ivoire (the Ivory Coast to us Anglophones). These comics will immerse readers in this far off...

Whether the point of this novel is to show us the adult that lies latent in the child or to reveal to us the child that the adult never manages to quite fully outgrow is a question that is difficult if not fruitless to answer. What is certain, however, is that the novel Edwin Mullhouse is brilliantly conceived. It is also shockingly well written, replete with uncannily accurate descriptions of childhood perceptions that can at times be overwhelmingly sympathetic. It is at turns funny, sad, insightful, and even profound; but above all else, it is deeply creepy: It reveals -- almost imperceptibly at first, but then slowly, incrementally, the...

Boundless is a 248 assemblage composed of ninetales: World Class City;Body Pods;The Clairfree System;1. Jenny;Half Life;Darla!;bedbug;Sexcoven;Boundless. Each is possessed of itsown individual artistic personality, chosen to best visually convey the character of the story:rough and ready;smooth and silky;precise;loose;colorful;stark. Here, the real story is the way in which the taleis told. Decision embodied in line and composition.

Each of the pieces, while being a unique organic whole in and of itself, is part of a greater whole as well; part ofa tapestric unity. These stories deal with individuals alone, together and in groups. They...

Here it is, the book that put Katchor firmly on the map when it was first published in 1996. While he has been regularly producing comics in and about NYC since the 1980s, and had already had one collection –Cheap Novelties– published by Penguin (and recently reissued by D & Q),Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographeris the book which finally attracted the attention that Katchor’s work had long deserved. Katchor’s pen and ink (and ink wash!) comics create a parallax lens which show a reality that is invisible to others, that transports readers through a crack in the surface of “reality” to reveal a magical series of vignettes that seem –...

FROM THE ARCHIVES | ONE solid second hand copy

When it comes to artfully integrating book design into the form of a graphic novel in such a way as to enhance the expression of its content, Mr. Hornschemeier has few peers. To our mind, only Clowes, Ware and Seth have been as successful in this department*, and it bears remarking that there seems to be a bit of trend in effect among these design-oriented comics craftsmen as the latest work by each of these three creators shares with Hornschemier's a strong biographical focus on the protagonist. Wilson, Lint and George Sprott each present their eponymous protagonist's life story**, and Life...

Final Cut presents – for the first time in English – Burns's latest major work, that had up to now only been available in the French language editions published by Cornelius under the title Dédales. All three Cornelius volumes are collected here in an elegantly designed and produced, 224 page, full color, clothbound hardcover volume by Pantheon Books. Very Nice.

Anyone familiar with the work of Charles Burns will not be surprised to learn that Final Cut is a multi-levelled work; that there are layers within layers. Even the title, which has an obvious first level meaning, is open to multiple readings. The action is set, as per usual with...

(Book Six in the New Edition of the collected Love and Rockets) Wow! Fantagraphics isn't wasting any time in getting out the newly formatted editions collecting that classic among classics, the original first volume of Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez. Beyond Palomar contains all the twists and turns of "Poison River," perhaps the most complex – as well as violent –of Gilbert's epics. "Poison River" originally cascaded through 12 issues of Love and Rockets (#29 - #40) over the course of close to fouryears (1989 - 1992), providing a portrait of Luba's mother, Maria – along with what could be construed as Luba's origin story– that does...

Approximate Hellhound, the arrival of which has been highly anticipated by the Copacetic Comics Co., is now standing tall on our trusty CD rack. Listening to this disc for the first time is an experience akin to that of suddenly realizing that the movie you inadvertently ended up watching at three in the morning has you riveted, and you find yourself thinking that it is the most amazing thing you've ever seen. The ten tracks on this discflow like a conversation, each one picking up where the other left off, generating a persuasive musical argument that drives its train of thought to the end of the line. Our favorites include: "Take What...