After years spent in the small press comics wilderness, Brian Ralph finally makes it onto bookstore shelves everywhere with this handsome, finely crafted (embossed!) hardcover volume from Drawn & Quarterly that collects the three softcover volumes orginally published by indy stalwart, Bodega Press.  A co-founder of the Providence, RI-based art collective, Fort Thunder, Ralph made his mark with the (now out of print) wordless graphic novel, Cave-In, published by Highwater Books.  Daybreak employs a formally unique hybrid of second-person and direct address that it would be hard to pull off in any medium other than comics to tell a tale of post-apocalyptic zombies that puts the reader right in the thick of it.

The first thing the reader notices upon picking up this sprightly, oversize hardcover volume, is the nearly translucent embossing representing the innards of Reggie 12 (innards which, intriguingly, from an interpretive standpoint, extend into the book's title logo; indicating, what?:  that the word and image are consubstantial? that, as consumer good, the title logo and the visual representation of the [imaginary] titular character are equally undergirded by their artistic rendering?  Points worth pondering...), a clever maneuver that leads the reader to pause contemplatively before diving in to swim through the cover-to-cover black and white and sky-blue comics.  The roughly two dozen pieces that make up this collection embody an energetic cartoon synthesis of Felix the Cat and Astro Boy (sort of).  While one-pagers predominate – many of which originally in Giant Robot Magazine – the pieces range in length through two, four and six pages, all the way up to an eight page origin sequence.  These include new (at least to us) stories which all flow together with the old, making for a relatively seamless reading experience.  Power-packed fun for all ages, from a founding member of Fort Thunder, who can currently be found teaching at SCAD.

Printed by Paul Lyons and Roby Newton for Hidden Fortress Press of Providence, RI, this year's incarnation of Monster is comprised of three volumes, each printed in blue and red and each sporting engraved, heavy-stock covers, and all wrapped together in a silk screened slipcase.  All three covers and the slipcase art are by Heather Benjamin.  The three volumes run 64 pages each – for a total of nearly 200 pages of comics – and include work by Lale Westvind, Jordan Crane (amazing!), Brian Ralph, Mollie Goldstrom, Paul Lyons, Mat Brinkman, Roby Newton, Walker Mettling, Andy Neal, Kevin Hooyman, Thomas Toye, Edie Fake, Brittany Hague, Jon Vermilyea (nice!), Leif Goldberg, Mike Taylor, Sam Dollenmayer, Michael DeForge, Keith Jones, Mickey Zacchilli, Marc Bell, Molly O'Connell, Seth Cooper and Devin Flynn.  Limited to 500 copies.  These always sell out, so don't snooze on this one... in fact we sold out - but managed to get fresh copies so now it's SOLD OUT, AGAIN!

WAREHOUSE FIND!

We just discovered a half full case of the original, 1999 Highwater Press edition of Brian Ralph's early wordless classic, Cave-In that came straight from the printer, Quebecor Printing, shipped in February of 2000 and sitting ever since... until now! 

These copies are all as new as you can get, never having left this box, which is more or less the definition of Mint. 

And, we're offering them at the original 1999 price! 

Please note that there is a LIMIT of ONE copy per customer.

GONE!