Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship to our mail-order customers: Angelman by Nicolas Mahler 96-page full-color 7" x 9.75" hardcover • $18.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-534-1 See Previews / Order Now Easily the funniest super-hero comic to come down the pike since Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood’s “Superduperman!,” Angelman is Austrian cartoonist Nicolas Mahler’s sardonic take on super-heroes, their fans, the businessmen behind them, the current media obsession with them, not to mention fancy-ass “Ultimate” collections of dopey super-hero comics. Created by Korporate Comics in a flash of money-grubbing cynicism appalling even by their standards, Angelman’s powers (which include empathy…
Daily OCD: 5/25-5/28/12
The latest Online Commentary & Diversions: • Feature: At Print magazine, Michael Dooley spotlights the new 13th issue of Squa Tront — "…Squa Tront has set itself out to explore every facet of EC's history, through stimulating, in-depth journalism, scholarly analyses, critiques, bios, interviews, and, of course, illustrations. Under the supervision of its current editor, John Benson, it has established a high standard for fanzine professionalism, in both literary content and production values." — with a generous sampling of images and an interview with Benson: "But really, as far as Squa Tront goes, what sustains my interest most is probably my love…
Daily OCD: 5/22-5/24/12
The latest Online Commentary & Diversions: • Review: "Certainly, the comic’s self-contained gag-a-day format, along with the clarity and force of Bushmiller’s compositions, can often make each strip seem like an instance of emphatic singularity, a totem to be worshipped in dumb awe. But Nancy Is Happy returns to this gag-a-day strip precisely its daily qualities, so often overlooked. There is, we rediscover, an aspect of the quotidian to Nancy, a rhythmic unfolding in time, an ordinariness repeated with such unrelenting frequency that we’ve opted to shunt it into the sublime. Reading Nancy in continuity, rather than in isolation, may be an unfamiliar experience,…
Last-minute Schrauwen Alert!
Via Forbidden Planet International comes late-breaking news that Olivier Schrauwen has an art show of original drawings and prints opening tomorrow (today actually — it's already Friday in Belgium) at Bries Space in Antwerp. Head to FPI for all the details (except for the misidentification of Olivier's English-language publisher)!
Prince Valiant Vol. 5: 1945-1946 by Hal Foster – Previews, Pre-Order
Prince Valiant Vol. 5: 1945-1946 by Hal Foster 112-page full-color 10.5" x 14.25" hardcover • $29.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-484-9 Ships in: June 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now Fully half of this latest volume of Hal Foster’s epic masterpiece — again scanned from superb syndicate proofs — is devoted to the remaining chapters of “The Winning of Aleta,” a 20-month (!) epic in which Valiant obsessively pursues his bride to be. Not surprisingly this is followed by a sequence called “Matrimony,” which ends with a newly wed queen adjusting to the luxurious, exciting court life at Camelot. But Val’s marriage does…
Things to See: Richard Sala’s Skeleton Key
Richard Sala is unlocking the vaults with "Skeleton Key," a career-spanning retrospective dramatis personæ featuring new artwork of characters from his books throughout the years with a short bio in a trading card-esque format. He's posting them in batches on his blog and one by one on his Tumblr, with more to come. It's a real treat for Sala fans (like me)!
Daily OCD Extra: May 2012 Booklist reviews
In this month's issue of Booklist you can find reviews of two of our recent releases, excerpted below: Cruisin' with the Hound: The Life and Times of Fred Tooté by Spain Rodriguez: "Rodriguez… had the perfect youth for reality comics. He grew up in an ethnically mixed working- and lower-middle-class neighborhood of Buffalo, and he was self-directed from early on. He went to religious instruction on his own initiative (his parents were indifferent) until a boozy priest chewed him out without hearing his story. He attended public school, discovered EC Comics, turned teenager just as R & B turned to…
New Comics Day 5/23/12: Interiorae, Mysterious Traveler
This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about them (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability. Interiorae by Gabriella Giandelli 144-page full-color 7.75" x 10.25" softcover • $19.99ISBN: 978-1-60699-559-4 "…I already have the four Ignatz issues, but I won’t let that stop me from recommending Interiorae, Gabriella Giandelli’s dark and occasionally surreal look at the drab lives of various people living in an apartment complex. This…
Mr. Twee Deedle: The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpiece of Johnny Gruelle – Previews, Pre-Order
Mr. Twee Deedle: Raggedy Ann's Sprightly Cousin – The Forgotten Fantasy Masterpiece of Johnny Gruelleby Johnny Gruelle 128-page full-color 14" x 18" hardcover • $75.00ISBN: 978-1-60699-411-5 Ships in: May 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now From our Marschall Books imprint comes this magnificent collection of Mr. Twee Deedle, Johnny Gruelle’s masterpiece, unjustly forgotten by history and never before reprinted since its first appearance in America’s newspapers from 1911 to 1914. The title character in the Sunday color page, Mr. Twee Deedle, is a magical wood sprite who befriends the strip’s two human children, Dickie and Dolly. Gruelle depicted a…
Things to See: What’s in The Cartoon Utopia
The days are ticking down to the arrival of Ron Regé Jr.'s The Cartoon Utopia this November. If, like me, you're eagerly looking forward to the book and you're a fan of Ron's hand-lettering (seriously, he doesn't get enough credit for it), you'll be happy to see this Table of Contents Ron's just posted. I don't think the new drawing by Ron below, "The Harmony of Emptiness and Dependent Arising," is in the book — just some extra eye candy for you:
