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.
Fran
by Jim Woodring
104-page black & white 7.25" x 9.75" hardcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-661-4
"a simultaneous prequel *and* sequel to Jim Woodring's excellent Congress of the Animals from 2011, a book which seemed to shatter the cyclical exploits of the artist's "Frank" universe so as to provide an ending of sorts, though surely you want to know more about that nice friend Frank shacked himself up with for the denouement" –Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal
Love and Rockets: New Stories #6
by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez
100-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-679-9
"In the 30 years they've been writing and drawing Love and Rockets, Los Bros Hernandez have created wonderfully complex story lines and characters… This web of superior magical-realistic storytelling involves readers in the perplexed yearnings of a huge cast of unforgettable characters unaware of their own capacity for general self-delusion and occasional self-discovery." –Publishers Weekly
"There are acclaimed filmmakers and novelists who can't do what Jaime Hernandez does – or Gilbert, for that matter. When the two of them are at their most inspired, as they are here, they make almost every other comics creator today look like a fumbling hack. [Grade] A" –The A.V. Club
Walt Disney's Donald Duck: Christmas on Bear Mountain
by Carl Barks
216-page color 7.5" x 10.25" hardcover • $28.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-697-3
"One of comics revered masters gets a fresh new reprinting worthy of his work and accessible to kids…. This volume finds [Barks] at a creative peak, combining the bold adventuring of Tintin with the wisely cynical view of human weakness of John Stanley…. Despite the dark undertones, the comic expressions and dialogue is still laugh-out-loud funny. A wonderful project that should put Barks's name in front of new generations of admirers." – Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 17: Cave Wimp (New Printing)
by Robert Crumb
136-page black & white/color 8.5" x 11" softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-684-3
"The Complete Crumb series is especially useful in reminding us that Crumb has continued to evolve through the sixties. His more recent work is quieter and more literary… The most recent installment, collecting material originally published in Weirdo magazine, contains some of Crumb's best work." The National Post