INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS
(Company names beginning with F)
FANTAGRAPHICS
ATLAS COMICS LIBRARY HC NO 09 ADVENTURES INTO WEIRD WORLDS VOL 01 (MR)
Russ Heath, B (Bernard) Krigstein, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Carmine Infantino, Dr. Michael J. Vassallo(W) Russ Heath, B (Bernard) Krigstein, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely(A)
In the unrestrained days before the Comics Code Authority censored the industry, these stories drawn by the cream of the Atlas crop — Russ Heath, Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Carmine Infantino, Mort Meskin, George Tuska, Bob Fujitani, Joe Sinnott, and Bernard Krigstein — chilled readers to the bone: Irradiated, postapocalyptic monsters become “The Walking Death!” A frantic, tiny voice calls out from “The Thing in the Bottle”! Humanity faces intergalactic doomsday “When a World Goes Mad!” A cemetery robber tells how “I Crawl Through Graves”! Satan himself unveils “The Pit of Horror,” as only Bill Everett could envision it! This is the first of three volumes that will re-present this classic Atlas horror series in its entirety. Adventures don’t get any weirder!
ATLAS CREATOR COLLECTION HC NO 03 BILL EVERETT VOL 01 ONE HEAD TOO MANY AND OTHER WEIRD HORROR STORIES (MR)
Bill Everett, Dr. Michael J. Vassallo(W) Bill Everett(A)
Already a Marvel/Timely legend for his creation of the Sub-Mariner in 1939, Bill Everett returned to Marvel during the 1950s to become Atlas’ most versatile and effective practitioner of horror-fantasy. Everett’s art was a combination of Graham Ingels, Harry Anderson, and Bernie Wrightson, with the slick ink line of Jack Davis, all melded within his own uniquely captivating imagery and in-your-face ghastliness. This mammoth Fantagraphics/Marvel volume is packed with Atlas pre-Code horror stories — the first volume of a series collecting the Atlas works of Sub-Mariner-creator Bill Everett. Including: “Spectacles of Doom,” “The Evil Eye,” “The Pit of Horror!” “Horror in the Moonlight!” “Don’t Bury Me Deep,” “One Head Too Many!” “Burton’s Blood!” Werewolf!” “The Madman,” and “The Graymoor Ghost,” from titles like Menace, Journey into Unknown Worlds, Strange Tales, Uncanny Tales, Spellbound, Mystic, Suspense, as well as “Zombie!” from Menace #5, featuring a character rebooted as Simon Garth in the black-and-white Marvel Magazine explosion of the 1970s. An introduction by Atlas expert Dr. Michael J. Vassallo puts it all in context.
HOW I MAKE COMICS HC (MR)
Kim Deitch(W) Kim Deitch(A)
How I Make Comics is not just about how Kim Deitch makes comics, but about how comics made him. The book pinwheels between real autobiography and imagined comics history, but it begins in 1952 with a true story of eight-year-old Kim Deitch appearing in the audience of the Howdy Doody Show with eight-year-old Donnie Trump. Following Donnie’s attempt to rig an election among the audience (no kidding!), Deitch relates a famous newspaper account of a diminutive wife who valiantly defends her equally diminutive husband in court, who just happens to be the inspiration of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie. Periodically, Kim asks his own wife for her critique and advice of the stories he’s told so far, which he takes into account for future tales that include revenge-driven circus performers, fairytale mural painters, sordid comic book lore, comics readers creating real-life superheroes, impossibly old cats issuing supernatural judgments and inhabiting the bodies of humans, culminating in the real-life story of Kim’s mother hitchhiking across country and being picked up by none other than Forrest J. Ackerman, the sci-fi, fantasy, and monster aficionado, who takes her to a convention where she meets a teenaged Ray Bradbury. How I Make Comics is a creatively kaleidoscopic, non-stop exploration of how Deitch’s imagination turns ideas, influences, and irritations into comics in his inimitable style. Snippets of behind-the-scenes explanations of his notes and sketches expand into cascading short stories. Each section goes freewheeling from notion to notion, quietly building themes and reveling in its own wild-eyed imaginative capacities across 180 pages to form both an intimate graphic memoir and an eye-popping graphic novel. One of the most prolific artists of his generation, Deitch enters his 60th year of cartooning more inventive than ever and showing no signs of slowing down.
MAGNIFICENT AFRICAN ADVENTURE TP (MR)
Milo Manara, Kim Thompson(W) Milo Manara(A)
Is life a stage, and do we just follow a script? Can we rewrite our roles, or must we play along according to the instructions of others? The two stories in this volume, An Author in Search of Six Characters and Days of Wrath, take place in Africa, which author/artist Milo Manara views as the bearer of insight and hope for the rest of the world. Turning Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” on its head, Manara sets our favorite inept, globe-trotting hero-naif, Giuseppe Bergman (Manara’s comics alter ego), off on another quest for adventure. An off-panel director hands out scripts and then disappears. (Are we watching a play or are we in it?) Dedicated to playing his role, Giuseppe is confused when others assert themselves and send the entire scenario spinning out of control. His sexy co-star, Lulu, cast as a bimbo, rewrites herself as the hero, leading us to ponder deeper matters, such as whether we possess true free will or we just think we do. (But watch out! Just when you think the answer is in sight, Manara flips the script once again.) Giuseppe Bergman’s second African adventure begins with Chloe, a winsome nymphet who asks many questions — about the facts of life (and the fictions, too). Is she really that innocent? Or is she just drawn that way? Manara allows his characters to break the “fourth wall” as Chloe beckons us into an erotic, exotic Fellini-esque romp revolving around young Giuseppe’s determination to return a kidnapped child to her tribe. His real motive? To break free and become the hero of his own story, rather than remain the hapless plaything of an omniscient narrator. Part tongue in cheek, part philosophical exploration, Manara lets Chloe wink in and out like a mischievous Tinker Bell, pushing events forward only to then pull them back — as Giuseppe Bergman struggles to make sense of it all and become the hero he needs to be. Artist/writer/creator Milo Manara skewers adventure comics and narrative convention itself in this absurdist, sophisticated satire. The Magnificent African Adventure, two complete stories in one volume.
REINCARNATION STORIES TP (MR)
Kim Deitch(W) Kim Deitch(A)
Sitting on a bench one day, four-year-old Kim Deitch is accosted by an elderly man. Flask in hand, the man exclaims, “Is it possible? Sid! SID PINCUS! Good God, man! You’ve changed!” A lightbulb goes off in the man’s head. “You died, Sidney! And now you live again!” Whisked away by his mother, young Deitch is left to wonder: Was it all just the mad ravings of a drunk or a tantalizing glimpse into reincarnation? Thus begins Deitch’s quest to piece together the cosmic jigsaw puzzle of creation and reveal his past lives. This sprawling odyssey weaves through time and space, encompassing a dizzying array of oddball characters, including aspiring screenwriter Sidney Pincus, a tribe of moon-dwelling Native Americans, a feline YouTube star, a has-been silver screen cowboy, Frank Sinatra, and the awesome Monkey God! Featuring Deitch’s surreal scenarios and eye-popping psychedelia, Reincarnation Stories is a gripping yarn and a cartooning tour de force.
YOUNG SHADOW AND THE WATCHDOGS TP
Ben Sears(W) Ben Sears(A)
Young Shadow usually protects sci-fi Bolt City by making deliveries for the food bank and rescuing pets. But this time around, he needs to focus on two things: hitting and pitching! When Young Shadow and the eight Watchdogs — Elmore, Gerry, Larry, Gomez, Marta, Ketchum, Rolando, and Junior — investigate a concerning chemical sludge being dumped into Bolt City’s water, Elmore discovers a haunted baseball glove and inadvertently summons a team from the beyond that challenges them to a game to the death. With a stadium full of hostile vampires, mummies, frankensteins, and ghouls rooting for the visitors, the Watchdogs enlist Young Shadow to fill out their roster — and save Bolt City! This exciting new middle-grade graphic novel from cartoonist and musician Ben Sears establishes a world that embraces classic superhero, sci fi, and supernatural comics without any irony, executed in a brilliant two-tone color scheme of jet black and mustardy yellow that perfectly suits the spooky fun and fast paced adventure. Young Shadow & the Watchdogs is a page-turner for readers of any age.
FLOATING WORLD COMICS
STATICS #3 (MR)
Jeffrey Lewis(W) Jeffrey Lewis(A)
Indie-comix fiction and non-fiction short stories, with some unexpected overlaps, written and drawn in a 90s b&w style by musical cult figure Jeffrey Lewis. A smartphone-wielding superhero team sets out to topple the Patriarchy, a sea monster is reported to be causing havoc in the Caribbean, and Jeffrey Lewis returns to oversharing autobiographical sex therapy narratives with his sentient drawing table as his only confidante. Movies move, statics don't!