Mother Come Home by Paul Hornschemeier
Mother, Come Home quietly studies the inner lives of
recently widowed David and his 7-year-old son, Thomas. Thomas struggles
desperately to keep up appearances while his father, a professor of symbolic
logic, becomes lost in abstractions. Father and son begin to retreat into their
fantasies, but only one emerges. Mother, Come Home is masterfully drawn:
Eisner-, Harvey-and Ignatz-Award-nominated Hornschemeier's controlled brushwork
is clean, and his nine-panel page layouts pace David's inexorable descent into
utter despair. Hornschemeier is equally precise when it comes to Mother, Come
Home's color palette: subdued but warm, which suits the story's melancholy and
contemplative mode. Mother, Come Home is a powerful work, and, because of its
universal themes of anguish and loss, has resonance beyond its core audience of
alternative-comics readers.
Preacher series by
Garth Ennis
Jesse Custer begins a violent and riotous journey across the
country joined by his girlfriend Tulip and the hard-drinking Irish vampire
Cassidy.
RASL series by
Jeff Smith
Cartoon Books proudly presents Jeff Smith's new adventure
series, RASL - a stark, sci-fi series about a dimension-jumping art thief, a
man unplugged from the world who races through space and time searching for his
next big score - and trying to escape his past. In this first of three graphic
novels, Rasl faces an assassin's bullet and stumbles across a mystery that not
only threatens to expose his own illicit activities, but could also uncover one
of the world's most dangerous and sought after secrets!
Heads or Tails by
Lilli Carre
The creator of 2008’s acclaimed graphic novel The Lagoon — named to many annual
critics’ lists including Publishers Weekly
and USA Today’s Pop Candy — is back
with a stunningly designed and packaged collection of some of the most poetic
and confident short fiction being produced in comics today. Carré’s elegant
short stories read like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O’Connor or
Carson McCullers, but told visually. Poetic rhythms — a coin flip, a circling
ferris wheel — are punctuated by elements of melancholy fantasy pushed forward
by character-driven, naturalistic dialogue. The stories in Heads Or Tails display a virtuosic
breadth of visual styles and color palettes, each in perfect service of the
story, and range from experimental one-pagers to short masterpieces like “The
Thing About Madeline” (featured in The Best American Comics 2008),
to graphic novellas like “The Carnival” (featured in David Sedaris’ and Dave
Eggers’ 2010 Best American Nonrequired Reading,
originally published in MOME).
50 Girls 50 and
Other Stories by Frank Frazetta and Al Williamson
Barely old enough to drink when he joined the EC Comics
stable, Al Williamson may have been the new kid on the block, but a lifetime of
studying such classic adventure cartoonists as Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon) and Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) had made him a kid
to reckon with — as he proved again and again in the stories he created for
EC’s legendary “New Trend” comics, in particular Weird
Science and Weird Fantasy. As
a result of Williamson’s focus, it’s possible to compile all of Williamson’s
“New Trend” EC work into one book — which Fantagraphics is finally doing here.
Sci-fi aficionados should note that although most of the stories were written
by Al Feldstein, 50 Girls 50
features three of EC’s legendary Ray Bradbury adaptations, including “I,
Rocket” and “A Sound of Thunder” — and a unique curiosity, a strip adapted from
a short story submitted by a teenage Harlan Ellison. Williamson ran with a gang
of like-minded young Turks dubbed the “Fleagle Gang,” who would help one another
out on assignments. Thus this book includes three stories upon which Williamson
was joined by the legendary Frank Frazetta, and one story (“Food for Thought”)
where Roy Krenkel provided his exquisite alien landscapes, to make it one of
the most gorgeous EC stories ever printed. As a supplementary bonus, 50 Girls 50 includes three stories
drawn by Fleagles sans Williamson: Frazetta’s Shock
SuspenStories short “Squeeze Play”; Krenkel’s meticulous “Time to
Leave”; and Angelo Torres’s “An Eye for an Eye,” an EC story that famously fell
prey to censorship and was not released until the 1970s. As with other
Fantagraphics EC titles, 50 Girls 50 will
also include extensive story notes by EC experts.
Beta Testing the
Apocalypse by Tom Kaczynski
Batman and the Court
of Owls vol. 1 by Scott Snyder
After a series of brutal murders rocks Gotham City, Batman
begins to realize that perhaps these crimes go far deeper than appearances
suggest. As the Caped Crusader begins to unravel this deadly mystery, he
discovers a conspiracy going back to his youth and beyond to the origins of the
city he's sworn to protect. Could the Court of Owls, once thought to be nothing
more than an urban legend, be behind the crime and corruption? Or is Bruce
Wayne losing his grip on sanity and falling prey to the pressures of his war on
crime?
Sweet Tooth series
by Jeff Lemire (August)
A cross between Bambi and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, SWEET
TOOTH tells the story of Gus, a rare new breed of human/animal hybrid children,
has been raised in isolation following an inexplicable pandemic that struck a
decade earlier. Now, with the death of his father he's left to fend for himself
. . . until he meets a hulking drifter named Jepperd who promises to help him.
Jepperd and Gus set out on a post-apocalyptic journey into the devastated
American landscape to find 'The Preserve' a refuge for hybrids. (series
finishes with its sixth trade in June 2013)
Sandman Mystery
Theatre series by Matt Wagner
The hero of Sandman Mystery Theatre shares little
more than a moniker with Neil Gaiman's Sandman, star of one of the most
successful graphic novel series ever, but those who prefer the down and dirty
to the airy and fantastic may also prefer SMT, which features the
comics' original Sandman, millionaire Wesley Dodds, who, clad in trench coat
and gas mask and armed with sleep-inducing gas, fought criminals in the 1940s.
Wagner backtracks Dodds to pre-World War II New York City and models Dodds'
adventures less on superhero comics than on 1930s pulp magazines. He and
cowriter Steven T. Seagle create twisted crime stories--the arc this volume
collects involves a series of grisly murders--that Guy Davis illustrates by
expertly evoking the period looks of the pulps. SMT story lines are far
franker than their 1930s inspirations. This one depicts, besides the killings,
a circle of lesbian lovers, and the dialogue is R-rated. Although it hasn't
matched the popularity of Gaiman's creation, SMT is one of the most
successful revivals of a vintage costumed crime fighter.
Hawkeye vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon by Matt Fraction
The breakout star of this summer's blockbuster Avengers film, Clint Barton - aka the self-made hero Hawkeye - fights for justice! With ex-Young Avenger Kate Bishop by his side, he's out to prove himself as one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes! SHIELD recruits Clint to intercept a packet of incriminating evidence - before he becomes the most wanted man in the world. You won't believe what is on The Tape! What is the Vagabond Code? Matt Fraction pens a Hawkeye thriller that spans the globe...and the darkest parts of Hawkeye's mind. Barton and Bishop mean double the Hawkeye and double the trouble...and stealing from the rich never looked so good.
Batgirl vol. 1: The Darkest Reflection by Gail Simone
The nightmare-inducing brute known as Mirror is destroying the lives of Gotham City citizens seemingly at random. Will Barbara be able to survive her explosive confrontation with this new villain, as well as facing dark secrets from her past? A new chapter in the riveting adventures of Batgirl continue in stunning fashion, with script by fan-favorite Gail Simone and stellar art by superstar Ardian Syaf!
Queen and Country The Definitive Edition vol. 1 by Greg Rucka
Queen & Country, the Eisner Award-winning and critically lauded espionage series from acclaimed novelist and comic book author Greg Rucka, is back in a new series of definitive editions collecting the entire classic series in just four affordable soft covers. In this first collection, readers are introduced to the thrilling and often-times devastating world of international espionage as SIS field agent Tara Chase is sent all over the world in service to her Queen & Country all the while Director of Operations Paul Crocker walks a narrow tightrope between his loyalty to his people and the political masters that must be served!
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Shaun Tan follows THE ARRIVAL with a collection of off-the-wall tales combined with his genius illustrations in a unique hybrid format that will build on our current success. An exchange student who's really an alien, a secret room that becomes the perfect place for a quick escape, a typical tale of grandfatherly exaggeration that is actually even more bizarre than he says... These are the odd details of everyday life that grow and take on an incredible life of their own in tales and illustrations that Shaun Tan's many fans will love.
reMIND vol. 1 by Ed Brubaker
All Sonja wanted was to find her missing cat, Victuals, but when he washes up on the shore of her sleepy coastal town several days later with a head full of stitches and the startling ability to speak and no memory of how he got that way her quiet life is forever changed. Together they set out to solve the mystery of his disappearance, embarking on a journey that leads to a strange kingdom under the waves and into the heart of a royal power struggle, where the answer to Victual s true identity could save or doom them all!
Ignition City vol. 1 by Warren Ellis
Grounded space pilot Mary Raven has come to the interzone settlement in
the middle of Ignition City, Earth's largest spaceport, to recover the
effects of her dead father... or so people think. Mary really wants to
know how he died, and who was responsible. But today might be her last
day on Earth, trapped on the last spaceport where no one cares about
murder, and the only real currency is fear. She has her dead father's
ray gun, and that's enough for space hero-turned-arms dealer Lightning
Bowman to want her dead. But when she finds her father's lost diary she
discovers something nobody else in Ignition City knows... and they'll
want her dead for that, too. From Warren Ellis, the writer who
reinvented science fiction in comics, comes IGNITION CITY, a retropunk
"future of the past" where spaceships belch smoke and arguments are
settled with blaster pistols. 
