We know you've really been wondering what the interior of Love and Rockets: The Covers looks like... how it's laid out, what the recoloring looks like, what it includes. This PDF excerpt should answer your questions, particularly the Editor's Note:

It's a spectacular and dee-luxe production and we want to be sure we're getting everything just right at the printer, so we're taking a little extra time with it and it's now scheduled for September release. Here's a sample of the clear overlay that wraps around the front cover:

Read the first three chapters of In Case We Die by Danny Bland below or here. (Note that there is NSFW material.) We'll wait...

OK, now that you're hooked, pre-order the book. First taste is free. (You'll also get a free download of the full audiobook when it's released, as a bonus for ordering direct from us. Details TK.)

In celebration of the arrival of the inaugural class of MFA in Comics graduate students, the California College of the Arts in San Francisco will host a summer guest speaker series featuring some of comics' most talented creators.

On Friday, July 5th, CCA kicks off the series with a bang, with special guest Cathy Malkasian! Cathy will be discussing her work in the animation industry, as well as her most recent book, Wake Up, Percy Gloom!

This lecture will take place on CCA's San Francisco campus in the Graduate Writers Studio at 195 De Haro Street. 

And then on Friday, July 26th, CCA closes out the month-long series with Dash Shaw! Dash's discussions on his work and his latest book, New School, are not to be missed. 

Dash's discussion will take place on CCA's San Francisco campus in the Timken Lecture Hall on 1111 Eighth Street.

Both lectures begin at 6:00 PM! More information about the MFA in Comics program available at cca.edu/mfacomics.

It's our great pleasure to add another member of the fabulous Friedman family to our roster. Kipp Friedman's forthcoming memoir Barracuda in the Attic boasts this loving portrait by Kipp's big brother Drew (with hand-lettering by our own Jacob Covey), a foreword by father Bruce Jay and an afterword by brother Josh. In the book's pages you'll find true tales of the colorful clan's hijinks from New York to Hollywood and beyond, hobnobbing with the literati, mobsters, and at least one Marx brother.

We're taking pre-orders now; look for the book to hit shelves in early Fall, and if you know us you know we have more previews and sneak peeks on the way. 

Danny Bland's debut novel In Case We Die hits shelves in September. The book and jacket were designed by our guru Jacob Covey. Dig those silver & day-glo inks. Some of Danny's music-scene compadres have already read the book and had this to say about it:

"Our anti-hero is floating in a tiny lifeboat made of heroin, graveyard shifts & rock music. His companions are two fabulous women; a bombshell who robs banks & a beautifully pale rock violinist who can barely dodge suicide. ICWD is much funnier & more satisfying than any other junkie rock'n'roll tragedy." – John Doe (X)

"Bland is a brutally funny and bravely honest writer. A perfect guide through the bloodshot streets and desperate bedrooms of the underground wilderness." – Dave Alvin (Blasters)

"In Case We Die is a poetic and elegant journey ... straight to the gutter." – Wayne Kramer (MC5)

"Beautiful, literary redemption." – Exene Cervenka (X)

"A great piece of work — full of filth and heart." - Steve Earle

"A suitably Peckinpah finale. Bravo. It has been like a traveling dream state and sometimes familiar look into the abyss." – Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs)

"I am a believer in what Bland has to say. He writes with eloquence, candor, darkness, and humor....the good stuff!" – Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses)

We'll be making a few sample chapters available for you to read soon. And hey, if you pre-order the book from us, when the book is released you'll receive a code for a FREE download of the audiobook from Local 638 Records, with chapters read by a mind-blowing all-star lineup of music and cultural luminaries, including some of the folks above. Stay tuned for more details about this exclusive offer — all pre-orders are eligible, so there's no reason to put it off! 

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department: 

Zippy: The Dingburg Diaries
by Bill Griffith

232-page black & white/color 8" x 10" softcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-641-6

See Previews / Order Now

Comprising a full two and a half years' worth of dailies and full-color Sundays, The Dingburg Diaries is the third Zippy book featuring tales of "Dingburg, the City Inhabited Entirely by Pinheads" — Zippy’s home town. There’s even a long series of "Historical Dingburg" strips, chronicling the pinhead population through the years, from 1840, when Dingburg’s "Town Fool" accidentally invented disco, to 1958 when Dingburg Beatniks flourished in the town’s Bohemian neighborhood. Like, Yowl, man.

God also has his own chapter (and verse). In the guise of a clip art "authority figure," he dispenses unwanted advice and conditional love upon the citizens of Dingburg. His tendency to cross-dress reaches new heights when he appears in a performance of "Swine Lake," wearing a tutu. Sacrilegious, yet sensitive.

There are large chunks of Mr. The Toad, Zerbina, Little Zippy and the rest of Griffith's cast of characters throughout this expanded collection. Published in a larger 8" by 10" format, The Dingburg Diaries also features a big color section, showcasing Griffith's inventive palette. There are parodies of the paintings of Edward Hopper and Film Noir, and "Griffy’s Top Ten List On Comics and Their Creation," a semi-serious mini-tutorial on everything (well, ten things) he’s learned in over forty years at the drawing board.

Just arrived and shipping now from our mail-order department:

New School
by Dash Shaw

340-page full-color 8.75" x 11.25" hardcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-644-7

See Previews / Order Now  

In this brand new graphic novel from the acclaimed author of Bottomless Belly Button and BodyWorld, Dash Shaw dramatizes the story of a boy moving to an exotic country and his infatuation with an unfamiliar culture that quickly shifts to disillusionment. A sense of "being different" grows to alienation, until he angrily blames this once-enchanting land for his feelings of isolation.

All of this is told through the fantastical eyes of young Danny, a boy growing up in the '90s fed on dramatic adventure stories like Jurassic Park and X-Men. Danny's older brother, Luke, travels to a remote island to teach English to the employees of ClockWorld, an ambitious new amusement park that recreates historical events. When Luke doesn’t return after two years, Danny travels to ClockWorld to convince Luke to return to America. But Luke has made a new life, new family, and even a new personality for himself on ClockWorld, rendering him almost unrecognizable to his own brother. Danny comes of age as he explores the island, ClockWorld, and fights to bring his brother home.

New School is unlike anything in the history of the comics medium: at once funny and deadly serious, easily readable while wildly artistic, personal and political, familiar and completely new.

Listen up, lit lovers. Two-time National Book Award nominee and multiple literary prize recipient Stephen Dixon's brand new novel, His Wife Leaves Him, is due in about 2 months and we have advance copies to show off to you.

With no chapter breaks and very few paragraph breaks (not even for dialogue) to interrupt the flow of words on the page, you're getting maybe 500 pages worth of words in the space of just over 400 pages. What a value for your book-buying dollar! Of course, none of that would matter if the words didn't coalesce into such a complex, ambitious, tender, funny story of pain and joy, memory and forgetting.

Curious? We've made the first 38 pages available to read, and you can pre-order your copy, right here. 

Frank & Fran are back for more frolic & fear in Jim Woodring's follow-up sequel/prequel to the acclaimed Congress of the Animals, due in late September. Jim calls Fran "one of the most messed-up things I've ever done," and if you know Jim's work, you know that's saying something. You'll be delighted, appalled, and amazed by the wordless proceedings and find yourself taking multiple journeys through the pages in order to unravel the mysteries therein.

Where to start with a story that has no beginning and no end? We offer a 10-page excerpt and a button to pre-order your copy right here.