Love and Rockets: New Stories #1
By Hernandez Brothers

Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 reboots the beloved ongoing "Love and Rockets" comic into a fat, all-new annual graphic novel length package.

Jaime launches the new format with a story that's unusual even for him... A full-on, pulse-pounding super-hero yarn! Maggie's longtime friend Penny Century has finally realized her longtime dream of acquiring super-powers, but at a terrible personal cost. Now she rampages through the galaxy, half mad with grief, and a motley group of super-heroes assembles to try to stop her -- led by Maggie's girlfriend Angel and her mysterious neighbor Alarma, and involving a number of characters longtime Love and Rockets fans will delight in recognizing.

The epic-length 50-page story (only the first half of the saga!) combines Jaime's razor sharp characterization and superlative art with wildly inventive, Kirby-style slam-bang super-hero action.

Then Gilbert Hernandez explodes with a similarly generous helping of his fantastically creative one-shot short stories: "Tamanny" (rookie cop vs. demonic drug users); "Papa" (a turn-of-the-century story involving a traveling businessman); "The New Adventures of Duke and Sammy" (super-powered Martin and Lewis impostors in outer space); "The Tender Room" (Into the Wild as re-imagined by Beto); "Chiro el Indio" (written by third brother Mario Hernandez); and "Never Say Never" (a kangaroo gets lucky in Las Vegas).

One hundred pages of Jaime, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez at the peak of their powers: this is a major graphic-novel event!

100-page black & white 6.625" x 9" softcover • $14.99
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Deitch's Pictorama
By Kim Deitch, Simon Deitch and Seth Deitch

Kim Deitch, creator of the acclaimed Fantagraphics collection Shadowland and the Pantheon graphic novels Alias the Cat and Boulevard of Broken Dreams, has recruited his siblings to produce a unique, all-new "picto-fiction" pocket book. Alternating between heavily illustrated near-comics stories and outright prose pieces, Deitch's Pictorama is a testament to the Deitch family's amazing yarn-spinning abilities!

The book leads off with Kim's lengthy picto-story "The Sunshine Girl," a typically Deitchean tall tale involving bottle cap collectors, drug dealers, family secrets, and the innocents who wind up in the middle of the hullaballoo. Then it's time for Seth's prose short story "Children of Aruf," about a man and his very unusual dog; "Unlikely Hours," a paranoid picto-story about a conspiracy of sentient rats written by Seth and illustrated by Kim; the prose novella "The Golem," once again written by Seth and decorated with a series of superb pencil illustrations by Simon; and finally Kim's autobiographical "The Cop on the Beat, the Man in the Moon and Me." This entire "Deitch treat" is wrapped up with an introduction by legendary Academy Award-winning animator, cartoonist and illustrator and proud papa Gene (Tom Terrific, Terr'ble Thompson, Tom and Jerry) Deitch.

240-page black & white 6" x 8" softcover • $18.99
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Sammy the Mouse #2
By Zak Sally

In this issue, things ramp up, as Sammy still can't seem to find some peace and quiet in the comfort of his home (because a giant finger is poking him in the skull, among other things), and some new "friend" won't take "No" for an answer. An answer for what? Why, a PICNIC, of course. EVERYBODY loves a PICNIC, right? As if that weren't enough, Feekes keeps shooting off his drunk mouth (with dire consequences), there's more secret scary underwater business from Him, and where the hell is Puppy-boy, anyway? Also in this issue: a moustache.

32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" saddle-stitched softcover with jacket • $7.95
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Interiorae #3
By Gabriella Giandelli

Things are getting weirder in the apartment house in this, the third (of four) episode of Gabriella Giandelli's surreal tale. Two teens record a rock song, an ugly breakup takes place between a husband and a wife, the old lady resorts to increasingly desperate measures to find her inner peace, more and more people have begun to notice the white rabbit, much to his distress... and The Creature That Lives in the Basement and Feeds on Dreams is becoming frustrated because no one is dreaming.

32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" saddle-stitched softcover with jacket • $7.95
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Baobab #3
By Igort

Baobab #3 returns to the structure of the first issue, split between two ongoing and (seemingly) unrelated stories set a century ago. In the first part of the book, young Hiroshi’s ailing grandmother tells him that she will die soon, and that his future will be in his nation’s capital: Tokyo. It’s the beginning of his new life for Hiroshi, and the end of his childhood. Then we return to the continuing story of two young, struggling South American cartoonists. Celestino is still living in his native Parador where, on the eve of World War I, a right-wing military dictatorship is growing in power and viciousness, even destroying the printing presses of the paper for whom he works. Even in this darkness, some light emerges: Celestino receives his first few fan letters from readers, and embarks on a romance with his publisher’s daughter. Meanwhile, his expatriate friend and colleague Pilade regales him with tales from the exciting world of American syndicated cartoonists, and together the two dream about this new artform whose birth they are witnessing, and may very well be contributing to...

32-page two-color 8.5" x 11" saddle-stitched softcover with jacket • $7.95
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For those of you heading to your local comics shop tomorrow, you'll find a whole boatload of new Fantagraphics releases on the shelves:

Abandoned Cars by Tim Lane
Mome Vol. 12 by various artists
Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes
Delphine #3 by Richard Sala
Grotesque #2 by Sergio Ponchione
Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 by Michael Kupperman

Happy shopping (if you haven't already ordered them directly from us)! Speaking of ordering directly from us, we'll be having our own New Comics Day tomorrow with another boatload of brand-new titles in stock and ready to order... stay tuned!

Esther Pearl Watson, not the type to sit around twiddling her thumbs while we get her Unlovable book ready for the world, told us about her new multimedia art project when we saw her at Comic-Con, and now it's underway: she and fellow artist Martha Rich are road-tripping across the U.S.A. to interview people about their ideas of beauty, a process they're documenting on their new blog. (Hat tip to the USA Today for the links.)

We're also dying to see Esther's Unlovable video starring Leslie Hall as Tammy Pierce. I mean, come on!