Buz Sawyer Vol. 2: Sultry's Tiger
by Roy Crane

228-page black & white/color 9.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-499-3

Ships in: September 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

BARGAIN COMBO:

Buz Sawyer Vols. 1 + 2 Gift Set

Price: $70.00 $56.00

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World War II has ended, and with so many pilots mustered out at the end of the war, jobs for pilots are hard to find, and Buz’s record as a “hot-shot” pilot does not recommend him to commercial airlines. While looking for a job, Buz visits his old alma mater and spends time with glamorous Tot Winter and girl-next-door Christy Jameson. He finally finds the perfect job as a troubleshooter for International Airways, flying to trouble spots all over the world.

He encounters Sultry, the beautiful and dangerous woman he met on a Japanese-held island during the war, with fatal results for a major character in the strip. He travels to the arctic to stop the Mad Baron, an insane ex-Nazi trying to shoot down International Airways planes. And, in the only adventure to combine the daily and Sunday story lines, he teams up with his old pal Roscoe Sweeney to discover a fabulous ancient Mayan treasure. This book reprints the Sunday pages from this adventure in full color for the first time.

In the last adventure in our 2nd volume, Buz is kidnapped and flown to Africa by mysterious assailants. His friend Chili Harrison bets International Airways chief Mr. Wright $200 that even in this desperate situation, Buz will manage to get involved with a pretty girl. Long-time readers of the strip will have no trouble guessing who wins that bet.

Comic strip historian Brian Walker wrote, “Buz Sawyer combined fast-paced adventure stories…with authentically illustrated military equipment and real locations, which Crane researched during trips around the world.”

Roy Crane’s drawing and storytelling skills just get better and better. With this volume’s Buz reprints from 1945 to 1947, Crane hit his stride.

20-page excerpt (download 4.3 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new title. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators and web-savvy comic shops are saying about it (more to be added as they appear), check out our previews at the link, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics
by various artists; edited by Justin Hall (cover art by Maurice Vellekoop)

328-page black & white/color 7.75" x 10.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-506-8

"No Straight Lines: 4 Decades of Queer Comics features work by Alison Bechdel, Maurice Vellkoop, Dan Savage, Howard Cruse, Trina Robbins, Joyce Farmer and many more notable cartoonists. That’s enough to make it my splurge choice of the week." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Editor Justin Hall curates 328 pages of hugely diverse stories, strips and excerpts in No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, an omnibus spanning nearly half a century’s comics development; $35.00." – birthday boy Joe McCulloch, The Comics Journal

"There are a ton of interesting cartoonists in Justin Hall's anthology, and Fantagraphics is letting you have a sustained look at the thing in various forms here. I'd say this is the most formidable book of the week, the one you need to make a decision on now that it's out." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

"Yay!" – Mission Comics

"Recommended" – Danger Room Comics

It's Thrizzlin' Hot outside on the first day of August. To celebrate the heat, the next two issues of critically-acclaimed humor series Tales Designed to Thrizzle (#5 and #6) by Michael Kupperman are now available for download at $2.99 each at comiXology.

No need to choose between the Old People issue, #5, or the issue with those charming Cockney grave robbers, #6, when they are such a steal of a deal! Now with too much color!

"Seriously, go to your local comics shop and buy this. In fact, buy everything Michael Kupperman's ever done. Not only is he hysterical, he's a major influence on my comedy." – Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd

The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln
by Noah Van Sciver

192-page black & white 7.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $24.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-619-5

Ships in: August 2012 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Order this book and receive this FBI•MINI comic shown at left as a FREE bonus! Click here for details. Limit one per customer while supplies last.

The debut graphic novel from Noah Van Sciver follows the twentysomething Abraham Lincoln as he loses everything, long before becoming our most beloved president. Lincoln is a rising Whig in the state’s legislature as he arrives in Springfield, IL to practice law. With all of his possessions under his arms in two saddlebags, he is quickly given a place to stay by a womanizing young bachelor who becomes his friend and close confidant. Lincoln builds a life and begins friendships with the town’s top lawyers and politicians. He attends elegant dances and meets an independent-minded young woman from a high-society Kentucky family, and after a brisk courtship, becomes engaged. But, as time passes and uncertainty creeps in, young Lincoln is forced to battle a dark cloud of depression brought on by a chain of defeats and failures culminating into a nervous breakdown that threatens his life and sanity. This cloud of dark depression Lincoln calls “The Hypo.”

Dense crosshatching and an attention to detail help bring together this completely original telling of a man driven by an irrepressible desire to pull himself up by his bootstraps, overcome all obstacles, and become the person he strives to be. All the while unknowingly laying the foundation of character he would use as one of America’s greatest presidents.

Advance praise:

"Noah Van Sciver has brought new soul to this hard, weird time in Lincoln's life. The Hypo is a story of suffering & yearning, artfully told." — Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln's Melancholy

"Noah Van Sciver has developed a storytelling style that I find enormously appealing. In this book he's used that style to create a vivid and engaging portrait." — Chester Brown, author of Louis Riel

16-page excerpt (download 2.4 MB PDF):

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):