Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Too Soon? Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010
by Drew Friedman

204-page full-color 8.25" x 10.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-357-6

Ordering Info & Previews

"Too Soon?" you ask?

It's a collection of the last 15 years' worth of Drew Friedman's illustrations, caricatures and portraits lampooning the rich, the famous, the infamous, and the never-will-be-famous.

And — promise! — no "Friends."

Too Soon? gathers Friedman's best, most strident and scathing work from some of the most popular publications including Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Blab! and more — yes, even Field & Stream.

Too Soon? casts its net over the entirety of the forced-smiling-celebrity/politico congregation, political animals on one side of the aisle, showbiz beasts on the other... and the sad, innocent victims of their crimes that languish in the middle.

Too Soon? is naturally replete with liver spots, wrinkles, burst capillaries, blood, sweat and tears. No one is spared, no matter which side of the aisle he or she inhabits.

Too Soon? is Friedman's first book of artwork produced in HI-DEF, so be prepared. Drew Friedman's work is always brutally honest, WARTS & ALL.

Too Soon? is in fact not TOO SOON — it's about time.

Praise for Drew Friedman:

"I'm grateful to Drew Friedman for every new piece of his vast, riveting panorama of the jacked-up, hellbent American spectacle: comic and horrific, loving and appalled, obsessive and devil-may-care, brilliant and vulgar, familiar and uncanny. He's our William Hogarth and Thomas Rowlandson and George Grosz all wrapped into one." – Kurt Andersen, host of NPR's "Studio 360"

"I would like Drew Friedman to draw me, but I’m scared of what he’d uncover, what he’d reveal about my inner nature that I’d rather not see. Because that’s what he does—he’s not a mere caricaturist, he’s a ridiculously talented artist who’s practically an x-ray machine. One that makes you laugh your balls off.” – Chip Kidd, author of The Cheese Monkeys

"Friedman's liver-spots-'n'-wrinkles style of cartoon realism is completely mesmerizing..." – Entertainment Weekly

"The Thomas Nast of our time." – Slate

"Friedman distorts the images we've grown comfortable with, skewering the way we've let addicts and half-wits become our national idols..." – The Onion

"Friedman remains the finest, most excruciatingly mordant, somehow most humane caricaturist going". – Booklist

"Of low artistic quality." – Rush Limbaugh, big fat idiot.

Bonus Savings: To celebrate the release of this latest collection, we're offering Drew Friedman's previous books, including Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental, Warts and All, Old Jewish Comedians, More Old Jewish Comedians and The Fun Never Stops!, for at least 20% OFF for a limited time!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Prison Pit: Book 2
by Johnny Ryan

116-page black & white 6.5" x 8.5" softcover • $12.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-383-5

Ordering Info & Previews

2009's Prison Pit was an unadulterated smash hit upon its release at the 2009 Comic-Con International, and the balls-to-the-wall series returns with more action and mayhem like only Johnny Ryan can deliver — again starring CF, the shirtless outer space barbarian antihero who remains damned to the Prison Pit (a vast wasteland beneath the crust of a barren planet, populated by the worst of the worst, where violence is the only law and evil creatures roam free). In this second volume, CF tries to get revenge against the evil behemoth that took his arm, and then winds up playing an unwilling participant in an elaborate escape attempt from the Pit.

Prison Pit blends Ryan’s fascination with WWE wrestling, grindhouse cinema, first person action video games, Gary Panter’s “Jimbo” comics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” Manga into a brutal and often hilarious showcase of violence like no other comic book ever created.

Bonus Savings: Get Book 1 and Book 2 together and save 20% off the combined cover prices!

Just arrived in our warehouse and ready to ship:

Love and Rockets: New Stories #3
by The Hernandez Brothers

104-page black & white 7.5" x 9.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-379-8

This book is available with a signed bookplate as a FREE premium! The bookplate has been uniquely designed for this book, and each bookplate is printed on acid-free cardstock and hand-signed by the author. (Click here for more books available with signed bookplates.) Please select your preference above before adding the item to your shopping cart. Note: Signature plates are VERY limited in quantity and available only WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.

Ordering Info & Previews

After Jaime’s two-part super-hero epic from Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 and #2, we return to the enthralling minutiae of the “Locas” cast’s lives for the first time in three years. In the main story "The Love Bunglers" (presented in two parts) Ray finally gets his date with Maggie: The couple goes to an art opening and to dinner, they discuss the crazy world of dreams, and Maggie asks Ray for a huge favor. Also in this volume, “Brown Town, Blue Sun,” a new installment in Jaime’s beloved “little kids” flashback series: A ten-year-old Maggie and her family move away from Hoppers to a desert ghost town…

And on the Gilbert side of the ledger, “Scarlet by Starlight” is a story of humans exploring alien terrain, one of whom gets caught up in the natives' mating season with a furry creature who bears a striking resemblance to Fritz (of High Soft Lisp fame). “Killer/Sad Girl/Star” picks up the “Sad Girl” character from LRNS #2, and how no one in her family takes her budding film career seriously.

All this, plus: a letters page!

Bonus Savings: For a limited time, order all 3 issues of Love and Rockets: New Stories together for 1/3 off the combined cover price — that's like getting one issue for free!

Apropos of our announcement that we're publishing Ah Pook Is Here by William S. Burroughs & Malcolm McNeill next year, here is an award-winning 1994 "Ah Pook" animation directed by Philip Hunt, brought to our attention by Brian Heater.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Remember that kid in school? The one with the pen sketchings on the back of his Trapper Keeper full of wicked violence and jagged lines? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, he's Johnny Ryan and he's all grown up and making some of the most in your face comics today. Prison Pit is something you have to experience to believe. An artistic achievement in storytelling (most of the pages are wordless) on a pure guttural and simplistic level. Highly recommended for those of you who like a bit of dirt and grit with your comics." – Mark L. Miller, Ain't It Cool News

• Commentary: "My sit-down read of this Captain Easy volume is really the first time I’ve devoted much time to actually digesting the narrative of Crane’s work — and the first time I’ve really read and enjoyed an 'adventure' strip (unless you count Segar’s Popeye)." – Ben Towle

• Analysis: At The Manga Curmudgeon, David Welsh uses a sampling of critical reaction to Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream and Other Stories to examine "the notion that the creative work of women, particularly when that work is created for women, is critically undervalued."

Richard Sala has created a blog with a special 13-page sneak peek at his upcoming graphic novel The Hidden, which is now available for pre-order. Originally scheduled for release this fall, the book is now slated for early next year. Richard apologizes for the delay and promises that this book will be a bit different than anything he's done before. Judging from the preview pages he's posted, it's going to be a doozy of a book!

In an effort to keep your spine sufficiently tingled until The Hidden drops next year, all of Richard's in-stock books and comics are now at least 25% off for a limited time! Stock up on back issues of his comics series Evil Eye for just 99¢ each; meet the intrepid and enchanting Peculia; thrill to Mad Night, The Chuckling Whatsit and Maniac Killer Strikes Again!; and feast yourself on his acclaimed recent Ignatz Series serial Delphine — all at bargain prices for a limited time. And as if that weren't enough, many of Richard's books come with bonus bookplates signed by Richard as a FREE bonus!

Comic shops get their shipments on Thursday this week due to the U.S. holiday on Monday. Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about this week's release, click the book link for more info and previews, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.

From Shadow to Light: The Life & Art of Mort Meskin
by Steven Brower (with Peter and Philip Meskin)

220-page full-color 9" x 12" hardcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-358-3

"From Shadow to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin is a swell-looking history of a little-examined and little-known Golden Age artist who is only just now getting his due. Author Steve Brower and Fantagraphics provide the education." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6

"Fantagraphics presents a 220-page, 9.5″ x 12.25″ hardcover career overview by Steven Brower (w’ Peter & Philip Meskin), no doubt with many illustrations included. Introduction by Jerry Robinson." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics

"...[A] lavishly illustrated and sampled history... Mort Meskin... was the only Golden Age artist other than Lou Fine to make a specific impression on me before I was a teen..." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "Literally, I could not put down this book once I hit the second half. Every story is fantastic, because it takes these interesting genre detours and makes them seem just as more true than you could possibly imagine. ...I think sometimes people overlook the sheer potential that human conflict can give. Moto Hagio's A Drunken Dream, if nothing else, is a reminder of that, giving a plethora of all-too-human situations under the occasional sci-fi or fantasy trope. If you're looking for a densely-written change of pace that gives great insight into the career of a fantastic artist, you owe it to yourself to give this a look." – David Pepose, Newsarama

• Review: "All and Sundry is a very traditional sort of random-stuff-from-my-file-drawers collection, subtitled "Uncollected Work 2004-2009": the first half is "Drawings and Stories"... Most of these pieces were designed to stand as separate artistic works, and they're all pretty successful. (There are some mostly-text pieces here as well, all published originally in Mome, which are of respectable-literary-quarterly style and quality...) [...] And then the second half of the book is "Sketches and Notes"... These pages are less finished, obviously, and would be of greatest interest to other cartoonists... [I]f you are [a Paul Hornschemeier fan], you'll find a lot to be excited about here." – Andrew Wheeler, The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.

• Interview: John Hogan of Graphic Novel Reporter talks to Cathy Malkasian about her graphic novel Temperance: "Moderation has been taking a beating in our culture for a while now. If you measure things by our shock-soaked media environment, then the whole world is wallowing in nuttiness and hysteria. Moderation has been reduced to a quaint ideal, but it’s really the engine in the back room, running everything."

• Interview: At Examiner.com, Marvin Miranda posts a months-spanning email conversation with Jacques Boyreau about Portable Grindhouse and the joys of VHS: "There's this chicken/egg first and very fascinating question about 'what we are' based on whether as career voyeurs our first exposure was to [analog] or digital, and what it means to switch from one texture consumption to the other.... I don't know how else to really put it except that it is important to be vigilantly beware of digital. It is a closed, sealed signal whereas the burning grain of projected film and its bastard buddy analog video, are open signals."

Starting now for a limited time, order Fire & Water: Bill Everett, the Sub-Mariner and the Birth of Marvel Comics by Blake Bell and From Shadow to Light: The Life & Art of Mort Meskin by Steven Brower together for just $51.99 — that's 35% off the combined cover prices!

(If you have already pre-ordered both books separately, please let us know and we will adjust your invoice.)

Thanks to Dash Shaw for sending us this bit of YouTube gold: Gary Groth appearing on the Canadian TV program The Anti-Gravity Room sometime in the early 1990s! Following Gary in this clip: Peter Kuper.