Back in the 1950s during the “Cold War” every new day beckoned the possibility of the end of the world. Kids grew up in the shadow of bomb shelters and were treated to daily lessons at school on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. Americans were besieged by constant reminders to police our borders, to carefully watch out for “foreigners” who might be spies, and to be ever vigilant in preparing to combat the “red” menace of communism. Comic books of this era played on these fears with stories of atomic war and world war III. This new historic reprint looks back at those good ole days, which can be viewed in the perspective of today’s political climate. This volume reprints the complete runs of Atomic War! and World War III and can be read merely as great action/adventure stories, classic “war” comics or as an eerie, unanticipated commentary on today’s tribulations. SPECIAL NOTE: if these extremely rare books were purchased at your local comic shop they would cost well over $1000 in low grade condition!

Come along on a tour through Mark Schultz’s fantastic universe! Mark Schultz continues to amaze! This fifth volume in his Carbon art-book series features new drawings and paintings, all created within the last two years. It’s a wide-ranging potpourri of commissions, book illustrations, concept designs, comics and personal work, brimming with the unique imagery and subject matter for which Mark is celebrated. His media include carbon and graphite pencils, brush and ink, watercolor and gouache. The images feature Jack and Hannah from his Xenozoic tales, two new Paleonauts funny-book stories, Stormforce 10 concept designs, preparatory work for his upcoming Storms at Sea sequel and an assortment of science-fantasy subjects drawn from the fictional worlds that inspired his career. Preliminaries are placed side-by-side with finished pieces to provide insight to the artist’s working process. With two big gatefolds unfolding to reveal epic scenarios, Carbon 5 is a deep dive into Mark’s ages-spanning imagination, showcasing his work as an illustrator, a cartoonist and a concept artist.

From New York Times bestselling author Ben Hatke comes a young readers graphic novel about Milo, a young boy who discovers a portal to a secret world in his basement. It was supposed to just be a normal basement - some storage boxes, dust, you know, the usual basement stuff. But when Milo is sent by his mother to fetch a sock from the basement of the historic home they've moved into, he finds a door in the back that he's never seen before. Turns out that the basement of his house is enormous. In fact, there is a whole world down there. As Milo travels ever deeper into the Basement World, he meets the many Things that live in the shadows and gloom . . and he learns that to face his fears he must approach even the strangest creatures with kindnesss.

"Quaint, meditative and sometimes dreamy, blankets will take you straight back to your first kiss." --The Guardian Blankets: 20th Anniversary Edition is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence. Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again. This groundbreaking graphic novel, winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, is an eloquent portrait of adolescent yearning; first love (and first heartache); faith in crisis; and the process of moving beyond all of that. Beautifully rendered in pen and ink, Thompson has created a love story that lasts.

A delicate, timeless, and breathtaking coming-of-age story. The critically acclaimed and award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim returns with a stunning addition to her body of graphic fiction rooted in Korean history. Adapted from Park Wan-seo’s beloved novel, The Naked Tree paints a stark portrait of a single nation’s fabric slowly torn to shreds by political upheaval and armed conflict. The year is 1951. Twenty-year-old wallflower Lee Kyung ekes out a living at the US Post Exchange, where goods and services of varying stripe are available for purchase. She peddles hand-painted portraits on silk handkerchiefs to soldiers passing through. When a handsome young northern escapee and erstwhile fine artist is hired despite waning demand, an unlikely friendship blossoms into a young woman’s first brush with desire against the backdrop of the Korean War at its most devastating. Gendry-Kim brings a masterpiece of world literature to life with bold, expressive lines that capture a denuded landscape brutally forced into transition and the people who must find their way back to each other within it. Available for the first time in English, this edition of The Naked Tree is exquisitely translated by award-winning expert Janet Hong.

Juliette boards a train from Paris and comes back to her hometown hoping for a low-key visit with family and old friends. What she finds is anything but. Her sister, a caregiver and mother of two, is carrying on an elaborate affair with a man from a costume shop. Her parents, separated, are now estranged. Father is sure he s developing Alzheimer s, though it s more likely that he s simply getting old. Mother, on the other hand, revels in the second act of her life as a free woman, an artist with a show at their local gallery to prove it. Slowly, Juliette finds herself entangled with the unlikely Georges, a dyspeptic alcoholic who is stuck in his life. These divergent paths inevitably cross against a gloriously painted backdrop of eccentric small-town living. Camille Jourdy s beautiful watercolour pages provide an unfeigned mileu for the subtle dramedy at hand in Juliette. All too real human emotions, bittersweet and relatable in their rawness, come together to form a poetic realism.

The wife of Japan s most lauded manga-ka documents a year in their lives with her own artistry. In 1981, Fujiwara Maki began a picture diary about daily life with her son and husband, the legendary manga author Tsuge Yoshiharu. Publishing was not her original intention. I wanted to record our family s daily life while our son, Shosuke, was small. But as 8mm cameras were too expensive and we were poor, I decided on the picture diary format instead. I figured Shosuke would enjoy reading it when he got older. Drawn in a simple, personable style, and covering the same years fictionalized in Tsuge s final masterpiece The Man Without Talent, Fujiwara s journal focuses on the joys of daily life amidst the stresses of childrearing, housekeeping, and managing a depressed husband. A touching and inspiring testimony of one Japanese woman's resilience, My Picture Diary is also an important glimpse of the enigma that is Tsuge. Fujiwara s diary is unsparing. It provides a stark picture of the gender divide in their household: Tsuge sleeps until noon and does practically nothing. He never compliments her cooking, and dictates how money is spent. Not once is he shown drawing. And yet Fujiwara remains surprisingly empathetic toward her mercurial husband. Translated by Ryan Holmberg, this edition sheds light on Fujiwara's life, her own career in art, writing, and underground theatre, and her extensive influence upon her husband's celebrated manga.

A deep dive into a contentious and dramatic period in Canadian history—the rise of a militant separatist group whose effects still reverberate today. It started in 1963, when a dozen mailboxes in a wealthy Montreal neighborhood were blown to bits by handmade bombs. By the following year, a guerrilla army camp was set up deep in the woods, with would-be soldiers training for armed revolt. Then, in 1966, two high-school students dropped off bombs at factories, causing fatalities. What was behind these concerted, often bungled acts of terrorism, and how did they last for nearly eight years? In Are You Willing to Die for the Cause?, Quebec-born cartoonist Chris Oliveros sets out to dispel common misconceptions about the birth and early years of a movement that, while now defunct, still holds a tight grip on the hearts and minds of Quebec citizenry and Canadian politics. There are no initials more volatile in Quebec history than FLQ—the Front de libération du Québec (or, in English, the Quebec Liberation Front). The original goal of this socialist movement was to fight for workers' rights of the French majority who found their rights trampled on by English bosses. The goal became ridding the province of its English oppression by means of violent revolution. Using dozens of obscure and long-forgotten sources, Oliveros skillfully weaves a comics oral history where the activists, employers, politicians, and secretaries piece together the sequence of events. At times humorous, other times dramatic, and always informative, Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? shines a light on just how little it takes to organize dissent and who people trust to overthrow the government.

Nejishiki unveils the most iconic scenes from Yoshiharu Tsuge s highly respected body of work alongside his most beloved stories. A cornerstone of Japan s legendary 1960s counterculture that galvanized avant-garde manga and comics criticism, the title story follows an injured young man as he wanders through a village of strangers in search of emotional and physical release. Other stories in this collection follow a series of weary travelers who while away sultry nights and face menacing doppelgangers. Even banal activities like afternoon strolls uncover unsavory impulses. The emotionally and erotically charged imagery collected in this third volume remains as shocking and vivid today as it did upon its debut fifty years ago. Tsuge s stories push boundaries, abruptly crossing the threshold of conventional storytelling. Unassuming protagonists venture further into eerie symbolism against a shadowy, perceptibly dreamlike landscape easily mistaken for the real world. The angst that pervades postwar Japanese society threatens to devour his characters and their pastoral sensibilities as each protagonist s wanderlust turns surreal.

Spring Break, 2009: Five days, three friends, and one big city. Roaming marks a triumphant return to the graphic novel and a deft foray into new adult fiction for Caldecott Medal authors Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. Over the course of a much-anticipated trip to New York, an unexpected fling blossoms between casual acquaintances and throws a long-term friendship off-balance. Emotional tensions vibrate wildly against the resplendently illustrated backdrop of the city, capturing a spontaneous queer romance in all of its fledgling glory. Slick attention to the details of a bustling, intimidating metropolis are softened with a palette of muted pastels, as though seen through the eyes of first-time travelers. The awe, wonder, and occasional stumble along the way come to life with stunning accuracy. Roaming is the third collaboration from the critically acclaimed team behind Skim and Governor General’s Literary Award winner This One Summer. Moody, atmospheric, and teeming with life, the magic of this comics duo leaks through the pages with lush and exquisite pen work. The Tamakis’ singular, elegant vision of an urban paradise slowly revealing its imperfections to the tune of its visitors’ rhythms is a masterpiece—a future classic for generations to come.

The mysterious Red Hood returns to Gotham with a vengence! Former Robin Jason Todd parted ways with the Batman over their vastly different approaches to crimefighting. Eventually, Jason trained himself to be a killer and a mercenary, and he took on a new identity and code name—the Red Hood—in order to strike his own brand of fear in Gotham’s criminals. And now Batman must confront old wounds in an effort to stop the masked vigilante Red Hood.

Crime in Gotham has gotten so out of control that Batman must step up his arsenal of fabulous toys. Gotham City has been under the protection of Batman for only a short amount of time, but since the vigilante’s appearance, crime has changed. It’s gotten more bold, more destructive. As Batman tries to rise to meet these new threats, he develops a computer system, ROBIN, to help him analyze and subdue the rising criminal tide and hopefully one day put an end to crime in Gotham.

During a fight with The Joker, Batman falls into a chemical vat that somehow turns him into a baby. Who is going to take care and help raise baby Batman? The Joker, that’s who. Written by Satoshi Miyagawa ( Uchuu Senkan Tiramisù) and illustrated by Keisuke Gotou, this manga finds Batman transformed into a baby following an accidental fall into the same vat of chemicals that turned the Joker into his evil self. Immediately after accident, the Joker finds himself lost without his arch-nemesis and takes it upon himself to raise baby Bruce Wayne. However, the Joker finds fatherhood to be a lot more difficult than he initially thought.

When mysterious monsters are abducting Gotham citizens, Batman will have to team up with his archnemesis—The Joker—to protect his city. The Joker will go to any lengths to get Harley Quinn back after she is abducted by a strange culprit. But who? Mysterious, Joker-like monsters are stalking the streets of Gotham, collecting severed heads. But why? Jim Gordon is missing, and after receiving a package containing a bloody piece of Gotham’s commissioner, Batman knows he must be willing to do anything to save him. But how? When The Joker proposes an uneasy alliance with Batman, the answers to those questions begin to become clear— and they will shake Gotham City and the Bat-Family to their core. This meticulously crafted tale of the Dark Knight’s deadliest team-up will introduce you to a grim and gritty Gotham that only Marc Silvestri could bring you.

When last we checked in with Harley Quinn, she ate, she banged, and she killed—but now it’s time for something a little different. Fresh out of the events of Harley Quinn: The Animated Series season 3, Harley has found herself a part of a highly unlikely team—the Bat-Family! Meanwhile, Poison Ivy has found herself prepping for her new job—leader of the Legion of Doom! But while Harley and Ivy adjust to their respective new roles, a ghost from Ivy’s past enters the fray and threatens the relationship between everyone’s favorite clown/plant couple! This contains tales from Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: Legion of Bats! #1-6 and Harley Quinn: The Animated Series - The Real Sidekicks of New Gotham Special!