Fantagraphics

Midge McCracken is the abrasive, self-destructive pessimist every office has. Not to mince words about it, she''s a bitch: bitter, mistrustful, racist, and completely unfiltered in her words and thoughts (which, through the miracle of thought balloons, readers are privy to even more than Midge''s coworkers). But she comes by it honestly, growing up with hateful, racist parents, suffering sexual abuse as an adolescent, experiencing an unwanted pregnancy, etc. Did we mention that this is a comedy? Gregory''s unflinching sense of humour is the engine driving A Bitch''s Life. This mammoth collection includes all of Roberta Gregory''s riotous ''Bitchy Bitch'' stories, presenting a life from childhood into middle age, following the character through multiple decades. Along the way, Gregory''s wider cast of characters are introduced, notably Bitchy''s suffering and insufferable coworkers: the obnoxiously cheerful Sylvia (who never met a problem that positive vibes won''t cure); the upwardly mobile and power-hungry Pam (aka Bitchy''s boss); the intolerant, God-fearing Marcie; her hapless friend-with-benefits, Kenny; and many more. In 1976, Roberta Gregory released Dynamite Damsels - the first underground solo comic created and self-published by a woman. After contributing regularly to the influential anthologies Wimmen''s Comix and Gay Comix throughout the 1980s, she launched Naughty Bits in 1991 while working as a production artist at her publisher, Fantagraphics. It became the longest-running solo alternative comic book series by a female cartoonist, coming to an end in 2004 after an influential and pioneering 14-year, 40-issue run. The Bitchy Bitch stories remain the pinnacle of a historic career, and a highwater mark in comics and graphic novels over the past 40 years.

Peter Bagge is not only one of the primary architects of the alternative comics scene that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s (alongside peers including Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, and Daniel Clowes), but also someone who helped fashion the aesthetics and attitudes of an entire youth movement. His comic book series, Hate, chronicled the exploits of twentysomething Buddy Bradley and his gang of lovable losers through the rise and fall of the grunge era (and eventually beyond). Bagge''s style became a part of the Gen X zeitgeist and Hate became the best-selling alternative comic of its era, with Bagge''s illustrations gracing countless album and magazine covers as well. The Complete Hate Volume 3 collects all the Buddy Bradley stories from Hate Annual (nine issues, 2001-2011), as well as a host of other odds and ends from the original Hate series, Details magazine, I Like Comics, and much more. Now in his 30s and married, with a child, onetime slacker hero Buddy Bradley shaves his head, dons an eye-patch, quits his ''real'' job and buys the local dump - because what better place to raise a toddler? Part screwball comedy, part soap opera, part loose autobiography, Hate is an enduring chronicle of the 1990s as well as riotously relatable to anyone bumbling through their twenties.

Sitting on a bench one day, four-year-old Kim Deitch is accosted by an elderly man. Flask in hand, the man exclaims, ''Is it possible? Sid! SID PINCUS! Good God, man! You''ve changed!'' A lightbulb goes off in the man''s head. ''You died, Sidney! And now you live again!'' Whisked away by his mother, young Deitch is left to wonder: Was it all just the mad ravings of a drunk or a tantalizing glimpse into reincarnation? Thus begins Deitch''s quest to piece together the cosmic jigsaw puzzle of creation and reveal his past lives. This sprawling odyssey weaves through time and space, encompassing a dizzying array of oddball characters, including aspiring screenwriter Sidney Pincus, a tribe of moon-dwelling Native Americans, a feline YouTube star, a has-been silver screen cowboy, Frank Sinatra, and the awesome Monkey God! Featuring Deitch''s surreal scenarios and eye-popping psychedelia, Reincarnation Stories is a gripping yarn and a cartooning tour de force.

From the moment Marvel brought him to the U.S. in 1969, Windsor-Smith was a creative force to be reckoned with. A passionate devotee of Jack Kirby, Windsor-Smith''s earliest drawing at Marvel reflected that influence, but he quickly developed his own unique, eye-opening style, combining intricately detailed realism with the dreamlike lushness of art nouveau and late-1960s psychedelia. This volume focuses on the earliest of his work, including memorable storylines on The Avengers, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and individual stories for Chamber of Darkness, Tower of Shadows, and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. All new benchmarks of comics art, culminating in what may be the highlight of this period: Windsor-Smith''s collaboration with writer Gerry Conway on an epic tale of civil war in Ka-Zar''s Savage Land. Future volumes will trace Windsor-Smith''s career through such milestones as Machine Man and Weapon X.

In 1950s Brazil, somewhere by the beach, not far from Rio, Helcio, a young and promising soccer player, and his friend Noel, spot someone fishing with dynamite. They decide to take a boat and steal some of the dead fish to make some money. The boat trip turns into a perilous journey as the two thieves embark on an adventure that will challenge their friendship. Inspired by the life of Marcello Quintanilha''s father, Helcio Quintanilha, this graphic novel is both a suspenseful thriller and a breathtaking story about friendship. In The Lights of Niteroi, internationally acclaimed graphic novelist Marcello Quintanilha returns to the city where he was born and raised. He dives into the waters of Guanabara Bay and crafts a plot based on real events that took place in the 1950s. It''s an adventure full of suspense, involving fishermen, soccer, the Brazilian feminist and striptease artist Luz del Fuego, and the first naturist camp in Brazil.

Jaime Hernandez is one of the most humane, graceful, and imaginatively inexhaustible artists in American popular culture. Locas tells the story of Maggie Chascarrillo, a bisexual, Mexican-American woman attempting to define herself in a community rife with class, race, and gender issues. Maggie''s story begins in the early-1980s Southern California rock scene, when it was shifting from the excesses of the 1970s to the gritty basics of punk and new wave. Hardcore punk rock came to the fore, and the teenage Maggie finds herself drawn to the anarchy, energy, and diversity of the scene, which in Jaime''s hands becomes a very real, habitable place populated with authentic human beings rather than stereotypes. She quickly befriends Hopey Glass, a feisty anti-authoritarian punkette who quickly becomes Maggie''s on-again, off-again lover and a constant presence in her life as they navigate a devastatingly naturalistic world. This new deluxe hardcover edition includes three stories that were not included in the previous edition.

Once there was a republic of boundless wonder and achievement whose bright horizon had gone dark, soiled by a populace it imagined as undisciplined, unhealthy, feebleminded, and whose very existence stained and subverted a great society. A solution appeared in the furious logic of Biological Dominion that named the ineffectual and weak, the criminally deformed and unwell, as the root cause of this decline. Now, imagine laws conceived in the high halls of government to rid this society of millions deemed infected by a curious disease supposedly responsible for that poverty of health and morality. Next, imagine those millions considered to be unfit and unworthy for daily life loaded onto freight trains and ushered away to perish in distant woods and fields. Imagine more thousands chased into the vast underground of labyrinthine caves and dark catacombs beneath vibrant city streets and lovely city parks to wither away and die. Undercity collects the voices of brave survivors, of those who''ve refused to submit to the indignities of eugenical persecution, the horror of gas chambers, and relentless warfare in rural provinces. Some of these stories demonstrate the moral disaster of eugenics, while others tell of courage and love and that indomitable magic of the human spirit that refuses to be silenced in the face of unspeakable crimes. Perhaps Undercity is a warning to us, as well, that what we might think is unimaginable needs only apathy and inattention to arise.

In the mid-19th century, millions of Africans were enslaved and brought to Brazil. Among them was Tiodora, who worked in the home of a priest in Sao Paulo. She wished to reconstruct the family ties lost during the journey from Africa to Brazil and to achieve emancipation for herself and her family. To buy her freedom, she needed the help of her husband and her son, who were working in the coffee plantations in another area of the city. She asks Claro, another slave, to help her write and send letters. Inspired by this secret correspondence, Tiodora''s Letters is a rigorously researched historical work, a compelling narrative based on her letters, and masterfully drawn by D''Salete, who graphically recreates her struggle. There are many wordless passages of danger, daring, and world-building, heartbreaking horror, character beats, breathtaking drawings of nature, and much more. In Tiodora''s Letters, D''Salete reconstructs a forgotten part of Brazil''s dark history of slavery and pays tribute to the strength of a woman who single-handedly tried to fight for her rights. Includes educational and contextual material.

Young Giuseppe Bergman, thirsting for escape from the banal, soul-crushing boredom of his everyday life, answers a mysterious ad offering the adventure of a lifetime. But before he even gets a chance to understand what that means, he''s swept up in a headlong rush of outrageously convoluted danger and fast-paced action - for which he is absolutely unprepared - all at the behest of the enigmatic ''H.P.'' and an unseen television audience. Artist/writer/creator Milo Manara skewers adventure comics, ''reality'' TV, and narrative convention itself in this absurdist, sophisticated satire that launches the innocent Giuseppe into the first of many adventures to come. The Magnificent Adventure, complete in one volume.

Peter Bagge is not only one of the primary architects of the alternative comics scene that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s (alongside peers including Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, and Daniel Clowes), but also someone who helped fashion the aesthetics and attitudes of an entire youth movement. His comic book series, Hate, chronicled the exploits of twentysomething Buddy Bradley and his gang of lovable losers through the rise and fall of the grunge era (and eventually beyond). Bagge''s style became a part of the Gen X zeitgeist and Hate became the best-selling alternative comic of its era, with Bagge''s illustrations gracing countless album and magazine covers as well. The Complete Hate Volume 2 collects Hate issues 16 thru 30 (1994-1998), which comprise the second major arc of the series - the full-colour ''Jersey suburbs'' era! With his rock-impresario career in tatters, his friends dispersed, and his career opportunities at zero, Buddy returns with his tail between his legs (and his neurotic girlfriend Lisa by his side) to his native New Jersey to be closer to family (his sister now a harassed mom, his brother still pretty much a psycho, and his parent? ell, wait and see). Also included in this volume is the shocking final fate of the exuberant Stinky -- a story that caused jaws to drop in unison all around the world when it was originally released -- and the riotous tale of Lisa''s brief conversion to lesbianism and subsequent breakup with Buddy. Part screwball comedy, part soap opera, part loose autobiography, Hate is an enduring chronicle of the 1990s as well as riotously relatable to anyone bumbling through their twenties.

The broken and discarded creatures of the city have had enough of the caste system that keeps them servile, and they rise up to strike... Doro the little thief must confront their past and make impossible decisions about their future... And Hyaku? Hyaku''s quest to retrieve the stolen pieces of her body is nearly at an end, and her path of righteous and bloody vengeance leads directly to the great betrayer, her father. Robots, humans, creatures, monsters: no one will survive unscathed. Final conflicts rage in this spectacular conclusion to Atsushi Kaneko''s epic cyberpunk masterpiece! Featuring stunning and visceral artwork and a story that is startlingly relevant to today''s audiences, deeply intertwined with the work of Osamu Tezuka''s classic samurai manga masterpiece, Dororo.

Our acclaimed EC Comics Artists Library collects the best comics of the 1950s from the greatest mass market comic book publisher in history. Featured in this latest set are: ''The Woman Who Loved Life And Other Stories'', illustrated by Johnny Craig; ''Atom Bomb And Other Stories'', illustrated by Wallace Wood; ''Man and Superman And Other Stories'', illustrated by Harvey Kurtzman; ''Terror Train And Other Stories'', illustrated by Al Feldstein. Collectively, that''s more than 120 stories and more than 1,000 pages, plus rarities, bonus features, and insightful commentary from EC scholars. A superb gift for the person in your life who''s into great comic art, illustration, or gripping storytelling.

Premonitions of the future inform and confound Prince Valiant and his son Nathan. An earthquake rocks the Misty Isles. Val encounters danger among the Mayans in Guatemala. A druid civil war breaks out in Hibernia. Val arrives in Utopia and discovers a dark secret. Universally acclaimed as the most stunningly gorgeous adventure comic strip of all time, Prince Valiant ran for 35 years under the virtuoso pen of its creator, Hal Foster. Starring a daring and gallant young hero, the series features epic sword fights, elaborate scenes of pomp and pageantry, and breathless plotting that always leaves the reader wanting more. Fantagraphics'' deluxe editions, each collecting two years'' worth of Sunday strips, boast superbly restored artwork that captures every delicate line and chromatic nuance of Foster''s art.

Our series of special slipcased gift sets of the most visually opulent comic strip in the medium''s history, based on the King Arthur mythos, continues with Vols. 19-21 (1973-1978). In Vol. 19, Prince Valiant is sent to defend the borders against invading barbarians, but it is young Arn who takes center stage as he travels to his homeland and loses his heart to Lydia, daughter of Haakon. In Vol. 20, Aleta defeats a wizard, then Aleta''s younger sister Helene is gambled away by her husband to a Corsair mercenary, drawing Val and his Singing Sword into a deadly duel. In Vol. 21, it''s election time for the King of Minstrels. Arn and Court Jester Sir Dinadan travel to France to set things right, while Val accompanies the headstrong Gunther of Germany on his quest to recover stolen holy relics and claim a wife in Jerusalem. The mercenary army of a Persian warlord sweeps across the Middle East, forcing Queen Aleta to seek refuge in a hidden utopian city ruled by women. Val competes in tournaments in Marseille and Camelot and reunites with Sir Lancelot, but a tragic death impacts a member of Val''s family. Also in this set: Hal Foster''s complete comic-strip adaptation of Franz Werfel''s ''The Song of Bernadette'' and beautiful color illustrations for the 1930-31 Lucky Bag Naval yearbooks. And: The historical reality behind Prince Valiant''s world!

In The Cloven: Book Three, our hero, Tuck, the most successful Cloven ever created, is discovered frozen solid in a mountain river. Reanimated by the medicinal mushrooms of The Healer, a legendary member of the Feral Herd of Cloven, Tuck easily integrates with his half-brothers and sisters with the help of Willie, a human ''stray'' who lives with the Herd. Tuck finds himself on the verge of taking over the Herd and leading them out of the shadows of the mountain mines and into daylight, until he sees a People magazine cover in a mini mart with a photo of a very pregnant Stella Goff, and a headline: ''But Who''s the Daddy?'' Tuck knows all too well who''s the daddy, and he now must leave his Feral friends to track down the daughter of the richest man in the world... Moody and mysterious and atmospheric as a fever dream, The Cloven is a raucous, funny, and dynamic sci-fi graphic novel series about James ''Tuck'' Tucker, a genetically modified human organism known as a Cloven, written by Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain) and drawn by Matthew Southworth (co-creator of the graphic novel series Stumptown), two of today''s bestselling and critically acclaimed storytellers.

The first story collection in Gilbert Hernandez''s Palomar saga to take place after the events of 2010''s High Soft Lisp is torn from the pages of Love and Rockets: New Stories, Love and Rockets Vol. IV, and Psychodrama Illustrated - and expanded with 14 new pages! In Lovers and Haters, 50-year-old cult movie actress Fritz, in addition to her alcoholism and the ups and downs of her career, must also contend with a controlling lover, Danny; a jealous rival, Mila; a score of younger Fritz imitators, a sex cult; and mad scientists. Also in her orbit is her niece, Killer (sometimes literally, as seen in a Doctor Who-inspired TV show), a teen actress trying to launch a singing career while solving math problems. The spectre of Fritz''s mother, Maria - also a cult movie actress - haunts them all with her beauty from beyond the grave. With a sprawling cast, Lovers and Haters is about mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces, complex and often toxic relationships, artists and exploiters, personas and obsessions. It reads like an X-rated The Substance mixed with Mommy Dearest and Performance, with an added dash of giallo.