Fantagraphics

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Told through powerful allegory, Shadows of the Sea is a story about grief and the winding path to healing, with help from friends, loved ones, and a little magic. On the lonely road meet two outcasts - Doris, a small but spitfire woman and Stanwick, a shy and sensitive dog. Each of this unlikely pair harbours grief, and must decide whether to stay with the pain or run from it. On their journey, the two travel through lush forests, to the eerily abandoned town of echoes, clear to the ''mudder'' sea, where they finally confront the unbearable trauma of their pasts. Cartoonist Cathy Malkasian''s graphic novels are known to be crafted with layered, affecting allegory and metaphor, and Shadows of the Sea is no exception. In this story, shadows become characters themselves, weighed down with painful truth. They cannot be released until their owners acknowledge, reflect, and heal. Charged by the magic of the ''mudder'' sea, the shadows reveal the loss Doris and Stanwick have been carrying - a husband and a child - and sets them free at last.

Fletcher Hanks was arguably the first great comic book auteur: He wrote, pencilled, inked, and lettered all of his own stories - an unprecedented solo act in the 1940s comic book industry. Between 1939 and 1941 he created nearly 50 comics stories, all unified by a uniquely artistic vision - primitive, bizarre, and singularly idiosyncratic. Whether it''s the superhero Stardust doling out ice cold slabs of poetic justice, or the jungle protectress Fantomah tearing evildoers from limb to ragged limb, contemporary readers will be stunned by the pop surrealism and unfiltered violent mayhem of Hanks'' work. This new paperback edition brings back into print all of Hanks'' previously published material and is the most complete collection of his work.

Tommi Parrish is an Australian trans cartoonist and one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary comics and graphic novels. Balancing emotional honesty with a keen awareness of the human condition, Parrish navigates fear, loneliness, identity, body politics, queer desire, masculinity, fear, and the ever-fluid nature of all human relationships. The Past Is A Grotesque Animal collects over two dozen short stories of varying lengths, interspersed with ephemera from Parrish''s own life: diary entries, photographs, illustrations, paintings, and more. Parrish''s autobiographical elements inform their voice as a writer, and the ways their characters constantly find one another adrift in their own seas of experience, current situations, trauma, and desire - and how those things coexist, and how they are complicated by outside forces and internal ones that affect our hardwired need for meaningful connection. The book also showcases Parrish''s singular and assured visual style, blending clear lines, expressionistic character designs and gorgeously complex, hand-painted colour. ''I think of my work as trying to work out how to cultivate a type of intimacy that doesn''t have a roadmap, and everyone is just feeling around in the dark trying to work out how to do it,'' Parrish says. ''I think that''s what I am always trying to get at - how to cultivate that closeness when you''re also really fucking traumatised and lonely. I know a lot of people where that''s their story. There have definitely been moments where that''s my story as well.''

Dogtangle opens with a town hall meeting in a Taco Bell nestled in the bland corporate environment of Business Park. A man, bleating to anyone who will listen about the evils of current zoning laws, meets a woman who works in pharmaceutical marketing. They begin a relationship. They get married. From their union springs the idea of the Hypermutt: a many-headed mass of dogs that absorbs each new dog it encounters. This debut graphic novel from Chicago cartoonist Max Huffman, about an awful power couple who defy God and nature in creating a hound of hell for our times, is at turns a rich satirical fable, a white-collar black comedy, and a stylistic tour de force blending elements of abstraction, cubism, mid-century modernism, and visual sight gags. One of the most visually distinctive and funny graphic novels in recent memory, Dogtangle is also underpinned with a deep mistrust of corporate and cultural hegemony, cementing its relevance in our increasingly oligarchal times.

45 years after his first political cartoons focused on capitalism''s impact, Peter Kuper takes stock of the state of the world... and isn''t optimistic about what he sees. Across 100 pages of vivid, colourful, silent four-panel comics, Kuper traces as many aspects of how business and politics have accelerated the climate crisis, and looks at how, if things keep going in the direction they are, how our oligarchic lives will be further transformed. Witty and angry in equal measure, Kuper deploys bold figures, clever metaphors, despairing howls, and some of the best drawings of his career to get his message across. Originally serialised in the legendary French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, each page is a single blackly funny gag strip, but themes flow, recur and build across sequences to create a true hybrid of political cartoon and graphic novel. Since co-founding World War III Illustrated in 1979, Kuper has maintained his deeply humanist/anti-capitalist perspective, while developing and broadening his graphic and story-telling skills across a range of topics and styles. In this book, he brings all of that experience, study and passion together into a single powerful work that stands as a culmination of his career. See the future now, and laugh hollowly while you still can.

''The night does not belong to us. She harbours her own mysteries.'' Nocturnos delves into the ethereal world of the night, when the mundane vibes of the day cede to a mysterious atmosphere in which anything seems possible. In the twilight hours, the darkness feels vast and untameable, the dead can intrude upon the land of the living, and the distance between imagination and reality seems closer than ever. Haunting narration connects a series of vignettes that capture glimpses of people''s lives as they navigate the nighttime. A traumatic collision while driving down a dimly lit road; a bedtime story that blurs the bounds of the imaginary, a walk through the woods that leads to strange symbols; this nighttime tour encompasses lush forests, dreamscapes, and the shadowy corners of private rooms. Along the way, these stories question the truths veiled in dreams, the nature of fear and loneliness, and the unknowable aura of the nocturnal world. In Nocturnos, her most masterful work to date, Spanish comics artist Laura Perez explores the magic and melancholy we encounter when dusk descends.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1768. It is a dark and foreboding night when the boat arrives from Europe, bringing three shadowy figures to shore. Before long, the Maria sisters will take the New World by storm. In the coming years, they wend their way from town to town, assisting women in need and wreaking vengeance against the men who''ve wronged them. At once fiercely righteous and gleefully malevolent, the sisterhood of witches exert their powers across centuries, from the 1700s to the present, leaving a wreckage of shattered and impotent men in their wake. Told as a fractured narrative, through the eyes of the people whose lives the sisters have cast asunder, Witchcraft is a mesmerising mystery to piece together. This masterpiece of a graphic novel combines strange magic, absurdist humour, and a fiery undercurrent of female rage, to tell a heady tale of colonialism, feminism, and indigenous folklore. Hand drawn in a playful, kinetic cartoon style, with a vibrant colour palette, this experimental, eerie, and hilarious work assures Sole Otero as one of the most dynamic comics artists in South America - and everywhere.

The cartoonist known as Jason returns with a collection of three short graphic stories, connected by an absurdist thread, showcasing his idiosyncratic cultural obsessions, clear line style, and deadpan humour. The title story, ''Death in Trieste,'' sets the scene in 1920s Berlin, a bustling cultural hotspot in the shadow of the coming Nazism. Here, a host of unlikely characters - time-travelling David Bowie, Rasputin, Nosferatu, Marlene Dietrich, and more - are all connected by a group of Dadaists who perform the art of rationality through madness. In ''The Magritte Affair,'' a wisecracking pair of detectives must crack a case involving art forgeries, masked men, and mysterious disappearances - all linked to the surrealist world of the famous Belgian painter. Finally, in ''Sweet Dreams,'' Jason reimagines the New Romantics of the 1980s as X-Men-esque superheroes. While this supergroup easily dispatches such supernatural threats as living mummies, animated suits of armour, and rampaging golems, they soon face their biggest challenge yet, as a giant meteorite hurtles toward the Earth.

Mistreated for being mixed-race and forced into hard labour at a workhouse in West Hoboken, New Jersey, young Max and Molly are ordinary orphans - or so they think. That is, until a wise old man hears their last name: M''Chawi. Rattled by this realization, he sends them off on a journey that will uncover the secret behind their mystic lineage and give them purpose and power far from home - on the Moon! There, they encounter the Moon''s fantastic inhabitants: the Sky Pirates and their merciless Queen Melissa; the Groos, blue primates and genius mechanics - literal grease monkeys - and their robot protector, Moma Machina; and a kingdom of singing spiders giant enough to eat a man. Looks can be deceiving, and those who first appear frightening can turn out to be allies, and even friends. Take Prince Grakko, pampered heir-apparent to the Bat-People. The Moon is a land locked in constant battle. Races live in fear and ignorance of one another. To make matters worse, the siblings'' getaway isn''t as clean as they''d hoped, and the Earth Queen''s Grand Inquisitor is hot on their trail. Armed with a bejewelled dagger, pendant, and pure hearts, Max and Molly must unite the denizens of the Moon under a common cause, before humanity''s folly reduces their world to rubble. Equal parts Jules Verne and Bone, The Moon Prince is a star-spanning, page-turning epic for the ages.