Comic Con is widely known as one of the largest comic conventions in the country and has grown to encompass a lot more than just comics. Beginning in 1970 with only 145 attendees the convention grew to 140,000 attendees in 2009. While most non-enthusiasts know about Comic Con very few know about its baby brother, NDK.

NDK, or Nan Desu Kan, began in 1997 with roughly 200 attendees. This convention, whose name translates to "What is it?" has become the largest animation/comic event in the Rocky Mountain region and has been garnering increased press each year. NDK, hosted in Denver, Colorado, features many fun activities including:

Video Rooms: NDK features two-rooms running various anime films, as well as special events mixed in throughout the three day event.

Video Game Room: NDK features 6 individual tracks of non-stop gaming featuring systems such as the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii. Many tournaments take place during NDK, including cult favorites such as Street Fighter 4, Gears of War 2, and Smash Brothers Brawl. And of course there is a Battle of the Rockbands for fans of the game and Dance Dance Revolution tournament for those with terrific coordination (read: this is definitely NOT me).

Cosplay and Dances: No comic convention would be complete without eclectic costumes modeled after anime's biggest (and not so famous) icons. NDK also features dances where people can unwind and dance to some of Japan's best pop music.

While this year's NDK was held this past weekend and is over just remember that there will be another show next year. Given NDK's success there is no doubt that next year's show will top this year's show and will feature more of everything.

(Digression: I think I have bought every issue of both series with the exception of the most recent Or Else, which Diamond was not capable of delivering to my retailer despite soliciting for it in the pages of Previews, making Previews even more useless than it obviously already is. I love paying five bucks for a catalog that does not deliver the items I order. That makes perfect sense to me, thank you.)

No less a commentator than Sean T. Collins has used the cancellation of Crickets to predict the end of the alternative comic book, and while I love Sean and swap graphic novels with him occasionally, I don't think he's right about this. In fact, I think, quite the opposite. This is the end of Diamond, not the end of alternative comic books.

It's instructive to note that Or Else and Crickets were so different. Harkham's title delivered fairly standard and easy-to-grasp comics (artcomix, yes, but pretty standard in terms of format) while Huizenga reserved his most oddball efforts for Or Else. We now know that Diamond has no use for either, and can presume that the distributor -- which has always tolerated non-superhero comics, nothing more -- now really has no desire to bother with anything other than superheroes, now that The Long Emergency has settled in.

Unlike Sean T., though, I don't think this spells the end of alternative comics. Certainly it is the end of alternative comic books being published and racked in superhero convenience stores as if they are the same thing, ready to compete against the latest, badly-written Brian Bendis mess or overwrought midbrow Brian K. Vaughan effort. It is the end of Diamond boxes packed with Mark Millar, J. Michael Straczynski and Kevin Huizenga as if they all represent the same thing. Nope, alternative comics will survive, and perhaps even thrive better without the Granny Goodness-like loving care of Diamond Distributors.

Kevin, it's time you and your compadres refocused and relaunched The USS Catastrophe Shop. I'd link to it, but it's far from what it used to be (the premier place to find minis and alternatives you would never, ever see ship through Diamond) and there is a claim that they are re-doing the site. Good. It's needed now more than ever. Sammy, maybe now you understand why I questioned the wisdom of a $125.00 comic book when the economy was clearly headed places that could not tolerate such a thing. I'm happy for those few who could afford Kramers Ergot #7, but the economy has reached nowhere near bottom yet and I hope you have plenty of other kindling around when the heat gets shut off and you start looking around for things to burn.

There have been alternative comic books almost as long as there have been comics. Tijuana bibles, alternatives and undergrounds have always found a way into the hands of the people that wanted them the most, and I think as long as there are people, there will be some form of alternative comics. Superhero junk may thrive in a bad economy because desperate people need facile fantasy material more than ever, but creating alternative comics just takes a cartoonist, a piece of paper and something to draw with. This crazy notion of elegant, timeless comics like Or Else actually having a place in the Direct Market of disposable garbage was the artificial creation of society with too much money paying too little attention to the cliff we were all about to barrel over.

Well, the cliff is in the rear-view mirror, now. Most don't realize it yet, as they hang extended, Wile E. Coyote-like, about to begin the long descent into the true reality of The Long Emergency, but the American Century is over and the economy as we knew it for most of the life of the Direct Market is over. Cartoonists like Kevin Huizenga and Sammy Harkham and Dan Clowes and Chris Ware and many more may find themselves self-publishing what they can, when they can. The end result may be fewer alternative comics, and certainly none delivered en masse by the UPS man once a week, but the ones that do survive will be like sweet water in the desert for those of us that still care, saddened by this momentous market correction (for truly that is all this is), but secure in the knowledge that some people make comics because they have to, and I'd rather have those than the corporate superhero junk that Diamond is killing itself on. I won't miss Diamond at all, and I'll always support alternative comic books. But if those are the kind you make, or love to read, then right now would be a very good time to start figuring out how to get around in the new world we're about to inhabit. Look at how it was done before there ever was a Diamond Distribution, because that's where the answers lie.

Bechdel is perhaps better known these days for her rightly-celebrated graphic novel Fun Home, which after all garnered "Book of the Year" honors from Time Magazine, without so much as being afflicted with a "Graphic Novel Category" distinction. And make no mistake, Fun Home was just that good.

And The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For might not be even better. Dykes has an advantage bestowed by time: Bechdel has been working on the strip for over twenty years, and she knows her characters, all of them, inside and out.

There are hundreds of strips reproduced in this absolutely essential collection, and while Bechdel picks and chooses (not every strip is reprinted, although most seem to be), each page, representing one strip, has its own purpose, pacing and impact. Cumulatively, the end result is a knock-out blast of amazingly well-told stories and well-constructed characters. Collected all under one cover, it's a vastly rewarding tapestry that reveals itself over time, as in the minor flirtations that surface from time to time, only to blow up into life-altering passions. Just like in real life, see?

I took great delight in how Bechdel organically imbues the strip and its characters with a political consciousness. Whether examining the equal marriage rights some of her characters struggle for, or skewering the hypocritical relationship between NPR and some of its largest corporate underwriters, Bechdel convincingly and smoothly imparts a sense that both she and her characters live not only on the world, but in it.

Their political awareness, and their frustration at the slowness of changes over time, jibes precisely with the world as I have experienced it over the past two decades. Not all the characters are progressives, though. Some want merely to live their lives in peace and relative anonymity, and one, Cynthia, wants to forward a conservative agenda even as she begins to live her life as a young *** adult. Bechdel plays fair with virtually every point of view in the book, and it's all the more readable for that virtue. Some of the characters may hit people over the head with their beliefs, but Bechdel is far more subtle.

The twenty-year arc of the collection also allows for the full breadth of human experience. While some of the women herein remain hardcore in their devotion to their sexual orientation, others find fulfillment in a wide range of partners and experiences. It's almost impossible to imagine a reader -- any reader -- not finding people they know within the pages of The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, and recognizing the all-too-human weaknesses, zealotry and flaws that we all contain within us. Dykes is a vastly entertaining work, but it's also a humanizing and reassuring one. Whatever your orientation, whatever your beliefs, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For presents you with real people and challenges you to find them anything less than human. God help you if you can't find joy, love and compassion within these pages. And God help us all.

Buy The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For from amazon.com.

"I've tried to pare down my collection to just the essentials," says Seymour, an obsessive record collector clearly failing at his goals, in Terry Zwigoff and Dan Clowes's film adaptation of Clowes's graphic novel Ghost World. One look at the shelves of records, creaking under the weight of thousands of discs, and Enid, and we, know that the struggle to maintain those essentials is a futile one.

Putting aside over a dozen shortboxes of comic books, I've got four bookcases crammed full of close to 900 graphic novels now. When I was 14, I wanted to read just about every comic book published. Staring down 43, I try now to only buy comics and graphic novels that I know I will want to re-read in the future. I do this by focusing on creators I know and trust, such as Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell, Clowes, Chris Ware and the others in my personal pantheon, but of course there are always new creators being discovered, usually after they are well-reviewed by critics I trust, like Jog, Tom Spurgeon, Rob Vollmar and others.

I hate those shortboxes occupying the northwest corner of my bedroom, although I love most of the comics within them. They are not expanding anywhere nearly as quickly as the bookcases full of graphic novels, because in the past year I have whittled my superhero comics pull list down to virtually zero. Here in this fan-fiction age of corporate superhero comics by the likes of Bendis, Meltzer, Johns and the rest, everything is a huge, meaningless event typed with fists of ham and dreams of avarice. Today's best-selling Direct Market creators  have pretty much devastated the North American superhero comics landscape, so the money that I would have been spending on superhero comics a decade ago now goes to buying deluxe reprint collections of good DC and Marvel comics, like the new Alan Moore Swamp Thing HCs and Marvel Omnibus editions of great comics like Ditko's Spider-Man.

The shelves are arranged with a method of sorts, although anywhere from five to 15 additions a month of all shapes and dimensions mean compromises often must be made. Most of my Jack Kirby titles are on one shelf, but the Fantastic Four Omnibus is simply too heavy to go on that shelf, so it's on one of the bottom shelves with the other Omnibus editions in my library. Alan Moore is the only creator taking up more than one full shelf; his normal-sized collections and graphic novels fill up one shelf, and larger works like Lost Girls and Absolute Watchmen and Absolute League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Volumes One and Two, of course) take up maybe a third of the bottom shelf of that same bookcase. All Ed Brubaker books are shelved with each other, as are those by Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis, but it's driving me nuts that I have three oversized EC Comics-related hardcovers that I have not yet figured out how to join together in one logical spot.

One of my favorite shelves holds mostly anthologies, from Kramers Ergot and The Best American Comics (2006, 2007 and 2008 waiting patiently for the 2009 edition) to Ivan Brunetti's two brilliant anthologies of comics stories. The shelf under that one holds a number of coffee table art books like Masters of American Comics, The Smithsonian Book of Newspaper Comics, and Seth's sublime Vernacular Drawings. You could no doubt build an actual table using just the hard covers of the coffee table art books on my shelves. I love them, cherish them, am obsessed with them.

[Note: As I was preparing this piece, Douglas Wolk over at Savage Critics posted a pretty comprehensive list of comics and graphic novels coming out in 2009, click on over and have a look. Thanks to David Wynne for pointing that list out to me. At the end of this list, I am highlighting just the stuff off that list that I intend to buy.]

I always look forward to any new work at all from Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, R. Crumb, Renee French, James Kochalka, Diana Tamblyn, Jason Marcy, Alan Moore, and Los Bros Hernandez, to name a few. I'm definitely hoping the Fantagraphics history book comes out this year, although "delayed indefinitely" gives me enough despair to leave it off my official list of five most anticipated books, below.

Speaking of lists, I asked some notable writers and other comics-involved folks to share their lists of whatever five comics or graphic novels they were most looking forward to in 2009. Not everybody came up with five, but I appreciate everyone taking the time to respond with their thoughts. While you're reading along, take note of the titles that stand out in your mind, and make sure you let your retailer know you want a copy of anything that catches your eye here. Recent reports suggest Diamond may be making it harder to find some stuff within the Direct Market, so it's in your best interest more than ever in 2009 to stay in top of what's good in comics, and to find whatever good sources you can to keep you supplied with the very tantalizing array of titles slated for release this year. All I can say is, if you find a good comic book store that genuinely works hard to service your needs, support the hell out of them in whatever way you can to help them make it through the current economic environment.

Here's my list of five comics and graphic novels I am most looking forward to this year:

1. A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi [Drawn and Quarterly] -- Tatsumi's series of deluxe hardcovers (reprinting his highly personal and political fiction) have been some of the best comics of the past few years. A Drifting Life is his epic stab at autobiography, and is pretty much the graphic novel at or near the top of most artcomix readers' want lists in 2009.

2. The Art of Harvey Kurtzman [Abrams ComicArts] -- If it seems like there's a resurgence in appreciation for EC Comics in general and Kurtzman in particular these past couple of years, let me tell you that it almost always seems that way. As long as I've been reading comics (hint: Nixon was still President when I started), readers have studied and loved Kurtzman's unique approach to cartooning and creating comics, and this book promises to be one of the most sought-after comics related art books of the year.

3. You'll Never Know Book One: A Good and Decent Man by C. Tyler [Fantagraphics] -- Tyler's Late Bloomer (also published by Fantagraphics) was a stunning collection of autobio comics, and marked Tyler as someone on my permanent "must read" list. I can't wait to see what she has in store in this new release.

4. George Sprott by Seth [Drawn and Quarterly] -- It seems like a long time since we've had a new Seth volume to immerse ourselves in; this one collects strips that were available online, but I think his style quite obviously lends itself most ideally to print, and this should be one of the great artcomix delights of the year.

5. Alec: The Years Have Pants by Eddie Campbell [Top Shelf Productions] -- Okay, if you aren't salivating already at the very thought of all of Campbell's Alec stories in one mammoth volume, I don't know how I can help you. These are the gold standard of autobiographical artcomix, and come hell or high water, I will find away to afford this in the pricier hardcover format. It'll be well worth the expense, as this is one I'll be re-reading again and again and passing on to my kids someday as an example of just how high the comics artform could aspire with the proper amounts of will, determination and talent.

...and here's what others had to say.

Dick Hyacinth (Blogger)

1. The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: I feel that I need this much, much more than the Ditko or the Kirby books, and I really like Ditko and Kirby.

2. Babel #3: I'm just guessing it's coming out this year; hopefully I'm right. I think the first two issues of this are David B's best work, so I can't overstate my anticipation for this.

3. A Drifting Life: I'm guessing this will be the most-cited book.

4. The first volume of the new complete Pogo series: This really isn't coming out until November?

5. Little Nothings Vol. 2: Should be out shortly. Hopefully Trondheim will keep doing these strips for a long time to come.

Diana Tamblyn (Cartoonist)

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Oni Press (due February).

O'Malley has turned the Scott Pilgrim book releases into an event. I think a lot of people anticipate these like you do a major movie release. I'm sure this will be THE book at the Feb NYC Comicon.

I am always shocked at how retailers really under-order the book though on release week (except for the Beguiling of course). They always seem to be surprised when they sell out of the 3 or 5 copies they ordered in the same day! Then shocked again when their re-order of 3 copies sells out. I really hope that they are more on the ball the fifth time around. I know I'll be picking up my copy on the day of the release.

George Sprott by Seth, published by Drawn & Quarterly (due May).

Okay, I admit I actually didn't read this when it came out in serial form in the New York Times. This is an expanded and re-mastered version though, so will be even better than that version I'm sure.

Plus you can't beat having it in book form. I'm really looking forward to it. I loved, loved, loved Wimbledon Green and this story seems to be in the same vein.

Cecil and Jordan in New York, by Gabrielle Bell, published by Drawn & Quarterly (due March).

I think this was originally solicited for November of last year and I was bummed when it didn't come out. I love Gabrielle Bell and I think she's just getting better and better. This collection of stories features full-colour work by her that looks really lovely. The one short story has been adapted by director Michel Gondry.

Nancy Volume One, by John Stanley, published by Drawn & Quarterly (due June). Continuing in the new tradition of all the reprints coming out (Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, Peanuts), this book reprints some of the classic Nancy strips with an eye-catching cover design by Seth.

My mom's favourite comic when she was little was Little Lulu by Stanley, and I still have a few of those old comics. They are great!

Ten Against the World, by Scott Morse, published by Red Window (due Summer 09?).

Morse just wrote about this project on his blog. It's to be a 160 pg Kirby/Toth inspired monster comic set in the 1950's. He is doing the whole thing with his cintiq in two-colour. Not sure when it will be out. Maybe for SDCC? He also might release instalments online. It will be printed by his own Red Window press (which often gets distributed by AdHouse Books).

Stop right there, you had me at Kirby/Toth. I think I'm welling up here... What a great sounding project!

And finally, I will add a sixth...

Parker, by Darwyn Cooke, published by IDW (due Summer '09?).

This project was announced last year but I'm not sure when the first volume is supposed to come out. Back then they said Summer '09. Here's hoping!

It's to be four full-length graphic novels that adapt the Parker crime books.I am a big enough nerd that I even bought the promo art cards done for SDCC off of eBay.

They're gorgeous!

This is a project made for Cooke and I can't wait to get it.

Augie De Blieck (Columnist)

Absolute Superman for Tomorrow: I know it wasn't terribly good, but I think it's some of Jim Lee's best artwork. As I recall, he was in Italy while he drew this one, and there's a definite European sensibility rubbing off on his art here. Much more restrained layouts, detailed backgrounds and props. Beautiful work.

Little Nothings: The Prisoner Syndrome - Speaking of European comics...I loved the first volume: charming, humorous, easy on the eyes. I want more!

Absolute Planetary Volume 2: OK, this hasn't been announced yet. It might not be a given for 2009, but I hope it makes it. I've held off reading the last 10 issues or so of the series for the Absolute edition. I'm anxious.

Chickenhare Volume 3: It's fun, it's anthropomorphic, it's action-packed, and Dark Horse didn't pick it up. Wait, nevermind. This one can't count.

The Comic Book Podcast Companion by Eric Houston: I admit it -- I was interviewed for the book. I can't help but anticipate it. Published by TwoMorrows in May.

Saga of the Swamp Thing HC, Book One - I've read and enjoyed the first two trade paperback collections of Moore's heralded run on the title. But then never went any further. Put it all in hardcover format, and I'm sold!

Brian Cronin (Blogger)

The five books I'm most anticipating (I am sure there would be more if I knew for sure everything that is coming out next year) are:

Joshua Cotter's Driven by Lemons - It sounds like a risky endeavor, working directly from his sketchbook, but I am looking forward to anything new by Cotter (from AdHouse Books).

Alan Moore's new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books - It's new Alan Moore and there are supposedly going to be TWO of them in 2009! Kevin O'Neill's covers look great (from Top Shelf).

George Sprott: (1894-1975) - I liked this Seth work while it was appearing in the New York Times Magazine, and I think it will read even better as one solid work (especially as Seth is going to go back and do some changes to make the collected work seem worth reading to those who already read the serialized story) (from Drawn & Quarterly).

Mike Dawson's Ace-Face: The Mod with the Metal Arms - I really loved Mike Dawson's Freddy and Me, and while I wasn't exactly blown away at the Ace-Face short story in Project: Superior, I bet in the long form, Dawson will be a lot more impressive (from AdHouse Books).

Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library #20 - It WILL be out in 2009, right? Well, I always look forward to it, so it has to be on the list (distributed by Drawn & Quarterly).

Steven Grant (Writer/Columnist)

The only graphic novel I'm eagerly awaiting this year is mine, Piecemeal, from Vertigo. I haven't been paying attention, so don't know what others are even scheduled to appear.

Though now that I think of it my webcomic Odysseus The Rebel will likely be collected as a graphic novel this year by Big Head Press, so that's two...

Rob Vollmar (Writer)

The gruesome answer is I can’t think of many graphic novels to which I’m specifically looking forward. I could name fifty cartoonists and/or writers whose work I will gladly pick up if they release some. The only new writers I’ve really enjoyed of late are Jonathan Hickman and Greg Pak, though I’d like to see some non-franchise work from Pak. By and large, I’d say that the comic strip reprint market is getting the largest chunk of my dollars so that will hopefully mean new volumes of Peanuts, Nemo, Little Orphan Annie, Krazy Kat, and a holy host of others too large to own up to. I’m excited to see new work from Nate Powell, Kevin Huizenga, Anders Nilsen, Hans Rickheit, Chris Ware, Jeff Brown, Farel Dalrymple or Marc Bell when and however it comes. There is still a wealth of good material coming over from Europe so you can throw Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Manu Larcenet, Christophe Blain and Guy Delisle on there too. I’m looking forward to Naoki Urasawa’s PLUTO starting up and am still enjoying a few new offbeat manga like Wild Animals from Yen Press, Kingdom of the Winds from Netcomics, Bride of the Water God from Dark Horse and Sand Chronicles from Viz’s SHOJO BEAT line.

Overall, my impression of the North American comics industry is that it is in a rapid retraction both financially and creatively from a peak that hit about 2005 and began actively cooling off in the first quarter of 2007. There are fundamental problems with the economic arrangements by which graphic novels are produced and eventually distributed that I don’t think have been dealt with yet and are hampering the growth of the form.

Eric Reynolds (Publicity God)

YOU’LL NEVER KNOW, BOOK 1:
“A GOOD AND DECENT MAN”
By C. Tyler
$24.99 Hardcover

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Literary • CQ: 18
104 pages, full-color, 12” x 10 ¼”
ISBN 978-1-60699-144-2

THE ACCLAIMED GRAPHIC NOVELIST DELVES DEEPLY INTO HER FATHER’S WWII EXPERIENCES

You’ll Never Know is the first graphic novel from C. Tyler (Late Bloomer) and sure to be one of the most acclaimed books of the year. It tells the story of the 50-something author’s relationship with her World War II veteran father, and how his war experience shaped her childhood and affected her relationships in adulthood. “You’ll Never Know” refers not only to the title of her parents’ courtship song from that era, but also to the many challenges the author encountered in uncovering the difficult and painful truths about her Dad’s service — challenges exacerbated by her own tumultuous family life.

You’ll Never Know is Tyler’s first first full-fledged graphic novel (after two volumes of short stories). Unlike many other graphic memoirs which have opted for simple, stylized drawings and limited color or black and white, You’ll Never Know makes full use of Tyler’s virtuosity as a cartoonist: stunningly rendered in detailed inks and subtle watercolors, it plunges the reader headlong into the diverse locales: her father’s wartime experiences and courtship, her own childhood and adolescence, and contemporary life. The unique landscape format, and the lush variety of design choices and rendering techniques, make perusing You’ll Never Know like reading a family album — but one with a strong, compelling, sharply told story.

You’ll Never Know’s release schedule and format emulate those of Chris Ware’s hugely successful Acme Novelty Library: three beautifully designed, large-format hardcover volumes released annually to complete a trilogy of astonishing breadth, depth, and sensitivity.

C. TYLER, born and raised in Chicago and now a resident of Cincinnati, was one of the first women to emerge from the underground comix movement. Her 2005 collection, Late Bloomer, created after abandoning comics for nearly 20 years, was named to several end-of-year “Best Of” lists.

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LOW MOON
By Jason
$24.99 Hardcover

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Literary • CQ: 28
216 pages, full-color, 5 ½” x 8 ½”
ISBN 978-1-60699-155-8

FIVE GRAPHIC NOVELETTES AND SHORT STORIES, INCLUDING THE NY TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE STRIP

The acclaimed graphic novelist Jason returns with his most eagerly awaited book yet, thanks to the inclusion of the title story, the world’s first (and likely last) chess western. Originally serialized in 2008 to a huge (and hugely delighted) audience in the New York Times Sunday Magazine “Funny Pages” section, “Low Moon” made Jason’s 2008 appearance at the MoCCA Arts Festival in Manhattan the talk of the prestigious show, catapulting the Norwegian star to an even new level of mass appeal.

This 216-page hardcover book features five yarns — all brand new with the exception of the aforementioned “Low Moon,” which is collected into book form for the first time.

The new stories lead off with “Emily Says Hello,” a typically deadpan Jason tale of murder, revenge and sexual domination. Then, the wordless “&” tells two tales at once: one about a skinny guy trying to steal enough money to save his ill mother, and the other about a fat guy murderously trying to woo his true love. The reason we follow these two parallel stories becomes obvious only on the very last page, in Jason’s inimitable genre-mashing style.

“Early Film Noir” can best be described as The Postman Always Rings Twice meets Groundhog Day. But starring cavemen. And finally, “You Are Here” features alien kidnappings, space travel, and the pain and confusion of family ties, culminating in an enigmatic finale that rivals Jason’s greatest twists.

Funny, poignant, and wry, Low Moon shows one of the world’s most acclaimed graphic novelists at the absolute peak of his powers.

JASON hails from Oslo, Norway, but currently resides in the south of France. The Harvey and Eisner Award-winner continues to create new books at a breakneck pace.

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LIKE A DOG
By Zak Sally

$22.99 Hardcover • CQ: 32
COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Literary
164 pages, black-and-white with 24 pp. color, 7” x 9”
ISBN 978-1-60699-165-7

A DELUXE COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES FROM THE ACCLAIMED ARTIST

Zak Sally is the renaissance man best know for his 15-year career as a musician, having anchored the Duluth, Minnesota band Low for over a decade in addition to moonlighting with the Dirty Three, Enemymine, Hot Tears, and Kid Dakota, and making cameos in movies like Shopgirl. He also is an acclaimed cartoonist and operates his own small press, La Mano, in Minneapolis.

Of all of Sally’s creative pursuits, Like a Dog is the one he’s been working a lifetime toward. This hardcover book collects the best of his acclaimed short stories from the past 15 years, created in between band tours and recording sessions for publications like Mome, The Drama, Your Flesh, Dirty Stories, The Recidivist, and more.

Like a Dog spotlights Sally’s uncanny ability to create emotional havoc out of claustrophobic images, situations and dialogue. Stories like “Don’t Move,” “The War Back Home,” and “Two Idiot Brothers” share little in common on the surface but are united by Sally’s forbidding style, creating a sense of dread that permeates almost every page.

Sally also turns his eye towards nonfiction in Like a Dog, including “At the Scaffold,” the story of the imprisonment and trial of Fyodor Dostoyevsky for allegedly subversive behavior, and “The Man Who Killed Wally Wood,” a story about Sally’s brush with a former publisher of the legendary comic artist (who, contrary to the title of this strip, took his own life after a long battle with alcoholism). It also includes “Dread,” a collaboration with NEA Fellowship recipient, Edgar Award finalist, and O. Henry Award winning author Brian Evenson (Altmann’s Tongue).

Like a Dog will also include extensive “liner notes” by the artist, previously unpublished material, and other surprises.

ZAK SALLY lives in Minneapolis, MN, with his wife and son, where he operates his small press, La Mano, publisher of books by Nate Denver, John Porcellino, Jason T. Miles, and others.

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THE RED MONKEY DOUBLE HAPPINESS BOOK
By Joe Daly
$22,99 Hardcover • CQ: 28

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Literary
120 pages, full-color, 7 ¼” x 10”
ISBN 978-1-60699-163-3

A STONER CLASSIC WORTHY OF HAROLD & KUMAR OR CHEECH & CHONG SET IN SOUTH AFRICA

“I live in Cape Town. It’s a beautiful, dirty, dangerous, laid back port town on the tip of Southern Africa where the people drive fast and talk slow,” narrates Dave, aka the Red Monkey, in The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, Joe Daly’s sensational follow up to his debut short story collection Scrublands (a 2006 Ignatz Award Nominee).

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book features two of Dave’s adventures: “The Leaking Cello Case” and “John Wesley Harding.” In the introductory story, Dave, who is equipped with monkey feet that enable him to climb most anything, has a Very Bad Day until — accompanied by his didgeridoo-wielding, freeloading friend Paul and assisted by his babysitting charge Chu Woo — he solves a mystery, getting the girl in the process. “John Wesley Harding” is a tale stuffed to the gills with with action, adventure, conspiracy theories and weed, as Dave and Paul, in their quest to find a missing capybara named after the Bob Dylan album, stumble across an environmental menace with criminal implications.

In this full-color graphic novel, Daly expertly cartoons the Cape Town milieu, the wetlands that surround it, and the ethnically diverse oddballs who occupy it. Dave and Paul, a well-meaning pair of stoners in the tradition of Cheech and Chong or Harold and Kumar, not only get into hilarious trouble in their rambles, but also ask the larger questions, such as “what the hell am I doing with my life?” and “what steps can I personally take to help protect the earth and the other species that inhabit it?” (though most people’s answers to these questions don’t include sword fights and hovercrafts). The South African cartoonist brings a refreshingly original —and utterly hilarious— voice to the comics medium, a dry, deadpan wit anchored in everyday reality combined with an outrageously deranged plot, rendered in a style that somehow successfully merges detailed representational drawing with bigfoot cartooning.

The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, which is sometimes noirish, often funny and always politically incorrect, is well-suited to older teens and adults.

JOE DALY is a cartoonist from South Africa. Born in London, he studied animation for two years at Cape Town’s City Varsity College. His work has been described as “Tintin meets the Freak Brothers in the Cape of Good Dope.”

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GIRAFFES IN MY HAIR: A ROCK ’N’ ROLL LIFE
By Carol Swain and Bruce Paley
$19.99 Hardcover • CQ: 30

COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Literary
120 pages, black-and-white, 6 ¼” x 9 ½”
ISBN 978-1-60699-162-6

A UNIQUE TAKE ON THE SUMMER OF LOVE GENERATION, THROUGH THE EYES OF AN ACCLAIMED GRAPHIC NOVELIST AND HER PARTNER, WHO LIVED IT

Bruce Paley turned 18 in 1967 during the Summer of Love, putting him on the front lines of the late-1960s youth movement. Paley’s tumultuous journey took him from being a Jack Kerouac-loving hippie in the 1960s, on the road with his 17-year-old girlfriend, dropping acid at Disneyland, living in a car, and crashing with armed Black Panthers at the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention, to hanging out at Max’s Kansas City, shooting heroin and cocaine with the likes of rock star Johnny Thunders, and frequenting Times Square’s seedy brothels — a journey that mirrored the changing times as the optimism of the ’60s gave way to the nihilism of the punk years. Over a dozen years, Bruce crossed paths with hippies, violent cops, rednecks, rock stars, and Black Panthers...and ended up a heroin addict for much of the 1970s.

These stories are vividly brought to life in Giraffes in My Hair (A Rock ’N’ Roll Life) by the compelling visual storytelling of Bruce’s partner, the cartoonist Carol Swain.

Swain’s trademark visual approach to comics, typified by exquisitely composed panels that vividly capture both anomie and pathos, is perfectly suited to dramatizing Paley’s life during that confusing, tumultuous period of American history — a life lived in the countercultural margins, amidst personal chaos and social dissolution. Swain’s storytelling rhythms are contemplative and breathes inner life into Paley’s turbulent stories, creating a perceptive prism to view the vast possibilities and endless pitfalls as experienced by a kid growing up in America in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

CAROL SWAIN is the acclaimed British cartoonist and author of the graphic novels Invasion of the Mind Sappers and Foodboy.

Johanna Draper Carlson (Blogger)

The Big Skinny by Carol Lay (Villard), and I'm very much looking forward to Fanta's collection of Sam's Strip (originally due before Christmas).

Grant Goggans (Blogger)

1. The ten-buck Skinny Showcases coming in the summer (The Creeper, Bat Lash, Eclipso)

2. Nikolai Dante: Army of Thieves and Whores

3. Top Shelf's Marshal Law Omnibus

4. Stickleback series three

5. Playboy's Complete Gahan Wilson

David Wynne (Cartoonist)

First of all, I'm including collections in this. I've got back into buying mostly periodicals over the last few years, so I'm just geared more that way right now. The books I'm most looking forward to are often things I'm already reading in serialised form.

Also, I'm not going to do this in any particular order -- just the order I thought of them.

1: Bryan Talbot's Grandville. A steampunk detective thriller with anthropomorphic animal characters? I can't think of anyone other than Talbot who would have my money without question for the premise. Since it's him, I can't wait.

2: Dark Entries by Ian Rankin and a, so far as I can tell, as yet un-named artist. 200 pages, black and white, digest hardcover graphic novel from my favourite living crime writer, as part of the launch of the Vertigo Crime line of books. This ticks more of my boxes than I knew I had.

3: Moving Pictures by Kathryn and Stuart Immonen, due in the spring from Top Shelf. I started following this online when they began serialising it a page at a time at webcomicsnation (like all the cool good looking people do); but a couple of months in I stopped reading it, realising that I wanted to wait till it was done and read the whole thing at once. Since then I've read the occasional page, and I can't help but at least look at each new one, just because they're so pretty. The story has me intrigued as well, apparently something to do with art-smuggling in WWII -- although the writing is enigmatic enough in the early pages that I'm not certain about that.

4: Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp's No Hero. I loved Black Summer, which, in the way it married thrills and spectacle with thought provoking political and scientific questions and then wrapped the whole thing inside a surprisingly fresh take on an old genre, was the nearest thing I'd read to classic 2000AD material in a long time. No Hero seems, so far, to be very much in the same vein -- and I look forward to reading the whole thing in one go, cackling like a disturbed child as I turn the pages.

5: Hellboy: The Wild Hunt by Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo. I love Hellboy, and I found the art transition from Mignola to Fegredo be not only painless, but in fact highly refreshing. Needless to say, this latest volume will be a must buy for me, just like every other book in the series so far.

I have an honourable mention, of sorts -- I agonised a great deal over whether or not to include the next Scalped TPB in this list, since I am looking forward to it very much indeed (it promises to be a doozy, too); in the end I decided not to on the grounds that Scalped is really a long-form work, in the mould of books like Preacher and Transmetropolitan, and as such I won't really regard it as a complete graphic novel until the whole thing's done. The individual trades are just larger periodicals, really.

Dan Fish (Cartoonist)

1. New LOEG

2. Classic Captain Britain team-up with Black Knight (From Hulk Weekly) from Panini

3. Whatever the first comic happens to be that I'll be reading curled up with a milky coffee on my first quiet weekend after unpacking into my new house.

Various V-Hive Folks

Casanova coming back, really. [Kieron Gillen]
LoEG. Nothing else. [Nick Locking]
I am very much looking forward to Fantagraphics actually publishing and shipping the two-volume slip case collection of Humbug
The new Scott Pilgrim is the only comic I'm actively looking forward to. [Andrew Wheeler]
The last issue of Planetary (Only 11 years after the preview was released). [Mark Annabel]
Habibi by Craig Thompson...and the new Scott Pilgrim. Reprints, the DC Showcase Presents: Suicide Squad collection, DC Showcase: Jonah Hex, Vol. 2, and since those two are just wishful thinking, I'll end with a real possibility, Paul Pope's Battling Boy. [Benjamin Russell]
Whatever Garth Ennis will be doing. I'd say LoEG but not if it's going to be another Black Dossier. [Robin Shortt]
Ian Rankin's Hellblazer OGN [Ade Brown] I've had on order forever and a day. [Brian Wells]

Joseph Gaultieri

1. The remainder of Final Crisis
2. Seaguy II: Slaves of Mickey Eye
3. LoEG: Century
4. the remainder of Umbrella Academy II
5. Phonogram II

Reprints:
1. The promised collection of Morrison-influencing Bat-comics (though I suspect it's been replaced by the death themed volume out in a few weeks).
2. Showcase: Strange Adventures (those are some awesome covers. Surely the contents won't disappoint!)
3. JLA: the Deluxe Collected Edition volume II (Rock of Ages!)

---

Finally, as promised way up top, and using Douglas Wolk's list of expected 2009 releases, here's my planned purchase list for this year:

JANUARY:

Lewis Trondheim: Little Nothings: The Prisoner Syndrome (NBM)

FEBRUARY:

Gilbert Hernandez: Luba (Fantagraphics)
Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely: All Star Superman vol. 2 (DC)
Bryan Lee O'Malley: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the Universe (Oni)

MARCH:

Larry Gonick: Cartoon History of the Modern World Pt. 2: From the Bastille to Baghdad (Collins)

APRIL:

Gilbert Hernandez: The Troublemakers (Fantagraphics)
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarterly)
Ariel Schrag: Likewise (Touchstone)
Paul Hornschemeier: Life with Mr. Dangerous (Villard)
Tom Spurgeon/Jacob Covey: Comics As Art: We Told You So (Fantagraphics)
Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 (Top Shelf)
C. Tyler: You'll Never Know, Book 1: "A Good and Decent Man" (Fantagraphics)

MAY:

Seth: George Sprott 1894-1975 (Drawn & Quarterly)
Jaime Hernandez: Locas II: Maggie, Hopey, & Ray (Fantagraphics)
Fletcher Hanks/Paul Karasik: You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! (Fantagraphics)
Ben Schwartz, ed.: Best American Comics Criticism (Fantagraphics)

JUNE:

David Mazzucchelli: Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)
Peter Bagge: Everyone Is Stupid Except for Me (Fantagraphics)

JULY:

James Jean: Process Recess 3 (AdHouse)
Eddie Campbell: Alec: The Years Have Pants (Top Shelf)
Alan Moore/Curt Swan: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Deluxe Edition (DC)
Warren Ellis et al.: Planetary vol. 4 (WildStorm/DC)
Charles Burns: Skin Deep (Fantagraphics)
Michael Kupperman: Tales Designed to Thrizzle (Fantagraphics)
Zak Sally: Like a Dog (Fantagraphics)

AUGUST:

Los Bros Hernandez: Love & Rockets: New Stories #2 (Fantagraphics)

SEPTEMBER:

Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century #2 (Top Shelf)

OCTOBER:

Gary Panter: Dal Tokyo (Fantagraphics)

DECEMBER:

VA: AX Vol. 1 (Top Shelf)

SOMETIME IN 2009

R. Crumb: R. Crumb's Book of Genesis (Norton)
Farel Dalrymple: The Wrenchies (:01)

Whew! Here's to hoping the economy picks up. This looks like another banner year for comics and graphic novels. I can't wait. Please let me know what you're looking to by posting yours in the comments section, and thanks for reading.

The three issues comprising "The Black Glove" storyline by Grant Morrison and JH Williams are three of the best issues of Batman since, at least, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli cranked out Batman: Year One fifteen or twenty years ago.

Over the course of the three issues, Morrison and Williams play with Batman's decades-long mythology, creating an eerie and nuanced murder mystery that is visually stunning, the equal -- perhaps even superior -- to Williams's work on Promethea with writer Alan Moore. "The Black Glove" as a story is pure superhero comic book magic.

Unfortunately, DC turned what could have been an elegant hardcover collection into a massive failure by padding it out with four thematically dissonant and visually incompetent issues (another storyline entirely) drawn by Tony Daniel. It may sound like sour grapes, but having paid real money for the book (half the cover price, yes, thank you Borders Bucks, but still, some of my cash was involved in the transaction), I'd like to spend the rest of this review telling you how I would have preferred DC to present the good material from this volume:

* Option #1: Ideally, The Black Glove's three sublime issues would have been presented in a standalone hardcover, preferably oversized, anywhere between the dimensions of the new deluxe JLA hardcovers and Kramers Ergot #7 would be fine with me. Thicker paper, a sketchbook section, interviews and essays could have padded it out if the three issues worth of material weren't enough.

* Option #2: Less ideally, the second half-plus of the book (which were wasted on the Daniel-drawn issues) could have been blank. "Draw your own sequel!" That would have been less desirable than Option #1, but still preferable to what we got.

Well, I'm out of options. Most important to note, though, is this: I would have been much happier paying full price for this volume if it just contained the Williams-drawn Black Glove story-arc and nothing else. It would have been a better value for the money. Pairing it up, as DC does here, with the four-issue Daniel-drawn storyline implies quite strongly that not only are these two stories thematically compatible, but roughly equal in quality. They are neither. "The Black Glove" is superb superhero storytelling, among the best things Morrison has ever written, or Williams has ever drawn. The other stuff -- over half the book, I'm very sorry to say -- is perhaps competently written, but drawn by an artist -- Tony Daniel -- who can draw a comic book but has yet to demonstrate the slightest bit of artistry in anything I have ever seen him draw. Note, for example, a panel in which someone has the barrel of what is supposed to be a gun pressed against their head; the "barrel" is a generically-drawn cylinder resembling a Thermos more than the barrel of a gun.

In sum, JH Williams is an artist working in comics, who always gives more than is required by any assignment he receives. Daniel is a subpar superhero illustrator whose work suggests a lack of artistic training or inspiration, and whose inclusion in what could have been a prestigious and elegant volume results, rather, in an infuriating and narratively incoherent overall package. If no other point gets through here, at least know that I seriously thought about whether the book would be improved by using an X-Acto knife to slice out Daniel's pages. The fact that that thought seriously spent time in my mind is what caused me to write this review.

On the day that I found out my mother had died, I remember shedding a tear or two in disbelieving sadness that came nowhere near touching the center of my being. Months later, lying in bed at night with my wife, we were debating the pros and cons of moving into a bigger apartment now that our second child was on its way. A fleeting thought appeared, like quicksilver through my mind, that I should call my mom and ask her what she thought of the idea. That thought was quickly followed by a freight train of grief reminding me that she was dead, and most crushingly of all, I would never get to ask her advice about anything again, ever. I still catch myself momentarily thinking her still alive, from time to time. The same with my beloved cat Spot, who was put to sleep around the same time. It's almost impossible to truly teach your brain that they are gone.

My older brother died a few weeks ago. Upon finding it out, I felt next to nothing. A strange sense of my own aging and mortality, but my memories of the man are so few and far between that grief has yet to well up inside me, and I doubt it ever will.

We are all unique in our responses to death, but we are all the same in the fact that we must experience the deaths of those we know. Slowly, in our youth, but as the years pile into decades, there are more and more names. I think of Jerry Shepard, a radio sales executive who I often describe as "the only man I ever knew." Raoul Vezina, a gifted cartoonist who also manned the cash register at Albany, New York's FantaCo, the greatest comic book store in my personal memory. I never really knew him, but I was in awe of him, and I know that the grief caused by his death is still felt by his friends all these decades later. John Hart, a country music DJ who once helped me change a tire in 20-degree below zero weather. So many lost relationships, so many names.

Nicolas is the name of Pascal Girard's younger brother. Nicolas died very, very young, and because it happened so quickly, Pascal never got to say goodbye, and has lived with the fact of his brother's absence ever since. Pascal Girard's grief does not seem typical, as he maps it out over the course of the graphic novel that bears his lost brother's name, but it does seem unique and all his own.

Here are Pascal and Nicolas fooling around with a cassette recorder. A small moment's entertainment, one I remember doing myself with my own brother. But it becomes huge in Pascal's memory, a gift from the past that helps him process the ongoing grief that will always be a part of him.

Girard's style is simple and to the point, in the way of Jeffrey Brown's cartooning, with stylistic nods to names as diverse as Schulz and Kochalka. It's a basic and appealing visual narrative that is also open and airy, where Brown can sometimes seem closed and claustrophobic. Girard uses borderless panels much the same way Chester Brown does, and that's another positive connection. Brown, Kochalka and Schulz are all imminently readable cartoonists, and so is Girard. No trick layouts or dazzling technique get in the way of what he wants to tell you: What he has learned about coming to grips with loss, sometimes with selfishness and arrogance, and sometimes with silence and, finally, wisdom.

Wisdom is the ultimate lesson that death has for those who open themselves up to it. The wisdom to accept that death touches us all, and the wisdom to accept that we all not only can, but must, come to grips with it in our own way. Girard does so with humor and a bracing honesty that makes Nicolas a treasure to experience.