The ACME Novelty Library
Chris Ware
Utterly eschewing the general bonhomie surrounding the newly-minted contemporary regard for the comic strip medium as a language of complicated personal expression and artistic sophistication, professional colorist and award-winning letterer F. C. Ware returns to the book trade with “The ACME Novelty Library,” a hardcover distillation of all his surviving one-page cartoon jokes with which he tuckpointed the holes of his regular comic book periodical over the past decade. Sometimes claimed to be his “best work” by those who really don’t know any better, this definitive congestion of stories of the future, the old west, and even of modern life nonetheless tries to stay interesting by including a luminescent map of the heavens, a chart of the general structure of the universe, assorted cut-out activitites, and a complete history of The ACME Novelty Company itself, decorated by rare photographs, early business ventures, not to mention the smallest example of a Comic Strip ever before offered to the general public. All in all, it will likely prove a rather mild disappointment, but at least it catches the light in a nice way and may force a smile here and there
before being shelved for the next generation’s ultimate disregard and/or disposal.
Fiction - Graphic Novels | Pantheon | Hardcover | Normally $27.50, Now $13.75
978-0-375-42295-9

The Long Chalkboard
By Jennifer Allen
Illustrated by Jules Feiffer
Here are three delightful, bittersweet, especially-for-our-time adult stories of modern life as lived by men and women of a certain age: the baby boomer. Jenny Allen’s brilliant and witty narratives and Jules Feiffer’s playfully expressive drawings coax to the surface the hidden anxieties, familiar frustrations, and downright fury that we try to convince ourselves we don't really feel. The characters in these stories are reckoning with life’s little surprises. But what they don't expect sometimes turns out to be all right anyway: a little redemption bubbling up in the kitchen where “Judy’s Wonder Chili” is made. . . or hiding in the folds of an origami crane, waiting to be found by the children’s book writer in “Something Happened”. . . or revealing itself on the surface of the well-used chalkboard of the title tale.
In their humor, simplicity, and subtlety, these stories--brought to life perfectly through Feiffer’s drawings--speak to our deepest adult-yet-childlike selves. There’s not a grown-up among us who won’t be completely charmed.
Pantheon | Hardcover | Normally $16.95, Now $8.50 | 978-0-375-42453-3

Alias the Cat
By Kim Deitch
At the center of the novel Kim Deitch deftly places himself and his wife Pam–a passionate collector of Halloween cats from the 1920s and 30s, whose collection is impressive to say the least. But when she buys a mysterious old cat costume, she and Kim find themselves in wholly new territory: the lost world of Alias the Cat who, in 1915, appeared not only in a comic strip and film serial, but in real life as a freedom-fighting superhero.
When Kim begins to research this forgotten figure, he uncovers one almost unbelievable story after another: about the Furries, a tiny subculture of people who dress up as cartoon animals in order to have sex; about Keller and Frankie, two seamen stranded on a Pacific island, forced to make cat toys to appease the natives; about the secret lover of Alias’s alter ego, Malek Janochek; and, of course, about Deitch’s own Waldo the Cat, the common thread weaving the stories together as Kim and Pam move toward a fateful showdown in Midgetville...New Jersey, of course.
Alias the Cat is Kim Deitch at his eye-catching, mind-bending best.
Fiction - Graphic Novels | Pantheon | Hardcover | Normally $23, Now $11.50
978-0-375-42431-1

Flight Volume Four
Edited by Kazu Kibuishi
A full-color graphic anthology of short stories by some of the hottest creators in the field, FLIGHT, Volume Four is the newest addition to a great success story in graphic novel publishing.
Since 2004, when the first Volume of Flight burst on the scene, the publication of subsequent volumes has become a highly anticipated annual event. Artists are constantly contacting Kibuishi (the editor of the Flight volumes and himself a contributor), asking to be included in the next volume of Flight. So it's no wonder Flight has ascended so rapidly in the graphic novel universe, becoming a fan favorite and developing a rabid following. Each contributor's story in the anthology represents a labor of love, and that fact shines through in the overall quality of the series.
“With truly stellar art from masters of the field, this fantasy anthology is a must for comics connoisseurs and a delight to readers who like pretty stories.” -Publishers Weekly on Flight, Volume Three (Starred Review.)
Publisher: Villard
Format: Trade Paperback, 352 pages
Price: Normally $24.95, Now $12.50
ISBN: 978-0-345-49040-7

Ego & Hubris
The Michael Malice Story
Written by Harvey Pekar
“Michael Malice is one of the most puzzling twenty-first century Americans I have ever met.”
–Harvey Pekar
Who’s Michael Malice, and how did he become the subject of a graphic novel by Harvey Pekar, the curmudgeon from Cleveland?
First of all, Michael Malice is a real person. He’s 5’6” and weighs 130 pounds. Although on the cusp of thirty, he could easily pass for a scrawny teenager.
One day Michael, a guy with a patchwork employment record and dreams as big as his ego, meets Harvey and begins to relay all these wild stories about his life. Simple as that. Harvey thinks the guy is bright but a bit of a riddle–though not the kind wrapped in an enigma. It’s strange. He seems like the type of person you meet every day, rather ordinary, until you really get to know him. Then you realize he’s exceptional, unusual, and contradictory. Pleasant one minute, really nasty the next. But isn’t cruelty part of human nature? We digress. . . .
Harvey writes up and illustrates one of Michael Malice’s tales, “Fish Story,” which is part of American Splendor: Our Movie Year. It makes a splash and spawns this book, Harvey’s first hardcover, a graphic novel event about one guy’s life.
Ego & Hubris relates how, a year and a half after his birth in the Ukraine, Michael Malice moved with his parents to Brooklyn. He’s an intransigent kid, a hard-ass–both a demon to and demonized by the people who cross his path. His life is a constant struggle for validation in a world where the machine keeps trying to break him down. But Michael has a way with people . . . or rather, has a way of getting even with people. Hey, if you can’t live up to your parents’ expectations, at least you can live up to your name.
Michael had never come close to fulfilling his huge dreams–until now. And just as Harvey’s been the everyman for a certain generation of graphic-novel readers, Michael Malice will be the everyman for a new generation.
Category: Biography & Autobiography - Personal Memoirs; Fiction
Graphic Novels
Format: 160 pages
Price: Normally $19.95, Now $10.00
ISBN: 978-0-307-41511-0

A Scanner Darkly
Written by Philip K. Dick
A haunting graphic version of one of Philip K. Dick’s most popular and best-selling novels.
Bob Arctor is a dealer of the lethally addictive drug Substance D, which he also takes in massive quantities. Fred is the police agent assigned to tail and eventually bust him. What Fred doesn’t know is that Substance D gradually splits the user’s brain into two distinct, combative entities, and that he is, in fact, in frantic pursuit of himself.
A Scanner Darkly is caustically funny and razor sharp in its depiction of drug-induced paranoia and madness; it’s an industrial-strength stress test of identity as unnerving as it is riveting. The novel is captured in this brilliant graphic vision, composed entirely of stills from the movie.
Described as being "like a graphic novel come to life," the 2006 film version of Dick's classic 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly is a full-length animated feature starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder directed by Richard Linklater using rotoscope visual technique. In rotoscoping, filmed actors are digitally transformed into drawings. The graphic novel version of the film consists mostly of direct screen grabs from the animated version. Harvey Pekar has added some narration that has been adapted from the novel. The result is an eerily lifelike, richly detailed animation that translates beautifully to the page. |
Pantheon | Hardcover | Normally $23.95, Now $12.00
978-0-375-42402-1

MISSOURI BOY
by Leland Myrick
Firecrackers lighting up an ancient tree on a summer evening.
Twin boys born the same night their grandmother passes away. Teenagers hanging by their fingertips from the roof of a parking garage. These are the moments of quiet poetry that make up Leland Myrick's Missouri Boy.
Happiness alternates with tragedy in these snapshots of Myrick's own Missouri childhood. Filled with startling and at times achingly beautiful images - from a perfect paper airplane flying in the autumn sky to visits to the "underwear pond" to a solitary cross-country motorcycle trip - Myrick has created a graphic poem that brings together the experiences that formed his character, for better and for worse. These moving and intimate vignettes are at once melancholy and hopeful, exploring the surprising links between life and death, beginnings and endings. Poignant, timeless, and tenderly evoked, Missouri Boy is a unique tribute to a small-town American childhood.
112 pages Full Color
ISBN 1-59643-110-5
Normally $16.95, Now $8.50

The 9/11 Report
A Graphic Adaptation
Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
Foreword by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton
The 9/11 Report for Every American
On December 5, 2005, the 9/11 Commission issued its final report card on the government’s fulfillment of the recommendations issued in July 2004: one A, twelve Bs, nine Cs, twelve Ds, three Fs, and four incompletes. Here is stunning evidence that Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón, with more than sixty years of experience in the comic-book industry between them, were right: far, far too few Americans have read, grasped, and demanded action on the Commission’s investigation into the events of that tragic day and the lessons America must learn.
Using every skill and storytelling method Jacobson and Colón have learned over the decades, they have produced the most accessible version of the 9/11 Report. Jacobson’s text frequently follows word for word the original report, faithfully captures its investigative thoroughness, and covers its entire scope, even including the Commission’s final report card. Colón’s stunning artwork powerfully conveys the facts, insights, and urgency of the original. Published on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, an event that has left no aspect of American foreign or domestic policy untouched, The 9/11 Report puts at every American’s fingertips the most defining event of the century.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
128 pages
Size: 6 x 9
Full-Color Illustrations Throughout
Normally $30, Now $15.00
Hardcover
Hill and Wang
ISBN: 0-8090-5738-7