Category: Other Publishers

Written by Rene Goscinny
Art by Albert Uderzo
48 pages, color
Published by Orion Books

Way back in 1980, a friend from school invited me over to his house, one who promised to show me what he called the funniest books ever. His relatives from England sent them to him for his birthday ever year, a series of graphic albums starring the Gaulish warriors Asterix and Obelix. Over the next couple of weeks I read all of the Asterix books he had, and I’ve been a fan ever since then.

Continue reading “Asterix and the Banquet”

By Geofrey Darrow
32 pages, color
Published by Burlyman Entertainment

Geofrey Darrow doesn’t draw comics very often, but when he does, he’s got my attention. The two main two projects of his I’m familiar with, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot and Hard Boiled, were both written by Frank Miller, while his new book Shaolin Cowboy is a book he’s not only drawing but writing as well. I knew the book would look gorgeous… but how would it read?

Continue reading “Shaolin Cowboy #1”

Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Carla Speed McNeil
32 pages, black and white
Published by Apparat/Avatar Press

Last April, Warren Ellis talked about creating four one-shot comics, styled in a more traditional adventure format, and making each one of them the first issue of an imaginary new series of comics from an imaginary publisher “Apparat”. It’s a fun little project that harkens back to thinks like the Tangent Comics one-shots from DC, and like Tangent before had me asking the question: will any of these one-shots really feel like something that I want to read more of?

Continue reading “Frank Ironwine”

Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Joe Abraham
32 pages, color
Published by Atomeka Press

Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, as a writing team, are probably best-known for their collaboration on books like Justice League International and Formerly Known as the Justice League. Now they’re co-writing another book, and while it’s not the Justice League this time, they’re certainly trying to appeal to the same people who enjoyed their earlier works.

Continue reading “Hero Squared #1”

By Metaphrog
48 pages, color
Published by Metaphrog

There are books which are easy to sum up in a few words, and those that straddle the lines between one classification and the next. The comic-creating duo of Metaphrog’s series of Louis graphic novels not only does that, but it seems to take great glee in doing so. And really, that’s part of the joy of this unique series.

Continue reading “Louis: Dreams Never Die”

Written by Michelle Tea
Art by Laurenn McCubbin
240 pages, two-color
Published by Last Gasp

More often than not, when I read a new book it’s all at once, having grabbed some free time for myself and not knowing when I’ll next get the chance. On rare occasions, though, I find myself holding back, forcing myself to only read one chapter at a time. That’s the sign of a great book, one that I don’t want to end, and that’s exactly what happened with Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin’s Rent Girl.

Continue reading “Rent Girl”

Written by the Brothers Goldman
Art by Joe Bucco
96 pages, black and white
Published by FWDbooks

With the United States’s 2004 Presidential Election just a matter of days away, the country’s political views are at a fevered pitch. Polls are compiled and analyzed daily, and fears and conspiracy theories run hand-in-hand. It’s the perfect time for the new graphic novel Everyman Vol. 1: Be the People, which takes the country down a theoretical road from this upcoming election… and asks the question on if the real world could follow.

Continue reading “Everyman Vol. 1: Be the People”

By Graham Roumieu
40 pages, color
Published by Manic D Press

Celebrity autobiography is a strange, unique genre unto its own. Maybe it’s because most celebrities don’t have a particular knack for writing, meaning that one of two things happen: they work with a ghostwriter who “cleans up” the language and makes the book sound nothing like the supposed author, or the celebrity writes it on their own and it’s wonderfully incomprehensible, just like them. I think that’s just one of the many reasons why Graham Roumieu’s In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot is so utterly brilliant. You don’t get much more of a dead-on parody than this.

Continue reading “In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot”