Graphic Novels at HMCPL

Every ninety years twelve gods return as young people. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead. It's happening now. It's happening again.

In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The Vision wants to be human, and what's more human than family? So he heads back to the beginning, to the laboratory where Ultron created him and molded him into a weapon. The place where he first rebelled against his given destiny and imagined that he could be more -that he could be a man. There, he builds them. A wife, Virginia. Two teenage twins, Viv and Vin. They look like him. They have his powers. They share his grandest ambition (or is that obsession?) the unrelenting need to be ordinary. Behold the Visions! They’re the family next door, and they have the power to kill us all. What could possibly go wrong? Artificial hearts will be broken, bodies will not stay buried, the truth will not remain hidden, and the Vision will never be the same. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

In this full-color graphic novel, Jason posits a strange, violent world in which contract killers can be hired to rub out pests, be they dysfunctional relatives, abusive co-workers, loud neighbors, or just annoyances in general — and as you might imagine, their services are in heavy demand. One such killer is given the unique job of traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler in 1939... but things go spectacularly wrong. Hitler overpowers the would-be assassin and sends himself to the present, leaving the killer stranded in the past. The killer eventually finds his way back to the present by simply waiting the decades out as he ages, and teams up with his now much-younger girlfriend to track down the missing fascist dictator... at which point the book veers further into Jason territory, as the cartoonist's minimalist, wickedly dry sense of humor slows down the story to a crawl: for long patches absolutely nothing happens, but nobody can make nothing happening as riotously entertaining as Jason does... and finally, when the reader isn't paying attention, he brings it together with a shocking, perfectly logical and yet completely unexpected climax which also solves a mystery from the very beginning of the book the reader had forgotten about. As always, I Killed Adolf Hitler is rendered in Jason's crisp deadpan neo-clear-line style, once again augmented by lovely, understated coloring. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Throughout history, a secret society called the Invisibles, who count among their number Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, work against the forces of order that seek to repress humanity's growth. In this first collection, the Invisibles' latest recruit, a teenage lout from the streets of London, must survive a bizarre, mind-altering training course before being projected into the past to help enlist the Marquis de Sade. This book is recommended for adults.

The definitive Daredevil tale! Karen Page, Matt Murdock's former lover, has traded away the Man Without Fear's secret identity for a drug fix. Now, Daredevil must find strength as the Kingpin of Crime wastes no time taking him down as low as a human can get. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

A flagship title of the Vertigo imprint of DC, this series tells the story of fairy tale characters exiled to the mundane world after fleeing from a mysterious conqueror known as the Adversary. Think "Once Upon a Time" but better and written over a decade before the show ever came out. See a different take on classic characters like Snow White, The Big Bad Wolf, Bluebeard and more! When Snow White's party-girl sister, Rose Red, is apparently murdered, it is up to Bigby, Fabletown's sheriff, and a reformed and pardoned Big Bad Wolf, to determine if the culprit is Bluebeard, Rose's ex-lover and notorious wife killer, or Jack, her current live-in boyfriend and former beanstalk-climber. Then travel to upstate New York, where the non-human Fable characters have found refuge on a farm, miles from mankind. But all is not well on the farm — and a conspiracy to free them from the shackles of their perceived imprisonment may lead to a war that could wrest control of the Fables community away from Snow White. This series features mature content and is recommended for adults.

"Y" is none other than unemployed escape artist Yorick Brown (his father was a Shakespeare buff), and he's seemingly the only male human left alive after a mysterious plague kills all Y-chromosome carriers on earth. But why are he and his faithful companion, the often testy male monkey Ampersand, still alive? He sets out to find the answer (and his girlfriend), while running from angry female Republicans (now running the government), Amazon wannabes that include his own sister (seemingly brainwashed), and other threats. This book is recommended for adults.

One of the most talked about and controversial Batman stories of all time, the Killing Joke finally reveals the possible origin of the Joker. How did a young unsuccessful standup comic with a pregnant wife turn into the clown prince of crime? One bad day. Now the Joker is out to prove his theory that his can happen to anyone, that one bad day could drive anyone over the edge and into the depths of madness...and his intended target is Police Commissioner Gordon. After committing unspeakable acts against Barbara and James Gordon, will Batman finally snap and kill his arch-nemesis? Due to the graphic nature of this book, it is recommended for older teens and adults.

After being run out of Boneville, the three Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone, are separated and lost in a vast uncharted desert. One by one, they find their way into a deep, forested valley filled with wonderful and terrifying creatures...humor, mystery, and adventure are spun together in this action-packed, side-splitting saga. Everyone who has ever left home for the first time only to find that the world outside is strange and overwhelming will love Bone. This book is recommended for all ages.

Daytripper follows Bras de Olivias Dominguez during different periods in his life, each with the same ending: his death. Daytipper follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Every chapter features an important period in Bras' life in exotic Brazil, and each story ends the same way: with his death. And then, the following story starts up at a different point in his life, oblivious to his death in the previous story-and then also ends with him dying again. In every chapter, Bras dies at different moments in his life, as the story follows him through his entire existence-one filled with possibilities of happiness and sorrow, good and bad, love and loneliness. Each story rediscovers the many varieties of daily life, in a story about living life to its fullest-because any of us can die at any moment. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

It's a lousy room in a lousy part of a lousy town. But Marv doesn't care. There's an angel in the room. She says her name is Goldie. A few hours later, Goldie's dead without a mark on her perfect body, and the cops are coming before anyone but Marv could know she's been killed. Somebody paid good money for this frame . . .This book is recommended for adults.

Two of the comics industry's top creative talents, writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely, the acclaimed team behind JLA:EARTH 2, reunite to redefine Superman based on the timeless, essential iconic elements that everyone knows about the Man of Steel. In the first volume, the World's Greatest Super-Hero rescues a doomed group of astronauts on the surface of the sun when he's exposed to massive amounts of solar radiation no one could possibly anticipate how he'll be affected - except Lex Luthor! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The Uncanny X-Men. Magneto, master of magnetism. The bitterest of enemies for years. But now they must join forces against a new adversary who threatens them all and the entire world besides... in the name of God. One of Chris Claremont's most powerful and influential stories, the partial basis for "X-Men 2," is reprinted here for the first time in years. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

This fourth volume in the saga of the Swamp Thing finds the man-monster interacting with Deadman, the Phantom Stranger, the Spectre, and the Demon as he continues on his journey of self-discovery. Traveling through the horrors of a haunted house, the improbabilities of the afterlife, the depths of hell and the heights of heaven, the Swamp Thing continues his evolution from a simple monster into a powerful elemental being with a potential to exceed the bonds of the Earth itself. This book is recommended for teens and adults.
Collects issues #43–#50.

Where does a young boy turn when his whole world suddenly disappears? What turns two brothers from an unstoppable team into a pair of bitterly estranged loners? How does the simple-hearted care of one middle-aged nurse reveal the scars of an entire community, and can anything heal the wounds caused by a century of deception? Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire pays tribute to his roots with Essex County, an award-winning trilogy of graphic novels set in an imaginary version of his hometown, the eccentric farming community of Essex County, Ontario, Canada. In Essex County, Lemire crafts an intimate study of one community through the years, and a tender meditation on family, memory, grief, secrets, and reconciliation. With the lush, expressive inking of a young artist at the height of his powers, Lemire draws us in and sets us free. This new edition collects the complete, critically-acclaimed trilogy (Tales from the Farm, Ghost Stories, and The Country Nurse) in one deluxe volume! Also included are over 40-pages of previously unpublished material, including two new stories. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Welcome to New York. Here, burning figures roam the streets, men in brightly colored costumes scale the glass and concrete walls, and creatures from space threaten to devour our world. This is the Marvel Universe, where the ordinary and fantastic interact daily. This is the world of MARVELS. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The very first Hellblazer collection Original Sins is available in a new edition that includes John Constantine’s appearances in Swamp Thing. This is the first of a series of new Hellblazer editions starring Vertigo’s longest running antihero, John Constantine, England’s chain-smoking, low-rent magus.This first collection is a loosely connected series of tales of John’s early years where Constantine was at his best and at his worst, all at the same time. This book is recommended for adults.

Experience the heartwarming all-American story of a crank and his comic book. What's a file clerk from Cleveland doing with an Oscar nomination? How did a movie about Harvey Pekar win the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival? The story begins in 1976, when Harvey began publishing his autobiographical, slice-of-downtrodden-life comic book series American Splendor, illustrated by a who's who of underground comic artists, including R. Crumb, Kevin Brown, Greg Budgett, Sean Carroll, Sue Cavey, Gary Dumm, Val Mayerik, and Gerry Shamray. After self-publishing American Splendor for nearly two decades under less than splendid conditions (and racking impressive accolades in the process), Harvey finally got a break when Dark Horse Comics took over the publication in the early 1990s. It was an opportunity for Harvey to reach a wider audience which, as it turned out, included a few Hollywood types, too. (Who knew?) But that's another story. . . .This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's name) follows the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, two best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apart. Daniel Clowes is one of the most respected cartoonists of his generation, and Ghost World is his magnum opus. Adapted into a major motion picture directed by Terry Zwigoff (director of the acclaimed documentary Crumb), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

A frightening and powerful tale of the loss of freedom and identity in a chillingly believable totalitarian world, V for Vendetta stands as one of the highest achievements of the comics medium and a defining work for creators Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and the redemptive power of the human spirit which rebels against it. Crafted with sterling clarity and intelligence, V for Vendetta brings an unequaled depth of characterization and verisimilitude to its unflinching account of oppression and resistance. This book is recommended for adults.

After years of self-imposed exile from a civilization rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job that he hates and a city that he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his surreal 23rd Century surroundings. Combining black humor, life-threatening situations, and moral ambiguity, this book is the first look into the mind of an outlaw journalist and the world he seeks to destroy. This book is recommended for adults.

After merging with a bizarre spiritual force called Genesis, Texan preacher Jesse Custer has become completely disillusioned with the beliefs to which he had dedicated his entire life. Now possessing the power of "the word," an ability to make people do whatever he utters, Custer begins a violent and riotous journey across the country. Joined by his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip and the hard-drinking Irish vampire Cassidy, Custer loses faith in both God and man as he witnesses dark atrocities and improbable calamities during his exploration of America. This book is recommended for adults.

It is ten years after an aging Batman has retired and Gotham City has sunk deeper into decadence and lawlessness. Now as his city needs him most, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by Carrie Kelly, a teenage female Robin, Batman takes to the streets to end the threat of the mutant gangs that have overrun the city. And after facing off against his two greatest enemies, the Joker and Two-Face for the final time, Batman finds himself in mortal combat with his former ally, Superman, in a battle that only one of them will survive. This collection is hailed as a comics masterpiece and was responsible for the launch of the Batman movies. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

An occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On his arduous journey Morpheus encounters Lucifer, John Constantine, and an all-powerful madman.

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin. One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial best-seller. This book is recommended for adults.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Years after his death, Batman’s diary is made public only to excuse his old teammates, the Justice Society of America, of being Nazi collaborators with Hitler himself. Not wanting to fight their own country, the Justice Society surrender themselves to the law and now stand trial for crimes they did not commit. Who is the mastermind behind framing the World’s Greatest Superheroes? And why would they tarnish their pillars of society? This book is recommended for teens and adults.

One of the key comics of the 1980s - along with Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns - Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! was a massive-selling hit, breaking new ground in comics storytelling and influencing a generation of writers and artists. America, 2031. TV star Reuben Flagg is drafted to protect the citizens of Chicago as a Plexus Ranger, having pretended to be one onscreen. The inexperienced Flagg must tackle an America blighted by a biased and oppressive media, dubious 'wars', widespread political corruption and environmental disaster...Never-before-collected, this bitingly prescient satirical series is an all-time classic. This book is recommended for adults.

This edition collects the bizarre adventures of Animal Man, a second-rate super hero struggling with real-life issues and moral dilemmas. Buddy Baker is a caring husband, devoted father, animal activist and super-powered being. But as he attempts to live up to all of his roles, he soon finds that there are no black and white situations in life. With a strong focus on storytelling, these thought-provoking and innovative tales make the reader question the actions of Animal Man as well as their own behavior in similar situations. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

A new edition of the classic Batman tale by writer Dennis O'Neil that introduces the strength-enhancing drug Venom. After Batman fails to save a young girl, he begins taking the drug in order to lift his limitations; however, when the Dark Knight becomes addicted to the substance, his entire life begins to spiral out of control. The drug Venom later goes on to play a major role in the KNIGHTFALL storyline that sees the villain Bane breaking Batman's back. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Written by award winning author Gail Simone, Birds of Prey: Mystery & Murder explores the relationships and pulse pounding action that made the Birds of Prey the premier female super team! In a tricky legal and ethical dilemma, the Birds of Prey must show mercy to a would-be white-collar criminal, but their act of compassion brings them to the attention of master extortionist (and one-time super-hero) Savant, a man who claims he can outthink Oracle and outfight the Canary...and can prove it! And just when things seem to be settling down for our heroines, Black Canary is sent to China on a mission of mercy and runs into the DC Universe's most deadly combatant: Lady Shiva! But Shiva has an agenda of her own, while making Canary an offer that could change the course of her life. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A cursed, seemingly immortal warrior aids a young girl in her quest for revenge, as the students of a brutal new sword school tear a bloody path across Japan. Hiroaki Samura's massive manga series spawned an anime run, a spinoff novel, an art book, and a live-action film! Samura's storytelling tour-de-force also won Japan's Media Arts Award, several British Eagle Awards, and an Eisner Award, among other international accolades. Intense and audacious, Blade takes period samurai action and deftly combines it with a modernist street idiom to create a style and mood like no other work of graphic fiction. "Blade of the Immortal Omnibus Volume 1" contains the first 3 volumes of "Blade of the Immortal" by Dark Horse. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

One of the most talked about Marvel events in recent years, in the wake of a tragedy involving irresponsible young heroes a call goes forth to regulate super humans. The government wants to require heroes to register their secret identities and work for the government which splits the super hero community down the middle with Iron Man as pro-registration and Captain American against the registration act. Friendships are broken and lines are drawn as this conflict must be resolved, one way or another. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A cross between Indiana Jones and pulp heroes of old like Doc Savage, this is a great read! After a tragic encounter with an artifact known as "The Dreamstone," infamous treasure hunter Fabian Gray was possessed by five literary ghosts and has been granted access to their unique abilities which he uses to try and find his missing sister while discovering more about his new powers. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Gotham City: a town teeming with corrupt cops, ruthless crime lords, petty thieves … and just a small handful that would oppose them. Grizzled veteran Harvey Bullock, Captain Maggie Sawyer, detective Renee Montoya and the GCPD are the law force that stands between order and complete anarchy. Gotham's Finest work around the clock to not only keep the world's most psychotic criminals off the street... but also cleaning up the mess left behind by Batman's one-man war on crime. This book is recommend for older teens and adults.

In these stories, Green Lantern Hal Jordan continued his usual cosmic-spanning adventures, as he used his amazing Power Ring to police Sector 2814 against universe-threatening menaces. Meanwhile, on Earth, Oliver Queen, the archer known as Green Arrow, was confronting menaces of a different kind: racism, poverty, drugs and other social ills! This stunning Deluxe Edition of Green Lantern/Green Arrow collects the influential early 1970s stories featuring classic team-ups written by Dennis O'Neil with art by Neal Adams! Collects GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW #76-87 and 89, plus short stories from THE FLASH #217-219 and 226. This book is recommended for older teens and adults

The story jumps from Hellboy's mysterious World War II origin to his 1994 confrontation with the man who summoned him to earth, and the earliest signs of the plague of frogs. Avoiding his supposed fate as the herald of the end of the world, Hellboy continues with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fighting alongside Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, and drafting Roger Homunculus into his own ill-fated service with the B.P.R.D. This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1994 to 1997, reprinting Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and “Wolves of St August,” “The Chained Coffin,” and “Almost Colossus,” from The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom.

Savage alien planet. Oppressed barbarian tribes. Corrupt emperor. Deadly woman warrior. Gladiators and slaves. Battle axes and hand blasters. Monsters and heroes... and the Incredible Hulk! Let the smashing commence! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The beginning of the Battle Tendency Arc! The Joestar family is called upon to do battle against evil again! This time, it’s Joseph Joestar, the grandson of Jonathan Joestar! And his enemies are more powerful and diabolical than ever! Behold! The terror of the Pillar Men! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Judge Dredd is judge, jury and executioner; a merciless far-future lawman delivering justice with an iron fist on the mean streets of Mega-City One. This second collection of his collected adventures sees the start of some of the characters most significant story arcs. One character has dominated the UK comics scene. He is judge, jury and executioner; a merciless far-future lawman delivering justice with an iron fist on the mean streets of Mega-City One. He is Judge Dredd! US readers can discover the roots of this legendary character in this vast a thrill-packed series of graphic novels, which collect together all of Dredd's adventure's in chronological order. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Welcome to New York. Here, burning figures roam the streets, men in brightly colored costumes scale the glass and concrete walls, and creatures from space threaten to devour our world. This is the Marvel Universe, where the ordinary and fantastic interact daily. This is the world of MARVELS. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

"Where do serial killers come from?" and why has Buckaroo, Oregon given birth to sixteen of the most vile serial killers in the world? NSA Agent Nicholas Finch needs to solve that mystery in order to save his friend, and he'll have to team up with the infamous Edward "Nailbiter" Warren to do it. Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson deliver a mystery that mixes Twin Peaks with the horror of Se7en! This book is recommended for adults.

Kraven the Hunter has stalked and killed every animal known to man. But there is one beast that has eluded him - the wall-crawling web-slinger known as Spider-Man. And to prove that he is the hero's master, he will pull on his costume and become him - after he shoots and buries him six feet under! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

When Super-Villains get caught, it's up to the government to keep them in captivity. Amanda Waller, a tough-as-nails federal agent, has other plans. She's heading up Task Force X (a.k.a. The Suicide Squad) as an ultimatum to the world's biggest villains. Join her shady, near-impossible missions in the name of democracy, or rot in jail. And one other thing: Most operatives don't make it back alive! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

An unforgettable hardcover collection of WATCHMEN writer Alan Moore's definitive Superman tales that is sure to appeal of readers of his BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE graphic novel. Moore teams with Curt Swan, the definitive Superman artist from the 1950's through the 1970's, to tell the final adventure of the Man of Steel featuring his last stand against Lex Luthor, Brainiac and his other foes in "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW?". This volume also includes Moore's classic early collaboration with WATCHMEN illustrator Dave Gibbons, "FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING", in which Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman find Superman held captive by the villain Mongul in the Fortress of Solitude and dreaming of an idyllic life on Krypton courtesy of a wish-fulfilling parasitic plant known as the Black Mercy. Both tales are considered two of the top five all-time best Superman stories among fans. The rare first team-up adventure between the Man of Tomorrow and Swamp Thing, the character that first brought Moore to notoriety in the United States, is included as an additional bonus. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

As any fan of comics knows, EC Comics still represent the best of golden age writing and artwork. Now, Dark Horse Books is proud to bring you the very first issues of EC's Tales from the Crypt, featuring the amazing artistic talents of Johnny Craig, Al Feldstein, George Roussos, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Graham Ingels, and Jack Kamen! This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Collecting the entire best-selling, blockbuster storyline in one deluxe hardcover! The world's deadliest living weapon just fell into the wrong hands. It's Wolverine vs. the Marvel Universe as Logan shreds his way through the X-Men, Fantastic Four, S.H.I.E.L.D., and more! How did Wolverine end up fighting to destroy everything he holds dear? Plus: Wolverine may be back in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, but at what cost? As the X-Men mourn their fallen teammate in a funeral befitting a hero, Hydra celebrates the coronation of a new leader. And the reign of terror continues, as the Hand picks off the meta-humans, one by one. Will Wolverine be deprogrammed in time to stop the carnage? This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A graphic history of religious cults in American from the colonial era to today From its earliest days, America has been home to spiritual seekers. In 1694, the religious tolerance of the Pennsylvania Colony enticed a Transylvanian monk and his forty followers to cross the Atlantic. Almost two hundred years later, a charismatic preacher founded a utopian community in Oneida, New York, that practiced socialism and free love. In the 1960s and ’70s, a new generation of seekers gathered in vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles, Satanic coffee shops in New Orleans, and fortified communes in Philadelphia. And in the twenty-first century, gurus use self-help seminars and get-rich-quick schemes to evangelize to their flocks. Across the decades, Americans in search of divine truths have turned to unconventional prophets for the answers. Some of these prophets have demanded their faith, fortunes, and even their very lives. In American Cult, over twenty cartoonists explore the history of these groups with clarity and empathy—looking beyond the scandalous headlines to find the human stories within.

On January 15, 1947, a woman walking with her daughter in a Los Angeles neighborhood passed what looked to be a discarded mannequin. It turned out to be the body of Elizabeth Short: posed, drained of blood, meticulously scrubbed, and cut in two. From this point, Geary reconstitutes and reveals for us the life of this 22-year-old woman who had become known as "Black Dahlia" because of her striking appearance. How could her life have ended in such a ghastly fashion? Was it a jealous boyfriend, a rejected suitor, or one of LA's notorious mafia members, with whom she had been connected? The case gets more complex when, days later, a local newspaper receives a cut-out letter from an anonymous "Black Dahlia Avenger" admitting to the crime.

When Nicole Georges was two years old, her family told her that her father was dead. When she was twenty-three, a psychic told her he was alive. Her sister, saddled with guilt, admits that the psychic is right and that the whole family has conspired to keep him a secret. Sent into a tailspin about her identity, Nicole turns to radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for advice. Packed cover-to-cover with heartfelt and disarming black-and-white illustrations, Calling Dr. Laura tells the story of what happens to you when you are raised in a family of secrets, and what happens to your brain (and heart) when you learn the truth from an unlikely source. Part coming-of-age and part coming-out story, Calling Dr. Laura marks the arrival of an exciting and winning new voice in graphic literature. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

The lore of the early days of hip hop has become the stuff of myth, so what better way to document this fascinating, epic true story than in another great American mythological medium -- the comic book? From exciting young talent and self-proclaimed hip hop nerd Ed Piskor, acclaimed for his hacker graphic novel Wizzywig, comes this explosively entertaining, encyclopedic history of the formative years of the music genre that changed global culture. Originally serialized on the hugely popular website Boing Boing, The Hip Hop Family Tree is now collected in a single volume cleverly presented and packaged in a style mimicking the Marvel comics of the same era. Piskor's exuberant yet controlled cartooning takes you from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late-1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail. With a painstaking, vigorous and engaging Ken Burns meets- Stan Lee approach, the battles and rivalries, the technical innovations, the triumphs and failures are all thoroughly researched and lovingly depicted. plus the charismatic players behind the scenes like Russell Simmons, Sylvia Robinson and then-punker Rick Rubin. Piskor also traces graffiti master Fab 5 Freddy's rise in the art world, and Debbie Harry, Keith Haring, The Clash, and other luminaries make cameos as the music and culture begin to penetrate downtown Manhattan and the mainstream at large. Like the acclaimed hip hop documentaries Style Wars and Scratch, The Hip Hop Family Tree is an exciting and essential cultural chronicle and a must for hip hop fans, pop-culture addicts, and anyone who wants to know how it went down back in the day. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

You only think you know this story. In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer — the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper — seared himself into the American consciousness. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities. To Derf Backderf, “Jeff” was a much more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides. In My Friend Dahmer, a haunting and original graphic novel, writer-artist Backderf creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a disturbed young man struggling against the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche — a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a goofball who never quite fit in with his classmates. With profound insight, what emerges is a Jeffrey Dahmer that few ever really knew, and one readers will never forget.

Super Black places the appearance of black superheroes alongside broad and sweeping cultural trends in American politics and pop culture, which reveals how black superheroes are not disposable pop products, but rather a fascinating racial phenomenon through which futuristic expressions and fantastic visions of black racial identity and symbolic political meaning are presented. Adilifu Nama sees the value--and finds new avenues for exploring racial identity--in black superheroes who are often dismissed as sidekicks, imitators of established white heroes, or are accused of having no role outside of blaxploitation film contexts. Nama examines seminal black comic book superheroes such as Black Panther, Black Lightning, Storm, Luke Cage, Blade, the Falcon, Nubia, and others, some of whom also appear on the small and large screens, as well as how the imaginary black superhero has come to life in the image of President Barack Obama. Super Black explores how black superheroes are a powerful source of racial meaning, narrative, and imagination in American society that express a myriad of racial assumptions, political perspectives, and fantastic (re)imaginings of black identity. The book also demonstrates how these figures overtly represent or implicitly signify social discourse and accepted wisdom concerning notions of racial reciprocity, equality, forgiveness, and ultimately, racial justice. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams. Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega―game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft. In this graphic novel, New York Times–bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are. But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin. One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial best-seller. This book is recommended for adults.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Daytripper follows Bras de Olivias Dominguez during different periods in his life, each with the same ending: his death. Daytipper follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Every chapter features an important period in Bras' life in exotic Brazil, and each story ends the same way: with his death. And then, the following story starts up at a different point in his life, oblivious to his death in the previous story-and then also ends with him dying again. In every chapter, Bras dies at different moments in his life, as the story follows him through his entire existence-one filled with possibilities of happiness and sorrow, good and bad, love and loneliness. Each story rediscovers the many varieties of daily life, in a story about living life to its fullest-because any of us can die at any moment. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It's their getaway, their refuge. Rosie's friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose's mom and dad won't stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems. It's a summer of secrets and sorrow and growing up, and it's a good thing Rose and Windy have each other. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Jeff Lemire's acclaimed new series introduce Gus, a rare new breed of human/animal hybrid who was raised in isolation following a pandemic that struck a decade earlier. Now, with the death of his father, he's left to fend for himself . . . until he meets a hulking drifter named Jepperd, who promises to help him. Jepperd and Gus set out on a post-apocalyptic journey into the devastated American landscape to find 'The Preserve,' a refuge for hybrids. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss. These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll. Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Blankets is the story of a young man coming of age and finding the confidence to express his creative voice. Craig Thompson's poignant graphic memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely-hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence. Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Full-color illustrations throughout. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

This first book from Chicago author Chris Ware is a pleasantly-decorated view at a lonely and emotionally-impaired "everyman" (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), who is provided, at age 36, the opportunity to meet his father for the first time. An improvisatory romance which gingerly deports itself between 1890's Chicago and 1980's small town Michigan, the reader is helped along by thousands of colored illustrations and diagrams, which, when read rapidly in sequence, provide a convincing illusion of life and movement. The bulk of the work is supported by fold-out instructions, an index, paper cut-outs, and a brief apology, all of which concrete to form a rich portrait of a man stunted by a paralyzing fear of being disliked. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Megg is a depressed, drug-addicted witch. Mogg is her black cat. Their friend, Owl, is an anthropomorphized owl. They hang out a lot with Werewolf Jones. This may sound like a pure stoner comedy, but it transcends the genre: these characters struggle unsuccessfully to come to grips with their depression, drug use, sexuality, poverty, lack of work, lack of ambition, and their complex feelings about each other in ways that have made Megg and Mogg sensations on Hanselmann's GirlMountain tumblr. This is the first collection of Hanselmann's work, freed from its cumbersome Internet prison, and sure to be one of the most talked about graphic novels of 2014, featuring all of the "classic" Megg and Mogg episodes from the past five years as well as over 70 pages of all-new material. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the second of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie; her annoying, pixie-ish best friend and sometime lover Hopey; and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy—as well as the aging but still heroic wrestler Rena Titañon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. After the sci-fi trappings of his earliest stories (as seen in Maggie the Mechanic, the first volume in this series), Hernandez refined his approach, settling on the more naturalistic environment of the fictional Los Angeles barrio, Hoppers, and the lives of the young Mexican-Americans and punk rockers who live there. A central story and one of Jaime's absolute peaks is "The Death of Speedy." Such is Jaime's mastery that even though the end of the story is telegraphed from the very title, the downhill spiral of Speedy, the local heartthrob, is utterly compelling and ultimately quite
surprising. Also in this volume, Maggie begins her on-again off-again romance with Ray D., leading to friction and an eventual separation from Hopey.

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Every ninety years twelve gods return as young people. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are all dead. It's happening now. It's happening again.

Eisner Award-nominated writer Kelly Sue DeConnic (Pretty Deadly, Captain Marvel) and Valentine De Landro (X-Factor) present the premiere volume of Bitch Planet, their critically acclaimed and deliciously vicious sci-fi satire. Think Margaret Atwood meets Inglourious Basterds. Discussion guide included. This book is recommended for adults.

Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them, and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all! This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

After years of self-imposed exile from a civilization rife with degradation and indecency, cynical journalist Spider Jerusalem is forced to return to a job that he hates and a city that he loathes. Working as an investigative reporter for the newspaper The Word, Spider attacks the injustices of his surreal 23rd Century surroundings. Combining black humor, life-threatening situations, and moral ambiguity, this book is the first look into the mind of an outlaw journalist and the world he seeks to destroy. This book is recommended for adults.

This book collects the adventures of Elijah Snow, a powerful hundred-year-old man, Jakita Wagner, an extremely powerful but bored woman, and the Drummer, a man with the ability to communicate with machines. Infatuated with tracking down evidence of superhuman activity, these mystery archaeologists of the late twentieth century uncover unknown paranormal secrets and histories, such as a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a ghostly spirit of vengeance and a lost island of dying monsters. This new cut of the classic series includes extras from the Absolute Edition, including sketches and variant covers. Collecting PLANETARY #1-14, PLANETARY SNEAK PEAK, PLANETARY/AUTHORITY TO RULE THE WORLD. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we WANTED? The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled. no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Follow Miyamoto Usagi in his epic trek along the warrior's path, beginning with over 600 pages of Usagi's essential adventures. In this first volume, Usagi protects a village from a band of assassins, reluctantly engages in a duel for blood money, hunts a gangster who has stolen his swords, and more! Collects Usagi Yojimbo Volume 2 #1-#16 and Volume 3 #1-#6! This book is recommended for all ages.

The groundbreaking series from Grant Morrison that led American comics in a wholly unexpected direction. Originally conceived in the 1960s by the visionary team of writer Arnold Drake and artist Bruno Premiani, the Doom Patrol was reborn a generation later through Grant Morrison’s singular imagination. Though they are super-powered beings, and though their foes are bent on world domination, convention ends there. Shunned as freaks and outcasts, and tempered by loss and insanity, this band of misfits faces threats so mystifying in nature and so corrupted in motive that reality itself threatens to fall apart around them—but it’s still all in a day’s work for the Doom Patrol. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

The critically acclaimed and Eisner-winning WHITEOUT graphic novels from Greg Rucka (LAZARUS, WONDER WOMAN) & Steve Lieber (THE FIX, SUPERIOR FOES) return in this new compendium! Carrie Stetko is a US Marshal tasked with enforcing the law in one of the most remote and inhospitable places on earth—Antarctica. Collects WHITEOUT and WHITEOUT: MELT under one cover! This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Suzie’s just a regular gal with an irregular gift: when she has sex, she stops time. One day she meets Jon and it turns out he has the same ability. And sooner or later they get around to using their gifts to do what we’d ALL do: rob a couple banks. A bawdy and brazen sex comedy for comics begins here! Then, the honeymoon seems to be over for Jon and Suzie. Once the thrill of new lust fades, where do you go? Come along and laff and love with Matt and Chip as they brimp back ceaselessly against the past. This book is recommended for adults.

The story of Ogami Ittō, a skilled samurai warrior and executioner for the emperor that was betrayed by a rival clan and forced to take on the way of the ronin to avenge his wife's death and his family's honor with his son Daigorō in tow. Together they are Lone Wolf & Cub, assassins for hire and walk the path of meifumadō, the road to hell. This omnibus contains material from the first three volumes, The Assassin's Road, The Gateless Barrier, and The Flute of the Fallen Tiger. This manga is recommended for adults.

The science fiction tale set in 2019 in Tokyo after the city was destroyed by World War III, follows the lives of two teenage friends, Tetsuo and Kaneda, who have a consuming fear of a monstrous power known as Akira. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

As a child, Monkey D. Luffy was inspired to become a pirate by listening to the tales of the buccaneer "Red-Haired" Shanks. But Luffy's life changed when he accidentally ate the Gum-Gum Devil Fruit and gained the power to stretch like rubber...at the cost of never being able to swim again! Years later, still vowing to become the king of the pirates, Luffy sets out on his adventure...one guy alone in a rowboat, in search of the legendary "One Piece," said to be the greatest treasure in the world... This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Alchemy: the mystical power to alter the natural world; something between magic, art and science. When two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, dabbled in this power to grant their dearest wish, one of them lost an arm and a leg...and the other became nothing but a soul locked into a body of living steel. Now Edward is an agent of the government, a slave of the military-alchemical complex, using his unique powers to obey orders...even to kill. Except his powers aren't unique. The world has been ravaged by the abuse of alchemy. And in pursuit of the ultimate alchemical treasure, the Philosopher's Stone, their enemies are even more ruthless than they are...This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.
When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic — and redemptive. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president. Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Your Black Friend and Other Strangers is a collection of culturally charged comics by cartoonist Ben Passmore, including the Eisner Award nominated and Ignatz Award-winning "Your Black Friend," named one of NPR's 100 favorite comics of all time in 2017. Passmore masterfully tackles comics about race, gentrification, the prison system, online dating, gross punks, bad street art, kung fu movie references, beating up God, and lots of other grown-up stuff with refreshing doses of humor and lived relatability. The comics in this 112-page collection include works previously published by The Nib, VICE, and the As You Were anthology, along with brand new and unreleased material. These comics are essential, humorous, and accessible, told through Passmore's surreal lens in the vibrant full-color hues of New Orleans.

Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, this innovative comic book provides a detailed look at the history, meaning, and art of comics and cartooning. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The lore of the early days of hip hop has become the stuff of myth, so what better way to document this fascinating, epic true story than in another great American mythological medium -- the comic book? From exciting young talent and self-proclaimed hip hop nerd Ed Piskor, acclaimed for his hacker graphic novel Wizzywig, comes this explosively entertaining, encyclopedic history of the formative years of the music genre that changed global culture. Originally serialized on the hugely popular website Boing Boing, The Hip Hop Family Tree is now collected in a single volume cleverly presented and packaged in a style mimicking the Marvel comics of the same era. Piskor's exuberant yet controlled cartooning takes you from the parks and rec rooms of the South Bronx to the night clubs, recording studios, and radio stations where the scene started to boom, capturing the flavor of late-1970s New York City in panels bursting with obsessively authentic detail. With a painstaking, vigorous and engaging Ken Burns meets- Stan Lee approach, the battles and rivalries, the technical innovations, the triumphs and failures are all thoroughly researched and lovingly depicted. plus the charismatic players behind the scenes like Russell Simmons, Sylvia Robinson and then-punker Rick Rubin. Piskor also traces graffiti master Fab 5 Freddy's rise in the art world, and Debbie Harry, Keith Haring, The Clash, and other luminaries make cameos as the music and culture begin to penetrate downtown Manhattan and the mainstream at large. Like the acclaimed hip hop documentaries Style Wars and Scratch, The Hip Hop Family Tree is an exciting and essential cultural chronicle and a must for hip hop fans, pop-culture addicts, and anyone who wants to know how it went down back in the day. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in this sexy, subversive drama. This book is recommended for adults.

An occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On his arduous journey Morpheus encounters Lucifer, John Constantine, and an all-powerful madman.

It is ten years after an aging Batman has retired and Gotham City has sunk deeper into decadence and lawlessness. Now as his city needs him most, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by Carrie Kelly, a teenage female Robin, Batman takes to the streets to end the threat of the mutant gangs that have overrun the city. And after facing off against his two greatest enemies, the Joker and Two-Face for the final time, Batman finds himself in mortal combat with his former ally, Superman, in a battle that only one of them will survive. This collection is hailed as a comics masterpiece and was responsible for the launch of the Batman movies. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A new era for the Black Panther begins as the kingdom of Wakanda enters its final days! Award-winning writer Ta-Nehisi Coates confronts T'Challa with dramatic upheaval in his homeland that will make leading the African nation tougher than ever before. When a superhuman terrorist group that calls itself The People sparks a violent uprising, the land famed for incredible technology and proud warrior traditions will be thrown into turmoil. As Zenzi, leader of The People, poisons the populace against their king, the former queen Shuri's spirit makes an uncanny journey through the Djalia, and a new Crew is formed! If Wakanda is to survive, it must adapt - but can its monarch, one of a long line of Black Panthers, survive the necessary change? Heavy lies the head that wears the cowl!
*Collects Black Panther Vol. 1-3*

Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City — until she's suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the new Ms. Marvel? Teenager? Muslim? Inhuman? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! When Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them, as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts? Or will the weight of the legacy before her be too much to bear? Kamala has no idea, either. But she's comin' for you, Jersey! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The Vision wants to be human, and what's more human than family? So he heads back to the beginning, to the laboratory where Ultron created him and molded him into a weapon. The place where he first rebelled against his given destiny and imagined that he could be more -that he could be a man. There, he builds them. A wife, Virginia. Two teenage twins, Viv and Vin. They look like him. They have his powers. They share his grandest ambition (or is that obsession?) the unrelenting need to be ordinary. Behold the Visions! They’re the family next door, and they have the power to kill us all. What could possibly go wrong? Artificial hearts will be broken, bodies will not stay buried, the truth will not remain hidden, and the Vision will never be the same. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Wonder Woman stars in her first digital-first anthology series! Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver kick things off when Oracle calls for help after the entire Bat-Family gets sidelined. But when Wonder Woman steps into the breach, Gotham City's criminals get the surprise of their lives! Then, Amanda Deibert and Cat Staggs take Diana to school, where she meets her biggest fan! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

This first Astro City volume looks at a day in the life of the Samaritan, the worlds busiest super-hero; an invasion of underground dwellers that is thwarted by the super-team the Honor Guard; a small-time criminals growing paranoia as he comes to believe that the colourful hero called the Jack-in-the-Box is after him; plus stories introducing the First Family, the Hanged Man, Winged Victory, and many others. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Gotham City: a town teeming with corrupt cops, ruthless crime lords, petty thieves … and just a small handful that would oppose them. Grizzled veteran Harvey Bullock, Captain Maggie Sawyer, detective Renee Montoya and the GCPD are the law force that stands between order and complete anarchy. Gotham's Finest work around the clock to not only keep the world's most psychotic criminals off the street... but also cleaning up the mess left behind by Batman's one-man war on crime. This book is recommend for older teens and adults.

The Uncanny X-Men. Magneto, master of magnetism. The bitterest of enemies for years. But now they must join forces against a new adversary who threatens them all and the entire world besides... in the name of God. One of Chris Claremont's most powerful and influential stories, the partial basis for "X-Men 2," is reprinted here for the first time in years. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort, or H.A.T.E. (a subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation®) put NextWave together to fight Bizarre Weapons of Mass Destruction. When NextWave discovers that H.A.T.E. and Beyond are terrorist cells themselves, and that the BWMDs were intended to kill them, they are less than pleased. In fact, they are rather angry. So they make things explode. Lots of things. Starring Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel and Photon), Aaron Stack (Machine Man), Tabitha Smith (X-Force's Meltdown), monster-hunter Elsa Bloodstone and the Captain! Guest-starring Fin Fang Foom! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Writer/illustrator Darwyn Cooke's critically acclaimed masterpiece DC: THE NEW FRONTIER is celebrated in this oversized Absolute edition featuring new story pages, detailed annotations, alternate sequences and an extensive gallery of sketches, pinups, action figure art and much more! In the 1950s, Cold War paranoia has resulted in the mystery men of the Golden Age being outlaws. Stalwarts such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman continued to fight for truth and justice, but as the world hurtles toward an uncertain future, it would take a new breed of hero to define the American Way. DC: THE NEW FRONTIER takes readers on an epic journey from the end of the Golden Age of heroes to the beginnings of the legendary Justice League of America. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The story jumps from Hellboy's mysterious World War II origin to his 1994 confrontation with the man who summoned him to earth, and the earliest signs of the plague of frogs. Avoiding his supposed fate as the herald of the end of the world, Hellboy continues with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fighting alongside Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, and drafting Roger Homunculus into his own ill-fated service with the B.P.R.D. This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1994 to 1997, reprinting Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and “Wolves of St August,” “The Chained Coffin,” and “Almost Colossus,” from The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom.

A fresh take on Hawkeye, gone is the classic costume and Avengers, Clint is just a down to Earth guy fighting Russian mobsters with a fixation of the word 'bro' and fighting crime with Kate Bishop, the other Hawkeye, who took up the mantle when Clint was dead (don't worry, he got better). This is an incredible series and a must read for anyone, comic fan or not. This book collects the first two volumes of the series, My Life as a Weapon and Little Hits. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Calvin, the six-year-old dirty tricksmeister and master of indignation and his warm, cuddly philosopher sidekick and Hobbes, a tiger whose idea of adventure is to lie on his back by the fire and have his stomach rubbed. This unlikely due captured the hearts, the minds, and, most of all, the funny bones of America. The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes contains an original full-color section, as well as all the cartoons appearing in The Revenge of the Baby-Sat and Scientific Progress Goes "Boink." All Sunday cartoons are presented in full-color. This book is recommended for all ages.

The official history and commemoration of Pogo's first decade...all wrapped up with a running commentary by Walt Kelly. This book is recommended for all ages.

For twenty-five years Bechdel’s path-breaking Dykes to Watch Out For strip has been collected in award-winning volumes (with a quarter of a million copies in print), syndicated in fifty alternative newspapers, and translated into many languages. Now, at last, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For gathers a “rich, funny, deep and impossible to put down” (Publishers Weekly) selection from all eleven Dykes volumes. Here too are sixty of the newest strips, never before published in book form. Settle in to this wittily illustrated soap opera (Bechdel calls it “half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel”) of the lives, loves, and politics of a cast of characters, most of them lesbian, living in a midsize American city that may or may not be Minneapolis. Her brilliantly imagined countercultural band of friends -- academics, social workers, bookstore clerks -- fall in and out of love, negotiate friendships, raise children, switch careers, and cope with aging parents.This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Berkley Breathed's Bloom County was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed newspaper strips of all time. Bloom County ran from December 8th, 1980 to August 6th, 1989 and was published in 1200 newspapers on a daily basis. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip, will be of particular fascination to Peanuts aficionados worldwide: Although there have been literally hundreds of Peanuts books published, many of the strips from the series' first two or three years have never been collected before—in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we're all familiar with. (Among other things, three major cast members—Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus—initially show up as infants and only "grow" into their final "mature" selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus The Complete Peanuts offers a unique chance to see a master of the art form refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month. This book is recommended for all ages.

A collection of New Yorker cartoonist Kate Beaton's webcomics, filled with hilarious scenes from literature and history that are as intelligent as they are funny! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A queer, black teenager finds herself stranded in a dangerous and unfamiliar place: an all-white Christian youth backpacking camp.

Post-grad Allison Ruth has a problem. More specifically, her boyfriend has been kidnapped by dimension-hopping knights, a dying warrior has imbued her with a great and ancient power, and she herself has been whisked away to Throne, the city at the venter of all worlds. Stranded in a bizarre land of nightmarish creatures, slang-talking devils, and kung-fu angels, Allison must undertake an epic quest to save her boyfriend from the clutches of the seven evil god-kings that rule the multiverse. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake -- and her own.

"The Brambly Hedge," tells the origin of the castle itself, which is abandoned by its princess in a comic twist on "Sleeping Beauty" when she rides off into the sunset with her Prince Charming.

All Jin Wang wants is to fit in. When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese American student at his school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and he has hardly any friends. Then, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl...Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master of the arts of kung-fu, he is the most powerful monkey on earth. But the Monkey King doesn't want to be a monkey. He wants to be hailed as a god... Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. Danny's a popular kid at school, but every year Chin-Kee comes to visit, and every year Danny has to transfer to a new school to escape the shame. This year, though, things quickly go from bad to worse...These three apparently unrelated tales come together with an unexpected twist, in a modern fable that is hilarious, poignant and action-packed. American Born Chinese is an amazing rise, all the way up to the astonishing climax--and confirms what a growing number of readers already know: Gene Yang is a major talent. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

When her best friend is abducted by an alien doomsday cult, Zita leaps to the rescue and finds herself a stranger on a strange planet. Humanoid chickens and neurotic robots are shocking enough as new experiences go, but Zita is even more surprised to find herself taking on the role of intergalactic hero. Before long, aliens in all shapes and sizes don't even phase her. Neither do ancient prophecies, doomed planets, or even a friendly con man who takes a mysterious interest in Zita's quest.

After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather, but the strange house proves to be dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures the kids' mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals. Eventually, they enlist the help of a small mechanical rabbit named Miskit. Together with Miskit, they face the most terrifying monster of all, and Em finally has the chance to save someone she loves.

Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends. Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school--in the hallway...in the teacher's lounge...in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it's just another way of feeling different... and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend? This funny perceptive graphic novel memoir about growing up hearing impaired is also an unforgettable book about growing up, and all the super and super embarrassing moments along the way.

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.
When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic — and redemptive. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's name) follows the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, two best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apart. Daniel Clowes is one of the most respected cartoonists of his generation, and Ghost World is his magnum opus. Adapted into a major motion picture directed by Terry Zwigoff (director of the acclaimed documentary Crumb), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

There is a silent epidemic in America: loneliness. Shameful to talk about and often misunderstood, loneliness is everywhere, from the most major of metropolises to the smallest of towns. In Seek You, Kristen Radtke's wide-ranging exploration of our inner lives and public selves, Radtke digs into the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another, and the distance that remains. Through the lenses of gender and violence, technology and art, Radtke ushers us through a history of loneliness and longing, and shares what feels impossible to share. Ranging from the invention of the laugh-track to the rise of Instagram, the bootstrap-pulling cowboy to the brutal experiments of Harry Harlow, Radtke investigates why we engage with each other, and what we risk when we turn away. With her distinctive, emotionally charged drawings and deeply empathetic prose, Kristen Radtke masterfully shines a light on some of our most vulnerable and sublime moments, and asks how we might keep the spaces between us from splitting entirely.

Once a thriving working class neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, the “Bottomyards” is now the definition of urban blight. When an aspiring fashion designer named Darla and her image-obsessed friend, Cynthia, descend upon the neighborhood in search of cheap rent, they soon discover something far more seductive and sinister lurking behind the walls of their new home. Like a cross between Jordan Peele’s Get Out and John Carpenter’s The Thing, Daniels and Passmore’s BTTM FDRS (pronounced “bottomfeeders”) offers a vision of horror that is gross and gory in all the right ways. At turns funny, scary, and thought provoking, it unflinchingly confronts the monsters—both metaphoric and real—that are displacing cultures in urban neighborhoods today. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents. This book is recommended for adults.

Bolstered by meticulous research that encompasses a wide spectrum of Ripper studies and myths and coupled with his ability to evoke sympathies in such monstrous characters, Moore has created perhaps the finest examination of the Ripper legacy, observing far beyond society's obsessive need to expose Evil's visage. Ultimately, as Moore observes, Jack's identity and his actions are inconsequential to the manner in which society embraced the Fear: "It's about us. It's about our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic." Eddie Campbell's stunning black and white artwork, replete with a scratchy, dirty sheen, is perfectly matched to the often-unshakeable intensity of Moore's writing. Between them, each murder is rendered in horrifying detail, providing the book's most unnerving scenes, made more so in uncomfortable, yet lyrical moments as when the villain embraces an eviscerated corpse, craving understanding; pleading that they "are wed in legend, inextricable within eternity". This book is recommended for adults.

Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster magazines iconography. Karen Reyes tries to solve the murder of her enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold. When Karen’s investigation takes us back to Anka’s life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal, the political, the past, and the present converge. Full-color illustrations throughout. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Hannah is a thirty-something wife, home-health worker, and antiwar activist. Her husband, Johnny, is a stay-at-home pothead working—or "working"—on building them a house before the winter chill sets in. They're currently living and screwing in the back of a truck, hoping for a pregnancy, which seems like it will never come. Legs in the air, for a better chance at conception, Hannah scans fertility Reddits while Johnny dreams about propagating plants—kale, tomatoes—to ensure they have sufficient sustenance should the end times come, which, given their fragile democracy strained under the weight of a carceral state and the risk of horrible war, doesn’t seem so far off. Helping Hannah in her fight for the future is her best friend Gabby, a queer naturalist she idolizes and who adores her. Helping Johnny build the house is Tyler, an off-the-grid conspiracy theorist driven sick by his own cloudy notions of reality. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

In a sleepy, secluded Alaska town called Barrow, the sun sets and doesn't rise for over thirty consecutive days and nights. From the darkness, across the frozen wasteland, an evil will come that will bring the residents of Barrow to their knees. The only hope for the town is the Sheriff and Deputy, husband and wife who are torn between their own survival and saving the town they love. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

The gang from Riverdale that you grew up with are back...and dealing with a zombie outbreak! Honestly not as cheesy as you're expecting, this is a wonderfully crafted tale that's truly engaging and creepy. When Reggie accidentally runs over Hotdog, a grief-stricken Jughead turns to Sabrina for help. Using her magic she's able to bring the beloved dog back from the dead, although things aren't quite right...This book is recommended for older teens and adults due to its creepy content.

After a horrific accident strikes a space station, an engineering officer must use all available tools--a timer, utility kit, and his wits--to survive an attack from the deadliest creature known to man. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Snyder's tale follows Pearl, a young woman living in 1920s Los Angeles, who is brutally turned into a vampire and sets out on a path of righteous revenge against the European monsters who tortured and abused her. And in King's story set in the days of America's Wild West, readers learn the origin of Skinner Sweet, the original American vampire – a stronger, faster creature than any vampire ever seen before. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

In this groundbreaking painted graphic novel, the inmates of Arkham Asylum have taken over Gotham's detention center for the criminally insane on April Fool's Day and demand Batman in exchange for their prisoners. Accepting their demented challenge, Batman is forced to live and endure the personal hells of the Joker, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Two-Face and many other of his sworn enemies in order to save the innocents and retake the prison. During his run through this absurd gauntlet, the Darknight Detective's own sanity is in jeopardy. This special anniversary edition hardcover also reproduces the original script with annotations by Morrison and editor Karen Berger. This book is recommended for adults.

Taking place during Batman's early days of crime fighting, this new edition of the classic mystery tells the story of a mysterious killer who murders his prey only on holidays. Working with District Attorney Harvey Dent and Lieutenant James Gordon, Batman races against the calendar as he tries to discover who Holiday is before he claims his next victim each month. A mystery that has the reader continually guessing the identity of the killer, this story also ties into the events that transform Harvey Dent into Batman's deadly enemy, Two-Face. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Modern society is obsessed with outward beauty. What if there was a way to guarantee you could become more and more beautiful every day? What if it was a sexually transmitted disease? In the world of The Beauty, physical perfection is only one sexual encounter away. The vast majority of the population has taken advantage of it, but Detectives Vaughn and Foster will soon discover it comes at a terrible cost. Now, they'll have to find their way past corrupt poiticians, vengeful federal agents, and a terrifying mercenary out to collect the price on their heads. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Kerascoët’s and Fabien Vehlmann’s unsettling and gorgeous anti-fairy tale is a searing condemnation of our vast capacity for evil writ tiny. Join princess Aurora and her friends as they journey to civilization's heart of darkness in a bleak allegory about surviving the human experience. The sweet faces and bright leaves of Kerascoët’s delicate watercolors serve to highlight the evil that dwells beneath Vehlmann's story as pettiness, greed, and jealousy take over. Beautiful Darkness is a harrowing look behind the routine politeness and meaningless kindness of civilized society. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters — some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it — what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself — the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.
And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it- back when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.
To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…This book is recommended for teens and adults.

In 2001, Hellboy quit the B.P.R.D., leaving Abe Sapien to lead Liz Sherman and a bizarre roster of special agents, defending the world from occult threats, including the growing menace of the frog army, first spotted in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. Mike Mignola and Dark Horse present the complete Plague of Frogs saga, from Hollow Earth to The King of Fear. The first book re-establishes the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense after Hellboy's departure, cracks open the secrets of Abe Sapien's origin, and sets the War on Frogs in motion. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, the young sorceress Sabrina Spellman finds herself at a crossroads, having to choose between an unearthly destiny and her mortal boyfriend, Harvey. But a foe from her family's past has arrived in Greendale, Madame Satan, and she has her own deadly agenda. Archie Comics' latest horror sensation starts here! This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Journalist Chloe Pierce had no idea that her fiancée, Philip's, decision to pick up a book by enigmatic and compelling self-help guru, Astrid Mueller, would change her life forever: by ending his! Three months after reading Mueller's book, Philip had blown his brains out all over Chloe's new kitchen and something in that book made him do it. Now, Chloe will stop at nothing as she attempts to infiltrate Mueller's clandestine organization to find the truth behind Philip's suicide and a "Clean Room" that she's heard whispers of--a place where your deepest fears are exposed and your worst moments revealed. This book is recommended for adults.

Secrets, lies, horror, lust and monsters from the time before time all collide in Fatale, Book One: Death Chases Me. In present day, a man meets a woman who he becomes instantly obsessed with, and in the 1950s, this same woman destroys the lives of all those who cross her path, on a quest for... what? This book is recommended for adults.

Trevor's monstrous little brother lives in the barn behind the house. The boy's only six years old, but he towers over his older brother, and possesses incredible strength. For years, Trevor has looked after his baby brother, keeping him from the light, but now that's all about to change. His family's secret is about to be revealed, uncovering the horrible truth of the small midwestern town the boys have grown up in. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Bolstered by meticulous research that encompasses a wide spectrum of Ripper studies and myths and coupled with his ability to evoke sympathies in such monstrous characters, Moore has created perhaps the finest examination of the Ripper legacy, observing far beyond society's obsessive need to expose Evil's visage. Ultimately, as Moore observes, Jack's identity and his actions are inconsequential to the manner in which society embraced the Fear: "It's about us. It's about our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic." Eddie Campbell's stunning black and white artwork, replete with a scratchy, dirty sheen, is perfectly matched to the often-unshakeable intensity of Moore's writing. Between them, each murder is rendered in horrifying detail, providing the book's most unnerving scenes, made more so in uncomfortable, yet lyrical moments as when the villain embraces an eviscerated corpse, craving understanding; pleading that they "are wed in legend, inextricable within eternity". This book is recommended for adults.

In a land far away, there were two kingdoms: the Outside, where twisted beasts roamed that could curse with a touch, and the Inside, where humans lived in safety and peace. The girl and the beast should never have met, but when they do, a quiet fairytale begins. This is a story of two people--one human, one inhuman--who linger in the hazy twilight that separates night from day. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The nameless man, the zombie priest, had come to town to build a gang from the undead. But even the undead fear THE GOON. The Goon's earliest battles with the undead are mixed with stories of his childhood years, where we're introduced to his circus performing family, and discover how The Goon became head of a notorious crime family. Originally a self-published, black-and-white comic series, The Goon: Rough Stuff collects the earliest stories of The Goon and his wise-cracking sidekick Franky. This re-mastered, colored edition, also contains an expanded sketchbook section with notes from series creator, Eric Powell, that features the earliest concept designs of our leading man, The Goon. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

The very first Hellblazer collection Original Sins is available in a new edition that includes John Constantine’s appearances in Swamp Thing. This is the first of a series of new Hellblazer editions starring Vertigo’s longest running antihero, John Constantine, England’s chain-smoking, low-rent magus.This first collection is a loosely connected series of tales of John’s early years where Constantine was at his best and at his worst, all at the same time. This book is recommended for adults.

The story jumps from Hellboy's mysterious World War II origin to his 1994 confrontation with the man who summoned him to earth, and the earliest signs of the plague of frogs. Avoiding his supposed fate as the herald of the end of the world, Hellboy continues with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fighting alongside Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, and drafting Roger Homunculus into his own ill-fated service with the B.P.R.D. This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1994 to 1997, reprinting Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and “Wolves of St August,” “The Chained Coffin,” and “Almost Colossus,” from The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom.

A horrific take on the true story of the Winchester haunted house and one woman’s mission to wash away the blood curse of the Winchester rifle from claiming her own life and soul. This is a tale of guilt, ghosts, and guns . . . of how fortune brings misfortune as a grim and determined woman oversees the construction of a house twenty-four hours a day for twenty years, with the simple motto of keep busy building or get busy dying. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

A pair of decadent young men pursue the abhorrent thrill of grave robbing...a German submarine's crew is driven mad by the call of an underwater temple...an explorer in the Arabian desert discovers a hideous city older than mankind. This moody and evocative manga gets back to the dark foundations of the Cthulhu Mythos, adapting three of H.P. Lovecraft's original stories that first shaped the outlines of cosmic horror! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

ICE CREAM MAN is a genre-defying comic book series, featuring disparate “one-shot” tales of sorrow, wonder, and redemption. Each installment features its own cast of strange characters, dealing with their own special sundae of suffering. And on the periphery of all of them, like the twinkly music of his colorful truck, is the Ice Cream Man—a weaver of stories, a purveyor of sweet treats. Friend. Foe. God. Demon. The man who with a snap of his fingers—lickety split!—can change the course of your life forever. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A haunted house story for the 21st century, INFIDEL follows an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who move into a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Mayhem and violence rule in this collection of issues one through seven of Jhonen Vasquez's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, as well as material seen before only in Carpe Noctem magazine. Dark and disturbingly funny, JTHM follows the adventures of Johnny (you can call him Nny), who lives with a pair of styrofoam doughboys that encourage his madness, a wall that constantly needs a fresh coat of blood, and--oh, yeah--his victims in various states of torture. Join Nny as he frightens the little boy next door (Todd, known to fans of Vasquez's work as Squee), thirsts for Cherry Brain Freezies, attempts suicide, draws Happy Noodle Boy, and tries to uncover the meaning of his homicidal existence. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them, and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all! This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" continues to thrill and unsettle readers nearly seven decades after it was first published. By turns puzzling and harrowing, it raises troubling questions about conformity, tradition, and the specter of ritualized violence that haunts even the most bucolic, peaceful village. This graphic adaptation, published in time for Jackson's centennial, allows readers to experience "The Lottery" as never before, or discover it anew. The visual artist--and Jackson's grandson--Miles Hyman has crafted an eerie vision of the hamlet where the tale unfolds, its inhabitants, and the unforgettable ritual they set into motion. His four-color, meticulously detailed panels create a noirish atmosphere that adds a new dimension of dread to the original tale. Perfectly timed to the current resurgence of interest in Jackson and her work, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery": The Authorized Graphic Adaptation masterfully reimagines her iconic story with a striking visual narrative.

Set during Prohibition, and deep in the backwoods of Appalachia, MOONSHINE tells the story of LOU PIRLO, a city-slick "torpedo" sent from New York City to negotiate a deal with the best moonshiner in West Virginia, one HIRAM HOLT. Lou figures it for milk run -- how hard could it be to set-up moonshine shipments from a few ass-backward hillbillies? What Lou doesn't figure on is that Holt is just as cunning as ruthless as any NYC crime boss and Lou is in way over his pin-striped head. Because not only will Holt do anything to protect his illicit booze operation, he'll stop at nothing to protect a much darker family secret...a bloody, supernatural secret that must never see the light of day...or better still, the light of the full moon. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

"Where do serial killers come from?" and why has Buckaroo, Oregon given birth to sixteen of the most vile serial killers in the world? NSA Agent Nicholas Finch needs to solve that mystery in order to save his friend, and he'll have to team up with the infamous Edward "Nailbiter" Warren to do it. Joshua Williamson and Mike Henderson deliver a mystery that mixes Twin Peaks with the horror of Se7en! This book is recommended for adults.

Nameless tells the story of a down-at-heel occult hustler known only as "Nameless" who is recruited by a consortium of billionaire futurists as part of a desperate mission to save the world. A massive asteroid named Xibalba — the "Place of Fear" in Mayan mythology — is on collision course with the planet Earth. If that wasn't trouble enough, the asteroid has an enormous magical symbol carved into its side and is revealed to be a fragment of our solar system's lost fifth planet, Marduk, destroyed sixty-five million years ago at the end of an epic cosmic war between the inhabitants of Marduk and immensely powerful, life-hating, extra-dimensional "gods." One of those beings is still alive, imprisoned on Xibalba, dreaming of its ultimate revenge on all that exists. When Nameless and his teammates inadvertently unleash this malignant soul-destroying intelligence, the stage is set for a nightmarish, nihilistic journey to the outer reaches of human terror. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Comic book legend Alan Moore (WATCHMEN, FROM HELL) and brilliant artist Jacen Burrows deliver a chilling tale of Lovecraftian horror! Brears and Lamper, two young and cocky FBI agents, investigate a fresh series of ritual murders somehow tied to the final undercover assignment of Aldo Sax –the once golden boy of the Bureau, now a convicted killer and inmate of a maximum security prison. From their interrogation of Sax (where he spoke exclusively in inhuman tongues) to a related drug raid on a seedy rock club rife with arcane symbols and otherworldly lyrics, they suspect that they are on the trail of something awful… but nothing can prepare them for the creeping insanity and unspeakable terrors they will face in the small harbor town of Innsmouth.

NEW HORROR SERIES FROM THE WALKING DEAD CREATOR ROBERT KIRKMAN! Kyle Barnes has been plagued by demonic possession all his life and now he needs answers. Unfortunately, what he uncovers along the way could bring about the end of life on Earth as we know it. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Alan Moore's quintessential horror series has set the standard for a terrifying examination of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It is being universally hailed as one of Moore's most realized works in which the master scribe has controlled every iota of the story, art, and presentation. The result has been a masterpiece like no other, unparalleled in tone and content, and a true must have addition to his essential works in the field.

An occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On his arduous journey Morpheus encounters Lucifer, John Constantine, and an all-powerful madman.

Before WATCHMEN, Alan Moore made his debut in the U.S. comic book industry with the revitalization of the horror comic book THE SWAMP THING. His deconstruction of the classic monster stretched the creative boundaries of the medium and became one of the most spectacular series in comic book history. With modern-day issues explored against a backdrop of horror, SWAMP THING's stories became commentaries on environmental, political and social issues, unflinching in their relevance. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss. These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll. Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there...This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Kurozu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It manifests itself in small ways: seashells, ferns, whirlpools in water, whirlwinds in air. And in large ways: the spiral marks on people's bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuichi's father, the voice from the cochlea in your inner ear. As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of Kurouzu-cho are pulled ever deeper, as if into a whirlpool from which there is no return...This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we WANTED? The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled. no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Everything you thought you knew about witches is wrong. They are much darker, and they are much more horrifying. Wytches takes the mythology of witches to a far creepier, bone-chilling place than readers have dared venture before. When the Rooks family moves to the remote town of Litchfield, NH to escape a haunting trauma, they're hopeful about starting over. But something evil is waiting for them in the woods just beyond town. Watching from the trees. Ancient...and hungry. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Berlin: City of Stones presents the first part of Jason Lutes' captivating trilogy, set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic. Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters intertwined with the historical events unfolding around them. City of Stones covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a glowing shadow. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

In late 1995 and early 1996, cartoonist/reporter Joe Sacco travelled four times to Gorazde, a UN-designated safe area during the Bosnian War, which had teetered on the brink of obliteration for three and a half years. Still surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces, the mainly Muslim people of Gorazde had endured heavy attacks and severe privation to hang on to their town while the rest of Eastern Bosnia was brutally 'cleansed' of its non-Serb population. But as much as "Safe Area Gorazde" is an account of a terrible siege, it presents a snapshot of people who were slowly letting themselves believe that a war was ending and that they had survived.

A mysterious agent named Graves who approaches ordinary citizens and gives them an opportunity to exact revenge on a person who has wronged them. Offering his clients an attache case containing proof of the deed and a gun, he guarantees his "clients" full immunity for all of their actions, including murder. This book is recommended for adults.

Follow Miyamoto Usagi in his epic trek along the warrior's path, beginning with over 600 pages of Usagi's essential adventures. In this first volume, Usagi protects a village from a band of assassins, reluctantly engages in a duel for blood money, hunts a gangster who has stolen his swords, and more! Collects Usagi Yojimbo Volume 2 #1-#16 and Volume 3 #1-#6! This book is recommended for all ages.

A collection of New Yorker cartoonist Kate Beaton's webcomics, filled with hilarious scenes from literature and history that are as intelligent as they are funny! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Suzie’s just a regular gal with an irregular gift: when she has sex, she stops time. One day she meets Jon and it turns out he has the same ability. And sooner or later they get around to using their gifts to do what we’d ALL do: rob a couple banks. A bawdy and brazen sex comedy for comics begins here! Then, the honeymoon seems to be over for Jon and Suzie. Once the thrill of new lust fades, where do you go? Come along and laff and love with Matt and Chip as they brimp back ceaselessly against the past. This book is recommended for adults.

When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the worlds. Fantasy and science fiction are wed like never before in this sexy, subversive drama. This book is recommended for adults.

After merging with a bizarre spiritual force called Genesis, Texan preacher Jesse Custer has become completely disillusioned with the beliefs to which he had dedicated his entire life. Now possessing the power of "the word," an ability to make people do whatever he utters, Custer begins a violent and riotous journey across the country. Joined by his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip and the hard-drinking Irish vampire Cassidy, Custer loses faith in both God and man as he witnesses dark atrocities and improbable calamities during his exploration of America. This book is recommended for adults.

The science fiction tale set in 2019 in Tokyo after the city was destroyed by World War III, follows the lives of two teenage friends, Tetsuo and Kaneda, who have a consuming fear of a monstrous power known as Akira. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters — some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it — what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself — the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.
And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it- back when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.
To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…This book is recommended for teens and adults.

oin traveling reporter Tintin and his faithful dog Snowy, along with well-known friends such as Captain Haddock, as they embark on extraordinary adventures spanning historical and political events, fantasy and science-fiction adventures and thrilling mysteries. These full-color graphic novels broke new ground when they were first released and became the inspiration for countless modern-day comic artists.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's name) follows the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, two best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apart. Daniel Clowes is one of the most respected cartoonists of his generation, and Ghost World is his magnum opus. Adapted into a major motion picture directed by Terry Zwigoff (director of the acclaimed documentary Crumb), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Throughout history, a secret society called the Invisibles, who count among their number Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, work against the forces of order that seek to repress humanity's growth. In this first collection, the Invisibles' latest recruit, a teenage lout from the streets of London, must survive a bizarre, mind-altering training course before being projected into the past to help enlist the Marquis de Sade. This book is recommended for adults.

Bolstered by meticulous research that encompasses a wide spectrum of Ripper studies and myths and coupled with his ability to evoke sympathies in such monstrous characters, Moore has created perhaps the finest examination of the Ripper legacy, observing far beyond society's obsessive need to expose Evil's visage. Ultimately, as Moore observes, Jack's identity and his actions are inconsequential to the manner in which society embraced the Fear: "It's about us. It's about our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic." Eddie Campbell's stunning black and white artwork, replete with a scratchy, dirty sheen, is perfectly matched to the often-unshakeable intensity of Moore's writing. Between them, each murder is rendered in horrifying detail, providing the book's most unnerving scenes, made more so in uncomfortable, yet lyrical moments as when the villain embraces an eviscerated corpse, craving understanding; pleading that they "are wed in legend, inextricable within eternity". This book is recommended for adults.

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.
When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic — and redemptive. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

This first book from Chicago author Chris Ware is a pleasantly-decorated view at a lonely and emotionally-impaired "everyman" (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), who is provided, at age 36, the opportunity to meet his father for the first time. An improvisatory romance which gingerly deports itself between 1890's Chicago and 1980's small town Michigan, the reader is helped along by thousands of colored illustrations and diagrams, which, when read rapidly in sequence, provide a convincing illusion of life and movement. The bulk of the work is supported by fold-out instructions, an index, paper cut-outs, and a brief apology, all of which concrete to form a rich portrait of a man stunted by a paralyzing fear of being disliked. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The 25th anniversary Love and Rockets celebration continues with this, the second of three volumes collecting the adventures of the spunky Maggie; her annoying, pixie-ish best friend and sometime lover Hopey; and their circle of friends, including their bombshell friend Penny Century, Maggie's weirdo mentor Izzy—as well as the aging but still heroic wrestler Rena Titañon and Maggie's handsome love interest, Rand Race. After the sci-fi trappings of his earliest stories (as seen in Maggie the Mechanic, the first volume in this series), Hernandez refined his approach, settling on the more naturalistic environment of the fictional Los Angeles barrio, Hoppers, and the lives of the young Mexican-Americans and punk rockers who live there. A central story and one of Jaime's absolute peaks is "The Death of Speedy." Such is Jaime's mastery that even though the end of the story is telegraphed from the very title, the downhill spiral of Speedy, the local heartthrob, is utterly compelling and ultimately quite
surprising. Also in this volume, Maggie begins her on-again off-again romance with Ray D., leading to friction and an eventual separation from Hopey.

How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something we wanted? How long has it been since any of us really NEEDED something that we WANTED? The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled. no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

A haunted house story for the 21st century, INFIDEL follows an American Muslim woman and her multi-racial neighbors who move into a building haunted by entities that feed off xenophobia. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The gang from Riverdale that you grew up with are back...and dealing with a zombie outbreak! Honestly not as cheesy as you're expecting, this is a wonderfully crafted tale that's truly engaging and creepy. When Reggie accidentally runs over Hotdog, a grief-stricken Jughead turns to Sabrina for help. Using her magic she's able to bring the beloved dog back from the dead, although things aren't quite right...This book is recommended for older teens and adults due to its creepy content.

Emmy always knew that the woods surrounding her home crawled with ghosts and monsters. But on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, she learns that she is connected to these creatures--and to the land itself--in a way she never imagined.
A southern gothic fairy tale from the creator of smash hit The Sixth Gun, beautifully and hauntingly realized by B.P.R.D.'s Tyler Crook! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

THE RETURN OF BRUCE BANNER! You know Bruce Banner. He's quiet, calm, never complains. He's a man who believes he can use the darkest elements of his personality to do good in the world. If someone were to shoot him in the head... All he'd do is die. But the horror lives deeper. A horror that refuses to die. When night falls something other than the man gets up again. The horror is the Immortal Hulk. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

After having his face sliced off, The Joker makes his horrifying return to Gotham City in this epic that shook Batman to his core! A terrifying new take on Batman's most iconic villains, the Joker is out for revenge and in his mind...to take Batman back to his roots back getting rid of the extended Bat-family. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

ICE CREAM MAN is a genre-defying comic book series, featuring disparate “one-shot” tales of sorrow, wonder, and redemption. Each installment features its own cast of strange characters, dealing with their own special sundae of suffering. And on the periphery of all of them, like the twinkly music of his colorful truck, is the Ice Cream Man—a weaver of stories, a purveyor of sweet treats. Friend. Foe. God. Demon. The man who with a snap of his fingers—lickety split!—can change the course of your life forever. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

When children begin to go missing in the town of Archer’s Peak, all hope seems lost until a mysterious woman arrives to reveal that terrifying creatures are behind the chaos - and that she alone will destroy them, no matter the cost.
IT’S THE MONSTERS WHO SHOULD BE AFRAID.
When the children of Archer's Peak—a sleepy town in the heart of America—begin to go missing, everything seems hopeless. Most children never return, but the ones that do have terrible stories—impossible details of terrifying creatures that live in the shadows. Their only hope of finding and eliminating the threat is the arrival of a mysterious stranger, one who believes the children and claims to be the only one who sees what they can see. Her name is Erica Slaughter. She kills monsters. That is all she does, and she bears the cost because it must be done.

When a small town beat cop comes home to bury his murdered father-the revered Philadelphia detective James Sangster Sr.-he begins to unravel a mystery that leads him down a path of horrors and shakes his beliefs to their core. The city that was once the symbol of liberty and freedom has fallen prey to corruption, poverty, unemployment, brutality...
...and vampires. But the mystery goes even further when Jimmy's investigation leads him to uncover the source of the outbreak is long-thought dead President of the United States John Adams--a man secretly biding his time as he builds an undead army to start a new and bloodier American revolution. There's a reason they coin a phrase, "you can't go home." Welcome to Killadelphia. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Before WATCHMEN, Alan Moore made his debut in the U.S. comic book industry with the revitalization of the horror comic book THE SWAMP THING. His deconstruction of the classic monster stretched the creative boundaries of the medium and became one of the most spectacular series in comic book history. With modern-day issues explored against a backdrop of horror, SWAMP THING's stories became commentaries on environmental, political and social issues, unflinching in their relevance. SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING Book One collects issues #20-27 of this seminal series including the never-before-reprinted SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #20, where Moore takes over as writer and concludes the previous storyline. Book One begins with the story "The Anatomy Lesson," a haunting origin story that reshapes SWAMP THING mythology with terrifying revelations that begin a journey of discovery and adventure that will take him across the stars and beyond. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Bolstered by meticulous research that encompasses a wide spectrum of Ripper studies and myths and coupled with his ability to evoke sympathies in such monstrous characters, Moore has created perhaps the finest examination of the Ripper legacy, observing far beyond society's obsessive need to expose Evil's visage. Ultimately, as Moore observes, Jack's identity and his actions are inconsequential to the manner in which society embraced the Fear: "It's about us. It's about our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic." Eddie Campbell's stunning black and white artwork, replete with a scratchy, dirty sheen, is perfectly matched to the often-unshakeable intensity of Moore's writing. Between them, each murder is rendered in horrifying detail, providing the book's most unnerving scenes, made more so in uncomfortable, yet lyrical moments as when the villain embraces an eviscerated corpse, craving understanding; pleading that they "are wed in legend, inextricable within eternity". This book is recommended for adults.

Envisioning the first book of the bible like no one before him, R. Crumb, the legendary illustrator, reveals here the story of Genesis in a profoundly honest and deeply moving way. Originally thinking that he would do a take off of Adam and Eve, Crumb became so fascinated by the Bible’s language, “a text so great and so strange that it lends itself readily to graphic depictions,” that he decided instead to do a literal interpretation using the text word for word in a version primarily assembled from the translations of Robert Alter and the King James bible. Now, readers of every persuasion—Crumb fans, comic book lovers, and believers—can gain astonishing new insights from these harrowing, tragic, and even juicy stories. Crumb’s Book of Genesis reintroduces us to the bountiful tree lined garden of Adam and Eve, the massive ark of Noah with beasts of every kind, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by brimstone and fire that rained from the heavens, and the Egypt of the Pharaoh, where Joseph’s embalmed body is carried in a coffin, in a scene as elegiac as any in Genesis. Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretation that have often obscured the Bible’s most dramatic stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of Biblical originals: from the serpent in Eden, the humanoid reptile appearing like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a “kind’ve depressed guy who doesn’t strike you as physically courageous,” and his bother, Esau, “a rough and kick ass guy,” to Abraham’s wife Sarah, more fetching than most woman at 90, to God himself, “a standard Charlton Heston-like figure with long white hair and a flowing beard.” As Crumb writes in his introduction, “the stories of these people, the Hebrews, were something more than just stories. They were the foundation, the source, in writing of religious and political power, handed down by God himself.” Crumb’s Book of Genesis, the culmination of 5 years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of masterly detail and storytelling which celebrates the astonishing diversity of the one of our greatest artistic geniuses. This book is recommended for adults.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood . . . and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter good night, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It's a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Usagi Tsukino is a normal girl until she meets up with Luna, a talking cat, who tells her that she is Sailor Moon. As Sailor Moon, Usagi must fight evils and enforce justice, in the name of the Moon and the mysterious Moon Princess. She meets other girls destined to be Sailor Senshi (Sailor Scouts), and together, they fight the forces of evil! This book is recommended for teens.

Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinians dead, shot by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah—cold-blooded massacre or dreadful mistake—reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco immerses himself in daily life of Rafah and the neighboring town of Khan Younis, uncovering Gaza past and present. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, alive with the voices of fugitives and schoolchildren, widows and sheikhs, Footnotes in Gaza captures the essence of a tragedy. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

This first book from Chicago author Chris Ware is a pleasantly-decorated view at a lonely and emotionally-impaired "everyman" (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), who is provided, at age 36, the opportunity to meet his father for the first time. An improvisatory romance which gingerly deports itself between 1890's Chicago and 1980's small town Michigan, the reader is helped along by thousands of colored illustrations and diagrams, which, when read rapidly in sequence, provide a convincing illusion of life and movement. The bulk of the work is supported by fold-out instructions, an index, paper cut-outs, and a brief apology, all of which concrete to form a rich portrait of a man stunted by a paralyzing fear of being disliked. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back. As we inhabit the heads of several key characters — some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it — what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself — the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.
And then the murders start. As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it- back when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.
To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A frightening and powerful tale of the loss of freedom and identity in a chillingly believable totalitarian world, V for Vendetta stands as one of the highest achievements of the comics medium and a defining work for creators Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and the redemptive power of the human spirit which rebels against it. Crafted with sterling clarity and intelligence, V for Vendetta brings an unequaled depth of characterization and verisimilitude to its unflinching account of oppression and resistance. This book is recommended for adults.

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin. One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial best-seller. This book is recommended for adults.

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are. But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Welcome to New York. Here, burning figures roam the streets, men in brightly colored costumes scale the glass and concrete walls, and creatures from space threaten to devour our world. This is the Marvel Universe, where the ordinary and fantastic interact daily. This is the world of MARVELS. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Written by Marv Wolfman; Art by George Perez and others This is the story that changed the DC Universe forever. A mysterious being known as the Anti-Monitor has begun a crusade across time to bring about the end of all existence. As alternate earths are systematically destroyed, the Monitor quickly assembles a team of super-heroes from across time and space to battle his counterpart and stop the destruction. DC's greatest heroes including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Aquaman, assemble to stop the menace, but as they watch both the Flash and Supergirl die in battle, they begin to wonder if even all of the heroes in the world can stop this destructive force. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times). Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin. One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial best-seller. This book is recommended for adults.

It is ten years after an aging Batman has retired and Gotham City has sunk deeper into decadence and lawlessness. Now as his city needs him most, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by Carrie Kelly, a teenage female Robin, Batman takes to the streets to end the threat of the mutant gangs that have overrun the city. And after facing off against his two greatest enemies, the Joker and Two-Face for the final time, Batman finds himself in mortal combat with his former ally, Superman, in a battle that only one of them will survive. This collection is hailed as a comics masterpiece and was responsible for the launch of the Batman movies. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Volume Four of New York Times best selling author Neil Gaiman’s acclaimed creation, with updated coloring and new trade dress.Ten thousand years ago, Morpheus condemned a woman who loved him to Hell. Now the other members of his immortal family, The Endless, have convinced the Dream King that this was an injustice. To make it right, Morpheus must return to Hell to rescue his banished love — and Hell’s ruler, the fallen angel Lucifer, has already sworn to destroy him. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

A young Bruce Wayne has spent his adolescence and early adulthood, traveling the world so he could hone his body and mind into the perfect fighting and investigative machine. But now as he returns to Gotham City, he must find a way to focus his passion and bring justice to his city. Retracing Batman's first attempts to fight injustice as a costumed vigilante, we watch as he chooses a guise of a giant bat, creates an early bond with a young Lieutenant James Gordon, inadvertently plays a role in the birth of Catwoman, and helps to bring down a corrupt political system that infests Gotham. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

The definitive Daredevil tale! Karen Page, Matt Murdock's former lover, has traded away the Man Without Fear's secret identity for a drug fix. Now, Daredevil must find strength as the Kingpin of Crime wastes no time taking him down as low as a human can get. This book is recommended for older teens and adults.

Welcome to New York. Here, burning figures roam the streets, men in brightly colored costumes scale the glass and concrete walls, and creatures from space threaten to devour our world. This is the Marvel Universe, where the ordinary and fantastic interact daily. This is the world of MARVELS. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

An unforgettable hardcover collection of WATCHMEN writer Alan Moore's definitive Superman tales that is sure to appeal of readers of his BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE graphic novel. Moore teams with Curt Swan, the definitive Superman artist from the 1950's through the 1970's, to tell the final adventure of the Man of Steel featuring his last stand against Lex Luthor, Brainiac and his other foes in "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW?". This volume also includes Moore's classic early collaboration with WATCHMEN illustrator Dave Gibbons, "FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING", in which Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman find Superman held captive by the villain Mongul in the Fortress of Solitude and dreaming of an idyllic life on Krypton courtesy of a wish-fulfilling parasitic plant known as the Black Mercy. Both tales are considered two of the top five all-time best Superman stories among fans. The rare first team-up adventure between the Man of Tomorrow and Swamp Thing, the character that first brought Moore to notoriety in the United States, is included as an additional bonus. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Gathered together by Professor Charles Xavier to protect a world that fears and hates them, the X-Men had fought many battles, been on adventures that spanned galaxies, grappled enemies of limitless might, but none of this could prepare them for the most shocking struggle they would ever face. One of their own members, Jean Grey, has gained power beyond all comprehension, and that power has corrupted her absolutely Now they must decide if the life of the woman they cherish is worth the existence of the entire universe Collects X-Men #129-137. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Relive the legendary first journey into the dystopian future of 2013 where Sentinels stalk the Earth, and the X-men are humanity's only hope.. umtil they die! Also featureing the first apperance of Alpha Flight, the return of the Wendigo, the history of the X men of Cyclops... am a demon for Christmas!? This book is recommended for teens and adults.

A quartet of fallen mystics dubbed the "TrenchCoat Brigade" is introduced in this first collection of the adventures of Timothy Hunter. John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Occult, and Mister E take Hunter on a tour of the magical realms. Along the way he's introduced to Vertigo's greatest practitioners of magic and must choose whether or not to join their ranks.

Frank Miller changes the game in the fourth volume of his signature crime series, introducing the only truly heroic figure in Sin City's world of vice, Detective Hartigan. A highlight of the series, and the inspiration for one of the segments of the blockbuster Sin City film, That Yellow Bastard returns in a newly redesigned edition, with a brand-new cover by Miller - some of his first comics art in years! The worst thing to be in Basin City is an honest cop, but it's Hartigan's last day on the job, and he plans to go out with a bang. Little Nancy Callahan, age eleven, has been kidnapped by a psycho who likes to hear children scream, and Hartigan's going to find her no matter what it takes. Hell of a way to start retirement . . . With a new look generating more excitement than ever before, this third edition is the perfect way to attract a whole new generation of readers to Frank Miller's masterpiece! This book is recommended for adults.

Complied by Wizard Comics Magazine, this collection features ten of the greatest Spider-Man stories ever told! This book includes such stories as "Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut", "Hyde & Seek", "Death of Jean DeWolf", "Venom Stikes Back" and more! This book is recommended for teens and adults.

The second Astro City volume collects the first extended storyline from the award-winning comics series as a young man struggles to earn his place as sidekick to the forbidding hero known as the Confessor, only to learn that his hero holds a dark secret. This book is recommended for teens and adults.

Fone Bone and his cousins plan to return home after visiting the village of Barrelhaven with Thorn and Gran'ma Ben. But Phoney risks everything on one last get-rich-quick scheme for the town's annual Great Cow Race. As usual, Phoney's plans go disastrously awry, and Boneville seems further away than ever. Meanwhile, ominous signs indicate that a war is brewing, and Fone finds himself helping his friends defend their valley from a formidable enemy. This book is recommended for all ages.

WINNER
London, 1898. The Victorian Era draws to a close and the twentieth century approaches. It is a time of great change and an age of stagnation, a period of chaste order and ignoble chaos. It is an era in need of champions. In this amazingly imaginative tale, literary figures from throughout time and various bodies of work are brought together to face any and all threats to Britain. Allan Quatermain, Mina Murray, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde and Hawley Griffin ( the Invisible Man) form a remarkable legion of intellectual aptitude and physical prowess: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This book is recommended for adults.

The army of Persia - a force so vast it shakes the earth with its march - is poised to crush Greece, an island of reason and freedom in a sea of mysticism and tyranny. Standing between Greece and this tidal wave of destruction is a tiny detachment of but three hundred warriors. But these warriors are more than men… they are SPARTANS. 300 is a story of war and defiance as only Frank Miller can tell. Featuring the watercolor talents of painter Lynn Varley, 300 marks the first collaboration for these two creators since 1990's Elektra Lives Again. The five-part series is collected into a beautiful, 88-page hardcover volume, with each two-page spread from the comic presented as it was originally intended - as a single undivided page, greatly enhancing the graphic and narrative power of this immortal tale of heroic sacrifice. Make sure to check out the online preview of 300 here. And watch for news of this soon to be made major motion picture. This book is recommended for adults.

Pedro Zamora changed lives.When the HIV-positive AIDS educator appeared on MTV’s The Real World: San Francisco, he taught millions of viewers about being gay and living with AIDS. Pedro’s roommate on the show was Judd Winick, who created Pedro and Me to honor Pedro Zamora, his friend and teacher and an unforgettable human being. First published in 2000, Pedro and Me was a graphic novel pioneer. Its moving portrait of friendship and its urgent message have already reached thousands of people. Now, Pedro’s story is reintroduced to today’s graphically focused culture with a gorgeous, eye-catching new cover and a foreword from Judd.

Stuck with nothing but a seedy gumshoe job and some demons, Dwight's thinking of all the ways he's screwed up and what he'd give for one clear chance to wipe the slate clean, to dig his way out of the numb gray hell that is his life. And he'd give anything. Just to feel the fire. One more time. But he can't let himself lose control again, can't ever let the monster out. And then Ava calls. This book is recommended for adults.