The summer is kicking off and Fantagraphics has a lot of releases for you to enjoy. See what’s coming to shelves this month!

Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies

by Léonie Bischoff

In lithe, sensuous colored pencils, this international prize-winning, impressionistic graphic biography traces the life, the affairs, and the artistic process of Anaïs Nin, one of the best-known authors of women’s erotica in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Anaïs Nin, the author of works such as Delta of Venus and House of Incest, is the patron saint of taboo-breaking pop culture sexual iconoclasts. Not only is she an inspiration for contemporary figures such as Madonna, but her oeuvre, which encompasses erotica, autobiography, essays, short fiction, novels, and much more, has been adapted into film (Henry and June), television (Little Bird), and other media.

The cartoonist Léonie Bischoff traces the life of the prolific writer in this lushly colored graphic novel. It begins with Nin struggling to reconcile the man she married (who had artistic aspirations) with the banker she finds herself living with in the Parisian suburbs. Soon, her obsession with June Miller leads to inspiration. Nin’s life and art, the truth and fiction, are further intertwined as she recounts her many sexual liaisons including those with Henry Miller (whom she and her husband subsidize so he can write the controversial Tropic of Cancer), her psychoanalysts, and even her father.  Although Bischoff’s drawing is largely representational, she occasionally depicts Nin’s sexual experiences in scenes as surreal as Nin’s own written portrayal of them.

The Comics Journal Yearbook: Best of 2022

Original cover by Bhanu Pratap, lauded as one of 2021’s Best Cartoonists for Dear Mother & Other Stories! In this supplement to The Comics Journal magazine (free for subscribers), working critics/cartoonists highlight the most innovative, risky, and unapologetically artistic English-language comics work of 2022. Interviews, essays and excerpts make this an essential guide for what is happening in comics right now. Contributors include Ryan Carey, RJ Casey, Cristian Castelo, Helen Chazan, Austin English, November Garcia, Joe McCulloch, Chantal McStay, Pratap and Sophie Yanow.

This TCJ supplement is free for subscribers to The Comics Journal magazine who are already subscribed ahead of its release.

Mystic Debris

by Justin Gradin

When the band kicks him out and his wife and baby leave him, Whizbang travels to other planes of existence in an attempt to make peace with it all. A psychedelic walkabout by way of screwball comedy.

Justin Gradin’s stunning debut graphic novel Mystic Debris and its cast of quixotics exist in a comics continuum with Gary Panter’s Jimbo, Mark Beyer’s Amy and Jordan, and Marc Bell’s Shrimpy and Paul. Whizbang is a metalhead whose band, Fascinator, has left him for stardom. His wife, Planchette, has left with their newborn baby. He leaves himself for a shimmy up the astral projector stripper pole, to hang with cosmic dust bunnies in a quest for enlightenment, or at least in a quest to avoid a job at the door factory.

The first 100 orders of Mystic Debris include an exclusive bookplate signed by the author! Order now to claim yours.

Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge “Cave of Ali Baba”: The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library Vol. 28

by Carl Barks

The secret of Ali Baba’s hidden treasure, the return of Magica de Spell — and a rare story never before seen in the U.S.!

“You can’t depend on anything in Persia being what it seems!” warns Uncle Scrooge. But when he, Donald, and the nephews are approached by a wayward archaeologist bearing fragile clay tablets that point the way to Ali Baba’s lost cave, the hunt is on for the most fabulous treasure of the ancient world! And Scrooge will soon discover how true his words really are! Then, Scrooge shields his Money Bin in an indestructible glass that defies the efforts of Magica de Spell and the Beagle Boys to crack it. What could possibly go wrong? Plus: the oddball inventions of the ever-eccentric Gyro Gearloose! Additionally, we’re proud to present a rare story started by Carl Barks and completed by internationally acclaimed Duck artist Daan Jippes, never before published in the U.S. — “The Pied Piper of Duckburg.”

Carl Barks delivers another wildly imaginative collection of outrageous adventures, laugh-out-loud comedy, and all-around comic book brilliance. Each page is meticulously restored and newly colored, with insightful story notes by an international panel of Barks experts.

Disney One Saturday Morning Adventures

by Daan Jippes, Laura McCreary, and Scott Gimple

Pour a bowl of cereal and dig into a nostalgic comics tribute to Disney’s One Saturday Morning!

From Disney Adventures and its sister magazines come classic comics based on your favorite 1990s Saturday morning block! See sideways schoolkids Doug and Pepper Ann navigate the halls of tween angst—while sneaky Spinelli of Recess is always up to tricks! Join Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Mira Nova for big space battles. Then return to the Hundred Acre Wood for The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh… and hit Mouseton for Mickey, Goofy, and (hot-cha-cha!) Mortimer in Mickey MouseWorks! Even the Emmy-Award-winning Teacher’s Pet is back in comics… back in print for the first time in decades!

Minami’s Lover

by Shungiku Uchida

In this raunchy, moving, funny manga for adults, high school student Minami’s girlfriend, Chiyomi, shrinks down to six inches tall — and moves in with him!

Originally appearing in the underground/alternative manga magazine Garo in the 1980s and adapted for television several times, the Japanese pop culture sensation Minami’s Lover is the story of two high schoolers’ romantic relationship when one of them shrinks down to six inches tall. Everyone thinks Chiyomi has disappeared, and suspicion naturally falls on Minami, identified as her boyfriend in her diary. But after inexplicably finding herself in such a state, Chiyomi moves in with him. As depicted in Uchida’s clean, loose line and Zip-a-Tone textures, the two soon adapt to the unusual circumstances, devising ways for Chiyomi to use the toilet, brush her teeth and hair, attend classes, and more. After some silly sequences of trial and error, they even figure out a sex life. But in addition to learning how to navigate logistics, jealousy, and the cat, they’re also growing up (if not taller). Uchida uses the conceit of a teen couple literally learning how to take care of one another to examine gender dynamics and intimacy.

Please note: This book is a traditional work of manga and reads back to front and right to left.

The Planetoid And Other Stories

by Joe Orlando

Joe Orlando partnered early with Wallace Wood on a variety of science fiction comics, including several for EC Comics. But he quickly made a name for himself and struck out on his own, carving out a long and distinguished career in American comics.

Orlando became a mainstay at EC, especially on science fiction, and The Planetoid And Other Stories collects his first two dozen. All of them, scripted by editor/writer Al Feldstein, serve up classic O. Henry–style shock endings, including a mind-bending time-travel twister in which a man visits the past and (unknowingly) romances his own mother (think about it), a gender-switching look at a future where women are the breadwinners and men are the homemakers, another future where marriages are limited by law to three-year contracts, a good old-fashioned “planets collide” shocker, an animal rights parable, plus lots of rollicking space opera, aliens, and, of course, interplanetary monsters (some of them human).

This volume also includes a complete reproduction of EC’s special issue devoted to its own 32-page “illustrated, factual flying saucer report,” with art by Orlando, Wallace Wood, George Evans, and Reed Crandall. Plus, a heartfelt foreword by former DC publisher Paul Levitz, who began his career in comics when Orlando hired him as an assistant, an introduction by Thommy Burns, and featured essays and commentary by EC experts.

Nudism Comes to Connecticut

by Susan Schade and Jon Buller

Nudism Comes to Connecticut is a fascinating graphic memoir of optimism, debt, nakedness and real estate scheming in the early 1930s.

Frank Mallett, inspired by cooperative colonies he had visited in Europe, returned home envisioning utopian communities of bohemian emigrés and artistic intellectuals proliferating in sylvan harmony. With the crash of 1929 his already floundering enterprises seemed doomed — until he discovered a growing interest in healthy, wholesome nudism.

Closely based on actual people and events, Nudism Comes to Connecticut exposes the conflict between the ecstasy of the “exquisite naked plunge” and voyeurism, competitiveness, and greed by way of many period writings and letters. Although Frank’s love of nature never falters, he learns that there is more to nudism than meets the eye.

Nudism is veteran children’s book authors Jon Buller and Susan Schade’s first published graphic novel, lovingly rendered in delicate, indeed, enticing, pen lines.